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

Submission

(Just a particularly disturbing thought and its consequence).

News of your death will hasten my demise.
We always thought that stress would be the problem
and tried to keep our feelings on an even plane,
each helping the other until contention came knocking,
knowing when to back down to let the ripples quietly disperse,
sharing our triumphs like a chocolate biscuit
and facing the challenges like mountaineers,
one each end of the fraying rope, trusting the other.
But now I’m told that you have gone,
swiftly, with no warning
leaving but your fading whispered echo
“I’m sorry”.
Yes, news of your death brings such desolation
and it will kill me.

© Graham Sherwood 1/2013

No Echo

(Commentary on fallen idols and discraced heroes).

I can no longer recognize my gods from demons,
and heroes too, now sadly hang askew
their bowing heads from dusty peeling frames,
like sepia outlaws of the wildest west
glare passively over my confusion.
Memories depart like broken friendships,
fractured and unrecognisable, vague as strangers
who cannot look me in the eye,
or offer simple kindnesses unbidden
but steer wide passage by my perplexed stare.


© Graham Sherwood 1/2013