Father's Throne

If I remember rightly
there was already a place for it
before it had even arrived,
a slim alcove, two bookshelves above
with a partial view of the garden.
Pristine, the colour was conker brown
but with age, as conkers do
it dulled to a sombre nut dark
although the back, kept out of the light
retained a rich gloss.

On each side, detectives
could have easily discovered fingerprints
his persistent drumming
tambourine fashion
Sanders of the River he’d say
as he waited on a cup of builders
it was a drum chair after all.
The clumsy heel scuffs on the front edge
and fag end scorches on the right-hand arm
walrus battle scars he’d chuckle
earning him regular sharp rebukes from mum

He used to tease us
and say the chair had thieving fingers
invisible ectoplasm
that stole loose change, and
stored it amongst the crumbs and fluff
down the back, knowing we would
go polching for it greedily when he was out.

Long after,
occasionally, in a pub
we’d see a similar chair
and imagine him squeezed in it
hand hovering like a dragonfly
over a half-drunk pint
and if I tried it for size
memories would belch out
from the under-stuffed cushions
and I'd drum out
Sanders of the River
whilst quietly humming to myself.

© Graham Sherwood 2017

Brexed-Off

I am about to brexpire, why?
let me brexplain
with a brexample.

I’m feeling brexhausted  
and about to brexplode
due to the brextreme brexchanges
of some over-brexcited
brexhibitionist MP’s
who have taken brexception
to the brexact day to brexodus the EU.

We can all brexist brexellently
without the brexotic brexcesses
and brexaggerated, brextravagant brexploits
of those brextinct EU brexcuseniks

I suggest we undertake a brexercise
a brexperiment to brexpressly brexamine
the brexclusive brex-gratia brexpenses
brextracted for brexpensive brexcursions.

If as brexpected any are found brexhorbitant
and cannot be brexonerated
I will, become brexecutioner, and
with no brexemptions,
using suitable brextroverted brexpletives  
brexpel to brex-pat brexile
any brextraneous brexecutives

© Graham Sherwood 12/2017

18

Nature and biology have played their cruel trick
your mind and body stretches, metamorphosis,
the invisible cord now mature, tightens, strains, snaps
and the bonds of your Pandora heart flies free.
Distant cultures beckon, new trusts call out,
as you wake to find your nubile fragility
once naked now armour-clad,
your materials stout, body strong, psyche driven.
One easy step from terra firma
you are launched amongst the clouds
re-born enveloped by exhilarating sensations
an urgent odyssey careering through space.
Forgotten, that lifeless discarded familial cord will mend
the daughter, parent, sister, brother line
now knotted with life’s emotional elasticity,
will stretch and breathe
to hold you the wife, your child, a partner, siblings
and the parents who set you free.

© Graham Sherwood 12/2017

In those days

My parents, shoe-workers, never owned a car
so the Sunday walk down to the meadows
was a respectable two-mile stretch for our short legs
during those halcyon afternoons
of my childhood.

This morning, the long drag to the stone bridge
spanning the Ise Brook,
that we boys knew as “the river”
feels eerily quiet, few cars
just like in the sixties
although the road is undoubtedly wider,
now metalled and less gravel,
the ironstone bridge also reinforced.

Cow parsley narrowed the lane
in those heady days, whipping our bare white legs
as we sped recklessly downhill toward the meadows,
trainspotting and sticklebacking our only thoughts
badly maintained bike chains churning and clanking
brake blocks smoking and squealing.

Only now can I own up to being frit
by that perilous descent
and notice the absence of today’s children doing the same
double-daring, egging each other on
to certain oblivion,
arses up, chins rubbing handlebars
in those breakneck downhill races.

The brook swirls drowsily, disappointingly
overrun with weed, dead branches and litter
a far cry from the shin-deep waters I recall,
it seeps, almost embarrassed around its obstructions.

There seem to be fewer trees too, and rape
in the meadow instead of corn,
I consider that I shouldn’t have come
then get distracted by a diesel gliding by.

I lean against the bridge’s warmed stones
and wonder where those school friends are now,
and for one brief moment, the straw scent
blows across my face, sweetly damp
and swallows dive to sip from the stream.

Eyes closed, the distant clank of steam
vibrates from the up line,
45581 perhaps, Bihar and Orissa
the only Jube missing from my book,
but instantly I am snapped back by the raucous horn
of a massive tractor, one of today’s leviathans
the spell broken

© Graham Sherwood 12/2017

Poet’s Retreat

What drew my eye

was the scant advertisement,

Poet’s Retreat available

on a route du vin,

followed by a telephone number.

On arrival amidst the vines,

a coverlet of green corduroy,

I was surprised to see

you lived on your own,

in such a sprawling cottage,

apprehension and relief

balanced precariously on your brow,

a weighed smile that whispered welcome

Your handshake too

grape-stained, earthily soft,

I can still sense that warmth in my palm

as you proudly introduced 

the panoramic clos

before stepping 

deferentially behind my shoulder

wondering which words 

were calling to me from the vines,

thus my summer’s lease began

with sweet aromas and smooth wine.


© Graham Sherwood 12/2017

Biblio

As I enter the ransacked library
a benign calmness rinsed over me,
faces turned to mine, some
inquisitive others with acceptance
and the hope that I am a friendly visitor.

Those many faces litter the dense carpet,
a group of irritable intellectuals,
sprawled, uncomfortably
deep in conversation,
some heavyweight, stoutly bound
curiously holding the attention of their peers
others radical fast-moving,
well-thumbed paperbacks, curled
pages flapping in the breeze
caused by my entrance.

A separate cabal look to be asleep
or resting at least, disengaged face down
in a random but nonetheless compact fashion.
I quietly right a chair,
my fingers passing over the disciples, that
now surrounded me
eager to join the conversation

© Graham Sherwood 12/2017