~

Once set and lit a fire is free, 

it burns however it wishes untamed,

the defiance of steel blue

sedition of callous green,

the delinquency of sharp orange

and the assassin’s tongue red,

the flames writhe tortured

in their wanton destructive spectrum.

A wind might seek to move its will

to bear its heart a certain path

but the fire’s business of burning, 

of charring, gnawing and consuming

is its own, unchallenged.

But, a fire’s life is short

a one-way battle to ash, where

death is inevitable,

a long, degraded death.

Be sure that life

rekindled from the embers

will be a new fire

not a reincarnation of the old

~

© Graham Sherwood 05/2019

~

Midday and still cold

bitterly cold 

stinging nostrils and earlobes

cutting, steel grey under a weak sun.

November at Sacre-Coeur

the uneven pavements white

fractured by ice, treacherous.

The starving artists mistakenly

took you to be Luciano Pavarotti

and made an embarrassing fuss

each wanting to draw you.

We four wore long overcoats

well below our knees,

reminiscent of your father’s

railway greatcoat that you purloined

for those beatnik sixties poetry readings.

We sat outside like mourners 

nibbling delicious gougeres and 

blowing steaming hot chocolate 

constantly pestered by students

one who resembled Francoise Hardy.

I should have paid her 

To let me just to sit there

and look at her beautiful face.

Later, at the Musee D’Orsay

we saw her again sketching,

I bought her coffee from the brasserie, 

Sacre Coeur bathed in the last glow

of a weak russet sun, was

framed by the café’s circular window,

a perfect cameo.

That evening dining in Maigret’s restaurant,

one of the many in Paris,

a delivery of fresh morels and chanterelles

were carried straight past our noses 

and changed food forever.

~

© Graham Sherwood 05/2019

~

Ordinary lives may be bent and folded

into shapes that become exotic origami,

each starting the same, with a plan

to become a fragrant flower, a fantastic beast

or intriguingly, a complex polygon.

Something remains however,

corners, sharp lines

no matter how shaped 

or convoluted corners might be fashioned, 

edges remain to anchor lives indelibly

to their former ordinariness,

sharp reminders of provenance,

voices, mannerisms, preferences, 

cruel Judases sabotage our pretension

and we rapidly and surely come undone.

~

© Graham Sherwood 05/2019

*

Our gods and ghosts both thinly disguised 

walk among us daily,

with assured familiarity, 

in plain sight they move unnoticed, 

unrecognized as immortals.

Were they lauded,

what laurels would we accord?

which sagas recite, 

libations pour, favours ask, 

audiences seek, with

these super-human beings.

We should never know our gods

or ever meet our ghosts, for

we will be ruined

and in turn ruin them.

*

© Graham Sherwood 05/2019

.

Once you’ve met an alien

people treat you differently

they regard you more seriously 

sit closer to the door.

It’s not that they don’t trust you

they just pay attention

especially to your eyes

and of course the fingertips.

They think little green men

well that’s the cliché isn’t it

but my Alien is a 1967 Ford Transit

it’s been here all that time.

Contrary to conventional wisdom

it means no harm,

no world domination, even though

there are millions of them (Transits) out there.

It’s a strange relationship

you couldn’t exactly call us friends

just an unspoken understanding

a therapy for both of us.

Having met an alien 

it’s a double-edged sword

of course I’ve lost some friends

but I’ve learnt so much, seriously.

.

© Graham Sherwood 05/2019 

.

sitting quietly, intent, 

listening for the late evening’s breeze-song,

it sighs and I’m minded to think

of an Japanese girl, whose beautiful lips

rest gently on the mouthpiece

of an ancient wooden flute,

a breathy resonance, 

strokes my throat as I swallow in 

a taste of an approaching shower,

when rain finally crashes through

the final apple blossom flees

to seek asylum on a slatted fence

there, caught quivering in webs

it pirouettes in frantic craze,

heavy splashes stamp the earth

like errant schoolboys 

unsupervised, currying chaos 

on a vicarage lawn

daffodils are skittled all askew,

it is done, the dark cloak withdraws

and I tentatively venture out

amongst the floral devastation

but the perfume, the heady fresh perfume

in the dampened sod, 

spins me like a top, 

I have to sit, drunk, sedated

as the breeze timidly returns, 

the flautist wets her lips

.

.© Graham Sherwood 04/2019

.

To describe the taste of an egg, is

impossible

in a thousand words,

milk and water, similarly 

undefinable

as I scramble for an answer.

.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2019

.

In hordes they teem this eager flock,

to bring libations un-thought all,

some adorned in hard won wealth,

others come in cheaper cloth

to hear sweet music, retailed hymns,

the bright lit windows hypnotized,

they break warm bread that’s offered there

and drip their faith in litter bins 

Elsewhere some cathedrals lie bereft

cold stone ancient edifices,

warmed by witless grey broken men,

garbed heavily in rich uniform,

to dole out gifts of hot cross buns,

beseeching all to take their path,

believing corrupted fallen myths.

One Messiah is early risen

on this commercial Calvary,

his true disciples tend us well,

offering the meat we seek, so come 

to worship, come to spend,

celebrate your god lives on, 

celebrate the long weekend.

.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2019

.

Hair thinning or completely gone

on our faces, now sixty years older

are writ personal scriptures

lines, crevices, 

etched and eroded into mottled skin.

We were all last here in 1958

for Sunday School, us

parceled off each weekend

two hours peace for mum and dad,

time to get the washing-up done,

then lay the table again for tea.

Those vivid pictures are what we remember most

the vague dimmed screen,

 that was never dark enough 

in the Mission Room,

windows too tall to be blanked out.

Fierce Goliath felled by scrawny David’s slingshot

Samson, angrily bringing down the temple

Daniel passive amongst three sullen lions

and the Jericho trumpets 

lauding an earthquake zone.

Captivated, singing two hymns

one each side of a bible story 

a message to take home and recount.

Today, it’s merely memory lane,

one or two of our number

still bothering God, the rest of us

lost to damnation.

But we all came back again, 

Didn’t we? Curious

in this ancient place,

aromas of Mr Sheen and Glade

not old books and cobwebs,

and in several ways

we feel cheated.

.

.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2019

As you run into trouble

I run out of valid reasons

for you to stay,

we’re opposites you see.

Then I heard you’d checked into re-hab

as I was checking out at Lidl

horses for courses,

what could be more opposite?

Now it seems you’ve turned into a princess

and I’ve turned out to be the pantomime villain

as I expose your vanity

as they say,

opposites do not always attract.

.

.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2019