Tag: national poetry writing month

A colourful character 
Whispers under a Welsh breeze
Hints of fresh linen and sweetness 
Delicate as tissue paper
My grandmother, Iris. 

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.