~

a mischievous breeze

stings our faces under

a cloudless, pale blue 

thin sky that offers no 

explanation,

walkers stroll a little faster

without meaning to

keen gardeners choose rest 

instead and draw up the 

coming seasons’ plans,

the sun hangs camouflaged

pallid, silver, counterfeit 

demanding homage but with 

no credible currency,

we too are undecided

prowling like caged lions, 

irascible, unsatisfied twixt 

breakfast and lunchtime,

we woke with much promise 

but have been jilted by the 

cold breath and promiscuity 

of late March, left deflated to 

consider our meagre options

*

© GRS 4/25

~

the days glide by unnoticed, 

so too the growing of a child,

both moving imperceptibly, 

an unstoppable, irrepressible 

cycle cleverly tricking our

eyes with recurring familiarity

that blinds us,

as time feigns to stand still

life and age trickle forward, 

the young blossom as the old

begin to fade, both changing

slowly without ceremony as

days glide past unnoticed,

perpetual, unrelenting

*

© GRS 3/25 

~

long, long ago 

people formed opinions

and shared them freely with 

friends and neighbours

down the pub, 

outside a local shop, 

or simply moaned across 

the garden fence,

the news, views, opinions 

spreading like wildfire

on the jungle telegraph,

fast forward, any 

amount of years and

people still have strong

opinions but now share

them emphatically with

the world at large, with

people they don’t and

will never get to know, 

views and opinions now

called content, created

from the ether and sent

back into the ether

with bells on!

our world now awash with

venom, anger, rage and hate

has little content but more 

than enough discontent!

few know their neighbours

local shops are closed

pubs too are now fewer 

and far between, so

we have all become

creators, have all become

the new prophets with

mixed messages for all

the world

*

© Graham R Sherwood 3/25

~

I fear being well-read

becoming lost in a deep

morass of other cleverly

sculptured words,

a Venus flytrap poet 

stuck and slowly strangled,

sucked dry by the influence

of those who’ve gone before

all originality desiccated,

I want my words to drip like 

blood, soaking the reader in

a life-giving warm embrace

not spilling with a caustic

rattle like breakfast cereal

on a hard bone china dish,

influence can be viral, it

can taint, lure and divert

a poet’s purpose, a maze

of misdirection, a slough

of desperation, a quagmire

of the ordinary

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25

~

set around the perimeter of 

a small supermarket carpark,

like an angry crowd waiting 

for some shit to happen,

row upon row of identical 

angular boxes with single aspect 

sloping roofs that jag at the sky like 

the teeth of an upturned saw blade,

~

recently built and rendered in cream,

they now boast a damp smoked grey

pallor like the nearby bus shelters,

many windows seem to be dressed 

with repurposed tea towels used 

as poorly hung curtains,

~

in the middle of all this 

a supermarket where nobody

seems to use a bag, ambling 

shoppers all wearing slippers 

none wearing coats,

~

the only other signs of life, the

parched saplings, left for dead in 

their own square metre of mud

besieged by the tarmac,

but there is some colour here, 

the lime green electric scooters 

dumped where the flowers should be,

~

it’s a local centre alright

but at the centre of what?

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25

~

dropping down the hill

from Bozeat rise, the

temperature fell clear

two degrees as the hail

stones began lightly 

peppering the bonnet 

of the car,

we knew it was coming 

having noticed it hanging

secreted behind a black 

cloud up ahead, like a poor

robber in a cheap film,

a tiresome diversion

took us past a green 

burial site and we spent

the rest of the journey

discussing the merits

of either saplings or

headstones and if one

had a choice of species

I couldn’t decide between

spruce or maple as I

rather like the idea of 

being reincarnated as

a cello next time around 

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25

~

the sky is hanging crushed, 

under an oppressive dense 

heavy morning sunlight set low 

above our worried frowning eyes,

‘soleil de plomb’ the French

would say, my mother would 

have dismissively complained

by saying it was close, stifling

or just uncomfortable, thus

we are all governed by the 

proclivities of the weather,

we should praise it, revere

its capricious contradictions,

delight in the ungovernable

inconsistency of its moods,

fewer things in life these days

remain untouched, much is 

tinkered with, adjusted for 

the sake of convenience

or avaricious profitability,

weather reigns supremely

cantankerous, a resolute

‘fuck you’ elemental force

determined to screw-up

the very best laid plans

and I can’t help but love it,

especially when the lawn 

needs a mow

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25

~

I’ve always been early to rise

even in those teenage years 

when I was madly in love and 

hadn’t been to bed for more 

than a couple of hours before 

my usual 4am Sunday start,

jobs in the village were like

hen’s teeth in those days

so, an hour each morning

before school and a long

Sunday morning delivering 

Milk through the village was 

a well fought for prize,

I worked for milkman Len

whose float, in my very 

early days, was drawn by

a horse, two Dutch barge dogs

Keeshonds I think, walked

either side like outriders

stopping alongside at the

right places in each street,

Sunday mornings were quite

surreal as once the float, a

three-wheeled early electric 

version, was loaded up, 

first stop would be Len’s

house for 5am tea and toast,

his wife would always seek 

to mother me with extra slices,

a vivid soundtrack to these 

dark Sunday mornings was 

the wireless, permanently

tuned to classical music, I listened

to Beethoven Liszt et al whilst

incessantly picking dog hairs 

from my clothing, peculiarly 

I always looked forward to 

this brief recital in her dimly

lit kitchen in what felt like the 

middle of the night

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25

~

I wake up with the house

at 5am, or thereabouts,

it exhales a good morning 

from the back bedroom

with a yawning crack,

ten minutes later a reply

eases from an under stairs

cupboard, a languorous

haunted gentle creak,

at this cold time of year 

the heating crackles into

a noisy cough at 6am,

my poetry brain tries to 

rise to this early challenge

as words tumble out 

from the darkness, taunting 

me to let them fly uncaptured,

I scribble hurriedly, illegibly, 

hoping my spidery hieroglyphs 

are at least decipherable

come breakfast time,

who knows?

*

© GRS 3/25

~

the thin wire fence beside 

the track would bristle and

sing long before a steam train 

came into view and through 

the billowing tumult of steam

I learned about the geography 

of the commonwealth,

engines with evocative names 

that required an atlas to find, 

my first introduction to foreign 

travel albeit in my mind’s eye,

Sarawak to Saskatchewan

Palestine to Punjab, my young 

imagination on fire as I ‘copped’ 

a new place name every day,

history lessons too, served

up by the armies that marched 

by whistling under our bridge 

regiment by regiment 

The Green Howards, The Welch, 

and my very own battallion the

Sherwood Foresters and

home county warriors the

Northamptonshire Regiment,

historical figures also thundered

through my summer days,

John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower

Hereward the Wake each one

eager to tell me their story,

those times all sadly long gone,

timeless hours, endless days

being taught without teachers 

learning without boundaries

my best ever days, a boys’ own

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25