NIGHTS LOST TO FORGETTING by Bradford Middleton

This town can get to you, get under

Your skin like an obsessive hater, and

Leave many memories which you

Wish could have never been created. I

Remember one of those blessed nights

Out when i’d first landed in this asylum

By the sea and i was out drinking in

One of those fabled pubs that used to 

Take up too much of my always

Available time.  We had nothing to 

Do but sit around, waiting it appeared

For death to come or possibly something

A little more fun, and drink, talk and

Watch.  

This night in question we sat outside

A long-lost weirdo institute on the

Paved-over pedestrianised street in

The centre of town and everything

Seemed just about normal, or as close

As it could ever be, until my friend,

Now long-lost to a decade-long period

Of self-isolation, gave me a weird

Curious look.  My eyes followed

His until they rested upon a woman

Who sat, mouth agape at what she

Saw.  A young, foppish rich type,

Probably some kind of student, 

Resplendent in his Saturday night

Finery with his eyes firmly shut and

A face a harsh tint of reds and

Purples.  

A groan is audible as his eyes open, a

Blaze of cocaine induced hysteria

Immediately apparent, and the next

Thing we see is a homeless man, at

Least several decades older, taking

Some money for services clearly just

Received and rendered and I knew

It would take some herculean drinking

To forget all about it but, now, years

Later i still recall it as clear as so

Many other nights lost in this madness.

Bradford Middleton was born in south-east London during the summer of 1971 and won his first poetry prize at the age of nine.  He then gave up writing poems for nearly twenty-five years and it wasn't until he landed in Brighton, knowing no one and having no money, that he began again.  Ten years later and he's been lucky enough to have had a few chapbooks published including a new one from Analog Submission Press entitled 'Flying through this Life like a Bottle Battling Gravity', his debut from Crisis Chronicles Press (Ohio, USA) and his second effort for Holy & Intoxicated Press (Hastings, UK).  He has read around the UK at various bars, venues and festivals and is always keen to get out and read to new crowds.  His poetry has also been or will be published shortly in the Chiron Review, Zygote in my Coffee, Section 8, Razur Cuts, Paper & Ink, Grandma Moses 'Poet to Notice', Empty Mirror, Midnight Lane Gallery, Bareback Lit and is a Contributing Poet over at the wonderful Mad Swirl. If you like what you've read go send a friend request on facebook to bradfordmiddleton1