Buzz

(A study in listening)

A numbing, soft, uncomfortable crush,
the white noise of night’s silence
that the brain tricks into an urgent wind,
a balmy tinnitus, a mausoleum
from whence escape is futile,
other than to further hostile desolations.
Alone in my shrinking room,
where even the reassuring monotone tock
is lost amongst this velvet hiss,
or thrust in the heft of the commuting faceless,
still the lumbering drone of spectral noise.
There is no such state as solace, silence, sanctuary,
just the near imperceptible swish of consciousness
from which we writhe, but none can abscond.


© Graham Sherwood 6/2013

Knights

(Little boys will be boys).

Such then is your magic world
of wooden staves and special powers,
for bravery, chivalry and derring-do,
each tree stump a task
each bridge enchanted,
so too the stepping-stones
crooked in the fathomless trickling brook.
You ride with knights
their shirts tugged out,
fresh bloodied knees
ripe ruddy cheeks,
who follow you
through direst scrapes
to Avalon’s halcyon throne
and feasts of biscuits, milk and rest.

© Graham Sherwood 5/2013

Serial Cereal

(The Sunday Papers).

Excitedly you await my arrival,
a child shopping with her mother,
to purchase this week’s packet of cereals.
The toy inside invariably disappoints
the stories and puzzles on the box,
whilst colourful are often similarly so.
We masticate the news of recent events,
amongst the tasteless flakes
of other people’s goings-on
which float like oil upon our own biographies
leaving recent dramas untold.
Is this the way we list our life?
Bargain basement cornflakes,
or should we display our issues
with the more expensive meusli
on the higher shelves.
Wherever we stand, we both know
when all that’s left is chaff,
there’ll be another box next week.

© Graham Sherwood 4/2013

The Topic of Cancer

(On the death of a friend).

Dark mahogany, tackiness,
the beguiling patina of old warm beer
lingers at our table like yesterday’s news,
it now appears we all heard simultaneously.
That ghoulish section, obituaries
we always head-to first, fearing the worst
sometimes relieved, more often saddened.
Fuck! John’s gone, fuck, fuck!
So now we’ve come together as we do
sat bowed like Trappists
in some badly rehearsed party game,
occasionally looking up
to throw unwanted questions with our eyes
before apologizing for the effort,
as they fall like John’s ashes to the floor.
Eventually our hooded eyes meet,
another one gone then,
with his japes and memories
still warm but filed away.
Those fucking manikins!

© Graham Sherwood 4/2013

Body Politic

(How power and position can destroy love).

This is miser’s meat, and
no banquet for a lusty soul,
when all along, with payment from a willing heart
better fare, shared
could have made a stronger love.
Once we both ate at Cupid’s table,
greedily pushing in the ruby berries
and seductive figs,
unashamed of our bloodied skins
writhing there, in such gluttonous ecstasy
we fell, sated, spent and gasping.
Now with fortunes changed
our insipid intellects intact,
breathing slowly, measured,
we crouch together face to face,
and watch our mutual grim-faced demise,
amongst the dwindling, starving rations of a love.

© Graham Sherwood 3/2013

Nuga

(A strange insomnia word)

The word nuga is offered to me
in exchange for sleep
and I rise to write it down,
only to be left mesmerized
by the cursor’s blink.
The word door being closed
I wait like a beggar, meek
foolish and goose-pimpled,
shivering,
asked out to play, but last to be picked
and still wondering,
Nuga?

© Graham Sherwood 2/2013

Pontification

(A papa resigns)

Aged opulence,
global recognition,
such crippling, aching tiredness of the soul,
life’s daily cilicio punctures every wavering prayer,
faith the burden of the addled mind
unfaithful to the faithful

© Graham Sherwood 02/2013