Michael Shepherd Life Poems

...more than we or others ever realise, I reckon,
the music of our younger years
makes the soundtrack to our life -
...

She passes through life
with grace and ease and lightness
like a fine bright silken sari
caught by the gentle breeze
...

Buy a child's red-covered
'My Exercise Book'
like the one you bought
all those years ago
...

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;
...

It’s a snapshot, except
before the age of the camera
yet more of a decisive moment
than any posed painting
...

Is ‘approve’ another word for ‘love’?
So that, when we say ‘I love you! ’ there’s the sense,
‘It’s good – I’m glad – that you are in this world! –
that you exist! ’ – so that, to love, becomes
...

Shall I compare thee to...a winter's night? ...I wish
I knew what so provokes...
is it me, is it you, is it us?
I try from time to time, to start afresh,
...

Behind the lens, the eye of the photographer;
behind the eye, the observer;
behind the observer, the immortal soul:
...

It was a late, late night;
a wild, wild night;

primitive urges which people
...

I would live in that sort of space
if would were could.

Instead, I take off my shoes at the door,
...

Here in the garden at the break of day,
the air’s been washed with holy water overnight,
and it’s so peaceful, as if nature at this hour
replays Creation’s dawn; takes a heartfelt pause
...

The water’s not so deep
down here, it’s still stirred
on the sea-bed by the off-shore tide.
The seaweed waves in slow rhythm, almost gracefully.
...

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,
...

Your life is a mess? In every way?
And no sign of change?
Your fault? Or that of others?
Does it matter which, any more?
...

The year is 1607; the place, the lodgings
of the Jesuit College Royal Henri-le-Grand
at La Fleche; it’s evening;
...

When he first clapped eyes on her
you could have heard the clapping
in the next ballroom.
...

Pen in hand, and pensive…
sitting by the open window,
the curtains moving gently in the breeze,
listening to the spontaneous liveliness
...

When I first looked
so deep into your eyes

I remembered
...

and since they say
you're the greatest American short story writer,
I'm reading the one of yours
you chose yourself
...

Our future is a projection of our past
with the promise of an ever present now
to grace proceedings
with spontaneous life and hope
...

War under a summer sun
and the soldier’s life now a sleep, beautiful
in, we may hope, the angel kiss
of death, friend of heroic human nature.
...