Poetry - Lynn White

  Hospital Poems First they banned flowers. Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe. With their smells and susceptibility to spillages so people brought poems  to hospitals. Then there was a pandemic. And people were banned. No visiting allowed Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe with their smells and susceptibility to carry infection so robots brought the poems to hospitals. Now things have moved on, progress, you see. Now robots write the poems they bring to hospitals. Soon people won’t notice  the difference. Soon people won’t remember the difference. https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2026/10/four-poems-by-lynn-white.html

  The Village of Twee I am just arrived in the village of Twee with its little front gardens carefully wild, with its thatch nicely polished,  its flowers dust free. I wonder who tends them in the village of Twee. Who shampoos the pinks who waters the pots, who sweeps up the leaves  and prunes all the phlox. There’s no humans to see in the village of Twee, just cars with their robots, red, white and pink. They wave as they drive through with shopping piled high singing ‘tra lah lah, welcome and fiddle di di. There’s a welcome for all in the village of Twee.’ They park right outside, with the pavements long gone to give wider roads for motoring robots. So how did it happen, this robotic coup. There must be a story or legend to tell to explain the strange culture I came across there. Well, pavements weren't needed with no humans to walk and that’s how it started if truth it be told. And it’s ‘tra lah lah, welcome and fiddle di di’ as the robots drive smiling through the vil...

  Echoes There’s always a prequel   to any drama in the theatre of war, a rehearsal like Guernica for what is to come. History’s theatre was always misty but now the fog is so dense that we can see nothing, Hear nothing, understand nothing of the power play unfolding. It’s impossible to know as we sit here watching which will be the first step the harbinger of things to take us back   where they began,   Time’s echoes of the end. https://www.samjokomagazine.com/trick-of-the-light

  Trick Of The Light My eyes are playing tricks again or there’s another solar eclipse outside. A dangerous red so bright so bright surrounds the blackest black. Maybe it’s a trick of the light and not the way the world will end swallowed up in fire but I’m still not sure. Wait. I can see it clearly now. https://www.samjokomagazine.com/trick-of-the-light

  It’s Bizarre “It’s bizarre,” said Mike, his head sinking lower   towards his pint on the evening before his Business Class flight. A London stopover was agreed with a night at a fine hotel each way. It gave him time to visit the office of the ANC for briefing or debriefing, as always on these jobs. “It’s bizarre,” said the Anti Apartheid campaigner, drinking another beer in the back street pub. “It’s bizarre,”   said the Young Communist grown older sinking more beers. “It’s bizarre,”   said the Professor of Criminology, employed by the government of South Africa   to advise on policing the townships, as he ordered another beer. “It’s bizarre,” said Mike his head sinking lower towards his pint. “It’s bizarre.”   He drank another beer just in case they’d noticed, just in case it was his last. https://www.samjokomagazine.com/trick-of-the-light

  Monster Monster cried tears of hurt tears of pain. He had no friends, couldn’t remember   his childhood, couldn’t understand   why he was hated. They called him Monster, but he knew he was no monster and didn’t know why   the called him that name. They were the monsters. He knew they were monsters. He saw the things they did and called them ‘monsters’. Then he understood. It was his difference they despised and he had followed them, despising their difference Monster cried tears of hurt tears of shame. It was not their fault. It was the way they’d been made. https://writingcafejournal.com/poem.php?slug=monster

  The First Leaf To Fall She watched it fall. It was the first               leaf                  to fall from those        falling skies. She watched it fall waiting      for more waiting      for others to follow.       And as she watches        the skies                   fall she sees them                   fall and she knows then that she has seen the first            leaf of the                      last Fall. https://spillwords.com/the-first-leaf-to-fall/