~

by the time you were 

ready to go it was raining,

fat raindrops tumbling

like dropped pennies into

slick slate-grey puddles

across a silver pavement,

your mischievous eyes

flashed as you held a 

tartan beret upside down 

pretending to catch something

as if there were a prize, before

flippantly shaking it out 

all interest seemingly gone,

your lithe body seemed to

float, a sculpture brought to life, 

a soprano trill of laughter a

soundtrack to the downpour,

then before I realised it was goodbye,

I saw your head turn briefly

only the slightest glance, once 

over your right shoulder

with neither smile nor tears

just those beautiful eyes

calmly forming the words 

thank you 

*

© GRS 8/24

~

translucent alabaster, 

pallid angelic skin, 

eyes gently closed

as if in some holy reverie, 

her calm face tilted, 

supplicant to the sky

a passive beauty 

swathed in diaphanous, 

flowing robes cast into 

marbled rampant flames,

she ascends to glory joyous,

perfect, serene

*

© GRS 8/24

~

late summer colours 

begin to pall, feigning avarice 

for the coming of autumn,

the puberty of harvest time wains 

as days shorten, ripening slows,

and nights cool and darken,

beauteous youth looks over

its shoulder a final time

and covers bare flesh with

a richer cloth of maturity,

my time is approaching 

I am the autumn child 

a reaper, a gatherer, 

a conserver, a provider, 

a sweeper of leaves,

the sun moon and stars

hang gathered in my arms

I am the balance

*

© Graham R Sherwood 08/24

~

I stick out my tongue

like an upturned palm

as if testing for rain,

the city air, candle warm,

tastes of fetid cinders,

I tiptoe through a gallery

of vivid fast-food artwork

plastering the pavement

being critically considered

by cohorts of hungry pigeons,

the incessant clank, drone 

and squeal of a traffic snake

inching its cortege through

the city’s concrete veins

deftly impregnates the 

historic stones with toxic

cholesterol fumes, 

within this jumble sale of 

cultures, classes and creeds

everyone is struck dumb,

faceless, incognito, bowed

and busily pre-occupied,

no friendly Dixon bobbies

stroll the streets, 

new sirens proclaim

a new menace, that once 

having rained down from 

the skies, now rises darkly 

from the evil within

*

© GRS 8/24

~

I do not have the right

to call him a friend, he was

just someone I met in school

whom I have thought fondly 

of across these many years,

an elegant sportsman, a rare

quality in one so young, a

gentle fellow who also thought 

well of me and others too,

a recent photograph received

mirrored that life had not 

been kind to him at all and

now he has gone and with

him the opportunity to

relive old times, 

to smile, touch each other’s 

arm and say, 

‘yes it was good back then’

*

Graham R Sherwood 08/24

~

four old pennies buried 

in an Oxo tin, while playing

Treasure Island, I never found,

an old ex-army khaki groundsheet

thrown over the wash line,

became an expedition for 

Scott of the Antarctic

for days on end,

with the half a lorry-load 

of wooden beer crates my

father had procured and stacked

precariously against the top 

fence for fire lighters, I built 

a Spitfire to dogfight Germans,

the old dark hut rammed to 

the gunnels with useless 

grown-up stuff that we

were forbidden to enter was

our Journey to the Earth’s Core

adventure, with torches firmly

strapped to our heads by

our snake buckled belts,

but my finest hour, weather

permitting was of course in the 

entry between us and next door,

where with a splash of father’s 

Brylcreem I became Peter May

or Denis Compton saving the Ashes

or else fiery Freddie Trueman 

winning them single-handed,

we didn’t need to go far in

those endless summer days,

Boys Own adventures with my

sister by my side

*

© Graham Richard Sherwood 8/24

~

as the anniversary approaches

I become yet another year

older than my father,

I don’t expect congratulations, 

it’s not a celebration I look forward to, 

just another year where my face 

supplants his in the bathroom mirror 

causing me to think that he never looked 

this old, this creased,

I am forever his senior, 

now by more than a decade,

neither of us believed in paradise 

so thankfully there will be no awkward 

future reunions, although

infrequently in my dreams 

I know it’s him, but never see his face 

and I am always still his child,

so, another year in which 

I age glides by,

people have stopped saying 

that I look like him

although some of his mannerisms 

still haplessly give me away, 

of course, whilst I’ve missed him 

nigh on these forty years

I can’t see my father’s image 

any more, I’ve left him behind, 

as he left me far too early

*

© GRS 8/24

~ Loubes-Bernac

to the west a mile or so distant
across the emergent vines
a dumbed cracked chapel bell 
calls out across the valley
regularly two minutes late, 
a dull clang more a vain cry 
for help than solemn call to prayer,
it’s early and will be hot today
so we wake before the sun is 
fully risen to enjoy the sweet 
heady scents of dawn,
newly harvested grass rolls
stand like inert cattle, silently
facing the sunrise atop a short 
regrowth of wild flowers
rustic barns half-built or 
half falling down, 
old stone houses, paint
peeling, shuttered firmly 
against the torpid midday heat,
there is industry here, unseen
commerce that quietly tumbles
through the day, arresting only
for the sanctity of midday and 
a long fulfilling lunch,
ancient tractors abandoned
standing idly, hidden amongst 
tall grasses, play hide and 
seek with the passing years,
this petit-village sleeps in the
daytime, its young fledged
to brighter lights
by early evening all is quiet, 
the stifling quietude that 
smothered the land, accepts
a vanquished, surrender and
once more people quietly stir
within the cooling blaze, as the 
sizzling cacophony of crickets
ushers in the twilight

~ Le Chat

first to greet me, early 

before the rest wake

always in French of course, 

a long accented miaow, 

she’s undoubtedly a local 

but of no fixed abode

sleeps under the olive

or dozes on the giant

rolled grass bales in the 

field next door grazing 

on the foolhardy mice,

on occasion she struts 

around the pool posing as

a young Brigitte Bardot, dark

mascara splashes beneath

each wary feline eye, long

exaggerated languid strides,

yesterday quite by mistake

she almost caught a tiny lizard

that escaped without its tail,

whilst it amused her for a time

she’s far more proficient 

with field mice

~ Being Here

an evening sun pale marmalade

burnishes the hooped terracotta

roof tiles with a heavily laden brush,

it’s taken a week to stop thinking 

what the time is back in England

now I can’t remember the day,

my life has slowed, has become one

with this languorous pastorale, I

have changed, eased, become calm,

in the field, wild flower heads

hover like tiny white parachutes

over the grasses as insects do,

nudged gently by the warming breeze, 

I consider life, family, some of whom

are here with me and wonder

why we didn’t move here when

they were merely babes,

it is of course a heady spell, cast

bewitched by the gift of time, a

soporific imbalanced hex that

mesmerizes my emotions,

I can breathe here, think here

write here, be me here!

~

I’m a Tuesday’s child, born

the 289th day of that year,

the sign of the rabbit marks me 

as balanced, fair-minded, 

the books, if they are to be

believed, list me as perceptive

kind and self-assured,

was I built from day-one

character traits already set?

did I not have a say, or

an option in how I would

navigate through my own life? 

do invisible strings control me, 

resisting the speculative slash 

of a rebellious knife?

what if I could construct

my ideal self, could I really 

embody such a grand title 

one that my own mind’s eye 

considers perfect?

*

© GRS 7/24

~

twixt solstice and equinox 

we break bread to give thanks 

and bless the harvest’s fruit,

another Lammas Sabbat turns 

the yearly wheel full-circle

as days cool, colours turn

light fades earlier to become 

an infrequently timid visitor,

it’s time to take stock, 

renew and revalue life’s 

important things, prepare to 

light the darkness, 

dance with the young 

talk with the old, plan

for the future, record our past

*

GRS 7/24