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.
One old horse was unsold.
It had a hollow back, he said
and was coughing up green stuff.
So laughing, they let him have it for fifty pence.
He never rode it,
but it carried his guitar
and on it’s good days,
his rucksack and tent.
And so it was that two weeks later they arrived in Pec.
He left the horse in a field and began to hitch
along the briefly asphalted road.
Something seemed familiar about the approaching car
that slowed and stopped, the driver was waving
and ready to greet him with the hugs and smiles
of a friend not seen for two weeks.
So together they resumed their journey
along the rocky road from Pec.
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
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=IwAR0LvbiWPJ9ONRz1UHG65TFx_KFSCWAYx9OH3--LtQZEqL9KiGisgVJ7uts
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.
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
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
