Poetry - Lynn White

  My Best Friend I remember. it well. She was my best friend, three years older and a prefect. It was a cold day   and we wanted to stay inside and read not walk up and down aimlessly. The rules didn't allow it. I wrote us a note as if from a teacher. She grassed me up. I was in big trouble! I remember it well, as no doubt she will. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYR1J5N1?content_source=fb&fb_content_id=Q9-wBQHy2xr3gG1740vQMtItf1FQH5Y1zeDptBT31D7nm07VzDvWRd7TtvYKaYY1dw&channel_type=fb&fbclid=IwY2xjawUCb6twZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR5o3OdaRqF1yjcmFeCvfuXLGFllNyctnJ1wL5v25zbQtKLUMfoGEsFjQgO_fQ_aem_CvdFtCxM7Vu9sSKgT6m7zg

  Red Line It was thin at first, the line of blood hardly a trickle easily crossed though visibly to those paying attention. But with each crossing it widened a stream bleeding out into a river and then a sea bleeding out from the river to the sea stronger and stronger wider and wider every crossing widening it. Making a line that can never be crossed however many times it is crossed its crossing becomes impossible. https://shopbooksdirect.com/product/red-anthologies-for-the-world-vol-3/

Snake Bite Apples were once forbidden. But that was then. not now. So now, I bite the apple  that tastes like knowledge and pride I know the snakes may want a bite as they fly from the sky but I brush them off and, disgruntled they fall. Yes, they’re the ones who fall! So now, even in Paradise all is well in the world of apples conspiring daily to keep the doctor away. Every bite is a win. https://spillwords.com/snake-bite/

  To Fly A Kite The kites have fallen down to earth they lie on the ground broken as a child broken as a child in Gaza. Go fly a kite, Israel. Go fly a kite. If only. https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/08/to-fly-kite.html

  He Who Drowned The World I used to see him lying there stretched out atop the Moelwyn in his favourite position head on Mawr feet on Bach water pouring   from fingers   and toes flooding the fields below on its way to the sea. Then one day I saw him leap on to the top of Nyth y Gigfran right behind my house. I watched him as he sat there his face turned away his water pouring the back field already flooded. I think he would have to swim back. But I have no way of knowing. I will have drowned by then. We will all have drowned. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/26/5-poems-by-lynn-white/

  Niagara Niagara is the biggest, the grandest, the most magnificent no maybes at all. But the most beautiful? Maybe maybe only maybe.. when I think of Pistyll Rhaeadr frozen in winter, it’s icicles gleaming like diamonds in the sunlight. Or the Moelwyn leaking liquid rainbows catching the sun in cascading profusions after days of heavy rain and I think maybe maybe only maybe. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/26/5-poems-by-lynn-white/

  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://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/2...

  The Crimea Pass It was opened at the time of the Crimean War. This does not seem to be a legend. Though probably it was not built by Russian prisoners who left their boots behind. This does seem to be a legend. After all this is North Wales and ours is the land of legends and we all know that the pub at the summit   served ale on Sunday lock-ins right up to the time when the purple dragon was sent to burn it down to nothing. Only pine trees remain   miraculously unscathed to mark the spot for ever. And as for the dragon, he found a mate with our native red and made happy families in a slate cavern for many years. But when the time was right the still angry drinkers raised their glasses to cast a spell which transformed all the dragons. Changed them into the rhododendrons which grow like pink and purple miracles, breaths of dragon fire colouring the slate tips. It’s something to ponder when you pass over the Crimea in springtime. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/0...

And Here We Are In Wales This is a grey place,   grey slate, grey granite, grey houses built of both. And it rains a lot, vertical, horizontal,   or swirling rain falling greyly   from heavy misty clouds. But when caught by a sunbeam it makes glistening slides   shimmering across the slate   and falls in bright white tails   or snakes like silver where the mountains leak it to spill heavily over rocks, its foaming, frothing, yellow ruffed   cascades catching rainbows as they crash then spitting them back out   in a fine spray of colours. And now at night there's no grey   in the dark blue, black sky   filled with gold and silver twinkles. No grey at all in this place now, there's no denying.  https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/08/26/5-poems-by-lynn-white/

  Suffer The Little Children Poets are dangerous. Naming the dead   leads to arrest. The killing   of some, by some is fine, unlike the threatening nature of reading a poem. And the unmentionables, the nameless children, must suffer silently. Poets are ‘The Brave’ in Scotland today. Poetry is dangerous. (context - A Scottish pro-Palestine activist faced charges for “threatening and abusive behaviour” after reading a poem about children killed by Israel. Bill Williamson, 74, said he had been at a weekly Palestine vigil outside Dunoon Burgh Hall on July 4 2026, while he was reading out “Don’t Mention The Children” by the Jewish writer Michael Rosen through a megaphone. — The National (Scotland), July 19, 2026)

  Bits And Pieces They waited patiently standing in line hunger made them quiet un-childlike too quiet for children standing in line. Who knew what they’d be when they grew up those children tinker, tailor, soldier, spy on our side or theirs whoever the us and them are. Now we know for certain that   they’ll be none of those things now they’re scattered   in bits and pieces bombed to bits just in case. Futures laid to rest in bits and pieces just in case.