Willow Pattern

(A study of twilight)

This is a peculiar light

early evening paling

thinly clothed

a stolen charlatan

from this morning’s pocket

I scowl with disbelief

the cracked willow bark

framed blue

with each blink

copper to grey

grey to copper

back and forth

I keen to stop blinking

but there it goes again

flick, swap, change

copper to grey

like someone choosing paint

indecisive

from a catalogue

Then the choice is made

colour rests to grey

and darkens leaden

the sky frame taupe
the pattern set

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016

Windsor Walk

(Feeling sorry for our Sovereign)

Bouquets and cards

so quickly given

and forgotten,

harvested like fish from

a liquid sea of faces, a

waving complex smiling wall

calmed merely by you presence,

Long live our Queen they cry,

each thinking, surely

you've already done enough?

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016

Corinne

(A complex and unsatisfying dream)

You were only a schoolgirl

 the last time we met,

 a favourite,

 nubile and trying very hard

 to be sophisticated,

 me the older man in the suit

 you the teenager in uniform.

 So why are you here again

 in this jumbled dream?

 as a fully grown beautiful woman

 I shouldn’t really recognize

 telling me about the future

 from your past.

 Who paired up with whom

 the marrieds, miscreants

 and murderers,

 revelations that choke me

 that make me talk in my sleep,

 I see them all together

 and understand, just,

 but find out nothing about you.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016

Koan on Wealth

(Avarice and poverty)

Consider the father with great wealth

and his shameful desire to conceal it.

Should we despise or pity him?

His fortune and his children both grow

but upon which does his attention fall first.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016

Choka

(first meddle with this Japanese form)

metamorphosis
of the unassuming bean
cacahuatl
plucked from its leathery pod
prime forestero
saviour of a nation
rich commodity
we consume with avid thirst
luxury from poverty

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016

Black Watch

(An unlikely symbiotic relationship)

A charcoal dark thief lurks
under the dense protection of hawthorn,
vigilant as a spy, patient intent,
a black devil watching ever watching
at the dry periphery
of the gaggling waterfowl.
A damaged crooked crow
poor sorry emasculated bully
his crossed nib beak
and fractured feathers
command no further raucous warning
of defiance, but left with
just a scavenger's guile
and canny know-how
where our scraps will fall,
this wounded ninja, now
tolerated like a court jester,
pitiful shadow amongst the thorns,
survivor
is watching ever watching
for our next stray morsel.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2016