Poetry - Lynn White

  Empty There’s so much emptiness that I’m engulfed by it sitting on a bench   that would seat three, maybe four, I sit in the middle   to make it feel full but it shouts out about the emptiness   surrounding me. Then there’s the chairs and the table all empty. And where are the words, my words the ones in my head that should be seeking paper and pouring out quick as coffee in a crowded cafe. They used to be there but now, like the cafe, my head is empty. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKL46L6?fbclid=IwAR2o7M0BqrAB0yzsT9UcJzB4XwLMV6zD--doKh4KOERtJFDvoQKe0ndq3fw

  Who Am I When did I last know who I am? I wonder if it when I was a child, when I made up stories   from my imagination. Was I separate then from the imaginary children   with imaginary parents   and imaginary friends. knowing where my story began   and where I ended. I don’t remember. Perhaps the story ended before I began. Perhaps the two began together. Perhaps they may end together, separately or eternally   entwined,   inseparable.   I cannot say.   I never could. Did I ever know who I am? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKL46L6?fbclid=IwAR2o7M0BqrAB0yzsT9UcJzB4XwLMV6zD--doKh4KOERtJFDvoQKe0ndq3fw

  My Sister Maud I had a sister once. Her name was Maud. I never knew her, never even knew of her. No one said. Not our father, or his son, not my mother, no one. No one spoke. All were mute for Maud. She never grew old, never even grew up. And her little life became engulfed in silence. My father cried when she died, I know it now more than eighty years later I know it. When there’s no one living who knew her. When there is no one left to tell me her favourite games, her hopes, her dreams. All are gone. I know it now. I even have a photograph so that I can see her, picture her as she was. And I won’t forget her, won’t forget that I had a sister once. Her name was Maud. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/27/poetry-from-lynn-white-inspired-by-sylvia-plath-anne-sexton/

  Motherly Love I have spent a lifetime trying to break away, trying to break out, trying to find myself. Always on the edge, always on the outside, not quite a part, of it, not quite a beatnik, or a mod, hippy, or punk. I was early to realise that what she wanted me to be was what she had wanted for herself, about her, not me. I wanted to escape such love. I thought I could escape. I thought I had escaped. And I did, surely I did escape some of it. But not all. Not enough. So even now I feel tethered. After all this time of leaving her behind, I remain unsure of my own. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/27/poetry-from-lynn-white-inspired-by-sylvia-plath-anne-sexton/

  Keeping Mum At nine years old she’d never had a chance to know her father. Not to know about his life, his personality, or his dreams, Only that he loved her and had been frail and ill all her life. “She never even asks how her father is”, said her mother’s friend disapprovingly. Her mother must have told her that. “They won’t tell me, so there’s no point in asking”, she thought. No! I think she said! They wouldn’t tell her why he was in hospital. They wouldn’t tell her why he died, not at nine years old, not until years later when they were all dead and more voices could speak. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/27/poetry-from-lynn-white-inspired-by-sylvia-plath-anne-sexton/

  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 .

  From the Clouds I’ve seen a dragon in the clouds and a big cat a leopard perhaps and a tea table set for tea. Some say they’ve seen Christ or Mohamed, or fairy kings and queens. They have all stayed a while, my shapes in the cloud. None have left. Not until now. Now,   when the leopard has grown so large   and so solid looking he no longer belongs there. His teeth are not barred yet so I don’t feel afraid just dreamy floating, all at sea with wonder and moonshine. https://visualverse.org/submissions/from-the-clouds/

  Photo Opportunity I watched the man crossing the path underneath the cascade of the waterfall. It had been part of the route wine was carried from the high lands, to be sold on the coast. Back in the old days, that was. But the old days weren’t very long ago. He seemed confident as he placed a foot carefully in each of the footholds hacked into the precipitous rock face. He gripped the thick metal hawser attached to the rock with strong metal rings. Gripped it firmly and proceeded slowly one step at a time. I had a camera and I thought that it was a picture he would like to have when he was dry and safe back on terra firma. Then I thought, suppose he falls, falls into the waves, to be smashed against the rocks far below. I didn’t want to have such a picture, a picture of someone’s last moments and I thought, to take it may jinx his journey and even cause him to fall. So I never took the picture. But it made no difference. The man fell anyway. https://www.pikerpress.com/archives/r...

  The Vase The kitchen looked tired and worn like my mother did, the last time I saw her there. I felt no nostalgia for it. It was not my childhood kitchen. It held no special memories, I thought. And then,   I saw the vase on the counter top. My friend found it on the Kings Road. Bought it and brought it home. I’d asked her to buy me something,   a souvenir of swinging London. She bought the vase. I never much liked it. Dark and bulbous, it spent most of it’s time at my mother’s, though she didn’t like it much either. Then time stole it away, took it from my memory, erased it. And now, here it is again, sharp as ever bringing the past home as it stands empty on the counter top. It seems that her death   invested in it a poignancy that it had not known before. I took it home with me. https://freeverserevolution.com/2022/09/23/issue-vii-release/

  https://freeverserevolution.com/2022/09/23/issue-vii-release/

  Dream Catchers These hairy, feathery, stringy things are supposed to catch my dreams, but I don’t believe it. I’ve hung them above my bed and inspected them carefully in the morning but I’ve never found a dream caught in them, Not even a tiny dreamlet. No, they’re just a trick, a deception, to make me feel I can capture them and relive them when I want to. But I can’t. No one can ever go back to a dream. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/22/poetry-showcase-from-lynn-white/

  Dreaming 'To sleep perchance to dream'. That’s what he said. Sounds so gentle, but there’s a rub, a rough edge to this sleepy escape that would see me float away sending me spinning, out of control tumbling, raging, spiralling, crashing to an indeterminate end. So perhaps it’s daytime dreaming that has the edge to smoothly move me from one place to another. In wakeful dreams I can determine the beginning, at least, and invite the participants. Sometimes they may act out an old story with a predictable end. Sometimes I can write a new story and then bring it to life. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/22/poetry-showcase-from-lynn-white/

Only Dream Harder If you dream hard enough you’ll find castles in the air, or build them. If you dream hard enough you’ll find secret cities under the waves ruled over by a fishy king with his beady eye on you as you walk on by. If you dream hard enough you’ll find unicorns and ride them across the desert to discover lost oases hidden there amongst ancient cities once in ruins now recast in shimmering perfection by harsh sunlight. If you dreamer harder you’ll rise above the waves of sand which threaten to engulf you, float in the sunlight instead of being buried head first. It’s all possible if you only dream harder. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/22/poetry-showcase-from-lynn-white/

  A Not So Still Life What a strange tableau, a still life still living in a dream. The birds flew over and looked down on it, but there was no place for them to hang out, to roost, to dream. So they didn’t care about the dust motes escaping into the sunlight floating like fairy dust getting themselves organised to follow their dream. Did they escape from the jar? Perhaps. Though the bull is wondering if they were ever inside and the birds don’t care as usual, hardly notice her dog emerging from the mist to inspect them. Unmistakably her dog just more amorphous than usual. It doesn’t look inclined to chase the motes or stick its head inside the loop they’re making. But the birds don’t care as usual. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/22/poetry-showcase-from-lynn-white/

  American Dream We were such special people then, the two of us, flying high above the rest like the arrogant angels we saw playing way above the clouds. We could almost touch them with our arms outstretched, as we danced our way through a cinemascope of endless possibilities. But other people were unimpressed. They had no wish to touch the angels, or reach the stars, even if they could. They looked down towards us, not up, fulfilled and sacred to each other, with a specialness unknown to us. We did not hear the soundtrack of their voices. Did not see the fractures of their dreams, or of ours to come. But now we have become the rest and know that we were not so special then. But just practicing for a life that would elude us as dreams remained dreams in cinemascope. Dreams which became decayed imaginings growing dusty with time and fading, as ordinariness reclaimed us and the angels let us fall. https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/22/poetry-showcase-from-lynn-white/

  Thoughts And Prayers Like towels hung out to dry in the wind line upon line pegged out   prayer flags sending thoughts sending blessings line dried from days gone by. Thoughts and prayers   sent on the wind not in the ether. But in the end it made no difference.   In the end   it makes no difference   how they’re hung out to dry. https://www.lastgirlsclub.com/pdfcopy/p/fall-2022-issue-no-7-thoughts-prayers

  Smile It was the purr she heard first, so loud it was almost a growl. But a dog up a tree? No, she knew that would be mad! So she wasn’t surprised to see a cat  when she looked up and wasn’t surprised to see it smiling. She expected it to be happy with so loud a purr. You must be pleased to see me, she thought, watching it stretch and sleepily curl. She felt sleepy too so she curled like the cat. And together they dreamed smiley dreams until she heard a crash as the branches broke and the cat landed heavily in her lap. Then she woke to find the cat had disappeared. Only the smile remained. And that weighed nothing at all. http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2022/09/in-mad-world.html

  A Question of Place ‘Who the fuck is Alice?’ said the March Hare inhaling hard. ‘She’s rather large’ said Dormouse coughing  as the smoke ring engulfed him. ‘I find her quite intimidating, actually, not the little girl I expected. Really, I hope Hattie  doesn’t invite her to the party. I don’t think she would quite fit in.’ ‘You’ll sleep through it anyway’, said the White Rabbit consulting his watch. ‘It’s time. We should go.’ The March Hare lit another cigarette. ‘We should all change places if she’s there’ said Dormouse. The March Hare blew out more smoke rings. ‘Who the fuck cares if she fits in or not, in a mad world no one has a place. Hatter knows that. He’ll be asking her questions.  He knows the place of madness.’ ‘All in good time’,  said the White Rabbit consulting his watch. ‘He’ll ask her who she is’. ‘There’s no answer to that’ said Dormouse. ‘No one knows who they are’. March Hare lit a cigarette. ‘If she can’t answer Hatter’s question, then she ...