Michael Shepherd Death Poems

Why should mankind not face
the thought of afterlife?

For half the world or so,
...

There is, it’s said, a state of joyful death,
known to the wise; and this, more realised
than that cessation of our mortal breath
beyond experience; only surmised;
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Behind the lens, the eye of the photographer;
behind the eye, the observer;
behind the observer, the immortal soul:
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‘The dead man was a six-foot ex-heavyweight,
funding his unpaid youth club work
by working as security in a night-club;
shot for gently warning
...

You could guess from the crowd
converging on the Memorial Hall
and on a Saturday night, that
the speaker must be world-famed in his field,
...

She’s dying.
She’s had two heart attacks,
they say the third, the fatal one,
could come at any time.
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and a poet I was reading yesterday
said, have you noticed
that portraits of people change
after they die?
...