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Who are You?

I remember a friend telling me
of his trip to America,
parking in front of a diner
and being surrounded by
a gang of Hell’s Angels bikers.
Looking concerned
the waitress re-assured him,
don’t worry sir,
they’re all dentists
they come here every Wednesday.

I saw a chap at an open-mic
a right ‘erbert,
tattoos, big hat, multicolour waistcoat
bad language, 
spitting through his beard.
Off stage very popular,
obviously local, people offering drinks
signing his pamphlet,
hard to believe isn't it?
says my friend, you wouldn’t think
he’s the chairman of the bloody council.

So, who are you?
Really!

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

Notes on a Big Sky

(Skies such as this are very rarely seen here in the UK).

Some of the thinner clouds drift like smoke,
slowly a macabre skeletal hand forms
and tries to grasp this smoke
but without success, 
the hand dissipates haphazardly
dispersing into the smoke.

From the south, a rumpled sheet gradually billows into view
a translucent titillating gossamer that settles briefly
to the contours of an ethereal recumbent lady
three miles in width, an unfathomable wraith.

To the north foaming breakers crash across the horizon trees
then become immense feathers of a large stately bird
which coasts across the clear blue
persistently worried by two white doves.

Criss-crossing the scene
frequent airplane bullet zips rake lean stripes
before bloating into corkscrew spirals
leaving white ink spots to pock and splash the blotting paper sky.

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

Last Post

The night fires are flaming
and as if in homage to the day’s fight,
cackle and spit like the toothless elders
who gather close as the camp settles 
to hear the tales of battles past,
honours won, lives lost.
Tonight, there are heroes but no victors,
another skirmish soon will
re-draw the line once more,
there cannot ever be peace
all soldiers need a war,
all soldiers need a fight.

© Graham Sherwood 07/2018

Fucked

I cannot make that sort of love anymore
not the sort of love you seek, need,
the sort of love young bodies make
violent, all-in, reckless selfish love.
No those days have gone for good
your young smooth flesh
a peach’s bloom
down amongst your sex
hair to your waist lashing out
my face your face soaking wet.
Now it’s feels wrong 
to ponder such a scene
to remember a young girl’s form
so eager, earnest, care abandoned
love masked as sex
insane unpunctuated fucking
that only adolescence may enjoy
I cannot make that sort of love
anymore.

 © Graham Sherwood 06/2018

Loubès-Bernac

This village is silent and
yet to warm its stones,
our tiny restored chapelle
aches with an ancient torpidity
I feel I must be observant to,
The quietude, deafens
so I invent an imaginary tock
a slow pendulous clock
that drops coins
into a fountain of time.
As the dawn vapours take leave
a distant rooster bellows
and hounds shake night fleas
off in the dust
Sundays are for hunting.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

Parenthesis

A father is a redundant lover
seamlessly displaced by his progeny,
(a blinkered provider, worker, 
absent for many of life’s milestones,
a time-poor spectator to growing lives
a parallel source 
of endless and unconditional love)
a hunter a gatherer of resources
a hoarder of unused love
destined to be reserved
and poured on the heads
of his progeny’s progeny
finally to become once more
an unconditional lover
circle complete.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

Reprise

You know that sort of mysterious dusk
when the paling blue sky of a warm day
becomes a tranquil sea
and the few clouds left behind
form south-seas islands or 
volcanic mountain ranges,
It’s then, with my good friends
cabernet sauvignon and merlot
that I set sail, the mild Levante on my shoulder 
to float above the tuillieres
steering my course westward 
and try to live this day over again.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

Critical Condition

What strange medicine 
your words make, 
ejaculating like vomit, 
purging, rejuvenating.
Oh! the irony 
of being cleansed by your own bile 
it’s priceless,
and for that one moment
you are assuaged,
then the torment 
that you bathe in begins again
and the torture 
that nourishes you
comes tumbling once again
into your head,
to await the next expulsion.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

Caller

Call 1.

Somehow, I half-expected the phone to ring,

it often does with uncanny regularity 

as I am about to leave the house.

I didn’t recognise her voice, a fathomless

silkily deep friendly tone

in a timbre that sounded like 

we were already well acquainted.

Her surprisingly forthright manner 

enquired frenetically

as to my whereabouts, asking for my reasons

for letting her down,

evidently, we were supposed to have met

she had some important information

we’d agreed to discuss.

I considered this somewhat bizarre, 

worrying even, thinking it a hoax

but I was already late, so in a hurriedly

apologetic gabble I told her to ring back.

Call 2.

I could hear the phone ringing

coming through the gate,

I fumbled with the well-worn key 

to the cantankerous front door lock,

one of those minor irritations that I’d always

intended to get fixed but hadn’t done yet.

I knew it would ring off before I could get to it

and the answering machine would cut in

to announce my absence,

so why was I still hurrying 

making the fumbling even worse?

On the bus journey home, I pondered

all the female faces that had swept past

the grimy window

in an overwound show-reel travelogue

that could have been my mystery caller.

Bags hastily dropped, 

coat slung over the newel post

I pressed the illuminated new message button,

even her over-emphasised resigned sigh

sounded like a purring cat.

Who is this woman?

 Call 3.

I have arranged to stay in all day

this nonsense has to stop,

there’s such a pregnant silence whilst waiting 

for yet another mysterious call

akin to the jailor’s booted step

clapping on cold hard polished flags,

deafening.

I let my imagination run amok

through the most recent liaisons

my particular line of work delivers

and find myself stationery,

almost catatonic, daydreaming

it could be her, or her, or her

before dismissing each suggestion

as ludicrous.

Then it’s here, a raucous ring

abruptly snapping me to attention

like a hypnotist,

leaving me to stare vacantly

at the blinking handset

which miraculously leaps into my palm.

I wait for that seductive voice, there isn’t one

so, I speak, uncharacteristically feebly

a parched throat but damp forehead,

Ah! You are there, at last, she mocks

regaling me with her previously 

unsuccessful endeavours to track me down.

Time is now short, it is my fault unequivocally

so, we must meet, today, 2.30 and

before I recover from her urgent barrage

I hear myself dictating my mobile number

followed by a disconnected thrum

in my right ear. Shit!

Call 4.                        

It’s been a month since her call, and we met.

Was she the woman I’d expected to meet? 

No!

Were the things we discussed important?

Definitely!

I hadn’t realised, I just didn’t have a clue

and now her revelations, to be honest

have left me feeling very distressed indeed.

My heart has been raped violently, comprehensively

and will never be the same again.

She misread my confusion as negativity

so, things swiftly plummeted from there.

Nothing I could say had any effect on her anger,

to her, my frail words of surprise were incendiary,

there were tears but not enough to quench the flames.

Now I see her face on every window poster

her knowing smile,

billboards, hoardings 

advertise her eyes,

news presenters impersonate her accent,

but it is the smell of her, that perfume

that I cannot lose, it felt so familiar,

citrus floral velvet grass honeysuckle damask

taunts me like tantalus

relentlessly.

Now I am the prisoner

incarcerated by her new revelations,

drugged with names dates and places,

my only lifeline welded to my palm

and a final agonising wait 

for her call.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

The Tyndall Effect, (why kingfishers aren't blue)

Last week’s candles now look a sorry state, but
the tardy conkers will prize this rain,
I pick my steps gingerly, on and off the path
a carpet of sodden cherry blossom
subtle rouge stains, bleeding
into the darker puddles. 
Ferns begin to unroll their tongues
eagerly licking at my bare shins,
the taller grasses also bathe my knees
leaving seeds that lodge between my toes
they itch mercilessly.

Three times a week 
I take my usual rest on a sleeper bench
to scan the stream for the kingfisher,
this morning the muddied current
is swift, the sluices must be open.
I saw one once, just once,
last summer
a magical piercing flash
arrowing just above low water,
breath-taking,
so, I wait.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2018

White Negative Black

Summoned from fitful sleep
a chilling skin-crawl strokes my neck,
the gods are to fight and require my audience
to witness their brooding demeanour.

Other passive bodies peer out
through unlit apertures, ghouls
motionless, duly subpoenaed to attend.

A speculative flash
white, negative, black.
then the thunder gods attack
with terrifying hammer blows
avalanching through the heavens.

Fire, awesome fire
white, negative, black,
almighty licking tongues of lashing flame
from unseen cauldrons light up the sky.

Still the thunderous cannons roar
the hammer and the flame
sibling gods set to vanquish each other’s power,
white, negative, black,
wrestle as we cower and cling to the sill.

There is no victor nor spoils, 
suddenly it is done, I can sleep, 
until the gods call once again
white, negative, black.

© Graham Sherwood 05/2018

WSM

Steep Holm basks in a midday haze,
a putty coloured turtle
treading water off Brean Down,
its land eases from the water 
like a scarab, an unpolished olive dome.

Fifty years have passed, unchanged
save for the Down’s umbilical
thread of metal homes, which
from my vantage, necklace it to the shore.

The ebbing tide irons the final creases
from the sands with one last rinse
as geriatric donkeys 
begin their plod to station.

In the Grand Atlantic’s foyer
the pianoforte needs a dust
patinas dulled by the creep of time
nobility ages 
from tiaras to trainers

© Graham Sherwood 05/2018

Koan on Space

Consider the humble ring doughnut.
Is the space in the centre 
a part of the doughnut,
or is it simply nothing at all?
Without it
the doughnut cannot be a ring,
so does the space really exist
and how does the space in the centre
affect the doughnut’s taste?

© Graham Sherwood 05/2018

Kings Cross

Steam no longer hisses here
save for the baristas churning latte milk,
no more crunching bogies grind
just the rasp of Javan beans,
no bouldering blue grey plumes
to avalanche the rib-arched span,
body odours, none of coal
save the chargrill smell of foreign grub
no crinolines nor travel trunks
no crisp-dressed porters doffing caps,
but ensconced within the parcel yard
a whistle blows, a thunderer, time to depart.

© Graham Sherwood 05/2018

Musaic

Tragedy hangs upon her,
a heavy burden,  a winter coat
wrapped tightly around hunched shoulders
offering no comfort, warmth or solace.

Pencil-thin sincerity
smooth as a lawyer’s smile
has leached from her pores
to leave a parched desiccated shell,
its tuneless cadence spilling
raucously from her blistered lips,
flat reassurances croak
with the anger of my slapped cheek.

But she is beautiful, an avant-garde
mistress of indecision,
a dresser who, 
deliberates, deliberately
holding up clothes to mix and match
perfect machine-cut options, to adorn
a magnetic cardboard mannequin,
her beauty a timeless silver sheen
translucent as chalk drawings
held to the light.

I’ll carry her tragedies, I’ll wear her sincerity
Choose me I beg,
for God’s sake choose me.

© Graham Sherwood 05/2018

Gullabaloo

Sinister gulls that have never yet tasted the sea
bicker and squabble in chaotic aerial combat
wheeling diving rising banking 
like wind-blown litter
scavenging the frozen peas, thrown for the ducks.
Their frenetic cacophony scratches the air
that retaliates with violent twists and lashes
blowing food scraps towards the reeds
and the grateful cowering waterfowl.
As the miscreants disperse unsatisfied
and the afternoon’s melancholy 
re-settles like a veil to pacify the lake
only the cartoon hoots and tentative trills 
of the water-born traffic
break the sultry humour.

© graham sherwood 04/2018 

Glocean

A man pointed to the water, 
nodded sagely and said.
“Two oceans meet there
off Cape Leeuwin, 
there’s even a sign”.

How foolish.

For water has no boundary
cannot be marked by any man,
has no shape no form no line,
knows not of the ocean
nor sea, river, brook or spring.

But man must mark his maps
draw his imaginary lines
control what cannot be tamed,
he is content
to point out to the water
and call its name.

© Graham Sherwood 04/2018

Lines

I can only draw them
listings, diagonal with dates beneath,
faceless names that tug my heart
William, James, Sarah, Charles
Mary, Ann.

No pictures, no weathered creases
searching eyes or family noses
indelible identifiable,
John, Harry, Annie, William, Elizabeth.

No memories recounted, visits made
habits mocked achievements scored,
names repeated, infant deaths, census scribble
Dorothy, Mary, William again, Margaret, Harry too.

The ones I met but didn’t ask,
didn’t make the time, unimportant then
no holiday postcards no box brownie snaps
Judith, Diana
and me!

Graham Sherwood 04/2018

Clash

You stop talking
the conversation ends
with the finality of a guillotine’s drop,
a clean decisive silence
leaving no room for doubt
it’s done.

Like Pontius Pilate
our hand washing commences,
before either of us withdraws
a defiant embarrassed impasse 
heats our faces, and
with perfect synchronicity 
we fade.

As I gingerly rake through the embers
careful not to fan the flames,
I search for reasons, causes, fault
but it’s useless
everything has been consumed
including hope.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018

In-transit

The old van has a bilious rumble tick-over
and an curdling kerbside breath to match,
a week’s papers litter the dash
which sports its own grimy plum-skin bloom
a week’s pack-up wrappers complete the tableau.
Three grey hoodies sit abreast up front
a coffee, a fag, the Sun
looking and feeling like the day
has callously caught them unawares.
The clean-me cartoon is on its way
to being submerged once again
and only three scratched hub caps match,
the other is in the undergrowth
on the slip at J13.
A paint job, the colour of old snow
Polar White
is caked in that new sticky shit
they put on the roads
to stop them icing over.
It’ll be fully light soon
already the sticky shit burnishes
the radiator in weak sun
and two of the hoodies
shift and rasp a fart.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018

Beauty-Form-Vision

Each individual piece of a life, is
cut, shaped, coloured, placed
carefully into a beautiful ordered
syncopated pattern, in balance
to please the eye and salve the heart,
life glistens, is healthy, contented, calm.

With the slightest breath
something moves the lens
a merest quarter-turn, less
so the scene fractures, becomes bizarre
disrupted, we are bereft, lifeless.

Life will adjust, re-focus to the new,
angles tuck and fit, colours swirl to merge
form fresh hues, tapestries re-hang
warmth returns, pulses slow.

Hold life’s kaleidoscope carefully
keep it safe.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018

Collateral Damage

You have such a latent anger
a furnace of swirling bile,
simmering, expectant
an ugly potion disguised by the camouflage
of past injustices,
stoked by a splintering ladle
upon which forgotten battles are etched.
I am too old
and my generation
learned a different tongue,
I bathed in optimistic waters
embraced the ebb and flow of chance,
my scars healed,
yours did not,
but once again
await their chance to spew,
erupting in the fresh air of opinion
darkening the skies, with
charcoal breath and choking
our fresh green shoots with cynicism
and shallow pathos.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018

Love 2059

We’ll never touch
even if you wish it,
the signals are blurring
the outcomes vague
reality slips to mere perception 
better safe than sorry, we say.

I have become weak, unsure
so distance is my safety net
I have desire, a piercing ache
but safely and sadly quenched
so not to draw attention.

This will be our union
notional, disparate.

I love you.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018

Thunderflies

In perfect aspect for the sun

the waist-high corn dry grass

crackles as we stealthily wade,

throwing up a firework display

of pale green grasshoppers

that pop into the air

in random arcs.

I’m bothered by thunderflies

drenching on my sweaty neck

and captivated by your lithe white legs

that carefully stalk, dressage fashion

through this wheaten sea,

the hem of your dress

skimming the feathered ears.

At the stream you are soon naked,

I sit next to your discarded clothes

now ignoring the thunderflies’ torture

intrigued by the curves arches and folds

your bathing body contorts into

stroked by the gentle ranunculus.

You bid me come, but

I must only spectate, to capture

this perfect moment that I realise is unique,

we will make love, for

this stream is indeed our rubicon

both realising things will have changed forever

by the time we journey home.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018