iSight

(Observations in the January Sales).

I knew that you would be there,
somewhere
amongst the throbbing music
and glittering lights,
but at first I couldn’t find you.
There were old people, wearied
and many beautiful young creatures too
each flirting with their kind
but you weren’t amongst them
in their camouflage.
Then, as often in a dream
your apparition emerged,
no longer vague, formless
but bright, vibrant, intoxicating,
wearing all your Christmas gifts
at the same time.

© Graham Sherwood 12/2012

And Trio

Fate called whilst I was sleeping,
and took your hand
and tried to pay me with warm memories
and future fiction
in exchange for your company.

You were powerless to resist,
and looked to leave
and mouthed a feeble parting kiss
and held my trembling temple
with cold and lifeless fingers

Fate threw me a satisfied smile,
and hid you from my view
and mesmerized my thoughts
and lifted you to its breast
to sever the chord between us.

In the silence of the night,
and when two minds are better than one
and crackling leaves need kicking
and my wrinkled hand searches
I miss you.

© Graham Sherwood 12/2012

Mixed Blessings

He watches starlings darkening the sky in a flocking balletic curve
and with two fingers to his lips sends them his gentle benison.
She seated naked at her cello sends chords across the room
that brush his shoulders and shake the somnolence of his stance.
Without a sound the black cloud plummets to its roost, like death
there is no premonition only voids to fill and tears to shed.
As curtains draw, her notes too will sink to low esteem in melancholy
pale thighs embrace spruce shoulders and the languorous bow moans.

© Graham Sherwood 12/2012

Our proverbial sins

Your stitch is late
and I am lost,
the seam of my avarice
spills to the floor
with my heart.

And from my lifeless palm
the dove of wrath,
set free for further mayhem,
plots from the box
unblinking callously.

You, your milky tears
and useless pride,
are left behind to weep and sweep
the litter of my errors
like life’s janitor.

So where are those riches
that were promised you?
Sowed in the earth
with undue lusty haste,
and no sign of dividend.

Now richly sated, you
once the glutton for my love,
come timely late
to light my pyre aflame
with your licking tongue.

Blind foolish envy
is new currency for your loss,
I wait, to calculate my debt
to eternity’s account
abacus in hand.

My demonic choir is laughter,
performed with barren sloth,
cynical, thin, enduring,
to hex my empty torso
on each step to paradise.

© Graham Sherwood 11/2012

Tontine

Show me your ticket for the tontine of life,
where entry is free, the closing date long,
the winner takes a lonely prize.

Show me your ticket for the tontine of love,
where entry is hurt, desire and despair,
the prize thin as breath, a vapour.

Show me your ticket for the tontine of hate,
where entry is wrath, hostile and dark,
the winner can never be safe.

Here is my ticket for the tontine of death,
where entry is free, a brief rubicon,
the prize lies unknown, uncertain.

© Graham Sherwood 11/2012

Scandi-Verse

I gently squeezed my heggedal,
it felt firm within my grasp,
the benzy smelled of lemon zest
the afjarden fresh mown grass.
Standing on the toftbo
I rummaged in my skubb,
my besta had been scratched somehow
and needed a light rub.
I dusted down my ribba
and my stornas too,
you handed me your barbar
my arv I gave to you.
Feel these dittes you asked me,
do they feel alvros to you,
perhaps a little werna
but they do look good on you.
We both lay on the skarum,
my knodd lay on the floor,
you showed me where your pluggis was,
I fumbled with your klor.
At last we both were ekne
and blessed our gosa how,
with pressa and some mulig
We all love Ikea now.

© Graham Sherwood 11/2012

Nymph

I watched her move amongst the sculptures,
slowly but chaotic,
through the wintry garden
gently stroking the ripe curves,
palming the patina with long, slim fingers.
Had she been naked and still,
sat upon their chiselled flanks,
a new lithe goddess
I would have smiled and bid her come.
But all too briefly she turned to call,
to chide the cold autumn air,
thus the magical muse was stolen,
a captive of the twilight.

© Graham Sherwood 10/2012

St Mawes

Five tethered gigs nod and bow,
carousel horses, tugging at their salty ropes
that rise, then dip into the flotsam,
like skipping ropes twirled by lazy children.
Scornful, gulls balance on these bucking prows,
and from time to time take irritated flight
only to return to station
each bringing a grumbling squeal.
The fret flicks across the harbour
with an unheralded slap,
the sharp edge of its tongue
catching us unawares.
A windswept busker, back to harbour wall
sends flamenco notes into the maelstrom,
a box of urchin shells
like shiny painted fruits
for sale offered near his feet.

© Graham Sherwood 10/2012

A Vendre

We pause to watch the supping fingerlings
break the glass of the bottle green water,
perfect circles, brief, before fading.
A family of swallows are also feeding on the dapping fly
and make their own dinner plate ripples
as they wheel and dive between us.
Then there it is, canalside.
A Vendre, almost a ruin,
a peeling painted sign for wine
half on the ancient splintered shutter
and half the crumbling rendered wall.
We both look, our thoughts colliding silently,
the steps from the panelled verandah,
a perfect jetty, the porch,
the curve of the canal and willows on the bend.
We could sell beer and wines
and wave to bargees with a knowing smile.
How much I wonder, you say?
And much, more to put it right.
Eventually we idle away,
our fleeting new life dream
fades around the bend
leaving swallows to their chaotic repas.

© Graham Sherwood 09/2012

Hameau

From our lofty position above the plough
the Hameau forms a Y-shape,
a rough grass lane bends taught
like a thick tensile blade from left to right,
an ancient cart track cuts an axis against the mow.

Seven cottages lie cradled here,
each roof taking on a different aspect,
like sentries on guard, waiting
to repel the wolves that will surely come
bounding from the newly churned furrows.

But for now, no noise
save the twilight crackle from the fields,
where other bovine guards diligently stare
but offer no alarm in their ambivalent armour.
We wait.

Corn blond, then gold submit to russet
then sentries set their light
and from the futile ramparts
peer into the dusk
that hides the dangers of the night.

© Graham Sherwood 9/2012

Papadigm

It begins today,
the anniversary,
if that is the right word for it.
Today, I officially become older than my father,
twenty-five years in the making.
What did I think would happen?
A message from the hereafter or something,
congratulations,
of course not,
none of us ever believed in paradise.
But nonetheless today my face will supplant his,
my mirror to his photographs.
He will never look like this,
and from here on in
I am his senior in my reveries.
I will teach him things now,
finally my student after sixty-one years,
our roles reversed and he,
with the same inquisitive expression
that often sat upon my brow, will be my pupil.
He will ask me new questions.
Where shall I begin?

© Graham Sherwood 09/2012

Hay

A old grocer’s bell,
then a silent fart of cobwebbed breath
crawls through the cracks of flaking plaster,
leaving nothing,
to disturb the sombre tock of three o’clock,
that neatly sliced portion,
sour quarter of the afternoon
set out as afternoon tea between the mildewed tomes.
Here heroes lay,
their ears foxed by marbled paper rainbows,
their perilous lives now flit in passive glimpses, moments,
no time to either take a bow or any other accolade.
Heroes need danger, a foe, a nemesis,
a reason for the polished sword or loaded gun.
Here there’s none, save the stealth of warmly muttered sighs

© Graham Sherwood 8/2012

My time to shine

(This short rhyme was inspired by something that Neil Young said on Radio 4 last week, when asked about whether his classic albums Harvest and After the Goldrush were likely to become the folk songs of the future. The title was his modest summation).

The words arrive like meteors,
and songs come from the earth,
they hit my brain
like heavy rain
new folklore given birth.

I don’t spend time rehearsing,
it comes together fast,
pure rhythm springs
across these strings
with anthems built to last.

I know this is my golden time,
none can do me harm,
ethereal
material
the muse is on my arm.

One day I’ll give the girl away,
the harvest will be mine,
these silver frets
have no regrets
it was my time to shine.

© Graham Sherwood 6/2012

Re-Pose

(An observation of beauty).

You lie on the sofa with the effortless elegance
of a fin de siècle Duchess,
bare feet up, crossed, like a vicar’s calm hands at prayer.
Even the stripes on your untied dressing gown
slope perfectly, draping down
as liquor running from the upturned bottle onto the floor.
The untidy newspaper fails to crackle in your hands,
whilst you read with a considered finger resting atop your lip
as if choosing a delicacy from an offered box.
Occasionally an un-deciphered comment is allowed its flight,
only to fall short, exhausted, halfway across the rug.
Picasso might have placed you there
but I have not the inclination or the talent
to do you justice .

Boathouse

(The subject of a dream 03.03am)

I chose the Boathouse or should I say it chose me.
Perfectly planked, varnished to a silky touch,
more cricket pavilion with the legs of a stork,
motionless, amongst the river’s margin.

At dawn, with fresh coffee on the verandah,
three shapes emerge from the reedy mist
grey bobbing leathery seals, abreast,
police frogmen, wading from the gloom.

“Child lost upstream, a mile or so”. Terse.
“They usually come this way”. Resigned.
“How can you do a job like this”. Incredulous.
“the secret is, not to look them in the eye”. Wearied.

Throughout the day, mooring ropes creak
and the lazy river slaps dumbly
on the weatherboards.
a mother’s gentle tap, asking baby politely for wind.

I found the child, or should I say she found me.
at 4pm,
a timid knocking on the slipway rail
as if calling round for tea.

Just her auburn crown floating,
an Ophelian bedraggled mist.
I scooped her up, taking care not to turn her over,
a little ragdoll princess from Elsinore.

Front Page

(Comment on Marie Colvin)

You stayed to tell me a story
fearless or foolish, braveheart or banale
you knelt at the sacrificial altar
a big mistake.
So the needy stay forgotten
the desperate still forlorn
and limb-strewn rubble commonplace
to the eyes of the world
now distracted
to follow the story of you.

Grisaille

(The inability to recall dreams).

Wednesday yawns, and the call to sleep,
to rinse the once fast colours of my memories
that history feints to vague affairs.
Who was that beauteous girl
who ran like the fawn, quink on her fingers,
who smelled of cold toast?
Alas gone, forever
dancing through the flimsy leaves
in a Morphean maze of tangled veils,
no footprints left
my brief ecstacy turned to loss,
no evidence caught as lambs wool on a briar,
tumultuous pleasure at such costly price.
I wake, full knowing of the robbery
but cannot list my loss.

Apostles

(A description of like minded individuals).

We laugh and tell them we’re Pago-Buddhists,
devotees, a membership of two
celebrating the change in season,
content not having that which others seem
to take for granted.
Coal jackdaws dance along your arm
as we meet to face the teachers from our past,
my spilth of words decanting silently
from a pocket hole,
will leave a cryptic trail
for those that surely follow on.
So let’s measure each other’s faith with jokes,
rub soap beneath our fingernails
and choose bright robes to don.

© Graham Sherwood 3/2012

Grasmere

(The shifting aspects of Lakeland scenery).

Of course the hill does not move,
although the waking eye is fooled
to think so.
The pale slate backdrop slides by
from right to left,
a trompe d’oeil
that sends me back to bed confused.
Later three sooty trees silhouette
their veined fingers
as the picture turns to breakfast blue.
Distracted from a crossword and eggs Benedict,
I take another surreptitious glance.
Now, this pretty girl who doesn’t disappoint
is dressed in green velvet frocks,
she tantalizes me throughout the day,
resolute, not to move an inch
or look my way,
as each act of the day’s pantomime scenery
is wheeled past my eyes,
a vulgar cereal packet colour box.
Crushed, I later dress for dinner
and almost miss the teasing ripple
of her cowgirl rump
as she waltzes to the wings.
Exit stage right.

© Graham Sherwood 3/2012

Dark Room

(A comment on the hypocrisy of so-called multiculturalism).

We are not multi-cultural
neither you nor I,
merely atheist and zealot shackled,
singularly suspicious, doubly wary,
you of my painted skin
me, your voluminous robes.
I hear the barbed vowels that
you cast to the quickening wind,
which cuts to ribbons
my shell-shocked hospitality.
Quietly I show my bravery
by plotting your final days
behind thick oak doors, camouflaged
in sugary platitudes.
Remember what the common cold
did to the Martians, a generation ago.
Empires fall,
and our futile resistance
will then reveal your olive shadows
as nothing,
but paper shapes of last night’s
nightmare.

© Graham Sherwood 3/2012

Essencia

(Inability to describe the indescribable).

Whenever birds fall silent in a troubled twilight
or that fleeting moment before the millisecond of a sneeze,
in the waking blink before we lose a dream
and the confusion as we cry whilst smiling,
then the thought of food be food enough for thought
our deafening lives are numbed by newly fallen snow
it is special.

© Graham Sherwood 2/2012

Muse

(An observation on the sexualization of the young).

Almost sated
I wash my hands of you
like Pilate.
And with one eye on dessert
the other, your naked back
I’m thinking
“this one could spell trouble”.
Your adolescent guardians
innocence and inexperience
lead you from my sight,
but not before
through jet wet hair,
and the flicker of a smile
you silently answer,
“but trouble can be fun”.

© Graham Sherwood 2/2012

Ode to Pain

(A dietary conundrum).

We are separated,
and it seems that I can no longer
look you in the face.
I know that you would take me back
in a blink,
and I would love to come. But
four painful weeks have dragged by,
a lifetime, after which even your smell
is now a distant waifish breeze.
Pining, I am fading too,
I am less without you,
Isn’t that the point to prove.

© Graham Sherwood 01/2012

Recovery

(The nursing of a relative).

Your flaccid sausage cock slaps me around the ear
as I slide damp pants beneath your arse,
and your watery words,
sorry! sorry! sorry! spill on my head
like harmless rubber bricks
along with your tears.

Life’s lottery brought your numbers up
but took your legs as the ticket price.
So we both begin here, base camp one,
the brooding mountain,
visible only to our punctured imaginations,
with you in the harness, me on the rope
we start the climb.

© Graham Sherwood 01/2012