Michael Shepherd Poems

The National Literacy Trust in Britain
did a survey and
- yes, you guessed -
57% read 'only a bit' or not at all
...

This starry dawn - the wise men yet afar -
the shepherds are abed, their night's task done.
Is Mary tired? Or, as one untouched?
All birth's a miracle; not less this one.
...

Some poems have a vast interior;
a deep, wild, impenetrable up-country,
traversed as in some dream
so long, no-one can say
...

...more than we or others ever realise, I reckon,
the music of our younger years
makes the soundtrack to our life -
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‘We only love if we have first been loved.’

Aye, there’s the rub.
...

The wise love wisely.

It’s said, that when the truly wise
surface from their sleep,
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...who or which is the main topic of this site
in any season, let alone this one in the Northern hemisphere,
as the hormones stir a young man's fancy
and an old man's mind...
...

I believe with William Morris
that there should be nothing in the house
which is not known to be useful
or seen to be beautiful.
...

Suck and blow, suck and blow,
like a pair of windy bellows -

why do you whingers wheeze on so -
...

As some sun-ripened vineyard-owner, rich
in slow maturing wisdom gained through time,
before that noble rot of trodden grape
yields untold harvest of a well lived life-
...