Menlove Avenue by Charlie Bowden
Starlight and destiny consign themselves to the broadsheet
sat on the brick wall, its black ink truth seeping
into the ice-cold hydrangeas below.
I lit up blue at the sign of danger,
a Beauregarde too in the know for my own good,
as I crossed paths with the moons of Menlove Avenue.
My arms may find Avalon, it’s true,
according to the gossip columns,
but they’ll gouge out my eyes so I can’t see the magic runes.
Morgan’s flower dance will help me find Arthur’s hilt
but I won’t see the black and blue beauties
the legends once built.
“‘Menlove Avenue’ was a poem concept I had floating around for a while after I saw that John Lennon titled one of his albums after the street he grew up on during a Wikipedia binge. After writing it felt odd to have a poem that had essentially nothing to do with my original inspiration but eventually I figured that sometimes art just works that way.”
Charlie Bowden (he/him) is a student from Hampshire, England, who discovered a love for writing poetry in lockdown after spending years studying it at school. His work has been included in collections by Young Writers and the Stratford Literary Festival among others and he won the 2021 Forward/magazine Creative Critics Competition. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @charliebpoetry for more.