Lynn White

Luck Of The Irish

The Irish love their horses.

It’s a long tradition

which survives city living

among young working class people

in parts of Dublin,

people seemingly like me.

They take them along the streets,

into supermarkets, on buses,

even up in the lift to their new home 

on the balcony of an apartment.

The stories are legion.

And the Irish love their stories.

But I was not like them.

I couldn’t be part of that story.

I find horses just too big, too strong,

too high from the ground.

Even on a seaside donkey I was afraid

I’d take a tumble from the saddle

or be nudged and trampled into the sand.

I was sure that it was only 

by the luck of the Irish

that I survived.

Yes, Lady Luck loves the Irish.

But I know for certain now

that when I join that wild eyed horse

on the balcony

the luck of the Irish

is bound to desert me.

This Place

The buildings line the street of the city.

Such bright colours

lining the street

a living place.

But if I should transform the cars,

into their metal box shapes.

If I should paint out their windows

and doors, 

and the windows and doors

of the buildings in the street,

it would leave me 

with coloured squares

and rectangles

dividing blue from green or white

with no life left there.

No place,

no place

for me

no place

for life

at all.

First published in Call Me [Brackets], December 2022

Rhythms Of Time

Rhythms of time

gathering pace.

Working up to the wave 

that crashed into me, 

propelled me forward

and now sucks me back.

Thirteen decades.

Back.

To a place beyond my imagining,

so tidy now after the crash.

City living gentrified now.

Rippling gently.

But before,

in my father’s time.

There was beer mixed mud

and crowding children.

And smells of horses

and metal.

Working.

Fire and metal work.

Children who 

would leave behind

the mud,

and country 

smells,

for the dust

and smog.

For the city grime.

Streets and factories.

More fire and metal.

Bigger.

Grander.

And what then?

Still poor.

What then?

What secrets lie in those rhythms

of time

washing over me

now.

First published in Line Rider, July 2020