~

the Morai, those beauteous 

fates have woven me 

another morning with these 

special friends,

a country walk, a drinking lake

back in the days we

were but schoolboys,

I watch them weave

ahead of me, moving

seamlessly between one 

another, like the water, 

first in twos, now threes 

back to twos but never alone,

arms often drape shoulders

as head move close

as if in faux conspiracy

hands gently slap a back 

or two as if in jest or

conferring payment for 

finding treasured memories

misplaced by the other, 

at lunch, strangely we each 

order the same, like the 

free school meals

we all once quickly scoffed

before the bell rang out

*

GRS 5/24

~

we might be offered

a beautiful sunset,

~

subtle milk blues 

greys and soft pinks 

stretching across the 

wide horizon, thinly 

smeared brushstrokes,

~

should we take notice

we might speak warmly 

of such pleasing colour and 

be cheered by the spectacle 

then go about our business,

~

but tonight, the sky is moving

contrasting colours splashed wide

jostle and rear-up prancing 

trumpeting vertically 

to demand our attention, 

asking for celestial conversation

~

strangely we are speechless

*

GRS 5/24

~

I see Joan most 

Thursdays,

Anna’s mother

ninety-five years old

knocking on the door

of ninety-six if she 

stays well,

~

she’s never been a 

typical mother-in-law, 

with all the connotations

that title carries

just a very good friend 

right from our first date 

when, unexpectedly

I was taken back home 

some fifty-six years ago,

~

she might not suffer fools

but wouldn’t be cruel when 

pointing out their idiocy either

I don’t believe I’ve ever

met anyone as evenly

tempered, although 

Anna might not totally 

agree but that’s mums 

and daughters for you,

~

Joan has the sort 

of face where every part of it

laughs at the same time,

it still does although these days

she covers it with both hands

as if embarrassed to show it

the dynasty will miss her 

when she finally goes, it

currently numbers around forty

I always tell her every

December on her birthday 

that it’s all down to her,

it’s worrying to think that

after she’s gone Anna and I will  

be the oldest in the clan

we’re already half way there

with our offspring and their own 

to form our own dynasty

just the cycle of life I suppose

*

© GRS 5/24

~

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