Poetry - Lynn White

  Beam Us Up Take my hand hold it tight we’ll stay  close in the beam of light descending and then you’ll beam us up we’ll close our eyes and make a wish as we rise  and if we get what we wish for we’ll feast  on the scarlet sins and secrets we find in the red light zone and stay as long as we wish if we get what we wish for we’ll be in the pink of our vie en rose on our slow way down to the present carefully avoiding the dark hole of the future that we didn’t wish for. https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/four-poems-by-lynn-white.html

  Wrapped Up Usually I walk alone through the woods but today I have a friend, perhaps imaginary, I’m not sure, but certainly friendly, a foxy friend, no less, to bring colour to this time of cold with the darkness closing in wrapping me in a long dark cloak completely covering me so no one can see only my foxy friend, perhaps unreal, and the birds flying free. If they are real one day I’ll join them. https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/four-poems-by-lynn-white.html

  The Usual Santas She was not the usual Santa corpulent and whiskered in baggy red pants  and loose jacket stretched to fit his belly. No she was something special, something out of the ordinary. At first the reindeers were a little nonplussed when her mini-skirted elves  with green spiked hair and bright red lippy loaded presents on to the very ordinary sleigh. But they were impressed  with the practicality  of her red stripy leggings as she climbed up into the driving seat and were happy  to spread their wings and fly through the stardust at her command. The presents were delivered as usual though and this Santa enjoyed the mince pies and sherry left out for her in every home. Not everything had changed! https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/four-poems-by-lynn-white.html

  Alchemy Still they try to find it, the secret of eternal youth, the women with their heavy made-up masks, the men with their toupees, the nip and tuckers,   the stretchers and smoothers. Like the alchemists of old searching for the secret of turning base metal to gold, they’re searching, searching, searching, endlessly searching magic and science as they get older and older still. And still   the fountain of youth eludes them. And all the alchemists are dead. https://positivelyup.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Up-January-2024-Edition.pdf

  Christmas Tree Trimming the tree was a Christmas Eve ritual in my family. Each year my cousin would come to help my mum. They would carefully take the glass baubles from the box that used to hold her big doll called Topsy. Then they would put them all in their special place in my family. “No the elephant doesn’t go there, that’s where the peacock should be and the Christmas pudding goes above.” Everything had it’s place on the Christmas tree in my family. There were shiny miniature crackers never to be pulled and curly, coloured candles never to be lit, for economy. No tinsel was allowed for that was cheating. Only baubles to cover the tree, hiding the green. The glass baubles had belonged to my cousin, so had the tree. And earlier, to her mother and granny, all in my family. The only family to fall out over trimming a tree, my cousin’s husband used to say with some truth, as every year the arguments as to which bauble should go where were replayed in my family. So much stress ov...

  Father Christmas I was so excited. It was nearly Christmas and I was going to meet Father Christmas himself. I was so excited,  wearing my best coat and bonnet, hopping from one foot to the other in the long queue of children waiting with their mums to be allowed into Santa’s Grotto. I was so excited. We were nearly there. I could see the grotto with it’s tinsel and fairy lights twinkling. I was going to sit on his knee  and have my picture taken, and that was in an age when photographs were even rarer than Christmases.. I was so excited. There were the elves... But wait.. they were cardboard. Where were the real elves, the magic ones, why weren’t they there? “They’re much too busy”, my mum said. “But Father Christmas will be real”. We paid our money and there he was. He really was. I couldn’t wait to climb on his knee and examine his beard. I’d never seen a beard before. But he was very tetchy when I pulled at it and told me to stop. Then it went lop sided and I realis...

  Christmas Crow We watched the crow with fascination as it tap tapped on the window pane, saw its black eyes gleaming, its wet feathers shining in the moonlight. And we understood. We understood that it wanted to join us, to perch amongst the baubles on our shining tree to share our fireside warmth on Christmas Eve and escape  the cold winter rain. We heard it promise to sing for us We opened the window and let it in. It crowed a Christmas carol. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1960038494