Bradford Middleton

HE DON’T GET MY MUSIC

When this friend comes to visit
He can’t understand why I listen to
The music I do & as I’ll blast
An old Replacements number he’ll
Pull faces & wince as their cacophony
Reaches overload whilst I sit sure
That in a just world this would have
Been #1 and sold a billion copies &
Yet here we are in a world were I
Like to stay in! I’ll play him Robert
Johnson as surely almost every
Single man of my generation must
Have experienced some kind of
Blues by now? But he’ll just switch
To his phone & I know I’ve lost
But right now as the Howlin’
Wolfman comes on spreading his
Evil everywhere I see him squint again
But I simply don’t care as up next
Is the Beefheart with his magical
Band & their delirious acid-drenched
Madness that comes to leave my
Friend lost in a state of complete
Confusion.

“He’ll never meet a woman sounding
Like that” he shrieks with laughter as I sit back
Dazzling at the genius of the man who
Spied UFO’s off of Observatory Crest
Cos that’s just the kind of guy he was
& I just wish there were a few more like
Him around now but sadly I think this
Guy likes Coldplay so what can we
Really expect from him??

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on England’s south-coast where he works part-time in a budget book/art-supply shop. He was born in London during the long hot summer of 1971 and was the first in his family to make it to university. Recent poems appear in The Scum Rag, Hiram Poetry Review, the Acid Bath anthology Night Terrors, Yellow Mama, The Candid Review, Razur Cuts, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Broken Teacup and the Mad Swirl. He’s currently submitting his debut collection around the small presses.