Future Past

Alabaster wrists
lost on pure white cotton
garnet penknife runes
your anguish, mapped,
etched, left for me to decipher,
these are the hands I hold, I kiss,
conduit for all emotions,
so why was I not to know of this,
this butchery,
your final act of supplication?
My guilt now hangs heavy,
separating hope from harsher eventualities,
a Libran scale that teeters
precariously between oblivion
and loss.

© Graham Sherwood 5/2014

Seirene

Lured here and lost,
I hit the craggy rocks
and spill into the foaming waters,
transfixed,
your pure beguiling beauty
still busy in its song.

I scan for paths around me,
footprints fade in sodden sand
return implausible
if ever I have the will,
seduced,
amongst the foment's revelry

You hold a bloodied mirror shard
to show a sorry broken man
unrecognisable, unkempt, undone
who's wide eyes,
milky as dead fish
stare panting at your ivory feet


Graham Sherwood 05/2014