Ten Minutes
In the next ten minutes I have to go,
and you can’t let me just walk
out of your life again.
Can’t let you! Can’t stop you, I said,
and I won’t try, won’t try.
How can I? What should I do?
Follow you from place to place?
Sit outside your house and chance
being turned away, by someone?
I don’t know where it is, in any case
and I don’t want to know.
So what’s it to be? A thread?
An occasional e-mail to keep in touch?
I don’t think so!
Our lives are so distant in every way,
how to join them up?
The trick would be to store the memories
and leave behind the sense of loss.
Ditch the sadness.
But we’ve tried before. And failed.
And we’re running out of years.
If we meet a next time,
the chances are
we’ll be too old to care.
We need to achieve a modus vivendi,
that will at least allow
our lives to touch each other.
Nothing less?
And, in the next ten minutes!
I said.
My Father’s Son
I never knew
my father’s son.
Even though
I met him once,
or maybe twice,
I never knew him.
And then I met
his son.
Caught him
miraculously
in a net.
Held on to him
tightly.
And, I found
that he hadn’t left early,
my father’s son.
He’d waited for me,
wondering,
for a long time.
And so I found him,
my father’s son.
When he was
just ninety-six,
I found him.
But I was too late
to know him.
At ninety-five,
he was already dead.
So I never knew him,
my father’s son.
(First published in Scarlet Leaf Review, May 2016.)
Maud
I had a sister once.
Her name was Maud.
She never grew old,
never even grew up.
My father cried.
I never knew her,
never even knew of her.
But I know now.
I have a photograph
so I can see her,
picture her as she was.
And I won’t forget that
I had a sister once.
Her name was Maud.
(First published by Silver Birch Press in My Prized Possession Series, November, 2016.)
Author: Lynn White
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: 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. Her poem ‘A Rose For Gaza’ was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition 2014. This and many other poems, have been widely published, in recent anthologies such as – ‘Alice In Wonderland’ by Silver Birch Press, ‘The Border Crossed Us’ and ‘Rise’ from Vagabond Press and ‘Selfhood’ from Trancendence Zero – and journals such as Apogee, Firewords Quarterly, Indie Soleil, Midnight Circus and Snapdragon as well as many other online and print publications.
Link to social media or website: http://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com
