A Vendre

We pause to watch the supping fingerlings
break the glass of the bottle green water,
perfect circles, brief, before fading.
A family of swallows are also feeding on the dapping fly
and make their own dinner plate ripples
as they wheel and dive between us.
Then there it is, canalside.
A Vendre, almost a ruin,
a peeling painted sign for wine
half on the ancient splintered shutter
and half the crumbling rendered wall.
We both look, our thoughts colliding silently,
the steps from the panelled verandah,
a perfect jetty, the porch,
the curve of the canal and willows on the bend.
We could sell beer and wines
and wave to bargees with a knowing smile.
How much I wonder, you say?
And much, more to put it right.
Eventually we idle away,
our fleeting new life dream
fades around the bend
leaving swallows to their chaotic repas.

© Graham Sherwood 09/2012

Hameau

From our lofty position above the plough
the Hameau forms a Y-shape,
a rough grass lane bends taught
like a thick tensile blade from left to right,
an ancient cart track cuts an axis against the mow.

Seven cottages lie cradled here,
each roof taking on a different aspect,
like sentries on guard, waiting
to repel the wolves that will surely come
bounding from the newly churned furrows.

But for now, no noise
save the twilight crackle from the fields,
where other bovine guards diligently stare
but offer no alarm in their ambivalent armour.
We wait.

Corn blond, then gold submit to russet
then sentries set their light
and from the futile ramparts
peer into the dusk
that hides the dangers of the night.

© Graham Sherwood 9/2012

Papadigm

It begins today,
the anniversary,
if that is the right word for it.
Today, I officially become older than my father,
twenty-five years in the making.
What did I think would happen?
A message from the hereafter or something,
congratulations,
of course not,
none of us ever believed in paradise.
But nonetheless today my face will supplant his,
my mirror to his photographs.
He will never look like this,
and from here on in
I am his senior in my reveries.
I will teach him things now,
finally my student after sixty-one years,
our roles reversed and he,
with the same inquisitive expression
that often sat upon my brow, will be my pupil.
He will ask me new questions.
Where shall I begin?

© Graham Sherwood 09/2012

Hay

A old grocer’s bell,
then a silent fart of cobwebbed breath
crawls through the cracks of flaking plaster,
leaving nothing,
to disturb the sombre tock of three o’clock,
that neatly sliced portion,
sour quarter of the afternoon
set out as afternoon tea between the mildewed tomes.
Here heroes lay,
their ears foxed by marbled paper rainbows,
their perilous lives now flit in passive glimpses, moments,
no time to either take a bow or any other accolade.
Heroes need danger, a foe, a nemesis,
a reason for the polished sword or loaded gun.
Here there’s none, save the stealth of warmly muttered sighs

© Graham Sherwood 8/2012

Re-Pose

(An observation of beauty).

You lie on the sofa with the effortless elegance
of a fin de siècle Duchess,
bare feet up, crossed, like a vicar’s calm hands at prayer.
Even the stripes on your untied dressing gown
slope perfectly, draping down
as liquor running from the upturned bottle onto the floor.
The untidy newspaper fails to crackle in your hands,
whilst you read with a considered finger resting atop your lip
as if choosing a delicacy from an offered box.
Occasionally an un-deciphered comment is allowed its flight,
only to fall short, exhausted, halfway across the rug.
Picasso might have placed you there
but I have not the inclination or the talent
to do you justice .

Boathouse

(The subject of a dream 03.03am)

I chose the Boathouse or should I say it chose me.
Perfectly planked, varnished to a silky touch,
more cricket pavilion with the legs of a stork,
motionless, amongst the river’s margin.

At dawn, with fresh coffee on the verandah,
three shapes emerge from the reedy mist
grey bobbing leathery seals, abreast,
police frogmen, wading from the gloom.

“Child lost upstream, a mile or so”. Terse.
“They usually come this way”. Resigned.
“How can you do a job like this”. Incredulous.
“the secret is, not to look them in the eye”. Wearied.

Throughout the day, mooring ropes creak
and the lazy river slaps dumbly
on the weatherboards.
a mother’s gentle tap, asking baby politely for wind.

I found the child, or should I say she found me.
at 4pm,
a timid knocking on the slipway rail
as if calling round for tea.

Just her auburn crown floating,
an Ophelian bedraggled mist.
I scooped her up, taking care not to turn her over,
a little ragdoll princess from Elsinore.

Front Page

(Comment on Marie Colvin)

You stayed to tell me a story
fearless or foolish, braveheart or banale
you knelt at the sacrificial altar
a big mistake.
So the needy stay forgotten
the desperate still forlorn
and limb-strewn rubble commonplace
to the eyes of the world
now distracted
to follow the story of you.