it’s so important, for me

when I open a bottle of wine

to be able to say

I know this man, I’ve witnessed

his passion, I’ve held his hand

the hand that made this wine,

I have eaten at his table, looked

into his eyes, glass in hand

and shown my gratitude 

without needing to speak

*

© Graham R Sherwood 11/22

it’s in my blood,

this ache to return

to have a poke around, 

see what’s changed

it was my home once 

I lived here, was born here

I flit back occasionally,

a moth to a flame 

chaotic unplanned visits 

with scant regularity

  ~                                  

“don’t be concerned, 

 it will not harm you

 it’s only me pursuing 

 something I’m not sure of”

~

then my Libra takes over

weighing things in the

emotional balance

you shouldn’t have returned

you left for a better life

outside, somewhere else

don’t you understand

you don’t belong here

~

“tell me over and over 

and over again my friend”

~

so, I walk the lanes slowly

for fear of waking memory ghosts

asleep behind the russet stones

~

“listen do you want to know a secret”

~

they slumber these long years

a dormant cast 

museum exhibits,

faces only I can see, wait for me

~

“every time that you walk in the room”

~                                    

the old friends I see

are now truly old but 

recall only their young faces

 blood brothers I once knew

played with, laughed with, 

cried with, would have died for

walks seemed longer then

trees taller, roads safer,

days warmer

~

“watching and waiting 

for a friend to play with” 

~                  

innocence long gone

past girlfriends gone

taken as wives, now mothers

old adversaries 

some long dead, 

now benign as am I

old warriors seeing sense

teenage vendettas cold

 let sleeping dogs lie

~

“first there were heartaches, 

then there were tears”

~

I stand head bowed

bad places, blood on the road

a phone box, a bus stop

an ale jug, a tea towel

a chip shop, a moped

two lying dead

~

“Oh lord, please don’t let 

me be misunderstood”

~

these days I walk the lanes 

slowly, there is too much to see

 the music too loud

*

© Graham R Sherwood 11/22

half-term, unpaid childcare

what else would we do, the place 

comes highly recommended 

not an arm and a leg to get in

it sounds familiar

only half an hour by car

we’re on

we’re hooked

we’re off

it’s busy obviously

half term remember

logs delineate parking spaces

4×4 city picnic world, kid haven

the publicity is bang-on

It’s very very good

good adventure playground

good hiking and cycling

and most important of all

bloody good coffee

kids smother the climbers

ropes slides and tunnels

like killer ants

their chorale noises both 

enchant and assault my ears

we set up base-camp

so she knows where 

to come back to for lunch

as she becomes a killer ant

I need a pee, bloody furosemide

and go in search of one

on the way back it hits me

a flash of retrospection

the church across the valley

St Peter’s, the lakes much 

gentrified now but still familiar

I’m upwind of the kids cacophony

all I can hear is the rattle 

of reeds and bulrushes

pranked by the slightest zephyr

and the dapping of ripples

like supping trout

I used to fish here, with him

my late father

could only have been about eight

no more than ten for sure

they were just gravel pits then

good sport if the nearby river

was slow or in spate

bikes left in nettles

would still be there on the way back

it was my paradise then

a different sort of haven

another calmer quieter

adventure playground

*

Graham R Sherwood 10/22

the weather, fighting itself

 can’t make its mind up and 

catches me out once again

I’m over-dressed 

in tepid sun,

a sudden gust and

the crisp reds golds

and browns spin 

around my boots like

a knee-deep chaos

of playground children

fluttering aimlessly,

these miscreants are

goaded on by the flapping

rattle of tree-born

branch stragglers

that chelp away 

above me in unison

enjoying my confusion

*

© Graham R Sherwood 10/22

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