I bend stretch and curl
in serene tai chi stances
through fading seasons
my form’s metamorphosis
sculpted by the elements
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
Scab
Each weekend you settle down,
a chair, a drink, a bag of words
drawn blindly out
one by one
and used to scratch a scab.
The more the rasp, the more the hurt
insidious pleasure
penance pain
blunt-edged consonants sharpish vowels
bullied flesh left to bleed.
On Monday the wound is glazed
by Wednesday thin-skinned and sore
Friday’s taut frail carapace
battens down for what’s in store.
Each weekend you settle down.
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
Sorry
Even the sound is insincere, such a
poor low-register word that is easy to drop
onto a mess, a betrayal,
with the lightest, dullest timbre
but the swift absorbency of an arse-wipe,
the quickest way to tidy up and go on one’s way,
the most catholic of words, free gift of the confessional
to clean one’s slate.
What is sorry?
only you know, until the next time,
and there will be a next time
that’s for sure.
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
Turbulence
Everything is shivering and cringes in this wind,
these hooligan gusts charge wantonly
snapping heels, callously clipping ears, stinging noses.
Invisible save for the humbled detritus
littering our paths,
this threatening prankster, a bully-boy unchastened
safe to come and go, to bide its time,
then strike with cowardly force, is
sometime an eager friend,
a dryer of clothes, a flyer of kites
then a flippant turncoat Judas
that scorns and steals our warmth.
We shiver and cringe in this fickle
uncaring wind.
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
Bathtub Messiah
I watch you like a hawk
day by day delivering speeches
that only you want to hear,
somehow managing to keep and even keel
precariously immersed in word baths,
that let you float, buoyant,
in a paper boat of threadbare emotions.
Then you drink, you drink
from that fetid sea
and suddenly you are drowning,
thrashing and lashing
fraught to grip anything, desperate
to survive just one more time,
casting out beleaguered apologies
to the fading shoreline
that can be reused
time and time again
after each rescue,
your cynical bravado polished
with the tears of your sycophantic
frightened disciples
who really hoped you’d drowned
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
The man who?
The man who claims he has nothing left to lose
is a fool,
the man who believes his dream has come true
is still asleep,
the man who confides that he is in love
is fatally wounded,
the man who shouts that he’ll kill
is forever haunted,
the man who becomes a father
is never at peace,
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
Avianica
Remember how the four of us
would sit like contented birds
amongst the canopy of our thinly disguised
tree houses,
keeping silent whenever an occasional walker
passed below,
pretending we were invisible
the way that little children hide their eyes
convinced they can’t be seen.
We were different
amongst those supportive boughs,
contorted sylvian fingers, cupped around us
as we rested on the gently tensile branches.
In those days we flew!
© Graham Sherwood 03/2019
