Poetry - Lynn White

  Blowing In The Wind It was a windy day in a windy city a long time ago, about fifty years, I think, I forget exactly when. A sudden flurry made me the vortex and I was surrounded by sheets of paper caught up and blown from a doorway. When it had settled,   I collected a few. They were letters applying for jobs dated about fifty years ago, I forget exactly when. All were hand written   in the most beautiful cursive scripts. I could visualise the care with which nibs had been dipped in ink, the concentration in the touch of pen to paper. These were the stuff of unknown dreams. The names are long forgotten now but I wonder what became of them, those ghosts of a past who touched my life in a flurry of wind only to be blown away. https://sequoyahcherokeeriverjournal.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/sequoyah-cherokee-river-journal-9/4/

  Where The Lost Children Go My mother told me that   my sister has gone to Never Never Land. It’s where the lost children go, those who don’t find their way home and those who fade away and die like the wild flowers I pick for the house. My mother told me that they stay children for ever and can play all day long. It sounds like fun there but my mother says she will never let me go. She told me the children there will grow wings   and become angels. I think that when my sister gets her wings she will fly back home. My mother says no but I shall wait. https://sequoyahcherokeeriverjournal.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/sequoyah-cherokee-river-journal-9/4/

  The Haunted Saucepan   “You’ll be in the soup   if you go out in this” she said, “it’s a real pea-souper.” I carried on stirring, I wasn’t thinking of going out anyway. I have to keep stirring or I’ll be in the soup, that’s what my saucepan says. And I listen to her as I peer through the fog inside. I know   what a sticky mess she can make if I don’t obey her. So I keep on stirring, hoping that soon   she’ll let me eat. I keep on stirring, hoping that sometime she’ll let me eat. https://braveandrecklessblog.com/2021/10/30/the-haunted-saucepan-lynn-white/

  Spanish Room We were pleased when the smiling nun shook her head. They were full, the lorry driver told us. He was disappointed. He thought we’d be safer   in the out of town convent than in the city. He’d grown concerned for our safety on our long journey through France. He was nice - ‘doux, comme le sucre’ my friend would often tell him. But he didn’t understand her accent. He said his lorry wouldn’t fit the narrow streets, so we took a cab to the pension he knew. Our first Spanish room and we were happy! The tiles were cool, if dusty. We covered the TV. We didn’t need it. Two single beds pushed together with one mattress   to make a ‘cama matrimonial’, normality in Spain. The owner was nice, ‘doux, comme le sucre’ my friend told him. But he spoke no French. We shopped in the corner shop with it’s curved window and explored the streets of clubs and cafes and bars and lively people enjoying the night. And then we returned home. Home to a locked door that no amount of b...

  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://spillwords.com/dance-of-the-damned/?fbclid=IwAR2DzvULyitGX8uROexuKwMAPEyFr6X1RzeUbGfFww3Dp4OAQrplRxsPe10

  Sucking It Up Suck it up I said. Look!   You missed that bit which means I’ll have to engage in a struggle to dismantle you and then put you back together with all your bits facing   the right direction. Suck it up I said. Oh no! That was too strong, there goes the rug consumed by you again! What are you trying to prove? There was really no need   to exert your full power in that situation. I think I’ll turn you off. See,   it’s me who has the power when push comes to shove. https://www.monofiction.org/post/sucking-it-up-by-lynn-white

  A Familiar Story It’s a familiar story well told and many of us can identify with some part of him - Odysseus the escapee, Odysseus the wanderer, the adventurer, the explorer the leaver of a past life and embracer of the new. We’ve all desired to sail away   in boats that fly as quick as thoughts and at some point we’ve all   ate the sun god’s cattle and paid the price. We’ve all described our relationships as “complicated,” or wanted to. It’s a familiar story well told. Each landing was a new challenge in a newly discovered land inhabited by Other people, Other creatures monstrous beings to be vanquished by superior swords or stolen to serve   as housekeepers or herders, to be made into fish food if they resist.   It’s a familiar story well told. Then there’s the women the temptresses with their beautiful voices weaving with shuttles made of gold. Beautiful voices   but dangerous mouths enticing us with their cupid lips. And there’s always others, the on...

  Odyssey In The Afternoon I remember that day of the voyage from the moment the dawn rose out of the golden globe and stretched out pink fingered roses into the blue of the morning, without knowing   what was to come after, in the afternoon when the wind took us to a strange land. But I embraced its strangeness and its indolent contented people who showed me the lotus and smiled   as I bit into the delight   of its flowers and fruits, savoured   it’s dreamy sensations with no need to wonder what would to come after, there were only afternoons, forever afternoons. But the moment   when I woke, shook myself awake, I dragged us all away out of fear of forgetting,   forgetting where I’d come from, forgetting where I should go and before   I forgot to leave that place with it’s sopheristic days   of perpetual afternoon.   And in the evening as night fell to envelop me stretching out its grey blanket and touching me with black, I wondered if ...

  The Power Of Gods He would have had an easier journey if he hadn’t harmed Neptune’s son. He should have beat a hasty retreat from the sailor-eating giant leaving him unharmed by anybody or nobody. And Aeolus’s gift of winds to speed them homewards was not a blessing when Neptune heard about it. So unsurprising that he magicked the sailors into letting the winds out of their bag   with a chorus of   “all together now”. What did he expect! Gods are powerful,   some more than others. The blinding his son was a fairly big offence in Neptune’s eyes and having control of the seas is a pretty impressive power. So, Odysseus paid the price. And then there was Circe. Not only the goddess daughter of Titan, Circe was also a witch, of course she was,   she was female   so it went with the territory, but her magic skills   were more renowned than most and thus more feared by men and rightly so. I wonder if he ate pork in his year long stay. I wonder if he counted...

  Deathday Many can name the day when he died. Each year a deathday like a birthday but an ironic celebration. On the day he died   we were making holly wreaths ready for Christmas. A petrol stop on the way to work an overheard conversation at the local garage. When he told us   Lennon was dead we pricked our fingers   in shock. Now each year we remember his falling his dying symbolised for ever by those fallen empty glasses. https://feversofthemind.com/2021/10/26/a-poetry-showcase-by-lynn-white/

  In Memoriam She thought her large hands and feet were due to her hard labour one summer vacation on an archaeological dig in Germany. It was there she met Max, an Art student, a Sculptor who also had trouble finding shoes large enough for his big feet. Afterwards he cycled to Florence to view ‘David’ in all his marbled flesh and later on his return he slept on the sofa in our shared student house. In return he carved a large number ’14’ in our sandstone gatepost with a rusty spike   and a half brick that he found lying around. Where are they now? I don’t know   but still the gatepost stands   in memoriam a small footfall to their passing by that way and still there is no gate. https://feversofthemind.com/2021/10/26/a-poetry-showcase-by-lynn-white/