0009 Rococo time

It’s part of the tourism thing –
you stick your nose, more in duty than in hope,
into the local church;
the flowers at least
may be friendly; the flower arrangers, busy..

you’ve been in churches which
as soon as you gently push the squeaky door,
frown on you, their fingers
to their lips, and point
to ‘Thou Shalt Not’ where you expected Jesus’ open arms;

and to vast cathedrals asking, it seems,
an unformulated question of you
in their overwhelming magnificence
so that you’d like to kick a pew,
scrape a chair, dropp a hymnbook,
to find out in the echo echo echo
how Nanny says you should behave;

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Dick Fozard's Wartime Navy Knife

I’m not one for mementoes – Grandma
in sepia, pie-crust necked and pleated blouse,
expressionless amidst her dressed-up, mixed-up brood; chic aunt
with that hundred-watt smile which clicked
off, the instant the shutter clicked…but now

I’m holding this kitchen knife.
It’s got a triangular blade to allow
for that quick chop-chop of the trained cook
or kitchen-hand; black, dulled ebonite handle;
and although it’s made in Sheffield,
by Geo.Watt,1943, it’s not stainless steel
but stained iron; sharp, but not too dangerous
when used in the cook’s galley of a hungry ship of the unslept
that’s simultaneously zigzagging to avoid torpedoes
and kamikaze dive-bombers, while buffeting through
the South China Seas. The ‘ broad arrow’
stamped on it – as once used to pattern convicts' clothes –
here means, that it was wartime issue.

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Pooh Bear and CR Discuss Truth

Wol’s nephew had found a piece of torn paper in the Wood, which said ‘Truth is…’ and took it back, rather wet and smudgy, to Wol.

Word got around that Wol’s nephew, who was learning to read, had asked Wol what came next… However, most of the Animals were not very interested, as they went about their busy lives.

But Pooh Bear, who’d heard CR use the word about A Certain Incident, was walking paw in hand with CR through the wood one crispy day, and because there weren’t any other Big Thoughts floating around saying ‘Look at me! ’, said ‘CR, what is truth? ’

Christopher Robin looked down lovingly at Beloved Bear, like you do when you admire someone for asking a Big Question, but aren’t sure quite what to say next…

‘Well, Pooh, ’ he said at last, ‘there’s truth with a small t – like when somehow a plate has jumped out of your hands onto the floor and broken itself, and grown-ups don’t quite believe this, and say, tell me the truth…’

Pooh recognised this. Hunny jars did the same thing sometimes, when you reach for them on the shelf and wonder why they wanted to fall like that…

‘And there’s Truth with a capital T, that grown-ups put on their best clothes and sit around, with a cup or glass of something, and talk about... but without dropping their cup or glass or anything…’

Pooh had never sat around when this happened. That was the time for being with CR upstairs.

‘It’s difficult to follow what they say, so I watch their faces, Pooh..

‘There’s Nodding Their Heads Truth. There’s Smiling But Only a Bit and Not for Long Truth. There’s Eyes Open Wide Truth. There’s Being Very Still For a Time Truth. And there’s Nodding And Smiling With the Eyes Too And Remembering, Truth…There seem to be diff’rent kinds of Truth, Pooh…’

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Laying down the Psalms

The book sags open on my lap
as I cease reading, stare into blind space,
gaze into a history that answers not;
lost in the troubles of an ancient people
whose hearts are not, yet could be mine..

I need to talk to the Psalmist: now:
for I cannot carry all this burden;
for despite the burning poetry of faith,
my ears, my mind, my heart
find neither mercy nor sweet justice
running to you, arms outstretched, …

this God of sin, of wrath and retribution
whom you seek to appease, to praise,
to beg support of, against those enemies
who will never let you live in peace,
who afflict your soul, steal the sacred tents you pitch
beside sweet waters and the grazing flock…

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Monk (2)

3 a.m. in the dark morning of a dark night;

a kneeling figure;
a single candle flickering on a gleam of gold.

I cannot see how great or small the dark space here, of
chapel, church, echoing cathedral; or
are there trees around; or a stable; or a prison cell..? ..

I cannot see how great or small his mind;
I cannot see how great or small his heart;
his soul…

monk…
your image, your imagined life-style
fascinates me, repels me,
overwhelms me, leaves me indifferent,
humiliates me, inspires me…

we all look for love; imagine

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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She of the Heavenly Happiness

No-one knew what subsequently became of her
after he went so dramatically, and after all those goings-on.
He got all the headlines.
The police didn't even bother
to take her in for questioning.
There was talk of riots,
they needed every spare man.

But the story never quite went away.
You know how it is with journalists -
we file it away for a rainy day,
then it sticks in our mind
for when we retire and write a best-seller, I wish...

I doubt we'll ever know the truth of it;
but every now and then
some nutter with a convincing sighting
makes a free gift to journalists
with no personal responsibility for us either.

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Impressionism in paint, in music, in words

To know the impossible to be impossible
and yet to love the attempt;
to demonstrate that beauty is eternal, yet
seen only in that moment now,
never to be captured, ever changing -
'evanescent' holds a little of the sound of it -
this, the heroic failure that betokens love.

Monet was that hero. For perhaps you may
catch beauty's shadow in a photograph;
even glimpse its joy, there, in the sound of song;
but try to catch it - dab by dab of brush -
when in the time it takes to do this, yet another leaf
- there, watch it as it drops -
has fallen from that distant orange-yellow-brown
blur of an autumn wood - knowing as you render nature's generality
or catch a church, a haystack, in a sundown glow,
that all things pass -
that love's heroic: and when, in irony that surely
needs no underlining, blindness comes upon you, yet

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Not Quite Myself

A broken night; breakfast-table phrases
assembled for a touch of sympathy:
‘don’t ask…! ’
‘bit out of sorts…’
‘haven’t really got going yet…’
‘not quite myself…’
a familiar unpleasantness, discomfort, restlessness, unease –
something’s got it in for me, but what, and why?

but today it’s worse than that..
so, run through the well-worn menu
of remedies: seek distraction,
play some music, read the paper,
connect the hands and mind - clean the gas-stove, ha…
express absorbing interest in the state of others…

or there are mental and spiritual consolations;
‘these things will pass…
in two hours, you’ll have forgotten…’
‘these things are sent to try us..’ yeah yeah…

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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My father's Plato

And that’s not a claim to paternity –
it’s the possessive case; though to what degree
my father possessed Plato, or Plato, him,
remains one of those unsolved mysteries
stored in that little room of sadness in the hearts
of children of that more formal, distanced age…

Like so many self-made men, he’d never read
a novel before he retired; and then
set out to educate himself
as would befit the father of a son
he planned – God unwilling, at first – to have,
whom he would provide with all the advantages
he’d never had… alas; alas for both of us…

He’d read of course, Smiles’ ‘Self-Help’ – they all had;
moved on to Carlyle, Ruskin (briefly) , Emerson; wrote
in warm approval to George Bernard Shaw,
who responded with one of his printed pre-texted postcards…
then worked through those nicely-bound

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Love's Grammar Book

I love you.

That's it, really.
all there is to say.
sums it up.
in a nutshell.
the long and the short of it.
the be-all and the end-all.
I know what I mean;
you know what I mean.
more or less.
we know what I mean.
most of the time.

But though love's sometimes
best defined by silence
it may be good
to say a few good words

since you, and love, have taught me

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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