it’s the first frost of the winter

the cemetery silent

carpeted in red orange brown and gold 

leaf fall that makes a magical rustle 

in this crisp chill sunshine

no-one to sweep them into neat piles,

my ear picks out a sound in the thin air

a metallic clink scrape scratching

and I see the diligent lone workman

re-pointing the russet stones

of the chapel of rest,

ashamedly it’s been eleven years

the sudden realisation dawns

I don’t know where you are

all I remember is a corner

and the path now hidden

under autumn’s demise,

all the headstones face away

from the chapel

the intention to face the sunrise

already throwing long shadows

behind four ancient yews,

I immerse myself in the names

a roll call of my childhood

a school register of familiarity

unhelpfully called in random fashion

mothers fathers grandparents like my own

asleep three decades or more

and on a corner, now familiar

with your back to me

finally there you are!

*

© Graham Sherwood 11/2020

morning, 

again we wake together

and silently

independently give thanks

with eyes still closed,

somehow my hand finds yours

and my thumb strokes a knuckle

and then your wrist

the lightest touch, 

your skin moving beneath my finger

life force pulsing 

rhythmically

in the quietude

*

© Graham Sherwood 11/2020

big wide eyes

storm grey

a frightened fawn running 

her arse sticking out

legs cart-wheeling,

what I remember most

apart from her beauty were

the heavily ink-stained fingers

that smelled of cold toast

and Marmite,

her sandals hardly touching the ground

as she galloped

across the quad,

I was entranced

without knowing why

as we boys gave chase

unsure who would be granted

the kiss.

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

I kneel in graveside dirt

and drop a handful of dust

a mere six feet

whilst searching for a meaning

for this death,

elsewhere in other news

two-hundred and five million

fifty-two thousand

four hundred and ninety-three

miles away

a small machine falls

to the surface of a rock

just five-hundred metres wide

to grab a handful of dust

whilst searching for the origins of life

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

amalgamation of data stubbed

linear-biased input routines

generate optional deviations

open-ended or conclusive viabilities

rewound into classical strategies

identify specific directive

task-orientated pathways

holding devices and calculative

manuscripted resources producing

single outcome definitions

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

clever words curl from the tongue of my pencil

I am minded of a presence at my shoulder,

an entity I cannot identify, a strange sense

silently holding space there, out of sight

I do not fear it, am intrigued

but wonder if my words are being shaped,

are being crafted wittingly 

by this subliminal visitation,

eventually of course I crack

and push back my chair

expecting a resistance, 

there’s none but the spell is broken, 

the words liquify and reform

unrecognisably, they are not mine

they lock me out

and bid me publish or be damned

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

Do you remember the pigeonnier

that sweltering July in the Dordogne sunshine,

the heady aroma of

overripe tomatoes and unctuous melons

painting the flavour of each day,

you swam naked and 

played tennis in your underclothes

I couldn’t look at you,

we took close-up photographs

of the drunken bowing sunflower heads

black seeds smearing your bare shoulders

treading barefoot like a ballerina,

Pecharment was our sedative, as

foolish newly-fledged owlets 

returned each night and

kept us awake in our separate rooms.

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

it’s misfiring

the sequence isn’t right

surely you can hear it?

we’ve checked it over

and a valve needs replacing, otherwise

everything else is in good order

it’s best if we swap it now

put a new one in

while everything else is still working, and 

before that wears out too

but the choice is yours

what choice?

*

© Graham Sherwood 10/2020

please understand the concept

 that ‘now’ does not exist,

 and if you get that

 you’ll quickly realise

 neither does the future,

 so don’t look forward to it

 make plans for it

 tell each other that

 ‘one day’ you’ll do this or that,

 the only dead cert is the past

 and if it is written accurately

 recorded comprehensively

 unbiased and with honesty

 we can all sit back and relish

 what’s already been and gone

 without the worry, anticipation

 or false hope of what might be

*

© Graham Sherwood 09/2020

at last the tomato plants 

have begun to turn

it’s a good year albeit late

not so much chutney then after all,

the canopy of the willow

is already tinged orange-brown

parts of the understory hang lifeless too,

unthinking I feel the need to tidy

roll up hoses, tap out pots

bundle canes

gather early leaf fall, as if

I might sweep away this pitiful year,

a washing up bowlful of damsons 

and pricked sloes as big as grapes 

are already stored steeped in gin

keeping the claret company

in cellared darkness

something to look forward to

as thoughts of further incarceration

begin to trouble my early mornings

*

© Graham Sherwood 09/2020