VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Cynthia Scott

Cindy Poems

Lighting fickles and cool downpours of silken whereabouts 

sliding doors to countless encounters of flesh pounded into love

wet degraded unearth triangular flies 

and hopped-up bunnies looking for ragweed time capsules

Where is fairyland  ?

Sodden nightmares that quake with resistance unilateral timekeepers await further instructions helium balloons full of piss and cum

Await further instructions give you over to bastards who dream of red marching ants and tampon queens all sucking off the tit of wasteland

Curious I tell ya

Though projections ramping silver bricks of hope descending into spikes of sheltered realm-eaters of the rainbows riders of the red caterpillar walking on his hands

Can you hear the music 

It forever plays for those who juggle stars and lick the underside crust of the moon

 they have bent up stars in their eyes sailboats in their brain pan

look for the slip in door and count bottle caps full of serotonin 

escaping to that faraway crater to be reborn into dust and glasses 

no escape the tomb has written you far into time

Where the green beetle waddles on a thin line of saliva riding the cosmic interlude

 catch love if you can

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Dillinger

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Paul Warren

Kinder Times

The Angels are reflected in the water.
Dirty faces with sad eyes.
Their wings are broken.
Their hair matted.
When they are close you can smell their decay.
Try not to look into the water, it will only remind you of kinder times.

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Rita Recine

Yesterday’s Prose

It was only   yesterday

Voices were heard, stories were told

Family, friends to hug as well as hold

All came to a stand still

The day corona virus decided to intermingle

Single handily the globe, left out into the cold


Today this land is no longer our land

Together we stand

To free ourselves from this contaminant we call Covid 19

The land before time when freely we shared our joys,

in addition, sorrows

Longing once again for   brighter tomorrows

Life in the time of the Coronavirus…From Oasis to Chaos 

Our countries, villages, cities have become deserted

As if death came upon us all around

The world remains indoors, fear to step out

The flowers have not fully bloomed

We are torn between visiting, how many included, excluded

Do we go, do we not?

What is one to do?

Job shortages and lost mortgages

Decisions, few.

The weather is lovely. The sun has risen whilst we remain indoors.

Guarded, on the look out

Understanding the preconceived notion of our faceless enemy

Scattered evidence

Preconceptions

Fragment by fragment the pieces began to take shape

Quarantined in fear within our own space

Covid 19


To our friendly neighbors we wave from afar

“How are you doing”

Fine

Small talk

As we walk

Continuing on our new normalcy

At heart, we all have suspicious minds

Caught in

The trap of the Coronavirus 

Unveiling   despondency, comparable to a train derailment

Positivity alongside empathy and goodness will once again prevail

The flowers will once again bloom

People will simile more 

Awareness will be more profound, listen more 

Gatherings and festivities will once again be bigger 

 Life will be seen in A new light

 Dreams will become goals

More understanding, less misjudgments

One will once again recite 

One will once again play music 

One will once again dance, read, 

one will once again vacation 

Awaiting a solution resolution   in our era of evolution

This is my prayer for our center of the earth

A new rebirth

Social Distancing

What happened to the scintilla which lit our heavens and center of the earth into the night.?

It disappeared, not so long ago

What was a bed of roses?

Has been filled   with invisible thorns

A new visitor has taken its place

Some call it corona virus, others Covid 19


Distancing from crowds, persons three feet or more.

Prior to self – confinement shopping was an outing, perhaps also a chore

Hesitating hour by hour a trip to the grocery sore

In the midst of   segregating, separating

Our surroundings and beyond

Anticipating a positive transformation in this duality of life

Creating love, gentleness   and inspiration

Against the shrouded forces of brutality and cruelty
Social distancing has become the norm

Part of our standard of living in progress

Happening before our very eyes

We have   seen fears and cries

From our own vicinity or miles away

We have seen pictures media coverage, newspaper articles

Covid 19, a   viral particle which has taken mankind’s fate away

Once an enigma, nowadays a malignant signal for all men and women

Do you concur?

Some take all in stride

Others fight the strife

Which has become our novice life

While some need to bid farewell

To their loved ones   a last goodbye

There is consolation among one another

Unexpectedly, within strangers

Allies living across the globe

With trepidation.


We as a village will carry on with more of an understanding and gratitude

Improving ourselves

Thriving, surviving feeling alive, not only existing

With apprehensiveness we wish upon that very bright empyrean,

 …

Our astral star, chance.

Identical, interchangeable as a lotus flower

Ancient flower which grows in dirt, muddy waters rising with remarkable beauty.

Untouched by the impurity, lotus symbolizes the purity of heart and mind.

For goodness always triumphs as we once again rise

In the course of time.

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Maksym Beshlei

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Stephen Whitter

         Victoria Coach Station-Isle of Wight.

An inexplicable indoor wind whips litter around my feet and bags.
A newly docked Coach, it’s hot tyre smell reminds me of the roads back home in Summertime.
Though we are deep in November, nearly December.
Coaches smell of Summer, years of my childhood on a tourist island where Coaches abound, and their wheels are taller than a young lad till he’s Four or maybe Five. So Summer and Fifty Seaters, forever linked in my mind.
This coach ride to Portsmouth Quay side then a boat ride before home, any journey back home for an island dweller a little more of a chore.
I remember years ago, I was a little worse for wear.
An excited tourist said,
“It’s this boat journey that makes the trip to the island special for us”
I remember answering,
” It’s what makes it more of a pain in the arse for me”
I immediately felt terrible ,I had burst his holiday excitement bubble, but he was ok he laughed, even wished me a good day.
In my defense I worked in Portsmouth in those days and took the boat twice a day, by then familiarity and how it reduced my wages had bred contempt.
So, when I was taking any longer haul, bloody hell, that bloody boat was the last bloody straw.
Well, I say that but the if you didn’t have a car lived not near the bus then you had the opportunity to take the strain of the Train, the opposite of the then current advertising campaign.
The island had one Train, a 1950s ex London Tube.
It often won the Punctuality Prize, hardly surprising since it just went up and down one line.
But that Train was an experience, it lurched around like a Pit Pony let loose in the light, luggage and passengers thrown around it made women and children cry and on occasion grown men scream.
From the moment it was mobile it felt like it was coming off the line, but it hardly ever did, it was
merely ‘quirky’ the word the guard used to describe it.
I hear it’s been replaced now which seems a shame, because for islanders the expression on the faces of the tourists riding the train was often a joy to behold , especially if it was a group of ‘hard’ lads with their ‘birds’ that had swaggered on board.

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Michael Lacy

Jesus Christ there’s no use for this

Judas there’s no choice but to do it

Predestined to see Mother Earth from fleshy knees tell us there’s no fucking need to do this watch me pray in the street

While the false Christians loot us

Let’s go after the misguided

Open fire on the looters

I got one by the Church’s Chicken

Meanwhile I’ve got my knife in supremacy they bleed out black, white and red, you see

Staple this to your page

Overnight, Attack me with a pen and I’ll show you how they torture men with pliers

Deep revelation in your eyes

Twisted knives leave the cracks in your hear

Deep paradise rips every fountain of youth that breaks you apart just sit back and watch the world cry

Beat me against everything

As long as it senses into me

But you could never see

So I’ll read this with everything

Except a care

Because this is a FUCK YOU

Goodbye, Lullaby

I’ve been on a ledge

I’ve slept on the bench

Been in on the debt

Forgiving their heads

On the emotional edge

Probably the only thing I’ll live to regret

Demand it

But don’t give enough of respect

I never hit my enemies with revenge because hate holds no spot within even a heart so cringed

pressure on my neck like guillotine

I pretend it’s barely effecting me

I promise I’m okay but it’s killing me

Rain and thunderstorms destroying

Because I don’t thread through the paper without scribbling ink on the floors

I am the six-foot-three gingerbread man swaying back and forth like a mic stand

But I look up to myself like a fucking headstand

This can really feel good but hurt

I know when I get burned it’s just a guided singe

So hear what I say when

I say

Read some words

On my page

If my mind is in the gutter where does yours stay?

Nowhere

But

the clutter

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Tiberius Galloway

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Ethan Goffman

I Am an Oracle

In 2025 the United States as we know it will cease to exist.

In 2042 I will die, alone and impoverished, in a shoddy facility set up, quickly and haphazardly, to house the elderly and terminally ill.

Between those two events, my wife will die of a medical emergency.

In 2070, or thereabouts, humanity as we know it, the world as we know it, will end.

All of us, in some way, know these things, know of our own deaths, the deaths of those we love, and the inevitable destruction of humanity. Yet we continue to live, rise, eat, work, watch television, follow politics, read novels, play at sports, enjoy music, love and laugh, hate and suffer, as though it really matters. Because, after all, the day-to-day is the only thing that really matters.

Although the day-to-day doesn’t matter in the least. Not in the cosmic infinity of the universe. Not in the cosmic infinity of time.

Cosmic infinity does not matter, does not actually exist. All that exists is the here and now, which, however, do not exist as they are over the instant they can be contemplated. I do not exist. These words, ghostly flickers on a page, do not exist.

I am the only thing that exists, along with my words. I write some kind of record, some kind of meaning, because I have no choice, even though it will all vanish by, or long before, 2070, or thereabouts.

My only potential children were miscarried away in the early aughts. I thought they ought to live. These writings are the closest I have to a child, or children, but will be quickly disappeared.

I cannot stand the thought of the end of humanity, although it is of less concern to me than the death of my wife. I cannot stand the thought of my wife’s death, although it is less final to me than my own death, which I cannot comprehend or actually believe.

VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Shane Allison