Poetry: Lynn White

Lynn White

Penetration

You tell me I can look inside you
penetrate you,
delve amongst what’s hidden there,
know you.
And yes, I know you.
Know that you hide yourself
in subterfuge.
Know there’s both fantasy and fact
in the mixture
you expose
in your stories.
And they’re hidden inside.

I know that you bar the door,
and don’t let anyone in.
Make up stories.
Or spit out what comes first
into your head.
Let it escape.
Then, if it’s true,
hide it,
cloak it in make believe,
in fantastic lies.
So no one knows
you.

Yes, I can see inside,
see the grand mixture
of nonsense,
of deceit and anxiety,
truth and concern
for privacy.
But I can’t separate out one from
the other.
And it doesn’t matter, you see, I like
the mystery.

But you are wrong to think that
when I look inside you
I know who you are.
Only that you are a mystery.
And that I like mysteries.
I can understand them.


Now and Then 

Now the clouds are pressing down
making everything grey,
everything misty.
It’s impossible to discern which way
people are facing.
It looks like everyone
is facing both ways,
so it is impossible to know who to follow,
impossible to know which path to take,
which is the good and which is bad.

Then, in the old days
it was all so clear.
This was the way.
These were the good guys,
the brave guys with the guns,
sending out their scouts
from the circled wagons
of peaceful pioneers
in search of a better life
in the vast empty land.
Protecting them from
the bad guys,
the savages,
the cowardly braves
with the bows and arrows
and scalping knives.

It didn’t always go to plan.
But the cavalry usually
arrived just in time.
And the good guys
always won
in the end.

Didn’t they?


Regrets

Regrets are best forgotten,
laid to rest in peace or
in restless confusion.
Dump them with the other debris,
the detritus of the past
no longer needed.
They will be taken away in time,
disposed of
in the future,
by the future.
Displaced by more things
to regret
and forget.
And by more things to keep

and remember.