I see you running, languid
like a toned athlete
everything working in a straight line, syncopated
before you tumble and flip over
the metal bike park hoops
without a care, flashing your pants,
untamed hair upside down
hanging like a ogre’s beard, inverted
you glance at my terrified face
and send me that mischievous smile
which silently comforts
‘Don’t worry Papa’.
O that I could freeze you there
in that perfect childhood moment.

*

© Graham Sherwood 07/2019

We sleepwalked to this union
and its devious, contrived claws
led by faceless souls and ambivalence
a club to end all wars.

Where nation speaks unto nation
no communality of tongue
apart from broken English 
an anthem left unsung.

A vastly corrupt confrerie
a wondrous seat at table
until one mentions exodus
to leave if one is able.

Divorce, a deal, a payment
ambivalence is lost
the faceless faced with heresy
can only count the cost.

Close to the heart, our faceless
squirm to the left and to the right
on battle weary chargers
talk broken English shite.

The gravy train is near derailed
the station master shakes
passengers now walk the tracks
union fractures as it quakes

*

© Graham Sherwood 07/2019

Just a scrap of black fluff,

I’d never have noticed

were it not for the worry

of the mother bird 

her grub-stuffed beak

darting in and out of the ivy,

a regular, frail cheep

rewarded all afternoon

before the fast that darkness brings.

With the chick in the open

and the threat of next door’s

bastard cat,

I gave it a hasty refuge 

a broken garden trug

stuffed with strips of newspaper,

a slim chance at least.

Tough little bugger

still hunkered down come morning,

another day of delivered treats,

mother urging survival

now from dense underplanting,

that persistent cheep marking out the day.

There are several young blackbirds in the trees

a hidden nursery,

my little ball of black fluff

might be one.

*

© Graham Sherwood 07/2019

I discard any thoughts of sanity

sitting here, well below the salt,

harking intently

to the panoply of experts pondering

catalysts, paradigms and blame.

My Trappist quarantine,

self-imposed, hangs heavily

like a condemned man, who 

considering his final request,

is mindful of its ultimate disappointment.

For experts never heed advice

require no Agora, no audience, no theatre

but balancing on the fragile flotsam 

of their certainty,

will always steer towards the sun.

*

© Graham Sherwood 07/2019

Your ironstone village idyll is forever soured

the quaint stone cottages dulled and tainted, 

now turn from red gold to rust

decaying slowly as do you.

You, the selfless nurse, now being nursed

a spouse not two-years in the ground, and

left to embrace brief interludes

of pain, tears, grief and making do.

As your cancer slowly masticates

a favourite song coats your lips

like warm poison, a whispered,

‘only half the man I used to be’

And those of us who know you well

concur you’re twice the man 

we ever were.

*

© Graham Sherwood 07/2019

The thirty-three degrees circus

has upped and gone

the colourful itinerant jamboree

unhitched its wagons in the torpor

of a listless night

and secretively rolled away

to newer climes,

leaving us behind, lucky

to have enjoyed her spectacle

sad at her promiscuous brevity

*

© Graham Sherwood 06/19

I don’t keep the curtains drawn in the summer,

being at the rear,

the sitting room is not overlooked and

I like to watch the day slide away, 

the trees briefly silhouetted until darkness

smothers the garden’s subtle colours.

I wasn’t expecting lightening

it wasn’t forecast, just one flash 

both surprising and rather disappointing

the blackness turning to a negative

resetting instantaneously, as did my attention 

to an old concert on TV.

I don’t know how long the figure 

had been standing there

outside the patio windows,

it just seemed to have loomed into view

as if focussed by a lens,

no features just shape, human shape,

greyness in front of the black

immobile.

I ought to have been frightened

nagged my thought processes but

there was no fear

as I walked tentatively to the window

and stood there, face to form

no words, no movement,

both transfixed sandwiching the glass.

after and age I returned to my chair

I don’t know why,

the form remained motionless

an intent voyeur.

I realised that I was crying

a relieved sob, as if in recognition

as the dark shape moved

with an almost imperceptible nod

before fading out join the blackness,

as the music faded in

‘us and them, after all 

we’re only ordinary men’.

*

© Graham Sherwood 06/2019

(lyrics Pink Floyd)

You are crying

that distraught, devastating wail

as if there has been news

of the death of a dear one

or the cruelest of disappointments

I am laughing 

a jaw-aching ecstatic howl 

with sublime tears spilling

relentlessly as my shoulders

heave uncontrollably.

As you face the mirror

and I stand at your shoulder 

our faces are identical.

*

© Graham Sherwood 06/2019

I am ageing,

the world I thought I knew

 is in flux around my unsteady feet,

contorting in metamorphosis

as traditions, conventions 

codes and civilities

that, once held dear, lie

butchered and defeated

by the sniggering barbs

of wanton change;

change without progress,

a weakening fluidity

for facile inertia

easy meat, fast-food humour

masquerading as a fashionable

paradigm, 

hollow and politically toothless,

I am ageing

the world I thought I knew

is demented and 

recognizes me no longer

*

© Graham Sherwood 06/2019

Ancient knowing walls and an ivy-hidden gateway

jealously enfold the earth’s green aromas

damp soil, vegetation and softened wood.

Aged wisdom, old tools, straight lines

where canes, sisal and markers sign the paths

nets, sticks and cloches stand sentry for tender shoots.

There’s a calm here, a wash that cleanses

the mind and softens the heart,

bringing a warm melancholy, peace.

Even the raucous scrape of a spade

is damped by the peculiar, intensely heady climat.

Time is slowed, breathing slower

herbal scents arrive as onshore breezes

seeping from the valley below.

And out of focus, barely seen

Mevagissey’s lost boys

go silently about their gentle business.

*

© Graham Sherwood 06/2019