two poems, by Lynn White

Scared

First published in Cajun Mutt Press, March 2021

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.

Ubiquity

First published in Lion And Lilac Arts, Issue 13, Spring 2023

I remember the days

before colour.

Days of

sepia

staged

photos

or films

jerky with

black, white

and shades of grey.

Only the canvas bled

out its oily red blood.

Colour is ubiquitous now

but still we bleed the same.

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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.