Anastasya Shepherd

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Category: Poetry

  • Enter At Your Own Risk

    Ontogenesis repeats phylogenesis…
    As in individual psyche,
    when the walls we have built in our cultures start cracking,
    the horrors from the past come through
    and remind us of a large part of who we are.
    Enter at your own risk…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Age

    With the preponderance of advertising and its focus on youth and sex
    (easy selling points, to be sure),
    age is becoming more and more of a negative in our cultures.
    It is amusing to think that, as we buy into the idea,
    we set ourselves up for logically inevitable failure…
    But you’ve got to laugh, right?

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Contemporary Fairy Tales

    I dislike contemporary fairy tales…
    Not the folk tales they are often based on –
    they were the tools for understanding the world,
    and true to it.
    They were about love and indifference,
    loyalty and betrayal,
    blood, sweat, tears, joy and laughter.
    They were about making decisions and growing up…
    Contemporary fairy tales are almost exactly the opposite:
    fairy dust glitters,
    wishes come true,
    everyone remains infantile and lives happily ever after…
    The only things they teach are entitlement and disappointment.
    Have you ever met a bride whose wedding
    lived up to her expectations?

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Foundry

    Blacksmith’s fire – one of the better metaphors,
    that of a substance acquiring strength in extreme conditions…
    The precursor to heroism,
    where we shine as individuals and fail abysmally as a society.
    I fervently hope that I will never have a chance to be a hero.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • A walk on the beach

    At the end of the day this is all we remember…
    A happy thought.

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Alone

    The ability to be alone with the world,
    the space to see and think,
    empty enough that it invites filling with something new,
    yet full enough that there is no room for loneliness –
    how rarely it happens…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Train

    I love train journeys, especially at night.
    Lights, lights, lights – they conceal details and smudge shapes,
    they fill my eyes – imprecise, beautiful, meaningless…
    And the wind – its motion is the same,
    it blows the lights through the night and away,
    it fills my ears with noise and my skin with sensation –
    indistinct, but directional…
    It blows the stars out of the sky and memories out of my mind,
    and I feel so light without the excess weight…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Ancient Giants

    I find bare winter trees endlessly fascinating.
    The branches lead my gaze with hypnotic power, and it follows on and on…
    I think it is a visual equivalent of learning and gives the same joy of
    discovery:
    ordered enough for the mind to create patterns,
    with enough chaotic variation to keep it interesting,
    to forever suggest the possibility of better, more intricate organization…

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in

  • Cherry Blossoms

    Cherry blossoms – a staple of poetry,
    they appear so briefly in such profusion…
    What is the fascination?
    Is it our slightly guilty,
    maintenance-free
    enjoyment
    of the beauty of evanescence?

    —

    by

    ashepherd
    in
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