Poetry - Lynn White

  Mellow Yellow I’ve never been mad about saffron, or turmeric, come to that and the colour yellow doesn’t suit me, makes me look strangely   washed out, or so I think. I like the colour though, love daffodils and buttercups, even dandelions, so I could celebrate them by wearing it concealed. But no one would know if they couldn’t see so I don’t do that. Instead it graces my kitchen walls. There it’s timeless, part of the kitchen in every place I’ve lived from back then to eternity. https://allyourpoems.com/all-your-poems-magazines/all-your-poems-anthology-august-2025/

  I Was Not Like Her I was not like her, the girl in the picture looking out scowling defiant rebellious. No I was not like her not me not then. I wore the gloves in summer   that my mother bought me the classic cut clothes   that she had always   wanted to wear even allowed my hair to curl as it wanted to as she wanted it to. No I was not like her, the one in the picture not then. But when I broke free made myself up wore minis or long skirts controlled my curls with an iron in hand yes I think I became her then. https://allyourpoems.com/all-your-poems-magazines/all-your-poems-anthology-august-2025/

  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://allyourpoems.com/all-your-poems-magazines/all-your-poems-anthology-august-2025/

  Out-Spoken I didn’t silence easily, not even as a child I spoke first and listened later to the embarrassed laughter or pourings of outrage from adult mouths. I resisted my mother’s attempts to quieten me, I knew it would ruin me, arrest my development, curtail my growth, my flowering. So I was ready for you   when you tried. Yes, you tried. But by then I was ready, I knew who I was, knew too much altogether and there was nothing we could do   about it. I had already spoken out.

  Mr Joseph’s Mystery There were four flats in our house, two up, two down. All had their own electricity meter, although Mr Devin downstairs connected his directly to the mains. We always knew when he was washing from the ferocious flash bangs. The stairs light was on the House Meter and the cost was included in the rent. However in our flat,   not every socket was the same one mysteriously didn’t work at all. Mr Devlin quickly explained. that this socket was also on the House Meter. He came with his screwdriver and sorted it. Of course everything was then plugged in there with an adaptor of gigantic proportions. Mr Joseph, the landlord was mystified at the size of the bills   from the one bare bulb on the stairs. He changed the bulb frequently   for ones of increasingly low wattage but still the bills stayed the same. Eventually we were down to a fairy light more suited to a Christmas tree but still the bills stayed the same. He pondered over the mystery frequently...

  A Full Bus It was the summer of 1989   the last days of the Soviet Union and our first visit to Sochi. We were staying on the outskirts and had taken the bus into town to explore. We waited in a long line for the bus to return so when it came we thought there may not be room, but there was, a squeeze amongst those strangers and a triumph that we made it aboard against all odds! At the next bus stop there was another long line of people and we thought the bus would go past leaving them standing, but it stopped and everyone got on hardly able to breathe now though the driver’s girlfriend helped out by setting on his knee and on we went to the next stop where once again the bus stopped and everyone somehow squeezed aboard. The concept of a full bus simply didn’t exist. And then we were out of town and at the next stop there was noisy good natured concern   in the middle of the crush. Someone wanted to get off. So all the passengers disembarked (apart from the driver’s girl...

  Dumbing Down Words have power. The generals know it. The dictators know it. Know they must stop the flow of words. Arrest it. Arrest the poets, the singers and songwriters, the graffiti artists, the comedians, the speakers and shouters. Make them dumb. Words have power. So we must swallow them in fear as they rob us of our culture. As they make us dumb. Dumbed down. Dumb. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2025/07/30/dumbing-down/?fbclid=IwY2xjawL2slZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHjb1MGI9HHDeiF_VvHoit2hN1L2xzxbbkVvR2RlmUrMXZV_LbKNljHiuLCyB_aem_QI-OW_qWLLnOXw5JJxwjeQ