Bradford Middleton- A Poem

A LOCAL NUT DIGGING THE BEACH

People say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder BUT

What I want to know is who decides about madness?  How can you define that?

Am I the mad one for staring from my window?

Down to the beach, the water’s edge, where

For the last few days, weeks, months, maybe even years,

A young man comes, spade in hand, he comes

To dig up the beach, always the same spot

Always the same shape of destruction before

Sitting there, as if on a throne, he sits by

The edge of the water just like King Alfred

Holding the seas at bay just for us

As I sit staring from my vantage point I have to ask,

Is his madness a cry for help

Rather than more fakery of weirdness from one of the town’s young pretend assorted nuts?

I’d really like to know the purpose of his daily dig

But my paranoia has me worried he hit me

On my head with his spade and take me out

To sea, dumping my body to become nothing more than

Fish food with nothing left of me for anyone to see.