Michael Shepherd World Poems

She was artistic as a student,
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The world has lost the ear for rhyme.
It still makes children squirm with pleasure;
and from some witty pens and minds, its fireworks fizz;
so, after all these centuries of rhyme
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Yes – we read the world wrong,
and say that it deceives us,
said Tagore…
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The poet's world and the philosopher's
may seem to be in aim, and truth of act,
so different; the poet offers us
fine dreams of heart; philosophy, fine fact;
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It's a sepia photograph, taken, I'm guessing,
1900,1910? The whole of it is taken up by
a crowd on the move, passing the photographer,
who could be, say, clinging to a lamp-post, or on a balcony.
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To coin a metaphor:

It's like a Protestant
wandering into a Catholic church
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True, I can rhyme – endwords, and inner too;
fangle fine assonance, like thought made new;
march to a metre –regular in tread
or cunningly disjointed – silken, the thread
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and there’s this alleyway
and a passage, then a door,
ordinary, but
the pavement in front of it
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'Make Your Writing Pay'
'Work From Home'
'Find Love Fast'
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There were monkeys everywhere;
all with badges gently velcroed to their coats –
‘Supervisor’; ‘IT operative’; ‘Catering’;
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(said to have been found on a Sumerian clay tablet)

'I, of course, would never
have sanctioned this,
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