Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on the UK’s south coast.  This last year has seen him quit his job of nearly 15 years, have a minor nervous breakdown and then somehow get a job at a kids’ bookshop.  When he ain’t working his part-time job he can often be found reading or drinking at home when he ain’t working at the words.  All his poetry chapbooks have sold-out now but he does have several new ones planned and under consideration.  Since 2020 he’s been working on his first proper novel ‘All the Way to the End of the Line’ which is currently doing the round of agents and publishers looking for a home.  He tweets occasionally @BradfordMiddle5.

When Death Comes Calling

Can you hear him knocking? It’s Death

And at last he’s come for me.  I’ve felt

Him getting closer each and every day

Of this torture as at last I can be free to

Tell you.  Death comes for everyone

Regardless of how you live your life so

Don’t think your pious living will do you

Any good over one whose devoted his

Entire life to the finer things in life; the

Drinking, the smoking, the women, all

Of these pleasures are his addictions 

And as you get run down by a car on your

Way to work I’ll be found sitting at the

Bar just drinking and not caring...

OLD AGE PAINS

The aches & pains of middle-age

Are here & make me feel like the

Man I’ve sadly become; 51 years

Old, for that is where we are now, 

And my knees feel like they are

On the verge of collapse as my hip

Reminds me that real pain can

Leave me calling for a seat at

Almost anytime & that this week

I’ll try the doctor, already convinced

He’ll tell me it’s either my age or

A bad case of arthritis which can

Only spell bad news for the few

Who care I crave the moments

Of peace when I can sit down &

Write this life out for all to read.

ICE-COLD LOCK-DOWN

The nights drag on in the grip

Of this ice-cold lock-down and I 

Sit here wondering if this life,

This nightmare, will ever end as

Outside the fun of life has been

Replaced with just the desire to

Get through just another day

In this damn lock-down hell.