Michael Shepherd Poems

Unending one, you’ve shown myself to me.

In the place you wrote into being
where the image of God made Man
...

A string of perfect pearls
threaded on grey silk
in a silver jewel-case
I'm keeping for somebody else
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Today is that day
not on the calendar,
as National Olfactory Day,
but far more exciting than that:
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And now she's died, too...
and mankind's selfish howl rings out -
She should have died hereafter...
why didn't you tell us you were going to die...?
...

A poet, far from his beloved,
wrote a poem full of meaning
and, calling a carrier-pigeon from his loft,
sent it as a white dove to his beloved
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I’ve only got to say the word…and
I can hear the male murmur murmur right now
mixed with a hurhur hurhur as of naughty boys…
suddenly lips and fingers have their vivid, hungry memories…
...

disconcerting from the first moment. how to know
freak from mutant. what rules and if not rules, what.
freaks release the mind from proud obligations of duty.
hate, admire, destroy, venerate; easiest of all, ignore:
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Once I had this fanciful idea of recording
the silence in each great cathedral
and marketing these...
...

As the new year’s evening class
filed in, in varying displays of enthusiasm or cool,
discreetly summing up their tutor
you couldn’t help but notice them
...