Sleetmagazine.com

Volume 14 • Number 2 • Fall-Winter 2022-2023

Stephen C. Middleton

Sad Tango (Trap)

Sad tango /
And the fan language of laughing women
Wafts what essence?
Or – the distances shrink
Through knowledge
Through travel
But remain
Stanco    unravels
Illicit rhythms
Dark scents
What trap has
(Or has not) shut?

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.