Six Poems by Mike Everley

 

A Dada Walk1 Around Singleton Campus 

 

No rain today. 

Blue sky.  

Cloudless. 

 

A boster2 marble 

that even Atlas 

couldn't lift. 

Globe of orange 

and light blue 

set in a  

concrete sea. 

 

A single tree 

sole tree 

solitary 

standing straight 

unbending. 

 

The security man 

in bright yellow hi-vis 

stoops slightly 

his bald egghead 

in shadows. 

 

The beauty of bugs 

the wooden box homes 

are empty. 

There's a bug 

in the system. 

 

Students play football 

around white tents 

pitched on a field. 

Protestors far from Gaza. 

 

The flag of green, white 

and red blows in the wind.  

 

No drones fly overhead... 

 

At least for today.

1 A Dada event, held in Paris just over a century ago, the first example of a ‘walking performance’ or ‘walking as art’. Dada took to extremes the revolutionary tendencies in art, especially in Paris, mocking to absurdity and reducing to nonsense almost everything held dear by artists and art lovers.

2 Slang term in the South Wales Valleys for “massive”. 

 

Fingers 

 

As a child they formed church steeples, 

look inside see all the people, 

played fly away Peter and Paul 

with bits of paper on their tips. 

Later they wielded screwdrivers 

and threaded wire through cable runs. 

Now they turn purple in the cold 

and lock bent when arthritis strikes.  

Once they traced lines across warm flesh 

feeling each rise and fall of skin. 

Now the tops are numb of feeling 

as they punch the computer keys 

the QWERTY of the living dead.

 

Green Oasis in Cardiff 

 

City of concrete and glass 

cranes stretch skyward 

on giraffe necks 

building tomorrow's slums 

amid a grey, dusty jungle 

in this damp country. 

 

Perched precariously  

on the flat roof 

of a red brick building 

near railway tracks 

a roof garden 

dwarfed by blandness. 

 

An oasis of green 

overlooked by modernity 

unseen by passers by  

glimpsed for a moment 

through net curtains  

from my hotel window.

 

The Trouble With.... 

 

The trouble with life is, 

well where should I start, 

there’s really no option 

few want to depart. 

We strain and we suffer 

to get through each day 

but when you consider  

we like it that way. 

We breathe, fart and stutter 

and moan at each chance 

but still we linger 

to hear the last dance. 

So stop your complaining 

be happy while you can 

the option’s not rosy 

grab life in your hand. 

 

The trouble with love is 

it's misunderstood 

and leads to behaviour 

no sane person should. 

Panic and swearing 

with shouting in streets 

then kisses and cuddles 

the next time you meet. 

The old Greeks had words 

for love in its hues 

Agape. Philia. Eros. 

To name just a few. 

But when love strikes you 

and pierces your heart 

such concepts leave you 

and reason departs. 

 

The trouble with sex is 

it gets in the way 

souring your feelings 

best put it away. 

All that playing about, 

kisses, fondles and gropes, 

embarrassing moments 

while learning the ropes. 

After anticipation 

inevitable recline 

when all that has risen  

goes into decline. 

It's not like on telly 

or in books that you've read... 

So put on the kettle 

let’s have tea instead.

  

Night 

 

Night... 

Soul's despair. 

Streets of pain 

slicked with rain 

under neon suns. 

Doorway bedrooms. 

Old soldiers. 

Forgotten. 

Fading. 

Wrapped in plastic 

cocooned. 

Dog guarded. 

Spat on. 

Pissed on. 

Surviving. 

… Night.

 

Old Tom 

 

He wasn't always Old Tom 

glued to the bar 

red blotched 

hand shaking 

eyes glazed over 

with age's cataracts. 

 

He had been young once 

idealistic 

ambitious 

good looking, 

according to some, 

a lover of women. 

 

Not this frail shell 

hovering over his glass 

watching the froth 

dissolve and disappear. 

Waving the world away 

with a translucent hand.

 

Mike Everley has been a writer for over 50 years. He has had poetry published in the Anglo Welsh Review, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Outposts, Undiscovered Poet, Entheoscope, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and 5-7-5 Haiku Online Journal etc. He was a member of both the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Authors before retirement. He now concentrates on creative writing.

Website: https://www.everley.link 
Facebook Blog: https://www.facebook.com/groups/811378333737391
Line Of Poetry: https://www.lineofpoetry.com/mikeeverley
Amazon Author's Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/mikeeverley

Swansea and District Writer's Circle: https://swanseawriters.co.uk/