~

Shropshire’s rolling hills

envelope our route,

overlooking the path like

a roughly shaken blanket,

the billowing domes squatting

gently astride its valleys,

this morning the sun rose

secretively behind the Ragleth

and feigned to hide for a time

throwing a rich orange smudge 

across the skyline before coyly

showing its pale face,

we walked up to see the wild ponies

on the Carding Mill path, a jigsaw 

of ice, mud and stones,

walkers scrambling like multi-coloured 

beetles across the stream to

avoid parts of the frozen path,

the ponies, some pregnant, stood

impassively curious, if a tad stern,

as if we had no right to intrude

upon their Sunday morning,

but it was the treacherous footing

that curtailed our stroll

and the lure of hot chocolate

from the bustling cafe

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

we all sit facing the front

on chipped tubular steel chairs

each crudely marked with a sharpie, 

‘X-Ray’ evidently some are known to 

have escaped as far as A&E,

obediently we await our call

silently ill-at-ease, contemplative,

but there is one exception, a gorgon 

who enters, child in tow, for whom 

nothing has ever been, or ever will be, 

satisfactory and quickly we learn about

her entire complex medical history,

unwittingly we have become the audience

of a circus of the peculiar, a mismatched club

that none of us have consciously paid to join,

a stream of variety acts on trolleys 

parade past like buses, often in threes 

carrying pallid deathly patients, who 

wince and grown to garner sympathy

as they are wheeled carefully by as if 

for our perusal,

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

listening to old Dylan stuff,

it was never, ever about the music

clever as those untidy rhythms were,

acoustic or electric, a Messiah or Judas

his words still sit in my head,

the lexicon of my 60’s adolescence

uncomfortably wedged between

Chaucer and Shakespeare,

a no-shit sandwich that has fed me

for more than sixty years

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

our days are darkening, 

a sinister cloudless pall

has been carefully daubed 

across our vision so we no

longer recognize ourselves,

~

the paper bag into which we 

have subconsciously been 

hyperventilating is already 

damp, and threatens to 

disintegrate between our 

desperate fumbling fingers,

~

familiar norms have become

perilous tightropes that we 

must learn to traverse with

heightened care,

~

our language, symbols, and

traditions have become the

pariahs of their own celebrated 

ancestry with some redacted 

and others re-imagined, leaving

us choked by our own tongues,

~

our days are darkening, it is 

getting harder to breathe freely

*

© Graham R Sherwood 01/25

~

~

in 1968, we were young lovers too

studying the bard and beguiled by 

your pure beauty and innocence,

our story was captured within 

those perfect words and that

captivating film set in fair Verona,

but we woke today to dreadful news

delivered as usual cold as mutton

from a distant place and another time, 

the tragic news of your second death

~

like the smooth easy words of a 

scurrilous lover, the promise

of this morning’s pale pinks 

and blues have come to nought

leaving the sky dull, bland and

unsatisfyingly monochrome,

~

the chill is at low single figures

pinched by a keen breeze,

so, I don a heavier coat and

more sensible shoes to search

for a holly bush with berries,

~

close to the railway line it is

seldom trod being uneven and

untended but here, there are sloe

bushes that have already filled

the gin flagons with plump fruit,

and high up, out of reach, mistletoe 

hangs like tantalizing damp pearls,

~

having pocketed my lucky 

pebble I have high hopes and

sure enough, there is holly too,

tangled boughs of the soapy

dark green leaves bristle at my

approach, their custard-tipped

spears alert to strike my eager

fingers; but precious few berries

adorn the shiny sprigs,

~

after tea, with wreaths bound

as if to commiserate for the lack

of berries, a crimson dusk ‘bloods’

the horizon, and the scurrilous lover

dares to show his face once more

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/24

~

from the darkness I become 

aware of a gentle vibration,

a distant throb as if a ship 

having crested the horizon, 

was now slowly approaching

safe haven at my bedside,

fifty times a minute, a satisfying 

although precarious rhythm,

a jailor counting out a 

sentence, second by second,

or a reassuring presence

stroking my arm, 

like a pendulum my psyche 

swings between both options 

cautiously and wantonly,

life is now recorded by a 

device shackled to my wrist, 

it tabulates and delivers vital 

signs over breakfast, in ambivalent 

digital black and white numbers

all’s well for another day it seems

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/24

~

I came here to work

more than forty years ago,

before this town that called 

itself a city, became a city,

we both, the city and me,

worked hard to put down

solid foundations, to grow

to flourish, sometimes we

worked so hard the growth 

went unnoticed,

my children became adults,

became mothers and fathers

right beneath my nose, 

the city grew ever taller its 

limbs longer, wider, busier,

I can see its pulse from my 

window, throbbing, flashing

in neon clothing, clearly an

animal of the darkness, an

entity enjoying its spoils at

ease with its new crown,

my wistful eyes now make 

the obvious comparison,

like my children the city

has come of age, has become

brave, now clad in a steely 

confident carapace that no 

longer needs my labour,

no longer wants my lifeblood 

but still dines on my heart

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/24

~

out of the blue, an old school 

photograph posted on social 

media, the class of ’62,

beautiful young children, 

all smiling as directed,

the pretty ones the quiet ones

the brainy ones the sporty ones,

I can name them all, some 

sixty years after, 

then I look again, realizing that 

if the image were taken today, 

many of those present would 

sadly, be marked as absent,

some of us have aged, becoming

wrinkled and now talk only of 

medications and pain but others 

in that picture will look

forever young which makes me sad,

then I look again, at those fresh

unblemished faces and cannot

help but feel a little envious and

that makes me feel sadder

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/24

~

we move at different speeds 

her ten years of ‘can’t wait’ to 

become eleven rip by apace,

I cling grimly to my present with 

bleeding fingernails, ruefully 

watching my past steadily 

snowball behind me,

she tells me excitedly of her

wonderful plans and I feign

a thinly colluded delight, always

wondering if I will be around to

share in her assured successes,

we readily pour our never-ending

urn of love into the fathomless 

well where our grandchildren 

thrive, asking nothing in return 

other than the chance to see 

our own tomorrows today

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/24