Poetry - Lynn White

Survivors Stories They have much in common those who survived. All are shocked. All are traumatised. All are filled with hatred for the perpetrators. The Israeli survivors went home to homes still intact or rapidly rebuilt to hospitals   ready   to dispense care   when needed to lives ready to be resumed when they were healed. The Gaza survivors have no homes to return to no chance to rebuild the rubble of their dreams. No hospitals ready to dispence care when needed to lives unready   to be resumed. To no food no water no heat. No roads to flee along. No way back only rubble death and hatred. And what then? What follows in the next instalment. https://www.orenaugmountainpublishing.com/2024/07/survivors-stories.html

  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 ones who seem all mouth or have

  Michel Traveling through northern France with Michel driving. The Beatles singing on the radio, “Michelle, my belle”. A sky of uniform grey, dark, dark grey in summer. And then, a surprise rainbow. And then, to one side, a helicopter  outlined black. Mosquito like. Black. And then, I bottled it. I can still remember. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9PSSGNC

  Closed It was a beautiful village, the sun was shining, the mountain air pure, a perfect place for a coffee. We could see two cafes, but the first we tried was closed, closed for a while by the looks. The second looked hopeful with tables and chairs outside but the door was locked. An elderly man came over and explained. that it only opened at weekends. The other had closed because the people had left the village. They all want to live in the town, he told us and now the houses are empty and there are just a few tourists who come at weekends to drink a coffee or a beer. He told us to sit at a table and went into a house across the street and returned with a tray and three good French coffees made in his own kitchen. So we sat in the sunshine breathing in the pure mountain air, a perfect place for a coffee with our new friend. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9PSSGNC

  Bringing On The Clowns   I always found them creepy the circus clowns I watched as a child. They never made me laugh or even smile. My uncle ‘clowned around,’ they said  and he was funny. A boy in my class was often described as ‘a bit of a clown’  and he was funny. But the circus clowns with the fake smiles and tears painted on their made-up faces strutting their stuff around the ring, falling off ladders, failing to juggle or walk a tight rope, throwing water over each other posing and posturing in between antics, they weren’t funny, just scarily strange. And now the clowns are free, they’ve moved outside the Big Top the whole world is their circus now. ‘Send in the clowns’ cried the audience and they came on to the stage but no one is laughing. It’s no laughing matter. https://www.militantthistles.com/lynn-white-poems