~

few poets know each other well,

relying on their work to 

give insight into the road

they’ve chosen to tread, 

poets’ words should suffice

to paint portraits of

themselves, drawing finer 

pictures than any self

description ever could,

poets’ words detail realism,

fantasies, irony and subtle

tells that can’t be washed

or rinsed away in the pale

detergent of wishful thinking,

poets are tricked by a desire

to be honest but fooled by

the avarice of dishonesty

*

© GRS 5/24

~

don’t tell me, 

I can no longer 

face the shocking news, 

choosing to withdraw 

my interest in affairs 

and situations I am 

powerless to resolve,

they no longer warrant 

my angst and counteract 

the beneficial efficacy 

of my medication, further 

blackening my mood,

send me notice when it’s

over, I can’t be troubled

to keep up to date

I’m too old to feel this 

anger gift-wrapped 

in faux political diatribe, 

It must be left for the youth, 

these awful events 

will give them purpose and 

abhorrent memories

to look back on

*

~

charcoal streaked clouds

are but fleeting shrouds 

to a morose pallid moon

held glumly like a 

tarnished shilling 

an approaching storm drops 

heavy rain fingers, that 

drum on the pane and 

splatter the window sill

like ill-tempered oaths,

I wake up drawn to the

opaque graffiti of the

insidious darkness,

*

© Graham R Sherwood 05/24

~

love has become fiction

our dramatic story unfurls,

I hold you passionately

like a book, both hands

worried you might slip

from my grasp,

late in the night

engrossed I softly thumb

the fine skin down 

your slender spine,

I cannot release you

I am captivated, intently

immersed in your 

richly enticing words,

you shapeshift between

colourful characters

villain, heroine, lover

twisting and turning through

the treacherous plot

our lives have become,

this affair, destined to end

in reckless adventure

my senseless chase

your devastating betrayal

the brevity of a sensual

but doomed reunion,

I wake as your raw slap

stings my cheeks, you

slip from my fingers

and coldly stare back

at my shocked expression,

we’re done, it’s over

another chapter of my

tawdry life expired

*

© Graham R Sherwood 4/24

~

we sit and blankly 

stare at angry flames 

that cackle and spit like 

disgruntled village elders

whose toothless gobbets 

sizzle madly on the hearth

…___…

we glumly consider how

our world began to eat itself,

gluttonously consuming the 

bounteous fruit we’d

nurtured in the rich 

alluvium of our tolerance

…___…

we gorged ourselves on 

the nutrients of equality

drank deeply from the 

everlasting fountain of 

liberal consciousness

whilst bathing naked in 

tepid oxygen of freedom

…___…

but now we choke 

whilst smiling, as our

satiated innocence 

ebbs away to nought, 

suffocating, as our bloodied 

self-butchered tongues 

writhe as charmed snakes 

to the magnetic tune

of Gaia’s ‘pungi’ pipe

*

© Graham R Sherwood 04/24

~

thrust together at big school

we, an unusual pair, shared 

an over-polished beech desk

and splintered bench, etched 

with desperate hieroglyphs

of past pubescent love affairs,

your long hair, always a problem

called out at the weekly check,

mine, a smarter quiff that

wouldn’t go amiss today,

thus, we tumbled through our teens

you with sure breezy talent, 

me grinding out a pass at best,

it was obvious you’d be first to do it!

behind the sheds

wearing two condoms to be 

on the safe side, she was

only a second-year after all,

you a self-styled Paul Kossoff, with

a dash of Rory Gallagher thrown in,

whilst I’d become the sporty type

once famously getting a sore throat

from one of your marijuana roll-ups,

then two more years of madness, 

me Dylan, you Cream, 

me Donovan, you Captain Beefheart, 

an post A-Level scholarship 

and you were gone,

I heard much later 

you’d been married three times

as I approach my 50th anniversary, 

I somehow hoped we’d one day 

rub together again,

so, one idle insomnia-driven night

I tried to track you down, to muse

over a pint and a catch-up but

Google stopped me in my tracks,

a cold in-memorium 

from a warm Devon newspaper,

I read that you’d died 

eighteen months before,

I had to look up what had killed you,

fuck it!

you were always first 

for everything

*

© Graham R Sherwood 04/24

~

brittle slate storm clouds

batter chaotic sparring gulls

I crouch under a faded awning

of pink and yellow cornetto

fearing shit and showers,

ageing planks and Meccano

struts grumble and wheeze

as I shuffle precariously

between the fortune-tellers

the bandits and the tourist tat

I focus through the chained-up

Binoculars on Lord and Lady

Beach Hut who eat Waitrose

sandwiches off plastic plates

and drink Tesco teabags

from twee china cups,

Stan and Pam, Bill and Doris

have each bequeathed damp

benches from beyond the grave

lovingly etched to profess their

love of this dull monochrome

acquired view,

as my plastic mac bubbles

I become Bibendum,

chin on chest I bow to

repel the sneaky fret, now

trickling down my neck

dour anglers perform a

passive end of the pier show

a welly-to-welly hornpipe

which they conclude by

spitting phlegm to hit the

incessant squealing gulls,

in my blurry mind’s eye

I hear a silver band and

the chirp of a Wurlitzer,

is it a circus or freakshow

and worse still, 

am I starring in it?

*

© Graham R Sherwood 04/24

~

a stand of lithe poplars

arch and bend as if

idly applauding, lean

elegantly discreet feathers

send a solemn adieu

to the wisp of a breeze

high above,

freewheeling starlings

a balletic black peloton

frame the threatening grey,

resignedly, a long

abandoned scarecrow 

stoops peering intently down 

at wet licked ochre plough

burnt coffee grinds set

amongst the pearlescent

glint of scattered stones,

the poplar chorus hums

a distant pastorale, plucked

from the quickening windmore

rain is forecast

*

© Graham R Sherwood 04/24

~

time is not constant, 

although many consider it to be, 

it has speed, mood, behaviour, 

and consequence,

of course we might bend, 

fashion, stretch or mould time 

to our will, but time 

moves warily through its 

promiscuous environment, 

cool at dawn, lazy when warm, 

erratic in rain, clumsy in fog,

its speed and passage varies 

in nights’ fleeting darkness or 

the drudgery of ambient day,

we may use it as our servant  

we must learn to master time,

harness it to our will,

use time for its natural purpose

to do our bidding

*

© Graham R Sherwood 04/24

~

fate has decreed

there’s to be a birth

but first a death,

a dark stain marker

on baptismal white

weighing the scale,

payment is required

before the joyous arrival,

paid up front, paid in full

an old life for new life,

festivities are subverted

as if a surprise,

like oil and water condolences 

and congratulations

can never mix, thus

two names are writ

one on cold stone, 

the other on paper,

dull eyes give way to bright

a long final weak sigh 

heralds a shrill welcome cry

two journeys begin

a mother departs 

a son arrives

account settled.

*

© Graham Sherwood 04/2018