August 21~ KEV THE POET

Another week is wrapping up here at the SHINE poetry series desk! Today, SHINE is pleased to welcome back British writer, Kev the Poet with two new poems that speak to recent social events in America. Thank you, Kev, for sharing these poignant pieces. Have a pleasant weekend, all~

Shoes

Trump reportedly gifts cabinet members and White House visitors with Florsheim shoes - The Guardian

He buys them shoes to
gain their loyalty.  
Guessing their size 
(always incorrect)
they wear these Oxfords 
hand-stitched, £100 a pair. 
Showing fealty
to a senile king. 
Heels swimming in them 
like kids on their first day 
at infant school. 
Leaving them wriggle room
to say, when justice comes 
‘a big boy did it’. 
The boxes pile up high 
in The Oval Office.  
Like coffins from an 
Iranian girls school. ​

​The Death Of A Poet
(for Renee Nicole Good)

When you kill a poet, it is 
not the end. Their blood becomes ink
seeps into cold earth, whispers resistance.
They become merely animistic
beyond paper, or peppered air. 
Poets, poems are both extremophile.  
Whether ranted, dictated to daughters 
dismissed, devalued or destroyed
they outlast any tyrant, move faster 
than any agent or sly bullet.  
Whilst we will forget the moustaches,
salutes, the evasions, the baseball caps, 
the mouth, like a lazy basking shark 
a poem, once written, just runs wild. 
Dictators graves grow wild with weeds
whilst the grave of a small poet 
is covered in fresh flowers daily.  
Their legend grows longer in death.  ​

Kev The Poet was born in Liverpool and began writing poetry in the early 90’s, after reading The Mersey Poets and a bout of unrequited love. He began again in 2022, as a response to the incipient rise of fascism. Kev's work has been called poems of ‘angst, disdain, and scorn’ and has been performed across the country. He has also appeared on BBC Radio 2, BBC Devon/Cornwall, and he contributes a weekly poem to Shaun Keavney’s show on Community Garden Radio. Kev has been published twice in the US poetry magazine SHINE Quarterly, and Urban Scrawl (which is devoted to poetry, stories, art and photography about cities).

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