
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Maksym Beshlei

Trigger & Implode! A counter culture press grinding towards the sixth extinction.
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.
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
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.
Moonlight Sonata
Make do
with spirit
and synapses
that go and go
and go
and go
Lift off
outer space
The stars are
your only friends
Jack Kerouac was a dick
and his writing
was the sign of
pathetic, monkey typing
Genius
It pains me to say
that he changes the times
but
were the times changing
or was he
part of the
avant garde
bougie baby
What really is the truth?
Waltz Footprints in Snow
Care to dance a new waltz renew,
or drift back
to those old vintage footprints−
waltz with me
footprints in snow
fog covering over old snow.
Rose Petals in a Dark Room
I’m but a poet of this ministry,
rose petals in a dark room fall.
Everyone’s life is a conflict.
But mine is mastery of light and neon night
and I walk behind
these footsteps of no one.
Rain
In the rain,
this thunder
on his way home
he rebelled.
He a disco dancer,
High school dropout.
Even Jesus
Even Jesus suffers from the poor,
feels lonely on winter moon distant planets,
don’t torture Him. Let me drive you home.
Old Mack dump truck,
hear these sounds,
new records on this old radio.
Poetry Man
Death still comes in the shadow of grief,
hides beneath this blanket of time,
in the heat, in the cold.
Hold my hand on this journey
you won’t be the first, but
you may be the last.
Notice
The landlord is paying
a visit this evening
while I see him getting back
into his shiny Ferrari
playing with the dashboard
outside my living room window
I got this notice between my fingers
but don’t even have to open it
to realize what this is again
because if I listen carefully
the other tenants give it away
through the vents through the thin walls
with groans about less food
on the dinner table
and sighs about hunting
for yet another minimum wage job
with wails about how to pay
for cancer treatments now
and sobs about simply
not wanting to live anymore
I stay silent
crunch numbers upon numbers
until my head swims in circles
while he finally speeds off
down the street into the sunset
the rooftop down
blasting “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”