Monologue

I hear the ends of sentences
before you have spoken,
the words echo and boomerang
backwards
an argument at odds with itself,
I am ever surprised,
devastated or elated
by these palindromic shuttlecocks,
hit hard, but landing softly
spiked backchat of barbed ire,
designed to stun not kill
this very one-sided conversation.



© Graham Sherwood 09/2015

For Mehmet Ciplak

was the salty water warm
that stroked his head?
was that tiny bundle lighter
than your leaden heart?
can you ever notice beauty
or watch the blue waves break
and hear that familiar
chisk and claw
ebb and flow
without his stranded flotsam
seared into your view?





© Graham Sherwood 09/2015

Koan on a Wish

An old man grants a young girl a wish
for she has done him a kindness
and it is also her birthday.
After her protestations
she agrees to make a wish
but the wish will not come true
if anyone is told its nature.

How does the old man know her wish
and will the wish come true?




© Graham Sherwood 09/2015

Silver Birch

cool on palms,
smooth
this pigskin mottled
paper bark
proudly worn,
wraps wary bulbous
ocular knots
a stand a sentinel
for these silver powdered ghosts,
whose brisking leaves
bugle the call
about! about!



© Graham Sherwood 09/2015

War of Words

I glimpse your dagger of sarcasm
kept honed for cutting remarks
and the poison pen hovering
above the letters that you craft,
its nib polished silver
a blade bleeding cruel ink.
Callous lies you wrap in tissue
masquerading as gifts of love
but each barbed with razor wire
ripping heart sinews like cotton wool,
silently, easily.
I am fast learning that my vocabulary
is too feeble, not battle ready,
hollow vowels seeking invisible consonants
to make their mark,
perhaps to spell the word
surrender.


© Graham Sherwood 08/2015

Now?

(my favourite was an eye).


What is the logo for now?
A word so fleet of foot
too short for measure
there being no future in its tense
and so easily lost to the past.
So what are you thinking now?



© Graham Sherwood 08/2015

Overview

(Clouds, always worth a look).


We discuss the sky often, both agog
under that unfathomable space,
that infinite openness
what else ought we call it?
some things have no need of a name
and sky seems such a paltry term
for such a boundless vista.
But how you scowl
when slate grey volcanoes puther
from unseen horizons, dark soot embryos
erupting to colour your view,
crashing over your head
prodding the ache of a frown
into one bilious migraine.
You know they’ll soon be gone
those busy inquisitive wraiths
but still let me shake a useless fist
and shout into their violent vacuum,
acting as your erstwhile champion
before sailor blues begin to reappear
in bandy-legged unison.



© Graham Sherwood 08/2015