Anastasya Shepherd

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Category: Poetry

  • Danger

    We erect fences around construction sites.
    We put signs on fences.
    Bright yellow warning signs, easy to see,
    attention-grabbing
    with screaming carmine letters:
    “DANGER!
    CONSTRUCTION SITE.
    KEEP OUT
    AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”
    Construction sites are inherently dangerous.
    Things change.
    New things appear out of the dust and confront you unexpectedly.
    Old things break and fall
    and hit you on the head if you are not careful.
    They are like that.
    Children have to be protected.
    As you think of danger,
    of all the unexpected, deadly things that can happen to them,
    your breath catches and your heart skips a beat.
    You erect fences
    and put signs on these fences.
    But it is never enough.
    The world changes so fast now-a-days
    that you can’t keep up.
    New things appear daily.
    The things you don’t understand can hurt you
    and your children.
    As the future is being constructed,
    you have to build more and more fences
    and put up more and more signs
    screaming:
    “DANGER!
    CONSTRUCTION SITE.
    KEEP OUT
    AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”
    Eventually, you end up in a cage,
    crouching in the corner, teeth bared,
    terrified, but ready to protect your children.
    It’s all for them, to keep them safe, to keep them near.
    The world under construction is fenced off,
    blocked off by the screaming signs.
    That’s when they leave.
    They climb the fence quietly, stealthily,
    trying not to hurt your feelings
    or break through the fence
    with all their might, screaming defiance.
    In the final count, it doesn’t matter.
    They leave.
    They have no choice.
    Their lives are there,
    in the changing world being constructed for and by them.
    With pity or hatred in their hearts
    they leave you in your cage.
    Anger turns to dejection.
    They will visit.
    They will bring your grandchildren,
    ignoring the signs:
    “DANGER!
    CONSTRUCTION SITE.
    KEEP OUT
    AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Rustic Song

    Under the shield of ashes –
    forgotten passions.

    Ashes add to the peat,
    feeding the wheat.

    Wheat multiplies and thus
    it’s feeding us.

    People with decent rations
    have time for passions.

    Passions that burn in flashes
    leave only ashes.

    Under the shield of ashes –
    forgotten passions…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Almost, but not entirely, unlike fish.

    Underground is deep in places.
    Deep under.
    Buried in space and time.
    Connecting the romantic awe of the past,
    when the technology was new
    and the belief in its potential – unrestrained,
    with the pragmatic helplessness of the present,
    when we take a deep breath
    before plunging into the unknown.
    No longer an exciting miracle,
    mysterious yet knowable,
    but a complex system,
    poorly understood and therefore dangerous.

    You have to enter,
    to give yourself up to the incomprehensible,
    to the frightening and uncontrollable,
    on a daily basis.
    Just to get from A to B.
    That’s how we travel in the close,
    crowded space of the city.
    That’s how we travel in time,
    progressively more complicated.
    Taking a deep breath
    before plunging into a crowd
    like water.

    As you go under,
    you can no longer hear the rain.
    The water does not transmit sound,
    it exerts pressure.
    Comforting and stifling, it holds you tight.
    Deep under.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Daisies

    The field of daisies,
    brightening up the view of the palace,
    pushed up by generations.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Train

    The train stitches together images,
    like a demented alliterating seamstress,
    cackling to herself
    with the wheels’ rattle,
    stitching wood with water,
    sand with sky,
    space with sadness,
    past with possibilities,
    unseen with unexpected,
    journey with joy.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Spiral

    You make choices.
    Those choices make you.
    Then you makes choices.
    Always a spiral – upwards or downwards – it’s your choice.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Further Reductions

    Urban spaces –
    they do their best to define us
    as we do our best to push through the visual noise,
    through the cultural pollution of busy streets,
    through life thrust at us easily and cheaply –
    consumed, discarded, unlived…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Without a shadow of doubt

    As you walk without a shadow of doubt, you enter the valley of the shadow of death. You will fear no evil, for you will be that evil, never seeing itself or the world, but seeing your reflection upon the face of the world.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Danger Of Death

    I think it is vitally important to learn from history.
    George Santayana once said that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
    I can add that one of the first things we learn from the past is that those who repeat it are doomed.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in
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