Stephen C. Middleton


In the garden, before the assessment


I love to see the fascists stuck
In traffic jams
The City in paralysis                                                                 
Riot or power cut
A disaster but capital and capitals frozen
Where even disaster capitalists cannot act
Their networks down                                                                   
Gridlock / blocks their runway
Stops their clocks
Crams their inbox
Stoppered emissions

Whilst I rise up /
Unseen
Unblocked
And write. 



Improvisation / Reservations


The slow reconnecting
After revelation

Later, alone
No-one else saw it
Great long stories – ignored

Uppercut (& don’t talk down)
Methods of address

Remaindered in any case
A Black Hole in cyberspace

Some truths survive
Exceptions that prove
Exceptions that prove…
Largely fruitless

Cannot thrive
In a world
Of chastening waste.



Hotter and Colder


Hotter than Rome, she keeps saying. In the salon he watches the news from Cyprus on his 
smartphone. Endgame(s) for a divided island. Or; of island endgames. Of caliphates fallen. 
The talks have stalled again — too close to oil, religion, strategic (for which read rich) allies, 
& other interests of the West. Also (though) of oud and cello. Of electric koto. Guembri & 
shenai. The remote has gone missing — her memory is lost. The channel remains unchanged. 
Hotter than Rome. Colder than Christmas. 



Treatment


Wade through framing devices
(Are you) In control of this material

No kernel
(Withdrawal or default?)
Stories stolen or part aligned

Shortfall
Blindfold (ed)      climbing

Or an accretion of slivers
Brittle conceits (with)
Treatments of fissile matter
Technique is distance



Pathologies (Variations)


Of pathologies
Causes, plausibility
That there must be diagnoses
Do the math (s) — contested
Check the history (evidence (based medicine))
Of soma and psyche
Scotoma
The Allodynia variations
No pleasure — but principles? (or question mark 
Speak the punctuation / show this process
Stress test, unless illness prevents)
Ways stations of a martyrdom
Or just aspects of the plague.

Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London, England. He has had five books published, including A Brave Light (Stride) and Worlds of Pain / Shades of Grace (Poetry Salzburg). He has been in several anthologies, including Paging Doctor Jazz (Shoestring), From Hepworth’s Garden Out (Shearsman, 2010), & Yesterday’s Music Today (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2015). For several years he was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry, and The Tenormen Press. He has been in many magazines worldwide. He is currently working on projects (prose and poetry) relating to jazz, blues, politics, outsider (folk) art, mountain environments, and long-term illness.

 
 

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