Christopher Shepheard Poems

You sat, the victrix of my escapade,
The spoils upon your lap; a programmed scrolled
From fiddling, an empty box. I had,
I thought, enough of fight to have emerged
...

The spaces that you left have not been filled —
No hands emerge to make the darkness warm,
Nor breathing with a rhythm now reminds
The early-morning hours of life. And there
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Now is the middle game; the opening
Has set the style of play. No use to wish
I had been more aggressive, bolder, wise,
Or treated my opponent with respect,
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The blot revealed you, and the way
You dotted your Js — trite
Little comments, written in turquoise —
Immortal, a moment of you —
...

I, too, have a clock
Without hands, without images,
Faceless of Arabic figures,
I listen
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Put out the iris of the inner eye —
Children’s games download by gigabyte;
The mouse and joystick substitute the wands
Magicians wove in kingdoms of delight.
...

To sensibilities, mean-tuned,
Ambition is all about gratification —
Horizontal gratification —
Pushing your card in the money slot,
...

I
Sang the old refrain —
The verses I forget —
The various
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For now the hoodlum years have kicked the heads
From off the flowers that growing up invests
To ornament the future, come what may
Of blossoms, blooms and oriflammes decay.
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You nothing said,
Though your eyes swam like lapis lazuli
Deep set in summer seas,
Hanging a question on your reticence.
...