~

setting off we felt fearless,

cow parsley had narrowed the lane

in those heady July days, 

whipping our bare white legs red raw

as we hurtled recklessly downhill 

towards ‘our’ bridge,

trainspotting the only thought,

bike chains churning, clanking

brake blocks smoking and

squealing like banshees,

no-one owned up to being ‘frit’,

that perilous descent

double-daring, egging each 

other on to certain oblivion,

arses up, chins down on handlebars

in breakneck downhill races,

with only one hope, that today 

would be the day to see 45581

Bihar and Orissa, 

the only Jubilee Class missing 

from our dog-eared Ian Allan books,

the bridge crumbled easily

if we jagged the ageing mortar

with our lethal chewed biro daggers,

trainspotting was 95% boredom

and 5% exhilaration, copping

Scots Jubes Brits and Crostis

a young boy’s first orgasm

in those halcyon days,

the russet capstones bore

generations of penknife graffiti

scratched out like family trees,

whilst waiting for trains,

the mesmeric perspective of the rails

disappeared to a point

in both directions, upline and down, 

bookended by distant arches

Finedon Station one way, Nest Lane t’other,

on our bridge, in those long 

sticky sultry summer days

we’d ring our eyes with cupped fingers,

to make pretend binoculars and

stare into the shimmering heat haze, 

like Jack Hawkins, sure as shit 

the Bismarck would break cover 

any minute, as four pennies sizzled

on the nearest rail like chocolate buttons

awaiting their crushing fate,

under the next snorting behemoth

emerging from the distance,

we’d play chicken,

heads dangling over the parapet

all for the chance of a face-full

of steam and grease

making us hungry, with no bottled 

squash and only gnawed crusts left

it being nowhere near dinnertime,

*

( From ‘Knowing my Place’ a collection by Graham Sherwood)

© Graham R Sherwood 2/25

~

you jump up confidently

taking to the makeshift stage

like a salmon leaping for its life,

dog-eared worn paper notes

the bait that trapped you

into bearing your soul are

now held nonchalantly low,

a frown, a tremble, a gag,

as you unveil the inner you

to curious ears, will they get it? 

what if you screw-up?

worse still what if you corpse!

you know the words are good

they pull, they nick, they push, 

they lick, they kiss they slap, as

upturned dimmed faces from below

offer wry smiles, agreeable nods,

a hastily wiped away tear, then

unsure applause begins to pop

like the first splashes of a shower

spreading towards you row by row,

and so back home you go

ego sated, smiling to yourself, 

bus ticket in hand 

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

the crocus have fled, daffodils gone,

bereft, only the gold dandelions still linger on,

a tame squirrel tugs at the slim trouser leg

of a beautiful girl strewn like a discarded peg,

across a tattersall rug on damp summer turf

her bleached Sunday newspaper billows like surf

bringing whispered languages so foreign to me

from passionate lovers beneath every tree

this afternoon stroll, a surreal postcard scene

of picnics and lovers and melting ice cream

under clear azure skies this scene is replete

with even the squawk of a lost parakeet,

that strangely, here, in this capital place

brings no hint of surprise on anyone’s face

~

happy music is not for me

I need angst to stir my gut

to feel real pain and tears

from love and loss and lust,

there has to be some damage

a casualty crying out from

the wail of a guitar’s strings,

I need emotion spent

and left lying at my feet

in total submission,

happy music is not for me

I feel nothing

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

a poem, born motherless 

at 4.15am,

a disruptive foundling, 

determined to enter this world 

noisily,

a Saturday child that cried

out from within the darkness,

wake up, wake up,

give me life,

a weekend child,

a boy, a working lad, 

a gladiator

* 

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

we sit face to face

across the table

looking for clues, 

like wary gamblers

watching for tells, 

weighing each other up 

through a wine glass

aged bottles of wine we

can no longer afford to buy

their identities concealed

litter the table like aimless

defrocked priests,

thus, we take communion

savouring the rich red blood

with vampiric satisfaction,

these were our children

purchased whilst young, 

raised with love and care 

to this precious moment 

of perfect maturity,

we sit face to face

across the table 

strewn with the corpses 

of loved ones,

it’s over, it’s done

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

the heavens are an alphabet

an alien language set within

the dictionary of the cosmos,

as I search for clues, for clearer 

understanding, I am dazzled by 

the unfathomable immensity of 

letters that vie for my undivided

attention, they beseech me to

decipher their distant messages,

but we are merely children in this 

university of space, reaching out

as infants do, arms erect, hopeful

that the teacher will reciprocate,

the heavens are an alphabet from

which we slowly form new words

and tentatively begin to talk

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

Shropshire’s rolling hills

envelope our route,

overlooking the path like

a roughly shaken blanket,

the billowing domes squatting

gently astride its valleys,

this morning the sun rose

secretively behind the Ragleth

and feigned to hide for a time

throwing a rich orange smudge 

across the skyline before coyly

showing its pale face,

we walked up to see the wild ponies

on the Carding Mill path, a jigsaw 

of ice, mud and stones,

walkers scrambling like multi-coloured 

beetles across the stream to

avoid parts of the frozen path,

the ponies, some pregnant, stood

impassively curious, if a tad stern,

as if we had no right to intrude

upon their Sunday morning,

but it was the treacherous footing

that curtailed our stroll

and the lure of hot chocolate

from the bustling cafe

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

we all sit facing the front

on chipped tubular steel chairs

each crudely marked with a sharpie, 

‘X-Ray’ evidently some are known to 

have escaped as far as A&E,

obediently we await our call

silently ill-at-ease, contemplative,

but there is one exception, a gorgon 

who enters, child in tow, for whom 

nothing has ever been, or ever will be, 

satisfactory and quickly we learn about

her entire complex medical history,

unwittingly we have become the audience

of a circus of the peculiar, a mismatched club

that none of us have consciously paid to join,

a stream of variety acts on trolleys 

parade past like buses, often in threes 

carrying pallid deathly patients, who 

wince and grown to garner sympathy

as they are wheeled carefully by as if 

for our perusal,

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25

~

listening to old Dylan stuff,

it was never, ever about the music

clever as those untidy rhythms were,

acoustic or electric, a Messiah or Judas

his words still sit in my head,

the lexicon of my 60’s adolescence

uncomfortably wedged between

Chaucer and Shakespeare,

a no-shit sandwich that has fed me

for more than sixty years

*

© Graham R Sherwood 1/25