Poetry - Lynn White

  No One Noticed The Noise She lay there still quiet in her bones quiet in her flesh but her heart was drumming loudly and her head was screaming louder still still her bones and flesh were quiet. The parts that can be seen were quiet. So no one noticed the noise. https://braveandrecklessblog.com/2022/02/28/no-one-noticed-the-noise-lynn-white/

  Certain And Impossible Events Age is surely a certainty, or so Alice had thought after all birthdays are hardly impossible events   arriving each year on the same day,   as they certainly do. But the Red Queen assured her that certainty was unnecessary   when it came to determining age. You are just as old as you feel   and seeing was believing anyway. So Alice reconsidered her hypothesis. The older one gets   the more difficult it is to know for certain, she thought. How can one judge the wrinkles under make-up or Botox. It was impossible to be certain. Really, she decided as she looked through her looking glass, age should become one of the six impossible things to believe before breakfast. https://braveandrecklessblog.com/2022/02/28/certain-and-impossible-events-lynn-white/

  Kettle We didn’t need a kettle, we already had one quite smart and in working order. But this was so beautiful, a shiny black   that no pot could match And such an iconic Art Deco shape that we bought it anyway. We placed the old one   at the back of the cupboard out of sight and the new one shone in pride of place ready to be filled. This was not so easy, its balance was somehow wrong. Pouring from it was even more difficult, it’s balance was certainly wrong. So the old one was brought back into service and the new one shines gloriously on a shelf. Even if we never use it, it still looks beautiful. https://www.amazon.com/BEAUTIFUL-Beholder-Stories-authors-worldwide/dp/B09TF44SXN/ref

  The Road To Pec   It was long before the war wreaked it’s destruction, long before the massacres stole so many lives that we decided to hitch hike to Pec. Well, to hitch hike as far as Belgrade, that is. You see, we knew the road from Skopje to Pec, knew it was impossible, had already explored it’s awesome hairpins, spent two days driving slowly, very slowly over it’s suspension wrecking rocks and ruts. Had already gazed in alarm at the rusting corpses of dead buses scattered down the vertiginous hillsides. So we took the overnight train from Belgrade. Uncomfortable, but at least it was possible. And then, some months later, we met someone who had achieved the impossible. His lift had dropped him   near the beginning   of the rocky road to Pec,   but he had seen enough   not to chance it further. So he clambered down onto the track made for donkeys and continued his journey on foot. There was a long way to go. Two days later he came across a horse market....

  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.amazon.com/dp/B09T5WW1QD?fbclid=IwAR3BPJ7QjtKJ3nFyVaMb8B4zG41sySM8rX2hDUvu7jmJrrJzktQcszl7GQQ

  A Blue Whale Look at them all   swimming round me taunting me   waving their legs at me   tickling me pinching me and swimming away constantly taunting me. No wonder I’m depressed. I am truly a most remarkable creature, no one could argue with that, but what a wheeze to make the largest creature on the planet   need to eat one of the smallest. Well Joker, I’m not laughing. Forty million krill a day I need to eat according to Wiki. Yes, I keep up. I’m well informed but it doesn’t help me doesn’t make me feel better. To add to the insult I was given a tiny mouth, too small for the job. See, I’m hardly a basking shark swimming round all day with my mouth open so they can swim straight in. No, it’s open and close open and close till my jaw aches. No wonder I’m blue. https://braveandrecklessblog.com/2022/02/22/a-blue-whale-lynn-white/?fbclid=IwAR0_ekHINR1Vw-ALybvS-BV94jcLKVgQbec4E9qDmHCCeMiwe-zIu80p57w

 Beginnings I wonder, when will I reach the end of my beginning. Everything will have been started. Everything will be active,  on going. Then, at that point, I must move on  to the beginning  of my end. My end when everything is completed and nothing left to be started. Will this time come? Perhaps it has already come and I haven’t noticed. But I don’t think so. So I will carry on working towards  a new beginning and cease to wonder how it will end. https://online.fliphtml5.com/tpuo/cjbt/#p=1

  The Light At The End Of The Tunnel They all said the same, that the light   at the end   of the tunnel had been switched off. She didn’t believe it. Who would do such a thing? So she went in search of it wended her way along the long dark tunnel until she saw it just a speck at first, a glimmer of starlight shining   seemingly from the outside in while leaving the dark outside. Perhaps they were right someone had turned it off   inside. She scrambled up towards to the end of the tunnel and searched for the switch. She found it turned it on and then   all was bathed in light flooded with bright white light but still she saw nothing nothing hopeful just emptiness bathed in light, in blinding light so bright so blinding   she fell back disoriented into the dark into the emptiness of the dark. She left the light on. https://www.rudderlessmarinerpoetry.com/blogpoetrysubmission/the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-by-lynn-white?fbclid=IwAR0LvbiWPJ9ONRz1UHG65...

  Whistler And The Butterfly It was a small exhibition but it stayed in my memory. I had never encountered Whistler but the butterfly signature did it for me. “The Company of the Butterfly”, what a wonderful concept! It really spoke to me, I even wrote a poem about the company of butterflies. The title trips off my tongue so easily. And now I am put in mind of it again as I look at this image and see her now in the company of butterflies ready to whistle up the wind again. https://visualverse.org/submissions/whistler-and-the-butterfly/

  Same Difference Spot the difference, those that show, the height,   the colour,   the sex, and those that are hidden inside our bodies, inside our heads. Our thoughts, desires and dreams. The things   that make us special, the things that make us interesting to each other. But the basics, the fundamentals are the same and it’s that sameness which, when we see it should bind us, bind us basically, fundamentally to each other. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-writing-challenges

 A Grey Place? This is a grey place,  there's no denying. Grey slate, grey granite, grey houses built of both. And it rains a lot, there's no denying. Vertical, or horizontal, or swirling rain falling greyly from heavy misty clouds. But when caught by a sunbeam it makes glistening slides  shimmering across the slate  and falls in bright white tails  or snakes like silver where the mountains leak it. And spills heavily over rocks, it's foaming, frothing, yellow ruffed  cascades catching rainbows as they crash then spitting them back out  in a fine spray of colours. And now there's no grey  in the dark blue, black sky  filled with gold and silver twinkles. No grey at all in this place now, there's no denying. https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/culture-and-identity

  Underworld The book belonged to my cousin. A relic of her childhood it was thick and heavy. Greek legends, she told me, myths and fantasies, gods and goddesses, not quite fairy stories and not many pictures, not enough to interest me, the eight year old me,   so we both thought. But then it fell open and so entranced me that I was afraid to look at the dark fearsome picture, the god of the underworld, a king and his queen   both dark as night. I closed it quickly, then opened it just as quickly again and again. I did this each time I visited just to feel the pleasure of the fear. She gave it to me eventually, sacrificed her book to my fear which wore away   with familiarity. But the book remained, so did the underworld and its dark god. https://cajunmuttpress.wordpress.com/2022/02/09/cajun-mutt-press-featured-writer-02-09-22/?fbclid=IwAR0eJbVckgCAFXbWu9tTvkUeFb42duYb6SJF3dQn9HFd0fwLfaYlqIM1kes

  Order, Order We built their cages. We gilded them. We listened to their croaks, no one could call it song, hear, hear, hear hear, call to order. Order, order, keep them in order. Keep them stuffed with food and drink, we did that too, keep them fed and watered. No not watered they won’t drink water that would be out of order. Order, order. Watch them flapping their paper wings to order. Order order. We should give them orders. We pay the pipers, they should sing for us but they can only croak. hear hear, hear hear, for themselves. We don’t have to listen. https://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/poetry/item/3900-a-fish-rots-from-the-head

  Off The Wall “Ceci n’est pas de la soupe de tomates” Magritte might have said with irony. But even off the wall   straight from the can   the same may be said! And language spills out with the contents. “Quelle horreur!”   say the gourmets in French. But Warhol was as American as Magritte was Belgian. Irony on irony. https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Buddha-Goes-Pop-Hardcover/dp/B09GD2N7FQ?fbclid=IwAR1CaUn4yxcpwOEB2G0ZSaJkcWADDjsNTICa8UUj1DsxXLRbTxxSK95nzOA