Ballet du Jardin

I sit amongst the slow death of autumn,
mourner for the splendid season passed,
still warm, but draped with funereal shades
and the keen astringent tincture of musk.
Like the wily fox
a breeze steals between some broken slats
carefully, but slowly, circling the listless leaves
then with a single bark
stampedes the cackling henflakes into a panicked spin
rising up, now plunging, crashing
like skating claws that scar the garden fence.
Empty flowerpots tack and yaw
Like paper boats atop this maelstrom
Then spin noisily away to safe harbour.
Sated, the zephyr idly slinks away
to leave a magic morsel for my amusement.
Two brittle-slim willow leaves hang impossibly
in plain sight, an illusion, tumbling like gymnasts
or bronzed ballerinas held in time, performing
on the slightest line of spider’s web
puppets in a sallow requiem.

© Graham Sherwood 11/2013

Event

The pain, a stiletto, a scalpel, a betrayal
The fall, an avalanche, a demolition, a house of cards
The cry, white noise, soundless, unheard
The visions, mother, father, family
The sound-scene, measured voices, sirens, wind
The sensations, massage, shock, wrestling limbs
The audience, eyes staring, bright lights, electronica
The wait, first hour crucial, lifeless, Houdini
The outcome?

© Graham Sherwood 11/2013

Sunday Haiku

Dream Shower Toast Tea
Newspaper Leaf-Mould Hail Storm
Walk Five Fish Dinner

© Graham Sherwood 10/2013

Awaiting Erato

(Study of a blank page).

Alone again, what is Muse?
What kind of entity
as light as breath, heavy as guilt, capricious as faith
that holds me in such crushing torpor
of impatient anticipation.
Be she young, or she at all?
who points my gaze, loosens my tongue
and sets ablaze my thoughts,
before, with scant indication
gone.
If a he, Muse is brutal
a fierce prodigal who bears no kindred spirit
no brotherly bond
and will not fight my corner,
who lashes cruelly with barbed whips
that rip the sleeves of my recoiling aspirations.
No, Muse is she
who, tosses tendrilled locks
with a curious, unsure countenance,
the promise of a smile, the treason of a frown,
the blink of embrace, the furnaces of loss,
why else would I wait here?

© Graham Sherwood 10/2013

Going Back

(A reflective thought on a planned reunion).

Later over dinner we re-assemble
like old knights with their ladies,
to study surreptitiously one another’s lifelines
and to hear what japes have come and gone
throughout these last fifty years or so.
The weight of our armour is now replaced
by the fat of too few battles fought.
Of course what we really want to know
we are all too afraid to ask,
of how a lifetime drifted by unseen

© Graham Sherwood 10/2013

There and back again

(On the subject of travel)

On any journey worth its salt
take an invisible knapsack
fill it with the weight of places,
peoples and other nouns
This burden tugs your progress
packed in different pockets
folded emotions, pristine like maps
faces moulded like sculptures
and essences are bottled fast
West to east become east to west
as it surely will
and irksome baggage becomes chafed and worn
and tears beneath the rent of homesickness
spilling the journey stones
to leave a boy scout’s coded secret trail
to mark your pathway home


© Graham Sherwood 09/2013

Ebb and Flow

What do you intend to do?
The enquiry delivered like a helpful slap
is designed to bring me to my senses,
your hand left hanging there
in case more medicine is required.
The bow wave of your breath
like a crashing surf, roars
and then is numbed silence,
I count to seven awaiting the next explosion.
Will you be alright?
More gentler, calmer water now, damaged,
your voice a useless bloodstained sling
offering support but delivering none,
my purposeful stride self-moderates
into a funereal step, pause, step.
Do I go or do I stay?


© Graham Sherwood 09/2013