Michael Shepherd Poems

'Your only enemy

is yourself'...
...

I wanted to write to you about your poems,
that is, about something I couldn't quite put my finger on
so I didn't write in case it sounded inconsequential
and it's silly to write to a poet who handles words so expertly,
...

It's a sepia photograph, taken, I'm guessing,
1900,1910? The whole of it is taken up by
a crowd on the move, passing the photographer,
who could be, say, clinging to a lamp-post, or on a balcony.
...

Do spiders think? or simply learn
without a thought (well, lucky them)
by observation, as great scientists?
Does Nature do it all without a 'thought',
...

After you’ve negotiated that artfully-conceived
sharp elbow bend in the long, grand drive
through the fields of its estate,
and it hoves into view,
...

To coin a metaphor:

It's like a Protestant
wandering into a Catholic church
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Loved your poem about those
carefully-prepared but slightly
mis-timed, Famous Last W...
...

I like to think that
there's a language
which is unspoken, unwritten
except
...