Spinnaker set to west

my paper galleon of a life

lurches towards the storm clouds

that must surely carry rain

 

Grumbling and groaning

the once carefully folded timbers

tossed over six decades and six

begin to let water.

 

I lie to myself for reassurance

but secretly wonder if the sheets

would make a serviceable lifeboat

or merely a half-decent shroud.

 

Time’s impatient waves slather at my keel

baying dogs licking and clawing

determined to drag down their prey

as ink bleeds freely off the figurehead.

 

In this tormented reverie

reminiscences of shipmates

safely coloured in the past

whistle through the rigging ropes.

 

Those proud shanty cameos

of yesteryear’s daring adventures

crystalize the salinity of the main

and wet my eyes.

 

I bid departing ships

fair weather.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood  08/2018

 

I had the “After the Goldrush” jeans”

patches on the arse, leather flared inserts

a railway coat over a Levi shirt,

your father, Polish, called me a tramp.

I can still feel the reassuring weight

of your finger hooked in a beltloop

warm arm around my waist,

God we were so young, so brave.

To my star-crossed eyes

you were Jean Shrimpton

a potato sack would have shone on you

legs that stretched to heaven

hair brushing your hips.

I took you home on a Sunday morning

wearing Saturday night’s decadence

now out of place

wrinkled and bed-worn,

your mother asking where you’d slept

me choking on my tea,

as you nodded in my direction

everything was cool,

and I knew there and then that it would work.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

The high stools closest to the window

were the most highly-prized

perched teetering on the end of the physics lab bench

I often felt like a condemned pirate awaiting the drop.

Bad enough to be stifling hot

school blazers had to stay on, ties too

and the intricate secrets of

the coefficient of thermal expansion

persistently avoided my half-hearted grasp.

But at half past two, every Wednesday,

on the netball court outside room 10

there she was

Lesley, the school goddess

first one out the changing rooms as usual,

spray-on shorts half the size of anyone else’s

two or three bounces nearer

and then a pause,

now no more than ten feet away

ball between her knees

pin between pursed lips

capturing some errant wisps of hair

midriff bare

an unobtainable beauty

a fourth-year, me a pitiable second.

Amid the daydream of her pert breasts

those long perfectly shapely legs

angelic face and knowing smile

it dawned on me

there and then

locked in for eternity,

how the size of an object changes

with a change in temperature,

measuring the fractional change in size

per degree change in temperature

at a constant pressure.

 

Thank you Leslie!

 

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

 

I shredded another box of your stuff today,

just papers, business, statements and the like,

nothing personal.

Your affairs, amongst an angry whirring drone

fall like snowflakes into a bucket,

a cross-cut life.

Its going in a trench, beneath manure

and this season’s runner beans,

chaff and horseshit turned into veg.

Saved from this cutting fate,

a neatly-folded fire insurance certificate

from the Prudential dated 1949,

priced 4s 6d.

It wouldn’t buy a box of matches today.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 4/2012

I remember we met, almost colliding

in a doorway,

too close to be gallant,

your glance initially defensive

was framed with embarrassed irritation

washing over me like spilt wine,

at best inconvenient,

or worse

messy enough to navigate around with care.

 

Those young earnest eyes

orbiting in front of mine for days after,

morphing chameleon-like

cautiously adventurous,

then daringly fearful,

sometimes optimistic whilst expecting

nothing but trust from the echo.

 

Were it possible

for us to meet again

in fifty years or so, those eyes

would still be bright, tinged

with a schoolgirl naiveté, and

bristling with a knowing

that I’ve never forgotten

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 08/2017

The milk blue swell

topped with silver crowns

breathes long a heavy sigh,

nudging the reef at Varley Head,

beer foam swamps the Shillingstones

roaring into its craggy gugs.

Three skiffs lie beached on dog leash chains

whilst unleashed dogs, seek

piddle smells to sniff,

bored grockles peer in tiny trinket shops

and follow pasty smells through the lanes.

These silent streets keep echoes warm

The Bark House nets, the Dolphin’s ale

and ghosts of shanties whispered low

swirl around old salted stones

like chimney smoke.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 5/2011

 

Crumpled beneath troubled cumulus

the island

a badly shaken tablecloth

lies carelessly thrown,

its frayed edge chines

dip their hems into the sea.

 

This wight,

a diamond crumb

harshly torn,

ripped from Hampshire’s

fractured skirts,

crouches wind-blown-wild

as witches knickers like spinnakers

flap loudly in the trees.

 

To quench this tempest

dragon’s teeth needles

slather in wild surf

and flippantly percolate the spume

skyward

in frittered foam cloth

 

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 03/2017

 

she is river child

bathing naked

in the current of life

 

writhing, meandering,

her languid unclothed dance

lazily brushes bank to bank

 

inundating soft boundaries

over-spilling, foundering, re-shaping

before returning to her course

 

in this tortuous foment

naïve, exposed, laid bare

she is river child

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

 

Not the best of weather to begin my Camino,

clipped slate clouds so low I stoop beneath them

their ominous jags hanging stalactite fashion,

there’s a stiff riffle of a breeze squaring-up

determined to push me back indoors.

 

my best intentions

fractured porcelain mosaics

my fortitude pierced

 

Threading gently in this dull malaise

wind-song charms my ears with distant pipes,

seduced I check my retreat, turn to meet the road

and stride south toward a promised sun,

seeking enlightenment, settled thoughts, clarity.

 

modern life strangles

my spirituality

creativity

 

The path becomes my blood brother

spilt red on red dust, as one, symbiosis

drawing me further on to find the pallid sun,

oak staff my compass needle, magnetized

by the much-trodden holy way.

 

thus, I am beguiled

my determination flies

campaniles ring out

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2017

Immense cirrus streaks,

comfortably a mile wide,

span the big blue.

Phantasmagorical doves

pure white fingers,

like fanned flames,

frantic, flaring

overpowering us

we cower on the beach.

The twin tides are out and

Burgh, is no longer an island

so we trudge to the Pilchard

for beer, sandwiches and

a chance to gawp at

the Great White Palace

and dream of staying there.

Your heavy pregnancy curtails

anything more than a paddle,

knee-deep in the azure shallows,

soon we return to the towels, shaded

for your nap.

The late afternoon is gently

muscled into submission,

the chisk of early evening tides

vies for our ears

above the children’s frivolity.

Burgh Island sighs once again

and reluctantly draws up her skirts,

we bash our castles to dust

and head for home.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018