Starlet

(One of the most beautiful young women that I have ever met).

I will remember that I met you
and that you made me special tea,
the badly washed-up mug unnoticed.

You were wearing thin pyjamas,
and eating pancakes with a fork
when I arrived, stopping in my tracks.

From the tiny balcony
we smiled across the dowdy roofscape
toward the lights and music that beguile you.

Such fragile open beauty
an innocent beacon facing west,
in search of your tomorrows.

I shall tell other friends how we had met
before the world knew who you were,
and all your many faces.

© Graham Sherwood 8/2010

Succubus

(What an absolutely superb word).

With eyelids closed, I briefly notice,
for only one second,
the slender-limbed diaphanous wraith,
she standing watch, from the open window.
My dumbfound hypnosis, lifeless,
her touch becomes a peach bloom cheek
upon my thigh,
tumultuous tresses surround my sex.
Then saffron mists swirl like a crown,
she is at once astride and I am drawn up
as if a well, juices rise
like fleeting lifeblood.
My palms are held in prayer,
those pitch-dark eyes, fix me like a stake
and I am warmly damp, resigned,
but oh! such malevolent beauty.

© Graham Sherwood 8/2010

Melancholium

(A daydream really and not a lot more, brought to life in sporadic images).

A creased and discarded tarot card,
the litter swirling through the museum of my life,
of unfulfilled hopes, failed wishes and whimsy dreams,
lain heavy, sodden, undisturbed as silt in the depths of memory,
await the callous prod of apathy’s endless benign ache
that, like the phantom of matters past,
serves to churn old thoughts and memories.
The hazy characters, some on brittle plinths,
more in dusty sheets or smeared glass frames,
offer me one further glance of meagre recognition,
then fade as swiftly as they came,
each with their shared ambivalent frown,
If only………

© Graham Sherwood 7/2010

Memories

Creeping like a rumour
from cold room and colder still,
no need to keep the lifeless silence
that hangs, as if some assassin’s chord
has deftly strangled last year’s
incarcerated air.
The comfortable dust is wary too
lest I might break its reverie,
but no, I float through space
with vaporous eyes as empty as
the cupboard drawers.
Am I the first to return here?
As if to steal a march or careless clue,
before you notice and hurry back
to bid me stay.
But these are memories
that cannot be traded for fresher life.

© Graham Sherwood 6/2010

Eighteen

(Whilst considering the current malaise amongst many of our young
I was brought to remembering my teenage years).

Long half-hearted shadows whittle away the afternoon sun,
as cooling clouds assemble too and bruise a timid sky,
as if a threadbare woven cloak had fallen from its peg,
and with its heavy weave, borne down to stifle summer.
Lust’s passion in the grass thus spent, we also slowly cool,
our backs tattooed with twigs and leaves and dust,
your secret hair smeared damply flat, glistens
as you slide away to search for clothes.

© Graham Sherwood 5/2010

Green Park Eleven

(A particularly warm and sunny April afternoon stroll through Green Park
in London offered too many images to ignore. This observation followed).

The crocus have fled and the daffodils gone,
bereft, just the dandelion gold lingers on,
a tame squirrel tugs at the creased trouser legs
of beautiful girls strewn like discarded pegs,
on tattersall rugs on the damp summer turf
their bleached Sunday newspapers billow like surf
bringing whispered languages foreign to me
from passionate lovers beneath every tree
this afternoon stroll a surreal postcard scene
of picnics and lovers and melting ice cream
under clear silent skies of azure, replete
from a bough the squawk of a lost parakeet
strange, here, amidst the capital’s special place
but there’s hardly surprise on anyone’s face

© Graham Sherwood 4/2010

Otis cries

(Funerals are never very inspiring occasions and the sudden death of a
dear next door neighbour was tremendously stressful for all concerned.
However, from the density of the hushed congregation little baby Otis
spoke for us all).

I have never known so many shades of black,
each stand immobile in uncomfortable resignation
to await the sombre arrival of Norma’s box,
silently gliding by
the preposterously long shiny car, black of course.
Of course there are tears, and tears make more tears,
all sorry sadly for themselves,
strangers who are strangely old friends
here to say goodbye and eat the vol-au-vents
the gujons and the dips,
all served so bloody cold, deathly cold.
Bare three weeks old with music to his name,
Otis calls a plaintive wail to Grandma,
a flimsy chord of life amongst the dead,
we are shamed and dab our tears.

© Graham Sherwood 4/2010