Poetry - Lynn White

  Banned It was decades ago that flowers were banned in hospitals. Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe. With their smells and susceptibility to spillages. Then there was a pandemic. And people were banned. No visiting allowed Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe with their smells and susceptibility to carry infection. But technology sorted it! Now robots bring flowers robotic flowers with robotic smells, and robotic comfort. Disinfected. Safe. Soon people won’t notice   the difference. Soon people won’t remember the difference. https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-lynn-white-14/

  March Hares They’re getting ready for the boxing matches where the winners will take all. Afterwards, they’ll stand still for a moment and sniff the air to check all is safe and then they’re ready to roll so climb on board feel the wind in your hair the witching hour has arrived at last and soon all will be transformed, renewed,  remade as they spring forward in any shape they choose. It’s like magic. http://theworldofmyth.com/

  Dark Mother I have spent a lifetime   trying to break away, trying to find myself but always on the edge, always on the outside never quite belonging. Even though I understood that what she wanted me to be was what she had wanted   to be, I still followed her from love, still bucked the trend of my peers and wore the gloves in summer   with the classic cut clothes   that she’d wanted to wear, even allowed my hair to curl as it wanted to as she wanted it to. I thought I had escaped such love when I made myself up wore minis or long skirts controlled my curls with an iron in my hand And I did escape it,   surely I did escape some   of it. But not all. Not enough. So even now I feel tethered after all this time since her leaving, since my losing her light   and dark together so I remain still   unsure of my   own self. https://hereticsloversmadmen.com/2024/03/25/dark-mother-lynn-white/

  Empty Shoes We take care how we choose our shoes. make sure they fit our feet, represent our personalities. So something of us must remain when they are emptied. Not just our smells and mis-shapes, evocative as they are, but something fundamental spiritual, symbolic. Now see them here empty shoes laid out tidily in rows. Blocked together in a town square. Rows upon rows of them that once contained the toddlers or school children now dead, killed by bombs and bullets. Our children. See here empty shoes Rows and rows of them that will never contain the feet of peaceful people Our people spanning place and time without end. https://www.aljazeera.com/ program/newsfeed/2024/3/19/ thousands-of-shoes-laid-out- as-memorial-to-children- killed-in-gaza https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/03/empty-shoes/

Peace Is Peace is more   than the absence of war though that would be a start. And then the dissolving of boundaries constructed by humans to cordon off one from the other and shout across the divide. Then we can whisper and hug our way to peace. https://www.amazon.com/How-Save-World-Compassiviste-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0CYYHC7R9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1FD90G68S4466&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.snq19rDQdxHjJc_EH2PonQ.CebEfiaPfM8htOWxsDkWJtXt4jQzCNEjJHKNyEC_rzs&dib_tag=se&keywords=compassiviste+authors+collective&qid=1711399673&sprefix=compassiviste%2Caps%2C456&sr=8-1

  Stitching Together There’s no fabric under the foot and the machine isn’t plugged in. It doesn’t need to be now. She’s dreaming of her treadle and the hand turned one. Both dressed her in her youth cheaply and sometimes   eccentrically. She reads a note from the past a piece of paper a tiny fragment but full of awakened dreams. She thinks of that girl sitting there sewing then. And now stitching together pieces   of a life well lived making a patchwork of her time. https://sparksofcalliope.com/2024/03/23/two-poems-by-lynn-white-3/

  Like Father Like Son I wanted to be like my father, to follow in his footsteps, or rather, his wheel-steps as he drove his tram along the shiny rails. We played the game constantly to give me practice but I couldn’t quite get the hang of driving. I was scared of crashing and tumbling on to the city streets. So he bought me a Conductors uniform   and a bag for the money and tickets. He drove and I sold the tickets. It was a good compromise. I think about it now as I look down on the city, with its streets and green spaces which no longer have trams. https://sparksofcalliope.com/2024/03/23/two-poems-by-lynn-white-3/