THE COLD & THE RAIN & A GIRL FROM PARIS IN A KARAOKE
BAR
by Bradford Middleton
The
night is cold & the rain is falling but that’s nothing
unusual for this rubbish summer—damn you 2024,
when all I have to do is walk.
I walk & I wander & I stroll this town as if I have no
home but, don’t worry, my life ain’t got that bad, it’s just
fallen a bit flat.
The
bars are behind me now & since Covid this room of
mine
has ruled my life but still I walk on out virtually
every
single day & some things never change.
Last night I walked on out & wandered just like I
always used to when I spied a gang of clubbers in their
hippest new outfits & I had to laugh!
They let out a collective scream as their taxi driver
let them out at the end of Saint James’s & the rain
fell on their immaculate outfits.
They ran for cover, seemingly unable to comprehend the
rain ain’t going to stop for them, or any of us, as their
privilege dripped from every orifice until, at last, they
made a run for it & off into the nonstop karaoke bar
with a never-ending happy hour where I once met a
girl from Paris who subsequently dragged me off to
the beach which sure made for a better scene than that
nightmare of a bar.
Bradford
Middleton lives in Brighton, England.
Recent poems have, or will shortly appear, at Dear Booze, Cajun
Mutt’s Night Owl Narrative #1, Mad Swirl, Stink Eye
Magazine, Beatnik Cowboy, and Fixator Press. His most recent chapbook,
The Whiskey
Stings Good Tonight…, came out last year through Alien Buddha Press.
