Poetry - Lynn White

  Scared They scared me as a child, those scenes of madness in Jane Eyre with the wild hair and ripped wedding veil. And for years after I was still afraid in the wakeful night even though by then I’d come to understand her, to sympathise with her situation still it scared me, scarred me even, the memory of those scenes. Then there was Psycho. I was only fifteen but looked older. I was my friends ticket to all the horror movies. After Psycho, shower cubicles   would have made me uneasy if they had existed in 1960s Britain. Fortunately they didn’t so the fear   of knives and blood slashing and splashing   lacked context and was less. Next came the vampires occupying my dreams along with the triffids, the monsters,   the demons and the possessed. They all stacked up until all of a sudden the magic was gone and they were just movies, laughable almost. https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2025/12/super-sized-series_0635051064.html

  Forty Million Tonnes And Counting Forty Million Tonnes   and what do we get? Almost a song lyric   written for those who don’t get older,   the uncounted ones lost in the rubble of Gaza. Forty Million Tonnes of homes, roads,   and infrastructure converted into rubble that will take uncountable years for us to clear and still longer to rebuild towns and villages,   to replant crops and trees. And who are the ‘us’ - the ones who will pay. The same ‘us’ as did it before and will do it again unless perpetrators are held accountable. And while this goes on, year upon year ‘they’ will feed those surviving living still in that wasteland of rubble. The same ‘they’ as did it before,   are trying to do it now and will do it again unless perpetrators are held accountable. And how will we, us, they and them   deal with the hate engendered. It will have to be dealt with, then what will we do as we count the cost once again. https://www.amazon.com/dp/ B0G15L2...

  The Usual Santas She was not the usual Santa corpulent and whiskered in baggy red pants   and loose jacket stretched to fit his belly. No she was something special, something out of the ordinary. At first the reindeers were a little nonplussed when her mini-skirted elves   with green spiked hair and bright red lippy loaded presents on to the very ordinary sleigh. But they were impressed   with the practicality   of her red stripy leggings as she climbed up into the driving seat and were happy   to spread their wings and fly through the stardust at her command. The presents were delivered as usual though and this Santa enjoyed the mince pies and sherry left out for her in every home. Not everything had changed! https://hotelmasticadoreshouse.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/the-usual-santas-by-lynn-white/

  Brownies  My mother took me there, the first time I went to Brownies. The church hall was too far for me to go alone and I couldn’t be trusted to cross the main road. It was like Fireflies, she said. I liked Fireflies, and I could go there on my own. They put on records for us to dance to and the games we played were fun. There was no music at Brownies. Many of the children wore a brown uniform. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have to wear it said the old woman in charge. She was called Brown Owl. She had a brown uniform as well. With her fat upholstered body and tiny eyes, she didn’t look like an owl to me. I liked owls. Arthur and I often planned to sneak into the woods at night to see if we could find them. We would be like the children in the Enid Blyton books then. Brown Owl was bossy and made the children  play silly games, not like Fireflies at all. I sat at the side and watched at first, but she said I had to join in later. So when she wasn’t looking I sneaked ou...

  The Spirit Of Christmas To Come The ghost slid down the rabbit hole on a dark wintery night. He expected to arrive in Wonderland if such a place exists and he believed it did, just as he believed in ghosts and Santa Claus. It was as he expected. There was a full glass on a table. He looked for a label saying: “Drink Me”. But there was no label. So he drank it anyway. It left a nice warm feeling inside him, “spirit for the spirit”, he laughed aloud. There was a plate of pastries. He looked for a label saying: “Eat Me”, but there was no label. So he ate them anyway, all of them every last crumb, every succulent morsel of mincemeat. He lay back contentedly   then smiled somewhat sheepishly at the old man dressed in red carrying a large sack who must have followed him down the rabbit hole. He was looking none too pleased at the scene. “Well”, said the ghost, “Anyone can mistake a chimney for a rabbit hole and we need a new Christmas story.” https://masticadorestaiwan.wordpress.c...

  Christmas Cheers They placed the presents carefully wrapped   in bright paper beneath the evergreen branches decorated with shiny baubles. All was ready now in this house, the last house for Santa for another year. He raised his glass of sherry and toasted his hard working elves whilst the reindeers waited impatiently nibbling the undecorated branches outside. No one noticed the shadows they cast. https://spillwords.com/christmas-cheers/