Legerdemain

there’s a subtle difference now
on those rare occasions that our eyes meet.

I feel I give myself away too easily
having lost the skill of camouflage
wearing this faded jester’s cape.

always the jester,
my bag of tricks threadbare
the wrinkled joker card
overused and too easily spotted
in this well-thumbed dog-eared pack.

I now understand
my magic is worthless, misdirected
by your quickening years

© Graham Sherwood 07/2017

Old Soldier's Handbook

I want no talk of poetry, here

your vellum is the shithouse door,

arseholes for inkwells

fingernails for nibs and

never bellyache of what you’ve seen

you don’t have that right?

Do your bit and kept it shut,

pride and pissed pants

make perfect partners, oh!

one last thing, if you get home

never frighten the children

just remember,

that is all!

© Graham Sherwood 07/2017

Collapit

Rabbit holes, narrow as a beggar’s luck
can be deceiving
dangerous to both life and limb.

In the winter they are bare,
tight drainpipes with ragged stone-clad walls
that whisper in a local tongue,
and run red wet
with the skin of travellers past.

Summer, in full camouflage
they conspire and constrict 
with hungry ivy lichen tendrils
that feign soft welcome,
to lure the hapless foreigner, with
tangling-aged signposts
that addle and beguile,
never to be seen again.

© Graham Sherwood 07/2017

Finedon Mill

There’s the lightest frisson,
a gentle breeze, caught up
and nudged by the threat
of an approaching storm
to shake lacework ripples
across the millpond’s placid face.

Once spent the bobbing lilies
slowly come to rest, so dapping flies
may once more tap dance
on the settled spreading pads.

Watched by a bowed but proud straw man
aged branches creak and wheeze,
beech leaves whistling their worried trill
unsure the storm is satisfied.

© Graham Sherwood 06/2017

Vox

we choose,
some lose
young old,
weak bold
colours pall,
fortunes fall

care less,
reap mess
woman man,
also-ran
colours shift,
fortunes drift

weather storm,
regain norm
recriminations,
action stations
colours tally,
fortunes rally

© Graham Sherwood 06/2017

Morning Bill

We sleep downstairs,
wonderful in this heat and
I’m dreaming of Bea playing
outside the open bedroom window
too early
then realise it’s the boys next door
in the tree house.
I slip out and leave you to sleep
entangled, and
stumble up to make tea,
wash up last night’s wine glasses
wistful, remembering
the taste of each wine
the words of each friend
still sat out at midnight
warm as freshly picked fruit.
Now, a lazy breakfast
at the same table
coffee, yoghurt and strawberries
far too healthy, but
it’s Father’s Day, so
I think of the children
and my own father too, long dead

© Graham Sherwood 06/2017

Mayko

outside nothing stirs,
occasionally a lazy cloud
glides across the tarnished moon,
a slow-motion camera shutter
sleep defying blink,
light into darkness into light
then motionless once more

it’s easy to become snake-eyed,
my saucer size pupils
glare at a single point
a lichen covered stone toad
urgently willing movement,
my brain elects to play the game
improvises a shudder
then sniggers patronizingly
I am so easily fooled

Through this silver, charcoal, silver repartee
I am lost to a Zen torpor
the same word revolves
halo-like
speechless
peace
light into darkness into light

© Graham Sherwood 06/2017