Michael Shepherd Poems

These wild, rough autumn days
as cooling Northern hemisphere
shudders towards its equinox
with gales and rain and blown-off leaves,
...

Erstwhiles,
of candle-laboured hours and screwed-up eyes,
the quill scratch-scratching, the paper ragged rough, the ink
unwieldy, black and unredeeming
...

and as the thick heat of the day lifts off,
the city comes alive.

What is architecture without shadow?
...

Oh why must you flaunt and yet again
your proclaimed divisions with others
like some badge of honour?
...

It was his listening; he listened
to himself; he listened to himself
listening to his lute; his lute perforce
listened to itself; listened to itself
...

You’re two-thirds the way through.
The corners of their mouths are turning down.
Their eyes are filming over.
Their shoulders are stiffening.
...

‘My Beloved,
what can I give you of myself,
that I have not given? ’
...

Restaurant; trattoria; tapas-bar;
weinstuben; sushi; cafeteria; eaterie; drive-by; gastro-pub…
what’s in a name? A meal by any other name
would smell as good…
...

If he really wants to win this title
he’s got to really work at it in this race:
is he hungry enough?
...