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

~

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