Poetry - Lynn White

         Dreams One day soon they'll try to dig up your dreams. You'll be dead by then, unable to protect them any more. They'll let you rest in peace, but not your dreams. They'll want them for sure, they'll want them. They'll want them to try and find you, to try and discover who you were. They'll dig them up, scrabbling amongst the dirt, seeing what they can find. Digging up the dirt to see what they can find   in there. They'll discard this piece here, another piece there. Dross from the dried up remnants, They'll hang on to the moist bits. The juicy bits are worth further analysis. You may be in there. In your dreams. Someone else will scrabble to catch   the dry pieces, those fragments of dreams thrown away. The little pieces blown away in the air. Little snippets, dreamlets. But there are flakes of gold hidden there. I hope they don't find them. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-l7xIAUiUTDNtpMRLzFI8cBjU_6PvtK_/view?fbclid=IwAR3Fg3sLUrcclMW...

    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 the screen behind my eyes. Are they the same for y...

  Thinkers I wondered what they were thinking, all those grinning people standing around him taking their selfies. I wondered what he was thinking but I don’t think they cared or even noticed that he looked strained as if he had a problem, looked uncomfortable as if perched on the edge of a toilet straining with effort. Perhaps that was his problem, ideas don’t come when you strain, they float into your head dreamlike glowing gold as you stretch out your arms into infinity dreamlike, glowing gold, with no one around to take selfies. https://thedrabble.wordpress.com/2021/02/08/thinkers/?fbclid=IwAR1Mv9j2vhTVUiO5is0EwtFfRZv-s8DPv6uCkZ3xaJ2eK1b0ghZomsFHRwk

  Paddling No one swam in the seas round Britain when I was a child. The water was empty beyond the edge of the shore even on the warmest of days. Paddling was as adventurous as it got. Nothing wetter was allowed, Trousers rolled up, skirts tucked in knickers clothes to be protected from the salt water waves. Only then was paddling allowed taking due care not to kick or jump, taking due care not to let the wet waves go too far. https://arachnepress.com/books/short-stories/time-and-tide/?fbclid=IwAR2VvTnXnMVxeHPWsdyp4D5aM79CDTyXzWPzGZhkKkt6CLi0JdvlyZso7v0

  To The Passing Of The Nightingale Where are the songs of spring? Where are they? Well, Mr K, they are harder to find than they were in your day. Gone with the nightingale, Gone with the meadows, the hedgerows, the woods, The habitats lost,   destroyed. Destroyed like the food that people call pests. Predated.   Predated by farmers,   one way or another, the countryside’s guardians,   that’s what they say. The spring singing has ended, almost over and done. Aye, you might well ask, Mr K The singing is not as it was in your day. https://www.rudderlessmarinerpoetry.com/john-keats-1/to-the-passing-of-the-nightingale-by-lynn-white

  Expectations I had never been to the seaside. I knew what to expect, though. I had a book about it. There were lots of pictures of rock pools and the strange creatures living there. My favourites were the hermit crabs. I was looking forward to those the most. I had a little bucket to collect them in. But there were no rock pools, at this seaside. Just flat sand with a thin distant line of cold grey sea. Why? No one said. I found some shells to put in my bucket. I liked the tiny pink ones best. But most were broken and not worth collecting. Why? No one said. No shells, no hermit crabs, but they showed me how to put damp sand into my miniature bucket. with my miniature spade and how to pat it down   and tip it out to make ‘sand pies’. I was supposed to like doing this. Why? No one said. They gave me some paper flags on thin wooden sticks. I could stick them in   the top of my sand pies. I was supposed to like doing this. Why? No one said. I thought I’d save up my flags un...

Running Shoes Sometimes,   some things   become more than things. Become iconic. Seek to represent us. So these running shoes can make a statement about ourselves, about who we are or want to be. Simple pumps, designer trainers both attach a label to us to represent ourselves to ourselves. How we were, how we are, what we have become displayed for all to see. But still it’s not all. Somethings still are hidden the wheres and whys of conflict   and migration and somethings are still   in the running. Running, running   smiling towards a greeting. Running fearfully away fast. Faster and faster turning the labels to dust. https://www.pricklypearpublishing.com/anacua-lit-arts-journal/running-shoes-by-lynn-white