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  Friday Mornings The Presenters interviewed the excluded boy. Their stated aim was to understand, to see what could be improved, how it could be made better for everyone. “How did he feel about being excluded,” they asked. “Don’t matter” the boy said. “Don’t go anyway, ‘cept for Friday mornings. Just mess about on the street. Used to wind ‘em up when I went, ‘ave a laugh that’s all bit of fun messing.” “Why?” an Interviewer asked. “Borin’ innit. Pointless waste of time apart from Friday mornings. And I’m a waste of space don’t wanna go won’t go.” “So you don’t mind being excluded?” an Interviewer asked. “Naw, rather be out with my mates, they keep getting excluded an’ all,   there’s no point to it we can’t do it don’t want to try they’re all idiots don’t wanna go, ‘cept for Friday mornings. The questions came and went the answers repetitive but no one asked him what happened on Friday mornings. https://www.unlikelystories.org/content/friday-mornings-and-rip-john-donne
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  RIP John Donne No man is an island wrote Donne centuries ago. He understood the predicament understood than man, or wo-man is one part of a whole which is one part of something larger and so on into mind-blowing infinity. No man, or wo-man can stand alone and reach their potential   in isolation or when isolated on some small island   however grandiose the delusion. And a small island cannot thrive. if it makes its sea an impenetrable wall to protect it from the to-ing and fro-ing of all but but the tides - except here in Britain of course. It’s Brit-ish-mus that makes the difference. Brit-ish-mus that will make it work or not. RIP John Donne https://www.unlikelystories.org/content/friday-mornings-and-rip-john-donne
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  Spring Dreams I close my eyes   and listen to the first sounds of spring. Hear the bees fly past and feel their warm settling when sometimes they alight on me as if they wish to examine this strange creature, this lone interloper   in their world. I open my eyes   when I feel them so that I can admire their beauty and strangeness before they move on, flying or crawling, off to make their honey they leave me alone again. https://poetrywivenhoe.org/todays-poem/
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  Banned It was decades ago that flowers were banned in hospitals. Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe. With their smells and susceptibility to spillages. Then there was a pandemic. And people were banned. No visiting allowed Unhygienic, you see. Unsafe with their smells and susceptibility to carry infection. But technology sorted it! Now robots bring flowers robotic flowers with robotic smells, and robotic comfort. Disinfected. Safe. Soon people won’t notice   the difference. Soon people won’t remember the difference. https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-lynn-white-14/
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  March Hares They’re getting ready for the boxing matches where the winners will take all. Afterwards, they’ll stand still for a moment and sniff the air to check all is safe and then they’re ready to roll so climb on board feel the wind in your hair the witching hour has arrived at last and soon all will be transformed, renewed,  remade as they spring forward in any shape they choose. It’s like magic. http://theworldofmyth.com/
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  Dark Mother I have spent a lifetime   trying to break away, trying to find myself but always on the edge, always on the outside never quite belonging. Even though I understood that what she wanted me to be was what she had wanted   to be, I still followed her from love, still bucked the trend of my peers and wore the gloves in summer   with the classic cut clothes   that she’d wanted to wear, even allowed my hair to curl as it wanted to as she wanted it to. I thought I had escaped such love when I made myself up wore minis or long skirts controlled my curls with an iron in my hand And I did escape it,   surely I did escape some   of it. But not all. Not enough. So even now I feel tethered after all this time since her leaving, since my losing her light   and dark together so I remain still   unsure of my   own self. https://hereticsloversmadmen.com/2024/03/25/dark-mother-lynn-white/
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  Empty Shoes We take care how we choose our shoes. make sure they fit our feet, represent our personalities. So something of us must remain when they are emptied. Not just our smells and mis-shapes, evocative as they are, but something fundamental spiritual, symbolic. Now see them here empty shoes laid out tidily in rows. Blocked together in a town square. Rows upon rows of them that once contained the toddlers or school children now dead, killed by bombs and bullets. Our children. See here empty shoes Rows and rows of them that will never contain the feet of peaceful people Our people spanning place and time without end. https://www.aljazeera.com/ program/newsfeed/2024/3/19/ thousands-of-shoes-laid-out- as-memorial-to-children- killed-in-gaza https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/03/empty-shoes/