FRANCES WHITE

FRANCES WHITE

Frances White’s poems have won first prizes and been highly commended in several competitions. She co-authored and published 3 anthologies of poetry and artwork with Words, a group of four poets, founded by the late Aeronwy Thomas. Her first collection of poetry, ‘Swiftscape’, was published by The Seventh Quarry Press in 2016.

Frances read as a guest poet at many poetry venues and festivals in England and Wales, and particularly enjoyed reading with Dodo Modern Poets. Sadly Frances dies of Motor Neurone Disease in 2018. Her husband, Steve, and Palewell Press published a second collection of her poems ‘Dandelion Child’ in October 2019.

PROMENADE

As we walk, my feet don’t touch the ground

with one arm you can lift me to the sky

wave me like a flag, flying kite-high

swing me round and out

light as a lasso

to catch the giddy air

and bring it back

to the warm

heart of

you.

Frances White 

 

HALLOWE’EN

This is the time when the hour moves back
into the darkness, into the night
when we gain an hour but lose the light.

Now is the soggy, slippery time when
the scarecrow slumps and like it or not
the pumpkin rules the vegetable plot.

With jack-o’-lantern carried home
face carved and gouged for candlelight
the children shiver with delight.

Protected by a hollow grin
they hide their fear, to trick or treat
for oranges and sticky sweets.

Drawn night by night to the golden glow
their lantern sags, the young ones weep
when it’s tossed outside on the compost heap.

This is the quarter that crosses the year
when hope is torn and nothing is born.
This is the time we quietly dread
the night we remember, remember the dead.

Frances White

 

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