Poetry - Lynn White

  The Language of My Dreams I have such beautiful dreams. They speak sweetly to me inside my head.  Inside my head such sweet dreams growing louder and harsher as they struggle to be heard, as they struggle to get to the outside into the ragged, jagged outside life which passes for normality. Such beautiful dreams. Such perfect words. Such a perfect life lying inside my head. I would like it to be on the outside. https://ricjournal.com/2021/08/28/the-language-of-my-dreams-lynn-white/

  Janis Every time we listen, a little piece of her heart cries out. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DMW9K8R?fbclid=IwAR2Y6VQ6fuavaDUxDhDs577fzOOeLZk_pdfkckebq3u03vFoEp_NpJkop6E

  An Alphabetical Error We had a map,   of course we did! And the names of the streets   were clearly written in English. The names on the streets were also clearly written but in Cyrillic Greek, of course they were! This was Athens in 1966 and we were struggling   to find the Folk Museum. Then we had a stroke of luck! We spied a grand building   with sentries in national dress standing outside and we knew we’d found it! So we went inside and wandered around for a bit. It was unusually empty, the rooms and corridors devoid of the expected folk exhibits. A smartly dressed woman   descended the stairs carrying a file of paper. We asked her if she had a Guide. She threw us out!   Of course she did! The Royal Palace was not open to tourists! It was to be an unrepeatable incursion. A few months later the colonels took power and everything changed except the alphabet. https://pureslush.com/store/anthologies-themed/25-miles-from-here-pure-slush-vol-21/

  The Neighbours Fish The neighbours had asked her to feed their fish. They were going on a short holiday. It sounded straightforward, should have been straightforward. “But I overfed it,” she said, “and it burst open, exploded all over the place.” She looked glum. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Next thing is the dog’s eaten it. And that wasn’t the end of it, next thing is he started to be sick, just puked it up all over their carpet.” She looked glum. “The carpet’s wrecked,” she said. https://www.spillingcocoa.com/the-neighbours-fish-by-lynn-white/

  The Stack of Stones The stack of flat stones was piled much higher once. It formed a rough stairway all the way to heaven, till someone took it down to pave their patio. https://spectrumfantasticforms.blogspot.com/2021/08/lynn-white.html

  Mermaid It was the change in her hair she noticed first growing now like harsh thin weed but attached firmly attached and inedible. She tugged at it but the pain was too great   to separate it from her head. And then her scales began to disappear her beautiful shiny scales washed away with her gills. Her brothers and sisters and the rest of the school swam around her still but she couldn’t hear them, couldn’t understand   what they were saying. The art of communication had been lost washed away   with her gills. What was she now? Neither fish nor fowl. Fowl, where did that come from? She ran her fingers over her skin, still smooth unfeathered up to now. She waited waited to see what would emerge. Then the next wave came and carried her to the beach so she crawled along the sharp sand uncomfortably   on her swollen belly until she found a rock   and clambered up then slithered down algaed slime into a recess a safe cave a haven with a shallow pool left by ...

  Like Alice I’m too big. I’m too small. I can’t I fit in, fit into this, rabbit hole world, any more than I did the other, the above ground world. Both can’t be wrong, can they? It must be me that doesn’t fit, that can’t be made to fit into them. Me that’s wrong. Both worlds can’t be wrong, can they? https://spectrumfantasticforms.blogspot.com/2021/08/lynn-white.html

     Dog Don’t challenge his growls, said the man with no face.   Look down on the ground, be humble, not brave. Don’t cry if you fall, the blind girl explained. The field’s full of dog shit, so don’t touch your eyes. I loved my pet doggy, the dead baby cries. We all loved him so much until the day that I died. https://www.thequiverreview.in/2021/08/poems-by-lynn-white.html

  To My Old Friend Who Knows How It Is What ever happened my old friend? You know right from wrong. You know, you saw with your eyes open. You knew oppression, abuse of power, state terror,   apartheid. You knew. You know. We boycotted, we campaigned, we did what we could. Then I would have shared anything with you. Now I wouldn’t even share my space, wouldn’t stay in the same room as you. What ever happened to you my old friend? Rediscovering your jewishness shouldn’t mean giving up your humanity, negating your history, seeing with your eyes tight shut but you know you know. What ever happened my old friend you know. https://www.thequiverreview.in/2021/08/poems-by-lynn-white.html

  A Rose For Gaza Gaza is a garden full of roses. Stone roses. Rock roses. No petals to crush and bruise to release their fragrance. Only dust. Dust and the stench of death. No green space left. No sweet tranquility, peace or quiet. No escape. No garden of Eden here. No gateway to paradise. Rubble and rock roses. So I shall plant a rose for Gaza in my green space, in my tranquil garden. I won’t bruise it, just gently sniff its fragrance and hope that one day fragrant roses will bloom again in the garden of Gaza. What else can I do? https://www.amazon.com/Harbinger-Asylum-Z-M-Wise/dp/B09CGCXK47/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=harbinger+asylum+summer+2021&qid=1629340218&sr=8-1

  One Last Time Before the trees begin to fall I’ll take a walk through the woods one last time, hear the leaves glistening and shaking in fear of what is to come some are already fallen lying dying, it’s the season for it after all. I’ll see the light shining   lighting on the leaves of grass that push soft spikes of green life   in between the fallen see the light shining   through the trees one last time. It lights up the white crosses chalked on the trunks as it passes by too many white crosses   all ready to mark the graves of the fallen. It’s the season for it after all, always the season for it one more time. https://www.amazon.com/Harbinger-Asylum-Z-M-Wise/dp/B09CGCXK47/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=harbinger+asylum+summer+2021&qid=1629340218&sr=8-1

  Dance Of The Damned At last the party is over. Friends and family are gone, long gone in some cases, though with us in spirit earlier. Now I’m the only one left still dancing all alone until the ravens came to join me bringing with them more guests, not only the souls of the dead but the souls of those we had taken care to exclude. They’re with me now, the souls of the damned ready to join in the dance. And they won’t let me leave. https://cajunmuttpress.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/cajun-mutt-press-featured-writer-08-13-21/?fbclid=IwAR0S5dqdLd5lEEPIRHaf-5JLkRopLHuZ3ZDWV_eCQtHn2alsnMQ8GtkyKuM

  Spread The Words Words of love, words of hate, the conjoined twins of freedom. Spread the word. Psst… have you heard… pass it on.. Chinese whispers spreading truth and lies, the conjoined twins of freedom   in the age of misinformation. They’re spewing out of mouths clacking and clicking in the scrabble to be free. Wave after wave crashing breaking up washing up. A tsunami of words. I’m drowning. https://issuu.com/thepineconereview/docs/the_pine_cone_review_issue_2

https://issuu.com/scrittura_mag/docs/scrittura_magazine_spring_summer_2021_issue_22?fbclid=IwAR1fGK14gHDN6XF4WmgJHaoYDJgFAZErVPWmLu5Ebr0ZQEm_VaGL8b32ido  

  Playtime Imagine a sitting room peopled with dolls an attic space filled with toy trains and cars adult places filled with children’s playthings passive playthings out of their time and moved on into a time when even the box with it’s wrappings and writings fails to excite us creating no spark, no glamour, only needy memories in passing as time moves on. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-writing-challenges/ekphrastic-writing-responses-derrick-hickman

  In The Wilderness I may be in the wilderness but I’ve not lost my way. It’s far too easy   to keep to   the road the dirt road the straight and narrow the predictable way through this predictable landscape each second each minute each hour the same as the next. And I know that each day   will be the same until I stray until I find a way to escape this desert of dust baked sand and clay sand and clay   and clay and sand sun dried desiccated and deserted   dressed in it’s orange brown uniform. If only I could see another way if only a door would appear to take me off piste, a door that I could open and pass through into the unknown where I could lose myself wet myself in a muddy pool and find the dark or the light. https://www.lionandlilac.org/2021/08/01/two-poemslynn-white/