Poetry - Lynn White

  Image Somehow  the mirror has broken fragmenting  my image, the image  I have of myself, the one I like to project.. Was it the sunlight that cracked it, the exposure to brightness, an explosion of light. Or was it already a distortion  ready to be destroyed  by a different audience looking over my shoulder. Or was it self destruction which splintered my image to reveal the darker side behind the glass. https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2023/05/which-face-do-you-see.html

  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 something to celebrate. https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2023/05/which-face-do-you-see.html

  Mirror Image The mirror was old, not antique just old. Perhaps that was the reason it didn’t seem quite right, didn’t seem to reflect me as I expected. I looked harder. I could see my surroundings reflected as I thought they were, the curtains and the colours, the lamp standing naked all present and correct. But I wasn’t there. I am here. I know I am and I’m looking into the old mirror where I should see myself reflected but I can’t. I think it has swallowed me, body and soul. https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2023/05/which-face-do-you-see.html

  Cataract Before the moment when the cloud cleared   I had no idea how blue the sky was, no idea how silvery the rain though I’d felt it many times falling gently or fierce   as a cataract after a storm and I’d searched my memory and my imagination to find how they were coloured. Before the moment when the cloud cleared   from my eyes and tears spilled like cataracts, I had no clear idea. https://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=9784

  Photo Opportunity I watched the man crossing the path underneath the cascade of the waterfall. It had been part of the route wine was carried from the high lands, to be sold on the coast. Back in the old days, that was. But the old days weren’t very long ago. He seemed confident as he placed a foot carefully in each of the footholds hacked into the precipitous rock face. He gripped the thick metal hawser attached to the rock with strong metal rings. Gripped it firmly and proceeded slowly one step at a time. I had a camera and I thought that it was a picture he would like to have when he was dry and safe back on terra firma. Then I thought, suppose he falls, falls into the waves, to be smashed against the rocks far below. I didn’t want to have such a picture, a picture of someone’s last moments and I thought, to take it may jinx his journey and even cause him to fall. So I never took the picture. But it made no difference. The man fell anyway. https://sparksofcalliope.com/2023/05/...

  This Is Not An Egg The egg box was so sculptural with it’s peaks and troughs   like a metaphor, a mirror of life in textured paper, I thought a giant version could easily become an acclaimed art installation and I thought I could make it. And then I remembered the glasses left behind in a museum of modern art by error or intent, real glasses, not the “ne sont pas les lunettes” Magrittean sort, I could feel some guerrilla art hatching inside me. I fetched the pot egg from under the broody hen and pondered the possibilities on the way to the gallery. There, I placed the egg box on a table, sneaked it in   between the other exhibits then I placed the Magrittean egg inside. Just the one egg seemed most fitting especially since one was all I had. I had already written the title card. Such a work deserved two titles one above and one below the artist’s name, my name, of course. First came: “THIS IS NOT AN EGG” and underneath: “THIS IS NOT AN EXHIBIT” It was perfectly placed a...

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