Side pony-tails and blue wellies
Found your red dusty rusty earth
Enchanting the young, wild and free
Behind the fences of Wentworth.
I loved hopping over the sty
Hunting the chestnuts on the ground
Scaling the Oak into the sky
Enchanted by the woodland sound.
You line the memories of my heart
A drop in the ocean of me
And although we are miles apart
I think of you often, happily.
Thank you for my magic childhood
My little patch of English wood.
I am a blade of short grass
Dancing along the river
Bubbled by the southern sun
And simmered by Sunday mass.
I’m not like the other hues
I only long for one step more
Springing from this tight pruned world
An adventure for the true.
Life took me from my woodland
Skipping, stumbling with the breeze
The passage of time followed
As I learned to take command.
I still have many rocks to climb
In my dreams along the Rhine.
I am a brown eyed unicorn
tip-toeing through this universe
afraid of my own echoes.
I want to find my voice and shine.
but I am a brown eyed unicorn.
I step to centre stage
the spotlight burns my soul
intensifying the fear.
I don’t belong here.
I don’t know where I belong.
I am just a brown eyed unicorn.
There is a reason for everything
the carousel keeps turning
the mountain needs climbing
and I am always wondering
why was I born, a brown eyed unicorn?
Stop saying ‘my understanding is’
be active and straight with your words
Stop second guessing your position
say what you need to say, be heard.
I’m not going to be here.
I’m not going to answer.
I’m not sitting around waiting
I’m dancing like a sunflower.
Courage is not the absence of fear…
Aged council houses in the Home Counties
backed onto deep dark historic woodlands
haunted by castle ruins and shelters
brought to life by village children.
At the end of the short cul-de-sac
a long footpath disappeared with the night
mothers shouted curfew bells at sunset
and demanded a return to the light.
Do not go into the woods after dark.
Not a step beyond the street light shadow.
Across the line the boogey man will wait
for naughty children who never listen.
Do not go into the woods after dark.
The flickering shadows are not your friends.
The boogey man will come, wait and see
and you’ll wish you had just listened to me.
Fast forward to the turn of the century
this village child became a teenager
where adventures went beyond the woodland
but never beyond the path after dark.
Because the boogey man could be waiting.
And I wrote you a playlist of
Bob Ross’ voice, more serene than
Coastal lakes lining mountains.
Did I get the right vibe?
Even if we are not leaving
For the next year or so
Google drive through the same day
How down the hill did we fall?
Is it this time of Autumn?
Just an in between of seasons.
Know how to get the old boys back
Like those immortal 90s shows.
My phone died like a car crash
Not sure what happened but it
Ordered a few more days to
Park in the present, oi vey.
Question? We have to go ahead
Rest and breathe for tomorrow
See I will miss the next dream
That you planned without me.
Until it’s like a normal
Video of you and me
What do you want to do?
X-ray the situation?
Yeah I’m not sure about road trips.
Zaddy, I’m writing to you.
Let me count the ways I’m not into you
You have enough red flags to line a street
But my heart does not care what maybe true
she fantasies about the day we’ll meet.
Why do you have to be agreeable?
You’re like a puppy waiting to be fed
love and worth. It is unbelievable
that I cannot get you out of my head.
But, in the moment my phone starts chirping
lightening sparks my fingertips and I type
my heart hangs from words that keep it racing
while my brain doesn’t understand the hype.
In the moment, my heart is into you
But in the morning, I’m over it. True.
Inspired by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 and one of my fav rom-coms 10 Things I Hate About You.
Where the voice in my head connects to pen
Onions of feelings turn into scribble
Reaching to pieces I need to question
Deconstructing a veteran riddle.
Pour me a glass of the finest whiskey.
Oblige me to a bottle of cheese and wine.
Endeavour to bring mental liberty.
Mend the broken quatrains that jail my mind.
But, a poem is more than verse or song
Like the tide it changes with differing eyes
Understand it’s not something to get wrong
Each one has a way of seeing the sky.
Be the message you want to tell the earth
Excite, amaze, and know your worth.
Steer the oak helm north of the fold
the stag, the sea whip, the fire bird
they are the answer, so we’re told
Alina is our truth, our word.
Za svobodo, za svobodo.
We dream of an ordinary life
where all our kind are accepted
We dream of a world without strife
where no one has to bleed it.
Za svobodo, za svobodo.
The dark one stands on the hill
but the light continues on
unchartered waters fits the bill
for a new and peaceful kingdom.
Za svobodo, za svobodo.
The love I want lives inside the TV
a dark haired prince whose dark eyes catch my heart
intertwine a transparent energy
a magic beginning about to start.
He attends to my story likes it’s truth.
His hand catches mine when I don’t feel strong.
He stands beside me holding up our roof.
Our minds and body in sync all day long.
But, when summer has had her last sunset
and Autumn beckons the eternal dark;
Lobster love, can we breathe enough of it?
Has the mighty great Eros left his mark?
The love I want is sleeping next to me;
My best friend, my confidante, my story.
Charlie Ann Alford 
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