Anastasya Shepherd

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Category: Poetry

  • Dusty mirror

    New day begins.
    You waken, bleary-eyed.
    You see the sheets.
    You turn.
    You see the ceiling
    with stripes of light and dark – 
    eternal battle, 
    its pattern etched on retinas from days
    and weeks, and years of repeat exposure.
    You move inexorably to your cup of coffee,
    unknowingly repeating the procedure
    of brushing teeth
    and putting on the clothes,
    glance in the mirror with routine regret
    and follow your daily train of thought:
    “It could be worse, but then, it could be better…”
    But suddenly the dusty mirror surface
    distorts the image of your face and room
    a little more than usual and you
    look once again.
    Your train of thought derailed,
    you stop and think –
    again.
    Realisation
    hits like a brick –
    you see the dusty mask
    you built through habit,
    layer upon layer
    of expectations, 
    making life routine
    and liveable.
    But underneath the mask
    the horrifying emptiness of space
    just barely warmed up by random motion
    is looking back with no intent or care.
    And then your body fills with acrid joy
    of life and thought,
    of you, against the odds,
    being occasionally self-aware.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Poppy fields

    Drops of colour like drops of blood, 
    reminder of passion and death, 
    a heady concoction full of desperate joy.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • The Feeling of Loss

    The feeling of loss – a textural paradox.
    The wetness of tears and snot
    and the dryness of facts that provoked them.
    The softness of mould and decay
    and the hardness of the point when it hits.
    The harshness of pain
    and the frictionless slide to despair.
    The nothingness taking over
    and becoming 
    all. 

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Rubbish

    If you think about it,
    all the anti-utopian stories of children leaving the bankrupt world of adults
    are based on a very optimistic premise
    that our children will be better than us in spite of what we do… 
    I am afraid not.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Sand Castles

    To Calcifer

    You go to the beach and build your castles
    with sand and water and the joy of making,
    of bringing something new into the world
    that makes it yours.

    The wind will blow drying sand away
    and, grain by grain, the castle will subside, 
    its turrets sliding, flattening and melting 
    into the beach.
    Your mark upon the world, 
    your proud monument dissolved forever.

    What will remain to you when it is gone?
    The joy of building 
    and, of course, the skill
    to build another evanescent castle.

    You cannot see yourself – you see reflections 
    and shadows, 
    they dance upon the waves, 
    reflected in the eyes of those watching.
    You see reflections in these eyes and say:
    “T’is I.
    My shadow, my dance.
    It is unique. 
    It’s seen and felt by you.
    I am unique and I am here now.”

    The eyes will close and the waters still,
    the sun will die and take away the light
    and shadows will go.

    What will remain to you when they are gone?
    The joy of dancing 
    and, of course, the skill
    to know who you are.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • A Play

    “All the world’s a stage…”
    (W. Shakespeare)

    Sit still and look.
    The play develops. 
    It grows from the root of common knowledge.
    The vessels form and fill with blood and bile. 
    Sighs, screams and whispers fill the air.
    You run headlong into the wall of pain
    and, winded by the force of impact,
    stop,
    doubled up,
    just breathing.
    You cry and laugh in turn and in-between.
    Pain, imperceptibly, becomes a habit
    but so does the joy –
    both dulled by usage.
    The actor’s voice,
    still raised in imprecation,
    commands attention
    and, of course, you listen…
    But now mostly listen to the silence
    that is to come.
    The play will soon be over.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Still Motion

    Our shadows –
    passing over the shadows of dreams and aspirations of our ancestors, 
    fleetingly reflecting them and disappearing into the void, 
    the void where ancestral dreams will join us eventually… 
    which is absolutely unimportant.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Black and White Thinking

    Black and white thinking –
    a useful evolutionary short-cut for quickly reacting in an emergency,
    an extremely dangerous tool that simplifies experience into lies.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Evolution of Religions

    If you are afraid to die, they provide you with an immortal soul, 
    if you are afraid to live, they provide you with an authority to tell you what to do…
    religions evolved to cater to every available kind of fear.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in
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