if I were I to lose all this, 

if you were taken from me

or my health should fail, 

if friends were to desert me 

one by one,

if I were to lose all this

I would recall that night

that brilliant night 

myriad stars

silently walking home

both immersed in the quiet 

of our insignificance, 

and how we agreed

in that pallid moonlight 

that our minuscule place 

in the grand order of things

was all that mattered

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

scars are real 

unlike tattoos,

no picture painted

bravado artwork

scars are cut deep

true life etchings, 

chiselled experiences

good and bad,

personal palpable portable,

emotional, they mean something

when touched, 

stroked they make you think

shiver, cry, sigh, 

raise an ironic smile

scars are real, 

scars are cut deep

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

you know the score

News at Ten

never anything good to report,

a young girl goes missing 

somewhere, not here though

she’s from a decent area

same old same old

it goes in one ear out the other

it’s out of character evidently

police search everywhere

nothing

so do the locals en-masse

door to door enquiries

then it’s on the local news

parents sobbing through an appeal

posters go up everywhere

even on sides of buses

nothing

and then it happens here

not two miles away

on the next estate

and all the above starts over again

we all know the outcome

nothing

remember Suzy Lamplugh

and that chef girl from up north

Claudia Lawrence

and Madelaine McCann

in Portugal

all gone without a trace

nothing

three years it’s been and

she could be anywhere,

the posters have either gone

curled up ripped down

or been defaced by graffiti

now we have to think hard

to remember our girl’s name

Leah Croucher

that’s it, poor little bugger

nothing

then someone rings the police

with information

a house

some personal effects

human remains

in the loft

less than half a mile

from her home

been there three years

and we are interested 

once more, 

we wait knowing 

the outcome already

what can be done

nothing

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

I wouldn’t dare do this on my own, 

wandering around old stomping grounds,

a wry smile here a shake of the head there

a quizzical frown at changes made, 

ruing things missing from when 

we were young and knew 

everything and everybody

throwing up random questions 

in the air like playing jacks

hoping at least one 

safe pair of hands

would know the answer,

we Old Grey Walkers

a bunch of senior boys 

who hit the buffers years ago,

ambling in search of our

playgrounds long gone,

a dangerous gang 

now brandishing dulling memories

for sharpened sticks,

hugging trees but not climbing them,

blood test brothers

medication mates, 

bound by the magic chord

of a shared childhood,

when we reluctantly part 

the handshakes grip that little longer

smiling eyes meet 

with an unspoken manly love

each hoping upon hope

there’ll be at least another day

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

(Part of the Heroes and Villanelles Collection)

.

smooth gravel sifts through broken glass

none eluded that constant stare

the cutting voice, those knowing eyes

~                                             

two worlds spin, pitch perfect words          

be they sacred hymn or poet’s line

smooth gravel sifts through broken glass

~

gladiators white, some in padded armour             

battle bravely, thumbs up or down, before

the cutting voice, those knowing eyes

~

no boundaries held his ever-seeing eye

nor faults unpunished, unspoken, unrecorded

smooth gravel sifts through broken glass

~

his words were beautiful, coarsely put       

condensed and sculpted for our ears          

the cutting voice, those knowing eyes

~

Ernest Aujas Beaujolais and cricket teas

this, nature’s man, declared on seventy-seven      

smooth gravel sifts through broken glass

the cutting voice, those knowing eyes

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

shivering, a shrug crawls slowly

across my shoulders, settling

heavy like a woollen shawl,

I’m watching leaves

on the cherry bristle

with autumnal apprehension

in a stiffening breeze,

already seasonal amnesia 

has numbed my memory, 

blanked by thin persistent rain,

today I can’t remember the warmth

of those blistering days of 

perfect dawn to dusk heat sunshine,

fickle as fickle is, selfishly

we crave that we have already quenched,

Summer used up for yet another year

*

© Graham R Sherwood 09/22

it’s that point where

laughable fiction becomes reality,

and outrageous cinematic nonsense

is manufactured into science,

a shoot ‘em-up research project

plans a head-on crash

into a meteorite

unbelievable!

with somewhat bizarrely 

no sign of a Hollywood star

anywhere!

*

© Graham R Sherwood 09/22

like taking a core sample

searching, pushing deep

a savage gut twist,

Michelle ma Belle,

sont les mots qui vont

tres bien ensemble

an exhumation dragging 

memories back to the surface

kicking and screaming

as captured evidence

Lucy worked a different club every day

and though she put her mind to it

her heart was never in it

neat slices, a squandered life

a warts and all chronology

of where was I’s, who withs and 

remember whens

Sara, you’re the poet in my heart

Never change, never stop

my history laid bare, prone

clearer than any biography

dusting off the skeleton

of my ancient anxieties

Suzanne takes you down

to her place by the river

I feel I must dig deeper still

~

With credits, respect and apologies to

The Beatles, Al Stewart, Fleetwood Mac

and Leonard Cohen

*

© Graham R Sherwood 09/22

What curious souls we are 

fed on grief we thrive

then complain about the flavour, 

the world gifts bad news

most of it sparingly wrapped 

on which we dine lavishly,

never hungry and never sated

we gorge on others’ misfortune

sympathy and pity our condiments

what curious souls we are

*

Graham R Sherwood 09/22

at each minute 

on the minute

guttural, mute and sombre, 

the great bell beckons 

as a distant muffled cannon

measures out the crump of boots

a clink of sword, 

a harness rattle

unscripted shy applause

breaks like pass the parcel 

a sound somehow out of place,

brass fugues bellow softly 

sober tunes well-rehearsed

baptise each bowed head

each damp downcast eye

*

© Graham R Sherwood 09/22