Michael Shepherd Night Poems

Not death - no poem's yet been writ
on that - but that dark door and passage
where everything, all that one knows of life
must be surrendered, in the service
...

The prick of tears around the eye when reading poetry
is reassuring - that despite what happened
this morning, yesterday, in childhood,
in your last life, whatever -
...

In later years,
seated around a huge fire,
crackling and spitting on a snowy night,
the best beer in Europe frothing from the jug,
...

Everything’s going well,
you seem to have everything arranged
as you like it: you glance into
the banqueting hall, the chandelier
...

One in three of us, the stats say, lives alone. Sad;
but fine if you prefer it that way.

It's late at night. You're alone. The PC off at last. The TV off.
...

On this Mediterranean night with its light breeze
scented with the sun-warmed herbs
drifting down from cooling, stony hills,
a million stars you’ve never seen before
...

Oh yes he said, there was a birth,
you ask me how I’m sure

remember shepherds train themselves
...

‘The dead man was a six-foot ex-heavyweight,
funding his unpaid youth club work
by working as security in a night-club;
shot for gently warning
...

The brazier’s glowing coals lit up his eyes.
I asked the watchman as he guarded time:
tell me, watchman, of the truth of Night..
...

on the window screen

night whispers secret witness -
...

Film meets the poetic image,
and in some things never fails – as when

out there alone in the prairie -
...