Michael Shepherd Poems

It was a day much like any other.
Too many letters to open right now;
The phone pipped and bleeped and hissed
as it recorded too many requests
...

May sonnet ever match sonata form?
whose opening movement catches restless mind;
whose new and ever-fresh harmonious sound
puts spark in eye and ear, and feet on ground;
...

The scholar, in his book-lined study, sits,
walled in by printed thought in black and white;
silent; by a pool of lamplight lit;
now still in reading, or now drawn to write;
...

I've just made a passable loaf:
the mixing bowl could almost
be called a Thanksgiving Bowl -
maybe, could start a fashion:
...

Gertrude Stein was on her dying bed;
(i.e. she was dying, not the bed) :
...

‘To steal’, the sage declares, ‘is to take things
not given consciously with pleasure’.

Several times my eye has skimmed over this,
...

I don’t cry. Not
floods of tears cry.
The eyes moisten, but,
It’s the rest of it…:
...

So if it makes you feel great,
OK, go ahead -
as long as you're making yourself more attractive
for me, not your next husband...
...