Ivan Poem by Stephen Roe

Against the whirring noise of the tracks spinning undone
You can hear the fly humming
Slightly away from your eardrum
And yet you know in that instance that
The shit he's going to land on next
Is spilling from
Out of your guts
And leaching with diesel, tobacco and cordite
Smells you've previously enjoyed as individual parts
Are now wreathing themselves like wraiths in the dark
Around your watering eyes and broken crown
Waiting to take you further, further down.
You wish for a spark to go quickly to take
You back to Mother Russia
But Hell is close now Ivan
Hell is your open mouth, tongue of earth
Hell is a hoard of flies coming by,
Hell is the final sense, you'll soon realise.
All your senses stretched on a fiery divan
Your bed of pain.
Your rack of lamb.
That's you Ivan
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzd.
God-damned.