Poetry - Lynn White

 His first morning Their move to north Wales didn’t go to plan. It was so different from the south of England and the house, bought in a phone call was not as she expected. There was so much she hadn’t been told over the phone, and so much more she had forgotten to ask. There were more leaks than expected, but she had expected a bathroom, however basic and even the old toilet outside   didn’t work. There was a lot to think of a lot to sort out in their new home in this new place,   in a new country where she knew no one. So, she could be forgiven   for forgetting to warn him. She picked him up eagerly after his first morning in school. “Was it good?“ she asked. “Were the other children nice, did you have fun?” “It was great, Mum,” he answered. She sighed with relief. Something had gone right. “There was one thing   that was really strange   though.” She looked up alarmed. “Oh no, what was that!?” “They all spoke French!” he said. https://poetrywivenhoe.org/...

  Ageing I was young once, unbelievably young, almost a child playing. Oh I was young once, waiting for life to begin to grab me   take me up and over. Yes, I was young once playing   waiting. No end to it just waiting playing ageing waiting. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/13/poems-on-aging-by-lynn-white/

  A Question Of Identity On her 90th birthday she looked in the mirror and tried to identify the face looking back. She felt the same as ever but the face, that was the mystery how could she connect the two, how she felt and how she looked. Perhaps a mystic would tell her that the face had been through the fire of life, but so had everything that made up her identity, or more accurately, her multiple identities, different ones for every occupation, every relationship and every situation. The ones foisted on her by parents were soon rejected and replaced by the ones she made up for herself, different identities   but always the same person, easily recognised but not in that mirror but still something to celebrate. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/13/poems-on-aging-by-lynn-white/

  The Ache Of My Bones Time moved so slowly then used to take forever,   an eternity from birthday to birthday, Christmas to Christmas. My bones filled with longing for it to speed up a bit and ready itself   for the long summers of memory when it quickened   quick, quick, quicker. I felt it in my bones as time and me   sped seasonally and painlessly towards a autumnal slowdown readying for a long slow winter. And now in my slow time, it’s quickening again   quick, quick, quicker I can feel it in my bones in the ache of my bones   which tells me to go slow, slow, slower this time everything has slowed except time. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/13/poems-on-aging-by-lynn-white/

  Only Time Survives Time is digging graves again graves of bones and flesh graves of ideas memories avenging a life lived a spent or mis-spent youth all buried now   the running away has stopped and only time passes. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/13/poems-on-aging-by-lynn-white/

  My Detached Memory I think of it as a detached memory floating free engulfing me when I least expect it and then leaving again without a trace. I can’t recall it. Not for sure. But clearly it remembers me. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/13/poems-on-aging-by-lynn-white/

  I’m So Old I’m so old that I remember a time when people with mental illnesses were treated appropriately  in Psychiatric Hospitals. I’m so old that I remember a time when people with mental illnesses were not discharged inappropriately from Psychiatric Hospitals. I’m so old that I remember a time when prisons housed criminals not people with mental illnesses. I’m so old soon I may not remember them.

  Cycle I felt such bright energy flowing I couldn’t wait to move with it and be transplanted and reborn at the time when all of nature was recreating itself and starting afresh, I too would feel the new buds open bursting and shooting into a new life. I would open up my blowsy petals   and let my heart show through pulsing, exuberant, ready to turn towards the summer sun, not believing it would destroy my bloom, make my petals fade and fall when the shock of the new wore off and the fresh green shoots grew brown, preparing for the season of wrinkles which always follows. I am only one part of nature’s cycle where nothing will change, except that summer will have gone, winter will surely follow fall and spring will be a long way away. https://inkpantry.com/poetry-drawer-clear-water-chaos-theory-cycle-by-lynn-white/

  Nothing In those streets of men and boys, in that country   for men and boys, she feels like a person with no face, her face space covered, her identity occupied by a swirling mist of confusion like nothingness being born. Sometimes   she wishes for a blank space that she could fill herself with a Magritte apple or even a woman even herself un-blanked and visible. Now, in those streets of men and boys, in that country   for men and boys, she feels like a person with no voice, Magritte’s apple is choking her, muting her so even in her home she whispers her songs and curses. Only in her head does she shout that something will come of nothing, that something must come of nothing. https://feedthehol.blogspot.com/2026/08/nothing-by-lynn-white.html

It’s My Body It’s my body to imagine, to construct and shape, in or out of fashion. Or so I like to think. But others   have different   imaginings,   different visions,   different versions   of me and my body. I have to consider these, to determine my own reality, have to decide how to engage   these multiple images and their projections to reveal myself to myself, if I can see them, that is. For sometimes they are invisible, as sometimes I am, existing only in imaginations. But, it is still my body, to decide whose versions   it engages with, who it entertains. And who enters into this conversation.  https://edgeofhumanity.com/2026/08/12/edge-of-humanity-magazinepoetry-anthology-august-2026-%c2%b7-a/