~

It took a kitchen sink,

a new kitchen sink at that

to finally get us together,

the three of us working

like a family firm, roles defined

strengths and weaknesses

understood, accepted.

Later, over beers

I sit and watch them,

two fine sons, each extolling

the virtues of micro-breweries

they have visited,

me listening intently for once

stroking a cool IPA

soaking up their easy banter.

Later still, after a 

‘don’t tell your mother’ curry

we settle to vintage wines, serious

and rich childhood memories

bubble to the surface, making me think

I did a half-decent job.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

(A composite observation).

~

I study the schoolgirl

the one with the nervous gait

in the short, pleated skirt

and incredible thighs,

her eyes, dark enough

to frighten the crows

piano key teeth

wearing thin ballet shoes,

school blazer billowing

mane all over the place

slips into a Qashqai

always driven by mum,

My mindless reverie

all thirty seconds each week 

I muse ‘68 once again on repeat.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

(Close to home).

~

Squeeze your fist tightly

then release,

watch your bicep

convulse and relax,

it doesn’t matter how big,

now do it every second

every second for every minute

every minute for every hour

every day, week, year, 

however long is a life.

Are you getting tired yet?

Then you better hope your heart isn’t.

*

© Graham Sherwood 03/2020

The seed is planted

needing life, to live itself

and we readily comply

offering ourselves as hosts.

In a blink of time we

have given birth to a thought,

lit an uncontrollable fire, watching

Pandora’s nanosecond of madness, 

reap celebration or despair,

both unwittingly fan the flames.

We might scatter and carry the seed

spreading its bounteous harvest, or

seek true redemption with stoicism

refusing to recognise the zeitgeist,

choosing to maintain the faith.

Infant prophets have been ignored before

cultists too, messiahs shunned, so we

play pass the parcel

and keep the music loud,

before another record falls.

*

Graham Sherwood 02/2020

We are being played

wearing pixels like crowns,

pupils dilate to hypnosis

in search of other worlds

we ponder what form

the inhabitants might take.

The truth lies hidden

but convinced, we cultivate

the fiction and the false alarms

the visitors and the abductees

in plain sight, cloaked.

We’ve exchanged a ton of kryptonite

for an ounce of A.I.

Superman for an feeble avatar,

we hide our children from paedophiles

but let them free 

to roam the cosmos alone.

Extra-terrestrials sit on our desks

they control our time, our thoughts

our eating habits, even sleep,

while huge telescopes scan the infinite

miniscule pin-pricks of light

shoot from our palms

and render us defenceless.

*

© Graham Sherwood 02/2020

They sit like beleaguered gods and stare,

thoughts lost amongst the minutiae

searching

unable to plot a path home,

considering aspects, eclipses, tides, gravity

distances, light, time, matter,

beards are stroked knowingly

lips purse, heads nod

a trillion calculations, assumptions

each passively recorded

on this, their personal Olympus.

*

© Graham Sherwood 02/2020

No ceremony, no portent

a lazy drizzle in bright February sun,

unheralded, the rainbow appears

forged from the darkest slate grey

and the wheaten brilliance,

majestically spanning its ribbon of colours

the briefest of interludes, seconds,

vibrant, ecstatic, spellbinding

then gone, and with it 

the life force of the afternoon.

*

© Graham Sherwood 02/2020

Somewhere, just out of sight

around a blind corner in the maze

of electronica,

a rhythmic frog noise burps in two pitches

too loudly to encourage sleep.

I am wired, into telemetry

a racing driver would be proud to wear

but all I can think is that the suction caps

tug at my considerable chest hair

and make me even more fucking miserable.

Heart failure, that’s its real name

I’d better get used to it,

that two-pennyworth of muscle

that keeps the lights on, has finally

decided to blink and ask for help.

I’m in the bargaining-chip age range

sixty-eight

not young enough to be outraged

not old enough to be given up on,

rocked, shocked and desolate

a statistic at last.

*

© Graham Sherwood 02/2020

A ghastly place.

Is it right to commemorate horror 

with such a macabre shrine?

Should its very existence be eradicated?

Surely, memories do not need to be housed in buildings,

the very bricks themselves are ashamed

to be custodians of such atrocity.

*

© Graham Sherwood 02/2020

Pretty Chiroubles, 

silent on its lofty perch

casts a caring weather eye

across the gentle rolling hills

now festooned with naked vines.

Where the rose-pink granite

is scrubbed away

a weak November sun

tints the unpicked wasting fruit. 

A new season is at hand,

the summer’s vibrant sap retreats

and sarments burn on wispy fires,

lazy blue/grey smoke 

amongst the Chenas oaks

quells a distant buzzard’s squeals 

around the Morgon Cote de Puy.

© Graham Sherwood 01/2020