Michael Shepherd Poems

A hard writing I had of it;
the words clumsy, the sense banal...

escaping from rhyme isn't easy;
...

On a sunful, funful, easeful sorta cloudwhite airblue day,
we sat exchanging coinages
in a smileful, timepass way;
...

I never thought it would happen to me…
so, I wouldn’t have been reading this poem…

but now it seems it has. And now
...

... for richer, or for richer still,
in status or in wealth,
in parenthood or career opportunity,
for as long as my current commitments permit,
...

This Christmas, as ever at this time of year,
there’s a worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood
whose numbers I cannot count
and would not wish to know;
...

On a crowded commuter train
pressed between two poets;

caught too for words:
...

There are those who, for
the deepest reasons even they forget,

offer themselves upon the altar
...

Sometimes, an earthly miracle
needs human mediation;
it’s what creates our saints;
and what our saints create.
...

Why should I take your time
describing in loving detail
the day so many years ago
when I smelt the air on a cliff-top –
...