Prune Tend Grow

Wallowing in the past
must surreptitiously please you.
You’ll achieve nothing
belly-aching or carping,
continually
looking over your shoulder
with an angry scowl.
Most people don’t give a fuck
about the so-called
outrages of years past,
they were most probably
shit for you, but
insignificant for others.
So do something useful,
build something, plan
for your future,
you’ve already ruined your past.
Stop looking through distorted
bottle dregs,
fresh air is free, breathe in
look forward.

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

Bandwagon

Even the most fearless are fearful
so forgive their wanton bravado
deny their haste, quick tongues
and drooling mouths.
Revenge is the threadbare cloak
the fearless don to mask their fears,
anger binds their puerile lexicon
that once spent, subsides to  long regret.
So do not fear the fearless
for we are they and they are us!


© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

Village Ghosts

These days I walk the lanes slowly
for fear of waking the memory ghosts
that sleep behind the russet stones.

“listen do you want to know a secret”

They slumber still, these long years
a dormant cast, museum exhibits,
faces that only I can see, waiting for me.

“every time that you walk in the room”

Here’s Mike the half-wit, a pensioner now
still imprisoned by the peeling garden gate
a Zimmer has replaced his un-kicked shiny football,
callously, as boys we would make him laugh
safely knowing he would wet himself.

“first there were heartaches, then there were tears”

Now careworn, June scurries by shepherding grandchildren
apologetic smile, no recognition,
hardly surprising after fifty years,
we were lovers at fifteen and
how I ached to breach her skin-tight white jeans.

“don’t let on, she doesn’t love me now”

But there’s blood on the road, two lie dead
Mr phone box Gibson, couldn’t ever pass a button B,
killed walking out behind a bus
and old Mrs York, my best mate’s Grandma,
carrying her ale jug and tea towel into eternity
splashed on the bonnet of a speeding Morgan.

“when I’m in your arms, nothing seems to matter”

These days I walk the lanes slowly
there is too much to see

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

4Sum

I am committed,
but what’s so wrong about being right first time? 
a definite no-brainer, I am sure as shit
but for some the process must be tested
instincts scrutinised, 
hastiness weighed out and considered
approval obtained
decisions rinsed and ironed
with the turbulent passage of time.
For some,
to trust other’s judgement
is a death leap,
a half-severed bungee chord dive
into the chasm of compliance.
For some it’s
safer to tremble on the daunting
cliff of indecision.

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

On the death of a neighbour

smooth blond stone
fresh planed oak
the clinical altar
to cremate dead folk
devoid of laughter
flower leaf
this bitter crucible
to spill our grief
for sombre public
glass-eyed stares
elegy precedes
three hymns two prayers
then it's done
silent curtains ruffle
bow to her coffin
and out we shuffle
handshakes kisses
journey home bereft
each of us thinking
how long the other has left

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

Happy New Haiku

Janus turns his head
annus horibilis fades
future woes beckon

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017

id

(Surely no-one knows who we really are?)

I polish my tarnished silver doubts
as the day's end fades to burnished gold
the perpetual search for answers
to questions one would only asks oneself
the me that none will ever know
no deathbed revelations here,
actor or charlatan
bigot critic racist cheat.

My mirror-less reflection
retina ready
glazed to a permanently
soft focused haloed record
of every breath I've ever taken,
is now the target of the bullets, knives and arrows
that will never find their mark
but become litter to my tread
life's cruel jagged swarf
dulled by my lengthening shadow

© Graham Sherwood 01/2017