ADDICTION: DEATH OR INSANITY
My life moves on in the grips of addiction
I’ve been coughing for three weeks now with growing fears that a cancer is destroying me from inside
But I can’t simply stop, not now, not after so damn long
So long of smoking whatever I want, whenever it becomes available
I’ve smoked it all over the years from white widow skunk that made me go insane
To straight rolled-up tobacco in blue papers that just left me wheezing like an old man
Nearing thirty years of this deadly habit that I cannot shake
I love and need what it gives me every day
From chilling me out at the end of a hard day at work to just keeping me going
Whilst dealing with customers or people on the street
Whenever times get bad it’s always the first thing I reach for
If I’m at home it’ll be for the weed
If on the street it’ll just be for the baccy bag
Smoking will one day kill me but until that day I will remain gripped by its addiction
Knowing full well that I’ll never be able to give it up
Smoking my way to the mad house or the funeral home it don’t really matter now
All I know is it won’t be long now...
Bradford Middleton
FIGHTING FOR GOOD POETRY
Another night, another open-mic
This time though I should really win
The poem I’m going to read is great
About a night I can barely remember
Drunk out of my mind in Frisco town
When I was younger and more confident
But tonight, something feels wrong
The DJ plays some serious tunes
Which don’t really fit in with ambience desired
And then my mate gets asked to read first
A poem about death in acknowledgement of D-Day landings
And then a few more get to read their stuff
Mostly kids with back to front baseball caps
Whose heroes are the hip-hop people
That I ain’t ever really understood
Then it’s my turn and I read my piece
Uneasy and a little bit bored at what I’ve heard
And then I stumble, knowing I’ve blown my chance
At the end the scores are added up
And I offer some idiot outside for giving me 2 out of 10
I call him a clueless fool and the air turns nasty
The rest are a whole lot better but still not enough
As the fanfare offers a welcome to a new contestant
The wife of the organiser and its obvious she’ll win
She reads a sweary piece about what it’s like
To be married to the over-grown child
Who during the break, when I’m outside smoking
Yet another joint, tells me how great I was
But then when the results come it’s obvious that I ain’t won
And guess what? Yep, she wins allowing the feminists to rejoice
Bradford Middleton
THE END OF TIME (MAYBE)
It’s the end of time I hear
The Mayans prophesized we would all come to an apocalyptic end
And I just hope they are right
This civilization is not that anymore, it’s a crazed demented ride
Through the helter-skelter
Of modern living, the end of time
I hope it’s the end of time
This planet is fucked beyond all hope
There’s no hope for the future
For as long as we keep relying on ancient forms of representation
And unfair forms of remuneration
That is modern living, the end of time
I sometime wonder what it could be
This life of mine in this time at the end
I know it could be better
But I’m just one of the problems
One of those who believe, nee hope, the Mayans are right
This is modern living, the end of time
This is modern dying and the end of time
December 21st, 2012 and salvation at last
As it all comes crashing down
The monuments that we have been told are cornerstones of our time
With them go all our problems and at last
We can say this is modern living, maybe not the end of time
Bradford Middleton
