! ! Oneliness Poem by Michael Shepherd

Sometimes the keyboard
gets fed up with sausage fingers
and takes matters into
it own electric energies,
its cyber wisdom that knows
only nought and one..

and who wants to hear a poem
about ‘my’ loneliness
as if writing about it will dump it all on you
and I can get on with my life

but oneliness ah that’s something
I don’t even need to write a poem about
I only need to say it and you know
exactly what I mean
now the computer has reminded me:

when you’re complete, invulnerable,
need nothing more; when even dreams
fall still in awe of oneliness..

oneliness.. it has the sound of authority
as if medieval mystics like Juliana of Norwich
or the writer of the Cloud of Unknowing
are sharing the knowing of it with us;

perhaps the computer, too, switched off at night,
sighs and knows with a shiver of delight
that state that knows itself like maybe
nought and one may know themselves; like
truth just knows itself;
so good, so beautiful; warm
as a shared heart;

oneliness