GOOD CITIZEN CRASH

Bottles CRASH as the crescendo rises

For once I’m being a good citizen and doing my recycling

The kitchen has reached critical mass

As the drinking has continued and empty bottles are everywhere

It got so bad I couldn’t rach my cooker or fridge-freezer

I knew the time was right to do my duty

CRASH they go into the bin outside some other poor sods house

And god knows what they must think, is it the Sidewinder or that lowlife who lives on the corner

As CRASH they go out of my flat so at last I can finally get something to eat

Bradford Middleton

BACK ON THE ROAD

A rust-bucket of a car heading out on the highway

Full of punk rock poets off to blow some minds

Punk rockers on dope and full of hope

That tonight they’ll find some kindred spirts in a faraway place

The nearest faraway place to their collective home

What awaits them there

Well none of them are sure

For tonight they read to strangers, a crowd of fruits and dangerous reptiles

A few of us are used to the sights from the car

But me, well I ain’t been this far west since I went to Minehead for an ATP

The visuals are spectacular and I’m simply struck by awe

I get called, jokingly, a townie, a city boy, as we move on to another town

For tonight we hit Southampton knowing the town could be ours

But tonight the real treat for me is the road-trip there

Recalling memories of past times when the road was the king and I’d follow him to the end. 

A WEIRD ONE ON MONDAY

Sitting in a bar on a Monday afternoon I feel at ease with my surroundings

Far more than I would now on a Saturday night

Now it’s just me and the same old faces, the same damn faces that I see

Whenever I’m compelled or frustrated enough to go to the pub on a Monday afternoon

Today’s been a strange one, had 6 more poems accepted and then saw a picture

In this months’ copy of The Wire of a girl I know, a pioneer of something called noise poetry

I thought about it on the way home and how I’ve always liked her poetry but

Gave up reading that pretentious tome many years ago

The article read like an advertisement for Brighton, how young, dynamic and down-right audacious we all fucking are

Freaking out the un-cool with our subversive home-grown brand of weirdness

But the night they wrote about has always just done my head in which I guess makes me one of those unashamedly un-cool

But for me now, aged 43, I can handle being considered like that by readers of The Wire as I cling to my Neil Young records in tatty blue denim

The bar today is nothing unusual and I’m glad just for some kind of normality

As I sit nursing my pint and watching the time fade away as nothing really happens

Except the drink is drank whilst outside lives move on yet in here we remain

Firmly stuck in the most remote of cul-de-sacs, going nowhere and remaining firmly underground

 

A DAY AT HOME

Sitting in the garden of the house that will one day be mine

Home at last with lots of time to relax

Sit back and

Open a beer

Sip down its warm contents as Dad refuses to chill his beer

And after an afternoon when the thermometer almost broke

As 45.7 degrees

My feet almost burnt as I walked out into the garden

It’s all too much for me

The beer would normally feel warm but right now it just refreshes

Whilst I sit here in this garden that will one day be mine

Flies go about their business

Annoyingly they swoop

Aiming for my arms

My pen

My god damn beer

But out here in cow country they know they simply rule

Outnumber us by at least a billion to one

On the inside I know my Dad is watching the news

And he’s sure to have stuff to moan about when I return

Bloody Tories, bloody Labor they are all the same

Whilst Mum is sitting quietly reading Harper Lee

All afternoon I been sitting, thinking as I wait for a reply from one of them

But no words, not all day, so all I can do is sit outside and drink this poem

Trying to keep distracted by our cats’ lack of effort at catching the mice and vermin who perambulate our garden

But in this heat all he wants to do is sit in the shade and eat

As I sit opposite, staring at him, drinking in the shade finally realizing that maybe me and him are almost the same.

Bradford Middleton

A CYCLE LANE IN BRIGHTON LIBRARY

This is a cycle lane the mad man shouts

As he rides his bike around the racks of books

I want to shout at him and tell him this is a library

But he won’t listen he just wants to cycle

I dream of decapitating him somewhere in the crime section

I dream of him being abducted whilst near the sci-fi zone

But most of all I just hope he bloody well stops!

Then at last a librarian, a diminutive young woman

Throws herself in his way

Get out my way, he shouts, this is a cycle lane

No it isn’t she retorts this is a library and you are creating a disturbance

And with that the mad man has gone

Off to pester someplace else telling them wherever he rides

That this is a cycle lane so get out my way

Bradford Middleton

WHAT YOU DOING UP THIS EARLY?

This woman I know messaged me to wish a happy birthday

Despite it being only 7.30am I replied almost immediately

Shocked, she recoiled

Why are you up so early she asked?

Well, I explained, I’m at my parents’ house

And there ain’t much to do except drink and sleep

Yesterday I started at 12 noon and passed out about half 11

Slept through the worst wind storm this village has experienced in many a year

And this morning woke, bright and early, at 7am

And now, well it’s my birthday, so I’d better get drinking...

Bradford Middleton