Stephen C. Middleton

Causes (Panic)

 
Looking for causes
Punch, pathology, or poison
(In the medication, perhaps)

Spastic action / tic / synaptic misfire
Pauses, gaps
Where routine fails / familiarity falters

Panic / entire
Presses the wrong button, frantic

You twist this                    without unpicking

Blessings & transgressive
But no progress

Contradictions multiply
Fervent lies: the language
The currency
The wellspring dry.

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.