Nate Bradshaw

Nate Bradshaw Aug 2011

Barefoot, and exhausted she enters the plantation,

The sound of leather loafers move towards the counter,

Decadent heat swells across her forehead making sweat shiver down her temples,*

Sweaty palms ****** a decorated mug, and contaminate the elixir with milk,

Her dark hands desperately search for more beans from the plants, before giving up and filling up her sack and returning to the village,

spices and sugar sweeten the blow, of knowing the bitterness of black coffee,

The sun is an enemy, and pelts her forehead with heat as she returns to the place called home,

Artificial winds cool down the man of many titles, as he pretends to take an interest in the international affairs presented in his daily newspaper while waiting for the finishing touches to his brew,

the load begins to take its toil on her back and she drops the sack,

searching for a visa, meaningless coins are dropped on the coffee shop floor,

She immediately collapses in a frenzy to pick up the goods and dust them of with her fingers,

His eyes momentarily dart towards the silvered coins on the floor, and he ignores them and enters his card into the machine,

‘These are still good, they must still be good, they’ll never know, we can still sell them’ she convinces herself as she clasped the coffee beans into the sack,

‘Aren’t you gonna pick that up sir’ , ‘Um, yeah probably afterwards’ he laughs at the cashiers unconscious desire to obtain as much money in the tip jar as possible,

She picks up her sack and continues walking up the hill, until eventually shanty huts are in sight,

a printed off receipt is quickly ******* up into a ball in his pants-suit and he obliges himself with a sip as he strolls towards the doors,

Her faint body seems to motion towards the ground, but by this time other villagers have spotted her and begin running towards her, her lifeless body is circled by their glances,

‘Too bitter… it needs to be diluted’

*‘Spices and sugar sweeten the blow, of knowing the bitterness of black coffee’

Nate Bradshaw Jul 2011

'Lenses'

the little thinker,

conscience by trade,

the small white lies,

that seem to know everything, and nothing at all,

without speech we’d be truly helpless,

because if no-one could see through our lenses,

our architecture would define us

Nate Bradshaw Jul 2011

'Ode to SocialNetworking'

I’ve never been a member of the blue-place,
for longer than 30 minutes,
before abusing the deactivate button,
I guess i’m channelling my inner-old-person,
By asking numbers to be pressed instead of keys
My ‘hi’s’ and ‘goodbyes’ became signposts screaming - ‘ADD ME, even though you couldnt care less

Nate Bradshaw Jul 2011

'Nite, Nite'

Consumed by the deprivation of sleep,

suffocated by the notion of non-existence,

and the thought of not waking up,

my mind is exercised to point of not caring,

so should i care?

A single exhale seems to embody the entity of life,

here and gone,

and then a recycled breath comes back to greet me,

and in the morning I am free

Nate Bradshaw Jul 2011

'Anecdotes of Strangers'

I’m looking down at my worn-out air force 1’s,
while I’m sitting on the bus awaiting my weekly neck-choking at my job.

I notice that I’m trampling a fake pearl necklace and overused copy of the ‘Metro’ detailing that there’s a million pounds to be won in today’s lottery.

The frame of several seconds captured countless visualisations of strangers with lottery tickets,
but the one woman who sat on my seat stood out,

this lady decided to give up her delusion along with her fake jewellery, which she left on the floor with the newspaper for some other dreamer.

I take a photo of this somewhat ironic occurrence on my BB,
and I am welcomed by vain stares from a bus-load of strangers waiting to become famous.

— The End —