Poetry - Lynn White

American Dream We were such special people then, the two of us, flying high above the rest like the arrogant angels we saw playing way above the clouds. We could almost touch them with our arms outstretched, as we danced our way through a cinemascope of endless possibilities. But other people were unimpressed. They had no wish to touch the angels, or reach the stars, even if they could. They looked down towards us, not up, fulfilled and sacred to each other, with a specialness unknown to us. We did not hear the soundtrack of their voices. Did not see the fractures of their dreams, or of ours to come. But now we have become the rest and know that we were not so special then. But just practicing for a life that would elude us as dreams remained dreams in cinemascope. Dreams which became decayed imaginings growing dusty with time and fading, as ordinariness reclaimed us and the angels let us fall. First published in Amomancies, Americana Issue, 2015 ...

       Soundtrack The music of my youth still sings to me. Inside my head it still plays Dylan and Baez as part of our song, our time, our places.  Subversive music, coming from the streets. Out of tune with the surround sound monotone. Undermining it with a discordant challenge. Harmony and discord,  the songs of peace and love sitting side by side with war and revolution. Then as now they still speak to us,  still sing in tune The lyrical passion of the words,  the movement music of  the songs,  has crossed our time and space. Melodies of movement  which still can break our boundaries and join us back together. Moving rhythms which still excite and words which dance for us. These moving patterns on a page, have make different music now,   wrapped in our emotions and melodies which have few boundaries  and are timeless and placeless  when in tune with changing...

 Dream Lovers I am in love with an imaginary person. A Hollywood image flickering on the straight line of my horizon, a mirage created by my dreaming, as all lovers are. Then transposed to sit on top of flesh and bone, stuffed into a skin, which doesn’t quite fit, as all lovers are. Some parts I hide inside. Others are in the forefront of my imagination, filling out the skin, adding more flesh to the bone. I live in a soap opera stuffed full of imaginary people with imaginary lives interspaced with commercial breaks. It’s more satisfactory, easier than engaging with the dangers and tedium outside. Even so, love can still hurt me, but not as badly. Imaginary events are more controllable. So it’s more satisfactory. I can change the situations that trouble me without stepping outside,  without exposure or failure. The real world is hard and it’s people even more transitory than the mirage lovers who flicker in and out on...

May Queen They crowned her the queen of May, the little girl. Chose her for her purity. Pure and white and smiling. Unblooded. Golden curls held by red ribbons, and entwined with flowers topped with sweet smelling may. Spring is here, you see. New shoots springing into life, so we’re ready to be reborn and ready to play the game. Ready for the circle. Ready to go round and round again. Like the dancers she watches weaving their ribbons round the maypole. The maypole phallus they’ve planted in the ground and bedecked with ribbons. Red and white. Red and whit ribbons of menstrual blood and semen. Round and round She watches from her throne. Round and round. Then come the Morris Men. Bells jangling their presence. Sticks clashing with their power. Flags waving to announce their virility. They crowned her the queen of May, the little girl. A crown of sweet blossom and hidden thorns. First Published by Community Arts Ink, Reclaiming O...

Doll My little princess. My china doll with your peachy skin and golden hair.  In pink frills I dressed you up, combed you and curled you. Made you into my special pet, my little angel, to be loved and cherished. My creation. My little girl. But all the time you were making up yourself, getting ready to  smash the porcelain, and break out to become  the creation you had already made up even before you painted  and inked your pearly skin, combed your hair straight, and gelled it  into jagged spikes with a pink splash. Shockingly, piercing the past, you broke out into your future. For you were never a princess, never a doll, and most of all, little girl, you were never mine, never mine to own. First published by ITWOW, She Did It Anyway Anthology, May 2015 http://www.itwowinternational.org/anthologies/she-did-it-anyway-itwowfest-2015/

In The End In the end  I’ll be like you. Dust with flakes of skin and bone wrapped in long hair. Teeth chattering With no voice. No sense of taste or smell. No reason. In the end we'll be invisible, impenetrable, anonymous, figments. But then, we always were you and I, we always were. Published in Snapdragon 2015 https://www.facebook.com/SnapdragonJournal/photos/a.387135344771906.1073741825.387134538105320/482593015226138/?type=1&theater

I Am A Child I am a child of the revolution created by the wake of fascism and imperialism, that sought to construct  a more just society. I am a child numbed by poverty,  stultified by working class conformity, of a mother who wanted better for me, but also wanted to keep me the same. I am a child of these contradictions who became a rebel  in the cultural revolution of the rock and roll generation. Who was liberated by student life, by control of fertility, by other places,  by the music and art  all parents hated. I am still that child. This is what made me. This is what shaped me and became part of my present,  became part of my future. Sometimes I have tried to escape it. Sometimes I still do. First published by Ealain, My Heritage, Issue 8, May 2015