Michael Shepherd

You left your footprints across my life

May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

passing history impossibly frozen,
demanding out-of-date thoughts.
You left your footprints on my life
I hate it when people talk of you:
as if they were asking for my blood
to warm their own false memories.
You left your footprints through my life
I hate it when I find a letter from you:
I read a richness and a loss in them
and am torn apart by myself
You left your footprints in my life
Footprints claim nothing, offer nothing;
they do not ask to be preserved, or to be erased;
they are clean, yet they are there;
where they lead, I have yet to find
You left your footprints across my life

Michael Shepherd

Imagine – if you’ll

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

to poets, of all people –imagine, if we judged peoples’ liveslike we do their poems…your parents separate when you’re just seven?oh that’s such a contrived, unoriginal theme…it’s been done, and better…you’ve fallen in love for the first time?that’s so banal, so cliched; can you imagineanyone wants to share that?you’ve been dumped forthe first time in…

Michael Shepherd

His day is but a true disguise;

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

unchained by circumstance, freed from fashion,in loneliness so deep he can’t explain,almost crying because he can’t describe it.,waiting for the rain of the day which has yet to be.He doesn’t have the nerve to speak, just gazes,but with sufficient humility to make him proud;thankful for the conversation that he grasps,but fails to speak out loud;the…

Michael Shepherd

The second act went really well tonight,

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

it’s good enough for a West End transfer;they’re a good bunch when we work togetherno thanks, not tonight old man –got some TV ad lines to learn,well it’s good money for old rope…seeyer chizmatemake-up off, stage door chat –after a good perf., who wants to pub it,hear yet again about how they triumphed togetherin Romeo…

Michael Shepherd

so the blue-with-cold wind came from

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

stepping easter-dressed towardswhile Cupid aimed an arrow withoutand hit Chastity of course sincewhile Apollo reached with his wand forand the clouds revealedwhile the golden apples waited withand all the while Love forin the centre of the merry-go-round whenall lovers love tolooking modestly not mary-blue as ifextended a toe delicately in a dance describing howthe blue-with-cold…

Michael Shepherd

and sad, perhaps;

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

visited for the first time in their lifeby sadness; pure sadness,without friend or enemy,just sad; sadness which does not tellof its parents, or of where it came from,or of where it might be going;or of how long it might stay before it goes..yes, sadness like that.

Michael Shepherd

I’ve only got to say the word…and

Byammarkhan May 10, 2020May 10, 2020

mixed with a hurhur hurhur as of naughty boys…suddenly lips and fingers have their vivid, hungry memories…while ladies have their own reactionsnot unaware of the murmur hurhur and the factthat some men think they own these, ungifted, as of right…and some of us, perforce, have memories as intimate,loving, detailed, at our fingertips:the years that once…

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