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March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?

Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Mike Adam:
"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain

Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"



Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Mike Adam: "Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...

Who am I?
I don't know"



Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”

Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #26 in April!

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Russ Heeschen Feb 2021
Rap is a craft and it oughta be,
But my rap is crap;
That’s just the way it comes outa me.

My rhymes and my rhythm are kinda feeble,
When I play a record sideways all I do is break the needle.

You lay a eight on its side and you get a infinity;
that’s how old I was when I lost my virginity.

Took my side piece out for a high class dinner
To show her I’m a winner
But I lost all my street cred when I ordered the sweetbread.

My homies formed a gang
And I tried to join the ranks,
But the only part of “gangsta”
I can handle is the “angst.”

I’d bust a move but my move buster’s rusted,
I’d pop a cap but my aim can’t be trusted.

One more thing to say
Before I depart:
Next time I’ll do a mic drop
Before I start.

Pizza? Out
A follow-up to “Why I Cannot Sing the Blues”
Arcassin B Oct 2020
By Arcassin B

Slash, dangerous,
Break in some glass, I'm your home,
The tranquil place, the happy place,
about to be drowned in blood,
Fixing William Shatner mask,
I carry my demons heavily on my shoulder,
Provoking me, you would also be stupid to get
close to me,
The devil's messenger incarnate leaking through scared and drippy as I ascended the passage of evil,
Be glad I didn't RIP out the pupils,
I'm way worse than messily cabin fever,
The one that snips Roses and tulips,
Like chasing after a relative that doesn't think I exist,
Letting them know that my legend lives,
No dogs live to take a ****,
You could get the blade or the fist,
Halloween is the day of bliss,
A devil on a night like this,
Wake to fulfill demon hour wish,
Wake to fulfill demon hour wish,
A devil on a night like this,
Halloween is the day of bliss,
You could get the blade or the fist.




I could feel as good as I feel , when I,
Let go,
We could make this right in our wills,
Feel free,
I don't know,
I don't know,
The horrors that await you can not illustrate you,
Their aiming to take this world from you,
specifics when theres rent due, they would want to
take you,
No streets , cars or avenues,
The hills definitely have eyes , we call them vultures,
Infiltration in disguise, we are their adventures,
A voyage , a play , a stage to be performed on,
This life is too fake to hold on,
Wool over the eyes of some , might as well put the mold on,
I wouldn't leave you to dry and dye a different color of your love for me, positivity overrules this tree,

Don't you ever think that I, don't love you cause I do, don't **** me,
It would break my heart if you , thought i didn't care, don't eat me,
Don't you ever think that I, don't love you cause I do,
It would break my heart if you , thought i didn't care.


©abpoetry2020 ©arcassinburnham2020.
https://arcassin.blogspot.com/p/demon-hourz-ep.html
Traci Sims May 2020
"Mike, I need a cure--
"Everyone says Clorox works..."
"Sir, you try it first."
If those young men had looked like me,
how diff'rent everything would be.
There'd be no blood or teardrops shed.
Had they been white, they'd not be dead.

If Mike Brown had been Michael White,
he surely would have been alright.
"Don't shoot!" would not need to be said.
Had he been white, he'd not be dead.

From Ferguson to East L.A.,
we hear the stories every day.
"Protect and Serve" til streets run red.
Had they been white, they'd not be dead.

Call it racial immunity,
where skin-tone is impunity.
Don't let yourself be so misled-
had they been white, they'd not be dead.

As more and more young ones are slain,
and protests are met with disdain,
you may debate what I have said,
but were they white, they'd not be dead.
Wrote this when Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson. I'm sad that it maintains relevance today.
Amanda Kay Burke Jul 2020
I truthfully want to be close to you
A real friend who you talk to each day
Somehow fights erupt over nothing
Arguing gets in the way

You just want me to be healthy
And normal like you think you are
But I can see you're clearly not
Weakness visible from afar

Another year quickly passes by
Hung up on past mistakes
Old offenses should be forgiven
You don't have the strength it takes

I just want a clean slate in your eyes
A second chance to impress
But you can't peel off your predetermined labels
Convinced I'm incapable of progress

It is difficult to face the truth
Your pride I will never earn
So I may as well give up trying
To my bad habits reluctantly return

I accept you just as you are
Favorite pain-in-the-***
Thought we hated each other as kids
Was wrong to conclude so fast

Nothing can replace family
Though at times you drive me mad
We've always had each other for support
That's a lot more than some others had

You think you know what is best for me
Preaching about my decisions
I wish you could see you don't have all the answers
Put an end to derision

Someone needs to show you
How to make a change in the way
You brutally express your thoughts
Or I'll keep walking away

You are not as perfect as you believe
There's no difference between you and I
How can you stand there intoxicated
Lecturing me not to get high?

I yearn to share intimate details
Hidden deep in my brain
Halted by your lack of empathy
You wouldn't understand my pain

You insist on criticizing me
Each time you come around
Maybe you should fix a few things in your own life
Before you choose to put mine down
Another one about my well-meaning ******* brother
Rajat Akre Mar 2020
Nothing is wrong.
World aint gonna stop.
Whether you die or sob.

Get up.
Heads up to sky.
Try, fail and again try!
kerri Jan 2019
Every time we cuddled close,
One of us would overheat.
Was that our bodies realizing we weren’t meant to be?
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