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