Poem 278 ± March 8, 2016

Three Poems by Lynn White

Sunshine and Shadows

There are black clouds lingering over me.
Casting shadows.
Even though
there’s a big red sun above
shinning down on me.
Warming my face.
Caressing me.
reminding me of other sunshine days
when the rays beamed more sweetly.

The clouds make today too close,
too hot,
yesterday too far away.
And the rays are stabbing me sharply.
Hurting me.
No longer warm and sweet
but hot and sour.
Piercing me.
Cutting me like icy splinters.
Because there’s cold there as well,
coming from somewhere.

This sun is too bright for me to see clearly,
too red and swollen,
like my eyes feel now.
Heavy.
Black with shadows.
So I’m waiting for the rain to fall.
Fall away.
Drop by drop until they’re empty and cold.
And I’m waiting for more cold days to come.

And I’m waiting for the empty clouds to pass
and the sun to shine again
and warm me
if it can.

 

The Company of Butterflies

In the company of butterflies
I can whistle up the wind
and fly
without boundaries.
Flutter by
and then rest
in the sunshine
and drink
sweet nectar
and dream
and dream.

In the company of butterflies
I can whistle up the wind
and soar
over fragile rainbows.
Then stop
in a fusion
of colour
to taste the gold
at the end
of my flight
of fancy.

In the company of butterflies
I am boundless.

 

In The End

In the end
I’ll be like you.
Dust with
flakes of skin and bone
wrapped in long hair.
Teeth chattering
With no voice.
No sense of taste
or smell.
No reason.
In the end
we’ll be invisible,
impenetrable,
anonymous,
figments.
But then, we always were
you and I,
we always were.

 

Lynn WhiteLynn White’s poem “A Rose For Gaza” was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud War Poetry for Today competition in 2014 and has since appeared in several journals and anthologies. Poems have recently appeared in anthologies including To Hold A Moment Still: Best of Harbinger Asylum 2012-14 (Create Space, 2014), edited by Dustin Pickering and Z. M. Wise; We Are Poetry: An Anthology of Love Poems (Create Space, 2015), edited by Stacey Savage; Reclaiming Our Voices (Community Arts Ink, 2015), edited by Carla Christopher-Waid, T.L. Christopher-Waid, and Kate Harmon; The Border Crossed Us: An Anthology to End Apartheid (Vagabond Press, 2016), edited by Mark Lipman; Civilized Beasts (Weasel Press, 2015), edited by Laura Govednik; Alice In Wonderland Anthology (Silver Birch Press, 2015), edited by Melanie Villines; and others. Lynn lives in north Wales.

“Sunshine and Shadows” appeared in Aubade; “The Company of Butterflies” appeared in The Dawntreader; and “In The End” appeared in In-flight.