After a career in the entertainment lighting business encompassing, sales, technical support, marketing, photography, and writing, I now manage and market veterinary hospitals.
“Poetry for the activist in all of us. Mike Falconer confronts the unjust and belligerent system like a ferocious orca whale pack, attacking rapacious billionaire yachts, with prejudice. Falconer writes parables that will be read by the uprising working class during this and all class wars from now on. His poignant dark humor crosses timelines while capturing a moment of our current history. My go-to poet, who reminds me to keep fighting the good fight. We have the numbers to flip the script on this corrupt absurdity.” -Shwa Laytart, Writer/Producer
It’s been raining all day But summer has arrived in time for post work spontaneity
There is more moisture in the air than in the river 500 yards away
But the sun and what passes for heat informs the locals that summer is here The clouds are wispy yet grey, pregnant with more rain, but not yet full term
No artifacts of an all-day heat Recognizable as summer everywhere else
No remains of team games played for fun that have gone on too long But there are still small groups sitting upon the ground talking of anything but sad stories of the death of kings
These are the marks of a change of plans and the maximizing of temperate temperatures The capturing of moments of apricity and of summer lives envied from TV
With Burroughs obscenities playing in my headphones I causally wonder what obscenities play in insulating bubbles of others
No organized running on what was supposed to be another rainy day But plenty of dog walkers, individual joggers, and evening strolls A lack of electric bikes and scooters an added intolerant bonus
Headphones interfering with that most British of habits; acknowledging strangers Although “good evening” sounds pretentious and is not the equal of “good morning”
While the Scottish trademark of dressing for summer and winter simultaneously is in full effect “Why sir, how does one get such well-defined pure alabaster calves?” “Why madam, that off the shoulder hoodie offsets the sports bra beautifully”
The grass in backyards is long and unkept, the rain will do that Encouraging growth but then stymying it getting cut
Unless someone jumps on the lawnmower straight after work like newlyweds The grass will have to wait till a more traditional summers day
Nobody is eating ice cream, but then nobody expected this slice of summer today Not even confectionery capitalists or forethinking housekeepers
A reading of my new poem “Park, Rain, Suddenly Summer” at Poetry at Books and Beans in Aberdeen on the 25th of June 2025. Music: ‘Wildflowers’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. http://www.scottbuckley.com.au My new book “Adversarial Poetry for Verbal Combat” is out now. creatorsearchinsights deepmeaningpoetry poetrytiktok poetrylover poem
It’s not a fear of the coming of machines That they will take our jobs That they will rebel and wipe us out That technology is inherently bad
It’s that the those with all the money And all the power Who have punished us with copyright law for decades Who propagandize us with their machine learning future
They have stolen our art
Stolen our writing Stolen our work Stolen our knowledge Stolen our culture Stolen our water Stolen our electricity Stolen our attention And have weaponized technology against us
All so they can sell it back to us as AI All so they can get more money All so they can get more power All so they can replace us with something more compliant
And they wonder why we push back “All they had to do was pay us enough to live.”
Image published in May 1812 by Messrs. Walker and Knight, Sweetings Alley, Royal Exchange – Artist Unknown
You probably have not heard his name before He is an unworthy victim A Muslim A person of color An inconvenient truth to dispute a narrative Stabbed on the same day, and by the same attacker, as two Jewish men in Golders Green The day after the attacker was released from a secure mental health facility Allegedly
His name is Ismail Hussein He is an unworthy victim In 2024 / 2025 there were 3,199 hate crimes against Muslims in England and Wales In 2024 / 2025 there were 1,715 hate crimes against Jews in England and Wales In 2024 / 2025 there were 3,809 hate crimes against Transgender individuals in England and Wales All hate crimes are abhorrent Just like Antisemitism and Genocide Just like shadowy terrorist groups that at best are subcontracting out chaos to idiots And at worst are a false flag attempt to manipulate public opinion
His name is Ismail Hussein He is an unworthy victim No Prime Ministers threatening to ban protests for him No Chiefs of the Met attacking the only Jewish leader of a major political party because they question kicking a man in the face while he lies prone on the ground having just been tazed
His name is Ismail Hussein He is an unworthy victim Intifada: uprising or rebellion from the Arabic “to shake off” From the river to the sea: A Palestinian phrase to describe a single state with Jews, Christians, and Palestinians living side by side Also used by Netanyahu and the far right to describe a “Greater Israel” Antizionist phrases Not antisemitic
His name is Ismail Hussein He is an unworthy victim The far right marches through our streets Spreading hate and fear for Muslims and anyone they consider the “other” But let’s ban the marches against genocide Let’s attack the only Jewish political party leader All while we dismantle the government department that tracks war crimes in Israel and Lebanon
His name is Ismail Hussein He is worthy And we say his name to remind us that we are being manipulated Losing our democracy to fear The failures of our mental health system And the oversimplification of geopolitics
One design features the full text of Mike Falconer’s poem “No Kings.” The layout is specifical designed to be readable when the T-shirt is worn under an open jacket or sports coat.
The other new design features a quote from Mike Falconer’s anti-AI poem “Discussions Hidden from the Face of God.”
Both designs are available in black or white text and multiple T-shirt colors.
Dear Poet, Who’s written hundreds of poems Who is TikTok famous Who is good-looking as only the young can be Who wants us to turn our poems into songs Who wants us to just download this app…
Dear Poet, Did you consider talking to musicians? Did you wonder about collaboration? The push and pull, ebb and flow, of the collaborative creative process
Dear Poet, I don’t discourage you from trying to monetize what you do But I object to you replacing musicians with machines I object to you selling fellow poets into bondage (It’s not even the good kind) A serf in technofeudalism Is still a serf
Dear Poet, Did you even read the terms and conditions before you sold your soul?
“By using the Service or otherwise transmitting Submissions to us, you grant to evil corporate overlord and our affiliates, successors, assigns, and designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, sublicensable (directly and indirectly through multiple tiers), assignable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, store, modify, distribute, create derivative works based on, perform, display, communicate, transmit and otherwise make available any and all Content (in whole or in part) and any rights you may have in your Voice Model, in each case, in any media now known or hereafter developed, in connection with the provision, use, monetization, promotion, marketing, and improvement of our products and services, including the Service and the artificial intelligence and machine learning models related to the Service. This license to your Content and Voice Model includes a license to your likeness, voice rights and other indicia of your persona that may be embodied in your Content or Voice Model. For the avoidance of doubt, this license authorizes us to make your Content (including Output that incorporates your Voice Model, but, for clarity, not your Voice Model itself) available to and sublicense such Content to other users of the Service as necessary to provide the Service, and you further grant to evil corporate overlord the worldwide, fully paid-up, sublicensable, assignable, perpetual and irrevocable right to identify to the public (both on and off the Service) that Output (or any of it) was generated via the Service.”
Dear Poet, I think you are real but I had to double check And at first glance I was ready to dismiss you Because that is the world we live in That you are helping to create One where art is easy yet mundane And all it cost us was all our power, water, and artists
Dear Poet, Who peddles AI slop Is that where the poems come from? At the rate of one a day Because why should I trust you? Or anything you say
Dear Poet, You are weak and a fool.
Image “The Enraged Musician” (1741) by William Hogarth
All of my books are available for purchase directly from myself with local shipping to both the UK and the US. In person appearances can also be purchased and more merchandise is currently in the works.
Las Vegas, sitting outside watching my car being cleaned Vaguely worried about sunburn in February Realizing I love this place and can’t imagine not living here
Switch Birmingham UK, fresh off the plane Walking my dog Miles around a hotel car park In the rain and cold Worried about what I have done to my life and if I can live here
Switch Leaving Aberdeen Scotland not long after my 18th birthday Desperate for the bright lights of London and beyond Knowing I’ll never be back to this backward town
Switch Living back in Aberdeen No longer seen through the adolescent sunshine gloss of American Television Still flawed, but resonating with the historic and working-class architecture Life balancing with a softer and more empathetic society Granite and health care to sooth my middle age My first mail, my new doctor wanting a poop sample to test for cancer
Switch Los Angeles, newly arrived in a paradise of sunshine, amenities, and a new American life My first mail, a flyer for savings on all the things I can buy An adolescent television life complete with convertible and swimming pool DVD players and randomly weird furniture
Switch Living with my Mum after 36 years away Michael! Your dinner’s ready! Mum, your dinner’s ready Echoes and offsets I used to moisturize to protect against the sun Now I moisturize to protect against the cold and wind
Switch Learning to navigate London Tube trains and free papers A to Zs and the fear of the unknown Place names that I only know from the riots on the news
Switch Alone in a Los Angeles apartment realizing I’m in a different world Nothing works how I imagined or saw on TV This is not Knight Rider or CHiPs or The A-Team I know how to find bad guys But I have no idea how to buy furniture or groceries
Switch Mum did you brush your teeth? Mum, go to your bed Mum, let me cut that up for you Mum, I love you – scratch that We don’t say that, but mean it every day
Switch I love you Said but do I mean it? To the woman in the movie theatre Who never thought I would
Switch I Love you…
Collage Image made by with An Image by Kay-Co from Pixabay An Image by Gilbert Cruz from Pixabay An Image by Janno Nivergall from Pixabay And images by the author
The sun has gone But the sky refuses to let go of the day This overly warm tail end of winter A perfect evening for a walk through the park An interlude from the business of work and then food before the couch and television The slothic consumption and consummation of the day
The tree branches are bare But the bone chilling North Sea wind channeled across river water and valley is still for once This is not spring yet spring is foreseeable in the flowers with the social skills of weeds Not the explosions of color like cluster munitions that are the other side of Easter Just the IEDs of early bulbs poking through muddy ground
The runners are out in packs 30 deep Their gaggle announces them before their head lamps A cheerful yet insular cult with the dreary distinction of no good collective nouns Those that are excluded the aloof and the novice recognizable by style, form, and levels of accessorization
Romantic couples of coffee table photography collections Hand in hand comfort of being at ease of not taking the familiar for granted or worse, making do, because breakups are hard The awkward interchange of dating teenagers Enclouded in a swarm of perfume cologne mixed molecules The smell of future hopes and sticky fumblings
The parked cars seeking the secluded dark The doggers, those without a room, and the cars that are empty Sometimes a parked car is just a parked car The electric bicycles are like cauldrons of bats fading in and out of the night with swiftness and stealth The oxymoronic lack of lighting explainable as youthful action movie fantasies
This is the land of the dog walker All else are tourists But willing to share because after all it is a beautiful night
And what of me? I walk through Victorian historic splendor celebrating not a mobile cell phone in sight The wider embrace of the real An element of time travel given away by the LED dog collars and air-podded ears
As I leave the park behind chasing the sun and losing I’m mocked by the green LEDs of emergency lighting batteries visible through the glass walls of hot houses A shrink-wrapped serving of the Mojave, and the Amazon, on the Scottish coast
I am reminded that moments are special because they are moments Momentous, in their ordinary joy.
