Poetry - Lynn White

Haunted I am being haunted by my ghost. It must be my ghost, it knows too much  to arise from someone else’s body. It remembers my past.  Remembers my dreams, the ones I forgot so quickly on wakening and the ones I left behind later, only to revisit in future dreaming. It knows too much. It remembers the past I prefer to forget, the mishaps, the missed opportunities, the opportunities grasped too soon, too impetuously, the people left behind, happily or not, the feelings I felt. It remembers it all and stalks my present with it’s memories. It must be my ghost. It knows too much to arise from someone else’s body. No one came that close. Not for so long, a lifetime. I made sure of that. But how can it be my ghost? I’m still living. Still alive. And ghosts belong to the dead, to those with no future. But it must belong to me, this ghost of my present living in my past. https://chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com/2023/10/28/haunted-by-lynn-white/

  The White Worm The white worm left his lair. Well he had to at some point if he was to inspect the neighbourhood to see what was what, who was coming, who was going and there was no way that he would keep   to Bram Stoker’s script, no way at all he’d always been a rebel. But he didn’t know about the dare, didn’t know she was lying in wait, waiting to leap on his back, waiting to be taken for a ride off piste. The wormed turned his head in alarm. If only he’d kept to the script. If only he’d stayed safe at home. http://www.theworldofmyth.com/?fbclid=IwAR2m5AgiG8Enl8MGxm_Fsegx3kMN2dDhhDorPMuCSdgk3OyOuRBwQmQFbHU

  Twenty Four Days Today it’s eighteen days   since the bombs   started falling. Over two thousand ghosts   of children ready for Halloween so far. And six days still to go. And tomorrow and tomorrow the bombs will still be falling creating an army of ghosts of children ready to make Halloween in a future.   https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-lynn-white-12/

  Passed The wedding wreaths and   burial bouquets have a story to tell. The bridesmaids and   the pallbearers are the narrators   of history and hearse, presenting it now in the present. A present that has already become part of the past. The ever present past waiting to be narrated, to become alive again. Both dead and undead   reaching back and forth coming together   to tell their stories and celebrate passing lives. https://sirenscallpublications.wordpress.com/2023/10/25/release-the-sirens-call-zine-halloween-2023-issue-63-free-online-horror-and-darkfic-zine-magazine-sirens_call/?fbclid=IwAR3r4u0pIZ3xUoydrrZlybb9G6nT3ZBaM9u1wUMHH0s6lswgLY_SRMXN4-4

  Who Are You Who are you? Will I find you in your words,   the ones you write. Or are you between the lines, hiding there. I think I can discern you there. But you know me so well   maybe you control these spaces too.   Infiltrate them as well, so well, that you can hide there, in the spaces, the hidden places, between the lines, between the words I’m reading. Perhaps I can read you   in the sounds. the melodies, the cacophonies created by your words. Are you there? Maybe it's the language of your body   that will reveal you. But not the practiced gestures, the performance, the masquerade. I will have to slowly unpick the mask and unwrap your dreams. Then will I find you and know who you are. https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2023/10/20/who-are-you-by-lynn-white/

  Accounting No need to count the dead in Gaza, their dead are just a number, a vague number,   if that. In Ukraine we know the numbers, precise, not vague, in Israel we know the numbers, precise, not vague. Soon we’ll know the names. But no need to count the dead in Gaza. No need to count the injured in Gaza. No one knows the number, no one counts those numbers in Gaza. Soon the starved will join them, the unaccounted numbers in Gaza. https://topicalpoetry.com/accounting/

 https://www.motusaudax.com/2023/10/it-takes-all-kinds-issue-11.html

 https://www.motusaudax.com/2023/10/it-takes-all-kinds-issue-11.html

  Only Joking “It was just a joke” you said the night you came back, a typical wind-up that we should have known better to believe. Of course you weren’t dead! It would take more than a few cigarettes to extinguish your flame! “Look”, you said, “I’ll give you a hug”. And you did, a good solid one, not spiritual not virtual but real. So we all had a laugh and a pint and then you left again. https://spiritsandspecters.blogspot.com/2023/10/lynn-white.html

  In Death All that is solid melts away in death consumed by fire   or worms transformed   into so much dust. Only memories remain. And the spirit,   of course. So a wee shite in life will have a mean ghost   in death. Mean-spirited in life, mean-spirited   in death. And in memoriam. https://spiritsandspecters.blogspot.com/2023/10/lynn-white.html