Marsden

(Feeling abroad,even in one's own country).

Wedged like cheese
in the scissors of the Coln,
smeared up the sides like a butty
smoke and stone, music, different tongues
catch my ear
tease my eye
wet my lips.

Bank Bottom’s broke
and cloth is cut more carefully,
spring long gone
the chance of a cuckoo, to
catch my ear
tease my eye
wet my lips.

Black Standedge tunnel burrows the
glorious autumnal moors,
hiding darker secrets still,
I’m mind to cower as voices
catch my ear
tease my eye
wet my lips.


© Graham Sherwood 10/2014

Astrolabe

(A picture from A Sunday Newspaper Magazine).

Fresh coffee and stale bedclothes,
outside, wet earth from new rain and
the click of a spunky robin,
even before I open my eyes
tell me it’s morning.
The sheet slips on purpose
as you’re already fixing me a stare,
both erect
we know that waking sex
is on the horizon.
But not before I unfurl you
like a chart, a mariner’s map
where I study the perilous shallows and
mark the safety of warmer, deeper waters
before deftly sliding into safe haven.



© Graham Sherwood 10/2014

Seaside 4x4

(Typical seaside observation, that's all).

Gulls wheel and squeal and spin
like dirty handkerchiefs in the wash,
one settles to rape a discarded bag of sodden chips
before the inevitable vicious pecking war begins.


Circling cleverly around this dawning scene
an urban wind unfolds the day,
unwrapping the present before
purchasing the future.


Beachside, a traffic cone King Canute
unsteadily enthroned, straddles an errant deckchair,
his inebriated subjects having long departed
do not witness the repeating failure.


Between two stubborn weedy groynes
the chisk and rinse of pebbles fall,
like sarcastic waves of applause
slapping the seawall’s bitter cheeks.



© Graham Sherwood 09/2014

Cortege

(An idea of how others might see us).

Your considered indignation
drives the hearse
carrying the corpse
of my sorry, spent infatuation
towards its unmarked grave.
As I see it interred,
from a discreet distance
my wizzened frame, hollowed out
falls like a paper bag
spilling crumbs of pathetic prose.
These littering skerricks,
tumbling unheard
you deftly sweep with bare toes
into the vacant tomb
together with your departing naivety.


©Graham Sherwood 08/2014

Le P

Le P stands foursquare,
and keeps a steady eye
on sunflower, vineyard and the bristling corn
that lap its humble foundation blocks.
On the departure of Orion
and the scream of midnight’s owls,
before the hullabaloo seduction of dawn’s doves
the chiselled stone changes,
and so, infused with the flush of morning,
lizards stir to adorn the aged stones
like dun tattoos.

Would Le P had castors
it may seamlessly rotate to follow the progress of the day,
beckoning deer and the fickle oh so wary hare
to prance and lope amongst the stubble tracks,
enticing bees from their idyll in the copse,
and scorning the raucous discord between crow and buzzard,
proud cornerstones drawn up to corset
this most humble of bastides.



© GrahamSherwood8/2014

Beauty

You curse me with your limpid smile
and I, wishing you a statue,
desire to move about your perfect alabaster form
from nape to heel,
chin to toe,
fashioning with closed eyes
the stolen long departed days
when youth meant nought,
and beauty lay meaningless
with our discarded clothes.


© Graham Sherwood 8/2014

Age Old

We drink fine wines, kissed by the craft of many ages
and without words tell each other of their riches.
Our eyes, themselves having matured through much-troubled times,
now surrender helplessly to this potent chemistry,
a knowing look replacing a thousand care-worn words.

Thus when our prophets are unmasked as mere charlatans
and our dreamtime chaos of smoke and mirrors clears,
the golden age of our aspirations completes,
and like fine wines we will lie together
silently, to gather the dust of a thousand perfect reveries.


© Graham Sherwood 8/2014