I never dream of my father

although he’s often in my thoughts

and looks down to my desk

from a teenage photo in uniform,

 

I’m now older than he

by some six years or so

a strange and uncomfortable feeling

that I will forever appear his elder,

 

I last spoke to him in January 1987

when I held his lifeless hand

but cannot remember my words,

 

I knew he was proud of me

and had made him cry once

with that pride

words then were unnecessary,

 

Were we to ever meet again

it would be the river bank

both staring intently at floats

an occasional glance decorated by a smile

 

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 10/2018

 

I gather the last tomatoes

a few hanging stubbornly green,

there’s place on the sunny sill

where they can take their chance.

 

As I harvest, a golden blizzard

pulses, swirling around my boots,

broad leaves intersperse the slim

in a chaotic unfathomable kaleidoscope

shackling my shins

some getting caught in my hatband.

 

Here, in this mesmeric cauldron

there is a gentle but primeval ferocity, where

I fear I could become lost, hidden from view

my skin turned to bark, blood to sap

limbs to boughs in final rest

between the damson, apple and the gauge

 

© Graham Sherwood 10/2018

I bring bread, wine, meat and sweet berries

and lay them on your kitchen table.

Both unsure, we fidget,

you busily preparing food

me clumsy, with a troublesome cork.

I risk a glance at your easing profile,

you, amused by my fumbling efforts

offer a welcome sympathetic smile.

Midnight,

and the wine has wrestled with our tongues,

talk rides lightly on spicy breath

eyes stay camouflaged by stained glasses,

in purdah,

water stays untouched.

Now is the tricky stage and

One of us needs to make a move,

there is no bill to pay

and both unsure, we fidget once more

to await the telling signal.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 06/2015

 

Arriving after rain

we had to duck under wet low hanging apples

to find Jake’s place, cleverly tucked away

along a narrow, pebbled path,

the South Hams appearing to unfold

like a map before our eyes

a green patchwork, gently undulating

from the garden hedge.

 

Start Point light in the distance

a solitary chalk finger, blinking

at dusk as the sun was setting,

its twenty-mile warning flashes

three-short, three-long, three-short.

 

We gradually became accustomed

to the property’s gentle breathing,

the knocks, the taps

the heady smell of sweet wood

and with the wood burner lit

the cottage began its conversation

as we listened cradling Bathtub and tonic

 

After supper, pasta and Morellino di Scansano

we were both surprised at how quickly

after some thirty years

we remembered the rules of cribbage,

fifteen two

fifteen four

two for a pair

one for his nob

your box.

 

Pegging spent matches

on the Wills’s Star  cigarettes board

that still reeks of smoky pubs

 

© Graham Sherwood 10/2018

Perched at the crossroads

on council benches

peeling the flaking green skin

where elders usually sit and stare

at passing traffic with vacant wet eyes

young boys blow fat blades of grass

between their thumbs to make a pheasant call

whilst peering into the distance

to glimpse their future disappointments

and keep watch for forbidden fruits

delivered hourly by the bus.

 

Dreaming of music stardom

earning money for shiny motorbikes.

and fucking older girls

one or two,

the handsome ones,

have had a feel behind the Working Mens

small soft warm breasts

bartered for a brittle kitkat

from the chilled milk machine

outside the chipshop,

knees remain together,

strictly top deck.

 

Some will eventually venture further afield

others staying snagged in the net

the stagnant village stew pond

of regret and despondency

making pretty local wives into fat unattractive mothers

blinkered in a cold sex present

and a warm beer future

of skittles and an angry dog.

 

© Graham Sherwood 2018

 

 

I was brought up well

respected my parents

and never drew trouble to the door

I worked hard at school

was good at sport

and passed my exams

I married young

fathered four, taught them well

and never wandered

I’ve hurt no-one,

have protected some

never used drugs

I pay my taxes

never taken benefits

observe the highway code

I’m not a hero, neither brave

nor a coward

but I’ll look you in the eye

I’m normal, just normal

most of us are

so what’s your problem?

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2018

Do you remember La Tuilliere

the old winery farmhouse

at the end of that lane

bordering the ruined church

in the hamlet of St Nazaire?

 

We would arrive for each summer’s lease

eagerly anticipating which crops

had been sown and where,

the vines, always situated to the south of course

then clockwise, sunflowers, maize and cattle grass

rotated every year,

whilst we all secretly hoped

the beautiful golden tournesols

would still be bordering the lawn.

 

If you recall

I had been told that first year

by a local vigneron

that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

had a house nearby

and that he tended her vines, made her wine.

 

Although situated on a hill

overlooking La Tuilliere

her house was well shielded by trees,

the swimming pool water, mirror-like

glinting through the branches and

after dark lights were turned on

and we mused what she would be eating

that evening for dinner.

 

Sometimes on those magical nights

as the last finger of pastis

swirled in our glasses

we could hear gentle arias

tumbling through the vines

plaintive but soft enough

not to wake the drowsily bowed sunflowers,

we preferring to think it was herself singing

and not a recording being played.

 

Years later,

with you four all grown up, independent

off backpacking, interrailing and the like,

I went back to visit Thierry once again

to take some more of his wine prisoner

catch up, chew le cud! and he told me

that Dame Kiri had sold up

that he had bought her vines

and the enchanting music had gone away

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2018

Old friends meet loudly, hug and call each other “man”

their heads on other days would turn to Tim or James or Dan

Suburbanites who freely mix with New Age scruffs

safe in the folds of music, smoke, real ale and stuff.

 

On their acre’s nest of tiny multi-colour nylon domes,

these torch-lit tics smell of sweat and spunk and pheromones

dressed in tie-dyed, damp, old outrageous threads

until Monday comes, the suit, the tie, the tube, the talking heads.

 

In feathered drizzle, stretching last nights’ stiff necks legs and backs

strolling aimlessly with skinny dogs who sniff for discarded burger scraps

before the music calls, the thudding bass, the squealing riffs, the angry drawl

as Eloi turn and amble toward the hypnotic churning call.

 

Demure young girls then sensually writhe and show their tits

and hope they won’t appear on someone’s Facebook pics

henge-like some stare, some sway, some jig, some surf and fall

it’s Glastosphere, you have to be here, come one come all.

 

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2018

I walk into the large white box,

some young people look really cool

others just take the piss.

Three students appear informed, anguished even, intelligent,

others merely shake their heads.

I study Wine Crucifix, Arnulf Rainer,

old ladies stand up straight and tilt their heads,

others lean closer in wistful passivity.

A large group of children are shown Jackson Pollock, Summertime 9a.

most are expressionless dismissive uncomfortable,

some speak of images I cannot recognise, only one gets it.

A well-dressed man, American perhaps, is ambivalent,

a half-dressed girl is beautiful and knows it,

others are imprisoned by their ugliness.

Cy Twombly’s Quattro Stagione beguiles me completely,

like a Mucha poster left in the rain.

Tourists read the captions, inquisitive and scratch their chins,

Japanese, study it, leave reverentially but return for yet another look.

La femme et son Poisson, Man Ray shimmers,

both lithe, both swim, both dream.

A small group do not look, but look at each other,

some are tired and blow out their cheeks, vacant,

others sympathetically recoil, feeling conned.

I puzzle at Brague but fall in love with Metzinger’s

La femme a la Cafetiere, sensual, ovoid, warm.

Schoolgirls look like schoolgirls, are schoolgirls

but wish not to be at school,

clutching books for authenticity,

others leave hurriedly, reluctant to stay.

Everyone notices the crack across the floor.

 

© Graham Sherwood 10/2008

Would that we were privy to the paths of musical notes

that dance and dither around our heads.

Music must be set free to take its course

in clean air, uncaptured frivolous brave,

and when spent, revered praised immortalized.

Music must never be captured or held

perched in the grasping boughs of trees

or lodged, stuck fast amongst dark rafters

in dusty attics

or entangled amongst bristling wires

like a wet paper kite

snagged, repressed, frantically

repeating its pitch in the hope of escape.

Music must have freedom to permeate

the naivety to wander, allowed to drip and seep,

to infuse its listener

become lifeblood, an essence

 

© Graham Sherwood 09/2018