Tag: Lynn White

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 3 Comments

An Alphabetical Error

We had a map,
of course we did!
And the names of the streets
were clearly written
in English.
The names on the streets
were also clearly written
but in Cyrillic Greek,
of course they were!
This was Athens in 1966
and we were struggling
to find the Folk Museum.

Then we had a stroke of luck!
We spied a grand building
with sentries in national dress
standing outside
and we knew we’d found it!
So we went inside
and wandered around for a bit.

It was unusually empty,
the rooms and corridors devoid
of the expected folk exhibits.
A smartly dressed woman
descended the stairs
carrying a file of paper.
We asked her if she had a Guide.
She threw us out!
Of course she did!
The Royal Palace was not open to tourists!

It was to be an unrepeatable incursion.
A few months later the colonels took power
and everything changed
except the alphabet.

“An Alphabetical Error” first appeared in Pure Slush, 25 Miles From Here Anthology.


Where Are They Now?

In 1967, I hitch-hiked to Belgrade.
My friend and I would take an overnight train
to stay with our Albanian friends
in what is now Kosovo.
Until then we had some hours to kill.

The local cafe culture called
and we ate a modest meal,
two great slabs
of the ubiquitous cheese puff pastry
washed down with colas.

We went to the counter to pay
but the Server refused our money.
He pointed to a table where some guys
were enjoying a few beers.
They had already paid, he said.

We were mystified.
They had made no contact with us
and we tried to tell them we could not accept.
They explained that
they wished to thank us
for the help Britain had given in WW2.

Fast forward to 1999
when the right to self-determination was all the rage.
and NATO bombs were falling on Belgrade.
I thought about them a lot back then.
I think of them now
when territorial integrity is all the rage
and the right to self-determination
a forgotten dream.

Yes, I think of them now
when the bombs
fall in Europe
once again.

But I still have my friend in Kosovo.
Sometimes we feel human,
sometimes not.

“Where Are They Now?” first appeared in Topical Poetry.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places, and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy, and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net, and a Rhysling Award. You can find her on her blog or on Facebook.

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Spanish Room

We were pleased when the smiling nun
shook her head.
They were full, the lorry driver told us.
He was disappointed.
He thought we’d be safer
in the out of town convent than in the city.
He’d grown concerned for our safety
on our long journey through France.
He was nice – ‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend would often tell him.
But he didn’t understand her accent.

He said his lorry wouldn’t fit
the narrow streets, so
we took a cab to the pension he knew.
Our first Spanish room
and we were happy!
The tiles were cool, if dusty.
We covered the TV.
We didn’t need it.
Two single beds pushed together
with one mattress
to make a ‘cama matrimonial’,
normality in Spain.
The owner was nice,
‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend told him.
But he spoke no French.

We shopped in the corner shop with
it’s curved window
and explored the streets
of clubs and cafes and bars and lively people
enjoying the night.
And then we returned home.
Home to a locked door that
no amount of banging or shouting would
cause to open.
A friendly passer by understood our plight
and clapped his hands loudly.
A man appeared with a bunch of keys,
enough to fit the locks of several streets.
Normality when Franco reigned.
He let us in with a smile.
He was ‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend told him,
but he didn’t understand.

Forty years later we found the street.
The curved shop window gave it away.
It was all still there, though only in facade,
waiting for reconstruction or demolition.
It was our first Spanish room
and we were happy.
The facade of a memory that
is still there and remains:
‘doux, comme le sucre’.
And we understand.


The Empty House

It fascinated us as children,
the empty house in the countryside
where we walked the neighbour’s dog.
Why was it empty?
Who had lived there?
We imagined secret passages
leading to priest holes,
walled up dead bodies
and buried treasure.
No one knew.
But we knew
that the dog was reluctant to go near
and we had heard that dogs were sensitive
to the spirit world.
So we knew
it was haunted.
That ghosts lived there,
spirits of the past.
We dared each other to enter
through the broken window.
Maybe we broke it first,
but I don’t remember that.
In the end we all went in,
leaving the dog outside.
But there was nothing.
Just a house.
Empty.
Ordinary.
Not spooky.
Just empty.
I passed it today,
all these years later.
There’s no entering now.
Police tapes surround it.
Maybe the dog knew
that the ghosts were of the future,
not the past.




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Visit her blog or find her on Facebook.

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Clock

They were traditional
retirement gifts.
Perhaps the first time
one was given in irony,
an employer with a quirky sense of humour.
But then it caught on and became the norm.

I was a small child,
only four years old
when one was given
to my father.
It was brown
all brown
with a glass front
and cream numbers and fingers.
It sat dismally on our mantelpiece
ticking away morosely
long after his death.

As I child growing up I used
the glass as a mirror,
a smiling face, a funny face,
a gurning face or a frown,
my faces livened it up a bit.

I thought I would leave it behind
when my mother died
it’s ticks and rocks seemed to slow
in sadness at the parting,
a parting as hard as that
from a lover.
Too hard.

So it’s with me still
sitting there looking morose
and releasing a memory
with every tick
and tock.


Sneek Peek

My first attempt at throwing a pot
was not successful.
My large lump of clay twisted and turned
on the wheel
till it became cup size
then egg cup size.
I rather liked my egg cup in the end,
well, not quite the end,
it’s final end came in the kiln
with bang.

Who would have thought then that potting
would become my trade,
my living,
certainly not me.
But that’s what happened for a while.
Look here’s a sneak peek
into my studio
the grainy black and white
showing it’s age.
It’s all gathering dust now
so a sneak peek is all I can offer,
just a glimpse of how things were
a long time ago.

“Sneak Peek” first appeared in Visual Verse.




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find her on her blog or on Facebook.

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

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.


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.

“Like Father Like Son” first appeared in Verse Virtual.




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find her on her blog or on Facebook.

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

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.

“Photo Opportunity” first appeared in Bold + Italic (Issue 2, 2018).


This Is Not An Egg

The egg box was so sculptural with its 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
and looked magnificently subversively ironic.
I think Magritte would be proud of my effort.

And now I must wait
to see if anyone notices.

“This is Not an Egg” first appeared in SurVision (Issue 5, June 2019).




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places, and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy, and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes. You can find out more about Lynn on her blog or on Facebook.

Two Poems by Lynn White

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

The Purple Boat

The purple boat sank.
There was no explanation.
Our father made us three,
blue, green and purple,
from sheets of coloured paper,
blue, green and purple.
We thought they were hats
at first
and ran around
holding them
on our too large heads.
But he said they were boats
and showed us how to sail them,
pushing them from the side
with long twigs
until they made
a small bright flotilla,
blue, green and purple,
in the glass clear water.
And then the purple boat sank
leaving only
the blue and the green.
A sad flotilla,
of blue and green
in the glass clear water.
There was no explanation.
But I think, most likely,
it was spied by some creature below,
who,
loving the colour purple,
grasped it
and took it below
to make it her own.
But I don’t know.
Now
I have found
that life is often like that.

“The Purple Boat” first appeared in With Painted Words


Sister Millicent

The teapot was full catering size
perfect for the church function
where I first met Sister Millicent.
She was balancing it on her head.
Her eyes were uplifted
so were her lips.
It was her party trick.
I didn’t know nuns did such things.

“Sister Millicent” first appeared in The Drabble




Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places, and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy, and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/