Michael Shepherd Poems

It must be fun - or so I'd like to think -
doing a 'people' job,
if that's what you really like to do;
like being a born bright barman in a not-too-busy bar
...

When did you cease to love, then hate, yourself?
What terrible event? How long ago?
What slight misunderstanding, view of self,
that led to fading love, then bitter hate?
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Small-town romantics
once might live in fear:
demon lovers, married,
or didn't live near...
...

Right now, there are near 5,000 visitors on this site.
Let's suppose
you spend 8 hours a day surfing the web
and 8 hours sleeping
...

O God - or may I call you Lord? –
I remember when I was a child,
You were my best friend, one who knew me
better than I knew myself;
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Going deaf
is such a curse.
Yet my listening's better -
'cos my hearing is worse.
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How great is greatness? asks my questing soul:
scenting behind that quest, eternity;
that dark which, studied, lights the dazzling whole
and brings to finite thought, infinity;
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I wonder if Wordsworth
noticed that if he stood
very still, aware of his body
from his toes up to his head
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Orfeo shone.
He shone as music shines.

His shining, not the beauty of his radiant body;
...