Billy Sheppard

SERIGRAPHY BY AGNIESZKA LEDÓCHOWSKA

CLICK THE HEP C LINK ABOVE TO FIND OUT IF YOU ARE AT RISK!
MY INTERESTS: Music, art, dance, food, beathing and other things that sustain life

_________________________________________

NIGHT MUSIC
By Charles Wright

Each second the earth is struck hard
by four-and-a-half pounds of sunlight
Each second
Try to imagine that
No wonder deep shade is what the soul longs for,
And not, as we always thought, the light.

No wonder the inner life is dark.
Sounding, and sicced on like a dog
they all go down and devolve
Vowel-dancing, hear-sick
Hoping for realignment and a space that won't shine

Unlike the October moon, Apached and blade-dazzled, smalled
Down the western sky
into Ovidian intersect
with time and its ghostly renderings.
Unlike the leaves of the ash tree, moon-treated and hanging on
For on day longer or so.
Unlike our shrunk selves, dripping like washing on the line.
_________________________________________

Psalm
(by Brian Ferry)
Try on your love
Like a new dress
The fit and the cut
Your friends to impress
Try on your smile -
Square on your face
Showing affection
Should be no disgrace
Try out your God
Hope He will send
Kindness from strangers
On whom you depend
Try on His coat
A mantle most fine
Myriad colours
His harmony-thine
Believe in me
Once seemed a good line
Now belief in Jesus
Is faith more sublime
Head in the clouds
But I can't see the Lord
Short of perfection
I'll try to be good
I'll stand at His gate
I'll wait for His sign
Then I'll walk in His garden
When it's my time
Drink from His cup
Hush now don't you cry
His quiet waters
Will never, never run dry
Nearing death's vale
He's here by my side
He leads me to paradise
A mountain so high
Don't be afraid
Just treasure His word
Singing His praises
I know that I'll be heard
He's gonna take you by the hand
He's gonna make you feel so good
Open up your eyes
And then you'll see all that you should
Forget all your troubles
You will feel no pain
He's all that you need
He's your everything
When I'm feeling all at sea
Deliverance is that distant shore
I will not be worried
Someday His house will be my home
For ever more
__________________________________________________

Virgo Descending

by Charles Wright

Through the viridian (and black of the burnt match),
Through ox-blood and ochre, the ham-colored clay,
Through plate after plate, down
Where the worm and the mole will not go,
Through ore-seam and fire-seam,
My grandmother, senile and 89, crimpbacked, stands
Like a door ajar on her soft bed,
The open beams and bare studs of the hall
Pink as an infant's skin in the floating dark;
Shavings and curls swing down like snowflakes across her face.

My aunt and I walk past. As always, my father
Is planning rooms, dragging his lame leg,
Stroke-straightened and foreign, behind him,
An aberrant 2-by-4 he can't fit snug.
I lay my head on my aunt's shoulder, feeling
At home, and walk on.
Through arches and door jambs, the spidery wires
And coiled cables, the blueprint takes shape:
My mother's room to the left, the door closed;
My father's room to the left, the door closed---

Ahead, my brother's room, unfinished;
Behind, my sister's room, also unfinished.
Buttresses, winches, block-and-tackle: the scale of everything
Is enormous. We keep on walking. And pass
My aunt's room, almost complete, the curtains up,
The lamp and the medicine arranged
In their proper places, in arm's reach of where the bed will go ...

The next one is mine, now more than half done,
Cloyed by the scent of jasmine,
White-gummed and anxious, their mouths sucking the air dry.

Home is what you lie in, or hang above, the house
Your father made, or keeps on making,
The dirt you moisten, the sap you push up and nourish ...
I enter the living room, it, too, unfinished, its far wall
Not there, opening on to a radiance
I can't begin to imagine, a light
My father walks from, approaching me,
Dragging his right leg, rolling his plans into a perfect curl.
That light, he mutters, that damned light.
We can't keep it out. It keeps on filling your room.