~

some days, like today

I feel the need to climb,

obtain a clearer view

a broader panorama with 

few if any boundaries,

to feel a cooler wind

across my face,

some days like today

I convince myself to stir 

the silt of my contentment

and hanker for a broader

vista, like that accorded 

to the seafarer, who sees

no stable horizon, I know

other men, braver than I

have witnessed more, have

spoken in different tongues,

travelled further and return

to tell fantastical stories,

some days like today

I reckon up my life and 

consider the journey still

not taken, paths not chosen

people yet to meet,

some days like today

I feel the need to climb

and become a better man

*

© GRS 9/24

~

words arrive like meteors,

songs born from the earth

they hit my brain 

like heavy rain

new folklore given birth,

I don’t do much rehearsing

it knits together fast

pure rhythm springs

across these strings

anthems built to last,

I know this is a golden time

and none may do me harm

ethereal material, the

muse hangs on my arm,

one day I’ll give the girl away

the harvest will be mine

these silver frets 

have no regrets

in this my time to shine

GRS 09/24.

~

graffiti appears overnight

created it seems as we sleep 

like teenagers’ acne,

akin to most unwanted

arrivals, it looks worse if

attempts are made to erase it,

the acne carries a clear,

strong message, a herald

to puberty and growth,

with graffiti the tenet is

usually vague, convoluted

and indecipherable,

a great irony exists as the

exponent of graffiti is often

the sufferer of the acne,

truly, nature’s way of

tarring someone with

their own brush,

*

© GRS 9/24

~

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