Become aware of holding the pencil,

think about how your fingers

will add a patina to the wood.

Stroke the paper 

upon which you intend to make a mark,

before you begin to write

look out of the window

the view may look the same as yesterday

but something will have changed.

notice it, enjoy it, record it.

Only use the words you need,

distil your thoughts, make them strong

leave a good impression,

take as much time as you need

there is no rush.

*

© Graham Sherwood 04/2020

We watch death approach passively

as would cattle, penned at an abattoir

with little to see, able only

to bathe in its anxiety and wait.

Where prisoners serve a sentence

we have none specified, forced to 

mindlessly endure and hope for pardon

as death weakens, is sated.

Introspection breeds resolution

for change, a renewal, an awakening

values are tabled and handled fondly

as we listen for news.

*

© Graham Sherwood 04/2020

I am prisoner to the invisible jailor,

forced to audition as leading man 

in my personal Hitchcockian drama

in which death stalks my neighbourhood,

a flagrant killer waiting patiently for my demise.

My life support comes packaged and

delivered by mute couriers, 

white van pollinators

busying between the doorsteps, house-to-house.

I hear constant warnings, fear, dire consequences

but I am eager to see life, movement,

so have become a voyeur

after dark, before curtains are drawn

covertly studying the mundane

spying on other people’s still life tableaux,

each starring in their own private movie.

*

© Graham Sherwood 04/2020

When danger seeps

some gentle press of melancholy

a tremulous catch upon the throat

or the heavy weight of torpor,

make haste to your safe space

put on a heavy coat of books 

hide beneath a rich curtain of music

be guarded by old family photographs

precious mementos will warm you

summon strength from old diaries

and epic poems,

reminisce with fishing rods

old walking poles and compasses

broken toys you meant to fix

posters from your salad days,

danger has no currency there.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

two words conflict,

one secreted in its carapace

behind a window safely waving 

to the passing world, 

a second, delicately-skinned

fruit that can be stroked

cosseted and immersed in.

but here we are,

we might say ‘stay in touch’

knowing we cannot hug or kiss

or we may write ‘keep in contact’ 

an easier proposition

with message, mail or gestures,

so, we become reduced

and watch the subtle touch

of fruit decay before our eyes,

the perfect bloom of skin, 

left to parch and wrinkle

for lack of our soft caresses

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

Unusual for you to wake me,

for a moment I was concerned but

as I turned the curtains were aflame

with the blush of an early marmalade sun

spread full across the window,

there being few leaves on the damson yet

to hinder it.

Your arm was bolt upright, 

finger pointing to the ceiling, signposting the light,

an upside-down bouquet, an explosion

of twelve individual rosebuds in Lalique glass.

Through a slim crack in the curtain

one flowerhead, just one, was brilliantly

illuminated.

In these disturbing times

it was a sign you said.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

You asked me if I was frightened 

I answered yes,

I’m unnerved by the absence of normal,

even the wayward, the brave, the reckless

understand normal,

otherwise how could they become rebels

I’m anxious 

about the lack of experts,

real experts in this sort of thing, but

nothing’s happened like this before

a real-life disaster movie scenario,

it might as well be an alien invasion

ergo experts are thin on the ground.

Me, I’ve always needed a plan, a route

clearly defined and mapped out

something to keep returning to,

a beacon is good, a destination better

of course, I find this god-forsaken mess

a worry,

don’t you?

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

If we hadn’t had the children, 

this would have been our fate

no smudged lip prints on the window

no scuffed knees straddling the gate,

toys still boxed too tidily

the biscuit tin secure

incessant babbling absent

how much more can we endure,

no shoes strewn across the lobby

no coats draped across the newels

beds turned into pirate ships

old cutlery our jewels,

a tender thread’s been broken

our childish gossamer to your heart

we just wave on social media now

quarantined to keep apart.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

This is how it will all end!

This dry-run at our real-life

dystopian, storybook ending,

the pathetic lack of trust and

frenetic me-first hoarding,

bunker mentality before benevolence

embalmed as social responsibility,

a devious ploy to deliver mind-fucks

in splendid solitary confinement

isolated, hopeless, disorientated.

Like ants that carry poison

back to our communal nest

this touch-screen smart-arsed world

has fatally licked our faces with broadband speed

our very fibre frays and burns-out from within

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

We age, and our life pages turn relentlessly,

some, previously written are stolen,

defaced one by one, erased or camouflaged 

from our crumbling memories.

Old fishing ponds have been filled in

to become housing estates,

defunct train lines ripped up, whole stations demolished even

for industrial or retail development,

old homes have been razed, larger houses 

built with no gardens for children,

bustling corner shop doorways boarded up

together with chilly memories of teenage first kisses.

This wanton progress, 

whilst re-shaping the future, erases our past,

loosening our grip on earlier realities, now

sighs of resignation are merely painless arrows

that carry a debilitating draught,

personal histories drugged into forgetfulness,

past lives remaindered 

as our biographies fox and gather dust.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020