The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 02.25.12

“I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.” Johnny Cash


Digital illustration by Johnny Olson

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we began with mirror madness made to muddy self-perception, could be masked in self-deception; we hooked a hotel stay into a hospital visit, hollow states filled with our extra baggage, hindered zombies, helped stormtrooper healthcare; we garnered seeds of grief, but shunned the shoots to gaze at stars; we plumbed depths of desire to see how much is time enough; we watercooler clustered for clandestined cubicle coupling, coital culmination and crashed commitments; we lavished in a lilting lull, learned how to listen from a doctor of jazz; then we poured it all into a cocktail shaker to strain out a dreamer's diatribe, a written appeal for tolerance. Not bad for week's work. - mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

The Letter

To,
The Wise Men,
and the Rational Ones.
The old and experienced,
and the young and successful.
The ones who know too much,
and those who think they do.

This letter is for all of you,
and all others are invited to read too.

Forgive me for any social blunders,
Etiquette was my third language in school.

I know,
My hopeful heart is out of tune with your thrifty ones.
But I have a Deal,
an Agreement of sorts.
Please read it carefully
and sign it with your words.

I promise you my share of it,
if you promise me yours.
Give-and-take just like you taught.
It goes, like this:

Do not judge me for being different,
And I won’t judge you for being ordinary.
Do not right my wrongs I beg you.

Leave me to my reckless mistakes,
and I won’t scorn your hackneyed perfection.
I do not throw stones at your mansions,

why then do you burst My bubble?
Leave me to my blissful ignorance,
and I won’t challenge your vengeful wisdom

You mourn for parents who lived past their stay,
and I for the saplings you slay.
What made your sorrow greater than mine?
You lay your heart out for the boywhodoesn’tcare,
and I for summer rains and winter air.
Why is your love greater than mine?

I am dancing to music you cannot hear,
You march to drums I do not follow.
I am gliding on air you cannot eye,
You tread on ropes I do not see.
Am I deaf, or are You blind?

Don’t judge me for being strange,
and I won’t deride you for being stale.
I will let you frown at me, I swear...
if you let me laugh at your expense.

Yours truly,
The Dreamer

- Saheli Khastagir

(1 poem added 02.25.12)

editor's note: Does this come Postage Due, Postmark Unknown? You can mark it Return to Sender, or pay the extra postage and reply in kind. (Welcome Saheli to our congress of Contributing Poets - more poems on his page...) - mh

She Sounds: For Sweet Poppa D

She sounds like sweet peach mint tea
That was stirred in the good pitcher
From the china cabinet
That is served on a tray
With tea cakes

She sounds like a
Morning on a lake
With two bamboo poles
With only one with a hook in it
And a poetry book
On a swamp boat

She sounds like breakfast
In the city debating
Pancakes or waffles
And you know that stuff
Is bad for you
But you order extra
Butter and syrup

She sounds like
An evening in a sharp suit
And an orange dress
Dancing in socks and stockings
A party of two

She sounds like she wants
To undress me
And she wants it now
With a delectable cackle
And no reason to blush

She sounds like a beginning

- Gayle Bell

(2 poems added 02.24.12)

editor's note: Oh, yes, indeed! She sounds exactly like that! (Further your education with another poem by Gayle on her page - drink up!) - mh

The Affair in the Office

It belonged to all of us in a way
because we all shared
in the surprise
that it existed at all,
and also, privately, in the thrill
of the two lovers
(none more surprised than they)
who’d worked together in the same sad office
with all of us for all
these years, and both of them married,
and both unhappily. It was
a sad office, like so many
sad offices, full of the inexorable sadness
of cubicles, and computers, and empty
of love. Or so we thought. For no one
saw it growing—it must have
gotten in through a high
bit of laughter in the lunchroom,
then a glancing away
and a looking back again, the way
it sometimes will. And when it got out
in whispers around the water cooler
we all drank from it,
we drank it in, and in this way
it refreshed us, and amazed us,
and belonged to us because
we all took it home, took it
with us in the car, or on the train, sat with it
in rush hour, shaking our heads as though
we were listening to music, and in a way
we were listening to music,
shaking our heads and smiling,
looking out the window, fingers drumming.

- Paul Hostovsky

(added 02.23.12)

editor's note: Cubicle monotony turned into RomCom delight for all. Look around, could be happening in an office near you... - mh

Time Enough

he whispered
to her,
is as important
as any desire
between
men and women
when day turns night
and the screaming stars
fade behind the shades,
the bottom edges filthy
from dead flies on the sill,
and couples never notice
as they close their eyes
with time
enough
at last.

- Joseph D. DiLella

(1 poem added 02.22.12)

editor's note: We have what we have; but with another, enough can be enough. - mh

Pain Comes

Pain comes here
and seeking some soft ground
spreads it's seeds
Beneath the light

Then plain as you like
without fanfare, or catalyst
and indifferent to natural laws,
Shoots appear

With roots
deep through time
cradled though in this particular
isolation here and now.

And prayers for the dead
are better spent on those that are left
Those in need of the force
of another soul

One that whispers:

'When the digging hour is nigh
we will touch our shoulders close
bring to the same star, our sight
and wait, and wait'

- Christopher Smith

(1 poem added 02.21.12)

editor's note: The seeds planted deep in our emotional soil begin to creep out and create vines that weave together to make the garments we wear like fashion. And while we wait for our turn on the runway, we wonder, "Does this outfit make my soul look sad?" - jo

HOLLOW STATES

Chewing on an old computer hard drive
the maestro's teeth indirectly manipulate his bowel movement's
memory foam into the shape of a duck. Knowing that when it
morphs, Nutella provides the gloomiest of thrills.
An optical illusion of the hotel's impending implosion
made possible by the folded spaces between
acupunctures on the fake luggage in the lobby.
The elephant in your silence grandly twitches its ears – ears
wired to Nowhere's three densest gravitational loci.
Combining to form a chicken in the drywall: both real and imagined.
After wearily climbing off his gurney, the patient saw it
covered in meatless dots. In heavy silence.
Wonder what happens to the loose change in the pockets of mall Zombies.
One looks like it has a booger duct-taped to a leak.
The back-alley acupuncturist says he loves 'doing' fake luggage.
Deals directly with the symptom of said luggage not being able
to 'move their hollow states.' Some really empty people, for example,
require a special apparatus with a special built-in sack.
Darth Vader's gifts on Christmas are all really amazing; they are
all stuffers of the hollow states of amputees such as himself.
How he meditates on stopping the seizure from crawling –
with the sound of a pencil sharpening – down his
favorite pig roast. In the next room someone's routinely
measuring a stormtrooper's Ph.

- Tyson Bley

(1 poem added 02.20.12)

editor's note: I always thought there were clones of Shrodinger's Cat filling in those hollow states. Finally, thanks to acupuncture, we have room for that extra toothbrush. - mh

MIRROR IMAGE

the face may taunt
but it’s my own

it may look at me
with undisguised disgust
but it has no doubt
as to the object
of this revulsion

it examines this
catalog of features
both aggravating
and despairing
runs them through
a reflecting program
of past failure
current dismal situation
and future limited prospects

and responds
with something called
a mirror image

aaaah...
wherever there’s a likeness
can a hate-ness be far behind

- John Grey

(1 poem added 02.19.12)

editor's note: Is what we see always a construct of how we feel? Maybe the best we can achieve after likeness is indifferent-ness. - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Rebellin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 02.18.12

“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.” Audre Lorde


Cheese (above) by featured artist, Fabio Sassi, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we began with an appeal to forbidden-apple aptitudes for sweet Valentine hearts and chocolates served up naked and next to bare skin; we deconstructed sappy sentiments from the sight of seekers of sensual desires; we objectified an empty self into clean canvas, the art is in the life; we descried the down-trodden canine, determined dog days would not be ours, give thanks; we studied sea-side management, beach as graveyard, shells as bones; we honored our heros, encumbered as we with mundanities, they still make the best statuary; we concluded with stones, the stuff of statues and sea-shells and dog days and all before, not to be ignored or eschewed. Whew! - mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

DISMISSING THE STONES

She talks to the flowerbeds.
She talks to the trees.
She dismisses the stones,
who mumble their displeasure.
The woman cannot hear them.
She whispers to the ants,
who crisscross into their hole.
She speaks to the caterpillars.
She gave the stones their freedom.
That did not sit well with them.
The stones wanted conversation.
The woman would not hear them.
Her life was complicated.
She did not like the stones.
It was her secret. This left the stones
with a feeling of worthlessness.

- Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

(1 poem added 02.18.12)

editor's note: I once ran into a boulder with lots to say about dirt. Gave me a new appreciation for dirt. So, a little respect. - mh

EVERY BOY'S HERO

They kept it a major secret like buried
Cuban missiles or the true value of gold,
Never told us that you were just like us.

Even when they paraded you in pinstripes
Or gave you some lucky number
Or put your portrait on a box of bran flakes,

You were every boy's hero
We didn't care about the smoking, the
Drinking, or your father's image

Or your illness that ran in the family,
Or cared how you neglected your children and wife
Or knew why you ran so well,

Because you were a legend, our hero
And idols make perfect statues
Like yours they placed in center field.

- Clinton Van Inman

(1 poem added 02.17.12)

editor's note: Nasty secrets topple our icons. Everyday life is theirs as it is ours? Scandalous! Now, turn to your idol in the mirror. Any secrets there? (See more poems by Clinton on his new poetry page.) - mh

Red sky at night

I carry sea shells three at a time
to safety across beach sprinkled

with fragments of their kind.
Some purple. A few pink.

Beyond reach, evening surf
swirls more than I can rescue

into a rainbow of shards, grinds
perfectly shaped scallops, whelks,

even hawk-wing conchs fine,
then tosses them ashore

to join sand lying white in death
beside yesterday's salt.

You wade, oblivious. My footprints
pool in high tide.

I see wounds, not delight,
slicing red across the sky.

- Timothy Pilgrim

(1 poem added 02.16.12)

editor's note: We burn or bury our dead to deprive collectors everywhere of polished keepsakes, novelty knick-knacks; my shining skull as doorstop or as paperweight. - mh

The Little Bell of Night

There’s a dog on my street
that’s been hit three or four times.
When he moves forward two
of his legs go to the right,
the other two violate the laws
of gravity, play out the courtship,
the over-praised opera of bear traps.
He doesn’t fear cars, lays down
in the middle of the street
like an essay on self-loathing
and misery, answers only
to the little bell of night.
I’ve passed him by on the sidewalk
and looked into his eyes,
the two of us good at playing dead.
There’s a kinship between us,
the anonymity of hunger
as we try but fail to dodge the
madness of the world.
I say a prayer for those who
must endure the cold nights,
give thanks for a beautiful world,
the vanilla wafers I’ll soak
in coffee shortly.

- Vladimir Swirynsky

(added 02.15.12)

editor's note: Someone rings a bell; tea is served - vanilla wafers for all. The good dogs salivate on cue - the bad dogs shiver. - mh

My Masterpiece

Cut me open;
You won’t find anything;
It’s empty inside.

Outside,
I’m painted;
Different colours by different people.

Inside,
I’ve kept for myself;
Protected from the outsiders.

Herein,
I shall paint
My masterpiece.

- Prashant Das

(added 02.14.12)

editor's note: Michelangelo did not heed a pushy, impatient pope when finishing the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He took his own time, painted in his own way. When he was done everyone, pushy pope included, looked up and said, "Ahhh!" - mh

Raindrops on Roses

Her blue eyes flicker
In the spark of the
Decomposing
Night,
As she takes his hand
Above her head
And maneuvers through the
Spilling beers and pulsing music,
For all drunken, jolly eyes to see,
Laughing, howling to eternal lust
And patting him on the back in admiration
As they swarm into the guest bedroom.
The door slams,
And it reminds me of starving roses,
Rabid dogs,
One can of beer,
A child to beat,
A neighbor to hate,
A whore to pay,
A door to lock,
Cum filled tissues,
Memories of war,
Mahogany coffins,
Unreturned phone calls,
Love letters never to be sent,
Marlboro reds,
Black and white musicals,
Walking alone in morning fog,
White wine toasts,
Flowers with chocolates
And short blonde girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes sleeping
With spiders in sultry silver webs,
And I begin to hear the bed beat against the wall louder
And guess the pattern of the sheets
Right down to the splatter of the stains,
But time still remains
To think about a few more of my
Least favorite things.

- Robert D. Lyons

(added 02.13.12)

editor's note: While some get their most, others ponder their least. Those patterns and splatters are a joy to make and a bitch to clean. - mh

Such a Sultry Song


- Alexander Castiglione

(added 02.12.12)

editor's note: Behind the redactions lie the art. No need to read them - write/paint/sculpt/act/sing/play them your way. Yes, no chains! - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Doin' It,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 02.11.12

“Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.” Anaïs Nin


Persistence (above) by artist, Joseph A. Garrison, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we pondered the possibility of paradise lost with a luscious lick of forbidden fruit; we couldn't crack code in a wren-swarmed god-borne message from on high; we sought safety for our psyches from psychos, a moral martial-art; we witnessed creation and destruction in a day, secured comfort in expectation of a calm dawn and a clean slate; we reposed in a room to recall how life is rife with rented reality, we don't own a damn thing; (we dropped a stitch - seven, to be precise; seven days, seven wild sways of the time warped continuum; then came up laughing); we ranted in self-realized portraiture, painted a picture from pieces of everything, looked like nothing we've ever seen; lastly, a bit lost and lonely, we learned to our amazement the safest defense is an open door. Throw away your keys! - mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

KEYLESS

I’m a keyless entry
Don’t you see?
No key can get to the
Heart of me.
No locks, no bolts, no chains or hooks
Keeping you from
The heart of me.
The open heart
Needs no key.
It’s safe
In its own
Simplicity.

- Denise Lumley

(1 poem added 02.11.12)

editor's note: No lock, no looting; free access eliminates crime. The love police will have to look elsewhere. - mh

A Self-Portrait

"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it.” Franz Kafka

Hiding behind the curtains, the moons afar
are swimming over mercurochrome nostalgia;
crippled, lame walking over the sandy dunes of Sahara.
Are my tears the traitors of Russia?
Are my tears Iodine tablets suffocating in open air?
Sublimating no memory, but flames of dignity.
Do I count my nickels at your feet?
Do I gasp like a maroon athlete?
Do I howl at Winston Churchill’s “Black Dog”?
Do I catapult a lovely gaze at your open yard?
I am here with my arms, jumping over quicksand to re-tell
My Experiment With Truth

I am born an insect, chirpy crepuscular slithering over the edges of your lips,
distinct with a head, thorax and abdomen.
My Jewish nose can smell your schizophrenic beauty of psychic holocaust,
and it makes me furious as a neo-Tsar.
All right, I made a goddamn fuming gaze with no shillings on it.
I did try a Mona Lisa gaze!
Instead a gaze of a scarecrow.
So was I born, free of all emotions,
with a permanent gesture of Ku Klux Klan,
a Charlie Chaplin gimmick.
But truth is: I am born a baby with no smiles in his head.
A subliminal neophyte cooperating desperately,
standing at the exact corner where he should have been buried.
I am born scandalous,
All I have is Van Gogh's ear of delusions,
and hatchet of neural bedlam.
All the White Noises you snoop,
All the Black Chimneys you inhale,
All the faint wails you eavesdrop,
All the lab fumes you gape,
Are they surreal or a metaphor?
Let your razor-sharp retort go!

Now I look at my funny side,
An abstract acme with worms in it,
worms to be steamed and devoured with chopsticks.
Folks swallow them as sweet-bitter lousy talk in a city bar,
With the guns they slay for brotherhood,
They throw stones,
Paint their half-face black and sun-bathe on the equator.
Last time I found, blowing high up in the sky to be exploded
as a tear-gas capsule,
a Tupac Sakur song.
a dream from my mother.
a Crime and Punishment.
in-between have and have-not,
in-between war and peace,
in-between existence and memory,
Played like a sax,
Dropped like water,
Smoked like an Indian pipe,
Read like the bible,
An end like the beginning of an epic,
and a self-portrait of narrow escape,
About to crumble off seismic waves
like the Berlin Wall
like the crispy notes of Wall Street
Might be a chaotic butterfly flapping its wing
Might be a mannequin with her arms
A nothing self, surrendering to nothing absurd with nothing to win or lose,
A ramshackle poem of Sylvia Plath
A negativity of times, paramount of times and the nastiest of all times,
You name me the names:
A narrow escape,
A werewolf,
A mere euphemism,
Or a self-portrait of the emotional half of two legs.

- Nirmal Acharya

(added 02.10.12)

editor's note: This mirror is melting! My reflection looks like this poet, looks like you, looks like Wiley Coyote. Kafka would laugh if he didn't think it all so normal. - mh

RENTED ROOMS

I go home and I’m all alone
No one to greet me or tell me that they love me
My entire adult life has been like this
I spent all that time flitting from one room to another
And evidently they are all the same
Rented rooms

Acrid surfaces that haven’t been cleaned
Dirty carpets that are plain obscene
A lousy bed that I can’t get out of
An overloaded ashtray that says I haven’t got long
No space to feel at home
In rented rooms

Rented rooms are all the same
Whether you’re in New York, Frisco or even London town
They all seem designed for that lonely insecure man
Who has been driven slowly insane by the idea that he will never escape
A life in rented rooms

- Bradford Middleton

(1 poem added 02.02.12)

editor's note: I think my body is mine, owned outright; but one day the landlord will evict. Might as well let the ashtrays overflow. (Let's welcome Bradford to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets! See his other poems on his new page.) - mh

A PAD OF HIS OWN

Beneath the old pier, a hand scrapes
Wet sand into sketches, carving artistry from
Within him, pulling the crowd, who watch
Over the rail and throw into his bucket
Their coined applause. A metallic clap for this
Still life, culled from a husk of the sea.

A hulk of a man, never showing his face,
Bent over his work, he oscillates
From boot to boot. From hip to head,
A woolly thick knitted spine suddenly collects
Its wages and then with meticulous timing,
Vanishes, just before the ocean spawns;
A shifting glaze, through which
The artist’s visuals can still be observed.

His London Skyline becomes
The Underwater City, its muffled churches
Stifled by a pulsating angelus of waves.
The etched mane of horses and the wet fur
Of dogs, cats: these drown quietly
Under bubbling ripples.

And then surging from the deep, thick
Opaque slices, slabs obliterating
Each deliberate line. Mouths and deeply gouged
Eyes shut forever by the shapeless being
Lunging at the beach. Ordinarily incredible,
Hard to imagine, this liquid body being dragged
By its tail, thrown back in a heap.
Yet this is the way of it.

When the quiet industry of a beaten surf
Rolls out its shores of yesterday, as if...
As if there had never been, mistakes, fools
And foolish dreams, you could
Almost believe that this, then, is life:
A smooth unending slate – wiped clean.

- Derrick Gaskin

(2 poems added 02.01.12)

editor's note: Each day we start tabula rasa. The rising of the sun lights an empty page; yesterday's scrawl wiped clean by the waves. (See another one from Derrick on his page - it's a jungle out there.) - mh

Absent

The story of your life begins right now.
The components of this tale are missing.
Its characters got lost in the confusion of my style.

I await the perfect morning with a picture perfect sky
to start writing the story of my life.
I'm right here right now waiting for the temperature to go down.
Holding on to my dreams with nothing but insecure hopes.
Dried up tears from the day before remind me that love fades away
just like the beauty you hold in your youth.

Sarcastically I ask for your forgiveness and you accept my apology.
I disguise my hatred with impure pity.
I hold you close to my heart but very far from my soul.
I salute your lies and embrace the confidence you possess.

- Michelle Camacho

(added 01.31.12)

editor's note: Your life and this tale are at odds; yours started, this other arrested. It's a survival manual for dreamers in a totalitarian state; friends close, enemies closer. - mh

Birds

They all came from everywhere
A-flying high up through the air
They landed on my little tree
And whistled to the world we’re free
Never could I express with words
The sight I saw, a thousand birds
They flew into the parking lot
All landing there in a small plot
Then back into the sky again
A mighty cloud of flying wrens
Then around the yard they all took flight
And vanished mysteriously from sight

- Eileen McNeal

(added 01.30.12)

editor's note: The amorphous moving shapes they make are some kind of cosmic code; god talking to himself and laughing. - mh

Paradise Tasted

True partners-in-crime
Let’s take the honey and run!
Making Love rhyme all the time…

Coupled together with a tantric, hypnotic blaze
Tested in this fire, we certainly have been
So deserving of our wonderfully chaotic daze…

Never having a moment wasted
While sharing our wasted moments
A kiss from you is paradise tasted.

- Michael R. King

(1 poem added 01.29.12)

editor's note: Now, that's lip-smackin', soul-whackin' goodness. Think I'll take another bite. - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Lovin' It,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.28.12

“When I say artist I mean the man who is building things. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush, some with a shovel, some choose a pen.” Jackson Pollock


Industrial Suburbia (above) by featured artist, Fabio Sassi, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we prepared ourselves with nine new adages, ancient or nascent, not so clear, but clearly new to us; we observed another adage in etiquette, nothing said leaves no impression, better than the converse; we heard the noise, saw through the blur of two souls unable (or unwilling) to access their adages; we plied a new one, learned from bad experience, water for bread for water for bread, when both need both; we dropped our adages, pled for answers, knowing only hills and bridges would hear the questions; we bobbed in the broken bits of our bad fortune, looking for crazy glue where adages wouldn't do; then lastly, we traversed familiar scapes to an unfamiliar emptiness we know one day we'll know too well. Another adage should ensue - quick, think of something... - mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

The view from above the cityscape is vast. It moves
and feeds my spirit. Yet my hazel eyes look south
and touch the elongated Void, an unbearable emptiness
mixed with metallic dust and human debris, rushing

toward my private mansion like never-ending waves of
desert dunes; and soon my house and I will be buried

alive.

So I look north, away from Yesterday’s wasteland and
the eerie, ineffable images imprinted in my psyche;

I look away. Yet still, I see swirling particles, once
human, sailing through the toxic air, plummeting to

earth. I can’t bear to see such evil.

I saunter off on the High Line, a defunct railroad
structure resurrected as a celestial park above the

streets of Manhattan.

My journey begins after sunrise on a sultry August
morning. I stroll across a walkway surrounded by

wildflowers.

From time to time, I stop and reflect. The freight
trains used to run here decades ago. Now, a

glorious landscape of greenery replaces the
antediluvian rail line.
Lost in reverie, I walk for hours and swallow

2

the divine dreamscape. Half-a-day seems

like a lambent flame brushing across my face
before vanishing.

I drink effervescence. Time no longer exists.
And yet, after meandering through the

labyrinth of my mind and across walkways
and promenades, I turn around and head

south.

I stop at the Chelsea Market Passage and sit
at a table. It’s almost sunset.

My eyes drift toward the Hudson River.
I wait.

I anticipate a glorious sunset. Yet
surreptitiously, I gaze at the

Manhattan skyline.

I see what isn’t there. The emptiness
eats my spirit.

The view is vast and devastating.
Each time I look back,

I die again.

- Mel Waldman

(1 poem added 01.28.12)

editor's note: The view is amazing from up there, but the air is thin. It's hard to know if what we discern is true vision or oxygen deprivation. - mh

BROKEN

I am lost and on my own
Disconnected I stand alone
A fragment of what was before
Severed and joined as one no more
The missing piece has been and gone
Detached from where it should belong
Separated, dichotomized
From what it previously occupied
I'm now a part of something new
And I can't be fixed with crazy glue.
The sharp jagged edges mean a lot
hurts deeper than a paper-cut
Desolate I roam the land
Like broken glass tossed on the sand.
Segregated, there I lie
Like pointy splinters cast aside.
Disengaged so many years,
Holding on to shattered tears.
Torn apart, I've learned to blend in
To what are now my surroundings.
Divided, I long for the days of old.
And to what made this broken man,
Whole.

- Arthur L. Seymour

(added 01.27.12)

editor's note: Encouraging couplets! "Really?" you say. When you're standing in the middle of such a pile of pieces, there's nothing to do but pick'em up! Encouraging! - mh

List of questions

A large group of kids
kidding
and following
their cattle
to the forest.

Across the vale
on the sunlit slope
a bell ringing
as low as the bells
hung on the napes
of these hungry cattle.

Down on the river
a broken, single wire bridge waiting
for the big people from the big city
for some years now

and up here on this passage
I’m a list of questions.

But who is to answer?

- Haris Adhikari

(1 poem added 01.26.12)

editor's note: Poets will ask anyway; we make our own answers. - mh

A letter to my enemy

I write this
with an open hand
I have learned
that the death
of your children
will not keep
my children safe

Fire will birth more fire
an eye for an eye
will leave us
old stumbling
blind men
childless
amongst
the dust devils
dry

But if I bring you bread
Will you give me water?

- Michael Corrigan

(added 01.25.12)

editor's note: Why starve? Proud resolve requires neither. - mh

YOUNG MASTERS

Unblurred to one and all
spoiled bodies
ridden by each-word-a-blow tempers,
thundering outhouse, porch and stairway.

When they're unlatched
ringside seaters squinny.
He swigs hold-and-corner methadone
backstage of bins
while she drags the truth of her face
into see-red mania.

- Christopher Barnes

(added 01.24.12)

editor's note: No need to don your magnifiers to see this bit of relational hide-and-seek, the poet makes it perfectly clear. - mh

Inwit

All my native wit can tender
Must procure as blind above the surface
Of those inconsistent waters, sometimes
Dashing sunlit on the lake
My native wit’s worth can’t be paid
In legal tender, but still in dividends
So strike as oars that smite the waves
Or show me to safe passage
Destination: lavish dinners with spirits
To chase and be chaste, palatal
My beating heart preserve, my mind
For the presentation to guests
Of something to remove all doubt

- Euphrates Moss

(added 01.23.12)

editor's note: "In" or "dim"; it's better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open one's mouth and... - mh

HAIKUS OF THE GREEN OLIVE

Subverted Life:
Religions have perverted
The Free Spirit.

The Sacred Chao
Is for these screwed-up times.
Speak for Yourself!

Deities change.
Gospel according to Freud
From de Dog Star!

Erotic Poetry
Is a telegram for us?
Book of Uterus!

Face to face with You!
The Epistle to Paranoids
Is for Polites.

Each of these yarns
And my past to spread them:
Whole thing myself.

I got the Record
About you will learn more
And understand less.

Everything knowing
With Principia Discordia
About Nothing.

Knowledge of a sage
Put twinkles in Your Eyes.
Wisdom of a Child!

- Daniel de Culla

(added 01.22.12)

editor's note: Here find nine mind nuggets for your perusal. Chew on one or two; if all, you'll need a "stretcher." Eat me! Drink Me! - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Buildin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.21.12

“I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” Mark Rothko


Pollution Crunch (above) by featured artist, Fabio Sassi. Please join us in saying 'Benvenuto!' to our newest featured artist. Fabio's striking works of art captured our eyes from miles away, from the tasty sounding city of Bologna in that boot-shaped country half-way across the world to our cozy lil Mad Swirl cave in Dallas, now delivered to your senses right here in the Mad Gallery. His works of art have an extreme feel of cultural awareness. Immediately one can tell that Fabio is not just concerned with making art. He brings a new level to it. He makes art with profound messages one can take with them long afterwards. He has a rather simple style, but with a big, screaming meaning behind it. Check out Fabio's work and be prepared to say 'Fantastico!' to his profound messages, political and cultural mindfulness... with a mad twist of 'The King' in space... for good measure. - mio

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we endured the annals of an exiled poet, identified with the disenfranchised; we found cause for celebration in universal reconciliation, killed the fatted calf; from reconciliation we viewed a fair salvation, from bible, beer and the eye of god; then we stole another view, a clear-eyed peak at (im)mortality; mortality stared back through a cold Dear John, written by a pragmatic (soon to be ex) partner; we stared some more at beauty sublime but untouchable, we were not the sun to make that flower bloom; but, undaunted, we ran with the love we had, the luck we didn't - damn them both, our blindness makes the two the same. Now, poets all, write a couplet to complete this sonnet de la semaine. - mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

sir baden powell patrol award winners, 2003-04

i took off running
with your hand in my pocket

to get a head start

on kissing the revolution
back to life,

because if we give those
meddling kids a chance,

they’ll steal the fun
right from our drinks

and laugh all the way home
with nothing to lose,

to open all the windows
for fear of suffocation,

or waking up
in a room
that smells like sleep;

i took a chance on you
the moment i held my breath

“because luck,

and love

are just walking around
with your eyes closed;”

believe me:

if i could see the moon
from my bedroom window

i would have started shooting
months ago.

- Andrew Chmielowiec

(1 poem added 01.21.12)

editor's note: Blind are both, luck and love. But, blind or not, good scouts keep their guns cleaned and ready. "Always be prepared!" - mh

Tea in the Flower Shop

For CW

You are the center
of a million thoughts
fizzling smoke-like from a cannon,
just trapped outlining a powder
keg
in the rain.

The teeth in your mouth
are an effervescent
glare
against the bottle of bourbon in the top drawer
of the borrowed dresser you loaned me.
You’re pretty,
Like hibiscus in a tea bag,
and I want to taste you.
I wont,
ever,
because when I come around
you’re only a bud and
not a
bloom.

- Zach Fishel

(1 poem added 01.20.12)

editor's note: The bourbon bees buzz this blossom to no avail. Alas, no bloom, no bliss. - mh

Letter to a lifer

Phil,

I hope this letter finds you well.
There’s no easy way to say this
so I’ll just blurt it right out.
You know you always said
I should find somebody else?
His name is Mark, I think you’d like him.
He’s so selfless and loves the kids.
He doesn’t, can’t love them like you do,
but it’s killing them that you’re gone
for so long, and me too.
I know why you did it and will always stand by you,
but we’re all in a sentence.
Mark is the same age as me and he has a good job.
I know this isn’t going to help much,
but he supports United.
Forgive me. I’d like a divorce.

All my love,
Rosie xx

- Michael Holme

(added 01.19.12)

editor's note: This is one sad "day in the life" with sentence unsaid, but pragmatism poetic. Sorry, Phil! - mh

THEY ALWAYS GIVE YOU AWAY

Fading light but
open wide & crystal clear.

Full-on desperate but
no hint of fear.

Mortality bleeds out but
espies one more day.

The eyes always give you away.

- Mike Owens

(added 01.18.12)

editor's note: First to blink picks up the tab; life for life is a pretty steep bill. Order another day - keep the maitre d' at bay. - mh

far from salvation

It’s easier to wish on stars
when stuck with reality
as far as intentions go -

I’ve laid a graceful plan
that I hardly keep
I’ve been observing
the conservative right
pushing their religious views
Alienating more than half the population
is as solvent as drinking beer
and reading the Bible
As I do

It’s wiser to keep such things separate
since we all fall short of the glory
We’re deserving of cold astray nights
far from the sun
that grand star
all seeing eye
Could be a version of God

- Rafael Andrade Garza

(1 poem added 01.17.12)

editor's note: The graceful plans are hard to keep. Beer goes down easier out of the hot sun. Wish away! - mh

Feast

I had this dream slide over me, like a silk scarf slips from the neck. There were no words, no images, just this sensation and some kind of perfume. A faceless ghost lover passed through me, leaving something different than a memory. A haunting.

I woke up thinking of the prodigal son, how the father waits for his son, deep sorrow and faint hope bound together. How many are like that man, with much to rejoice, but a wound that colors everything. There is a table in these hearts laid for a feast. They await the day when their burden turns to celebration.

- Robert Vaughan

(added 01.16.12)

editor's note: Everyone is the errant offspring. Everyone, also the pining parent. Dinner is served, please be seated. - mh

URBAN READING

The exiled poet
without papers
passport
or green card
only wth a letter
from Ginsburg
gets into the cab,
hears Coltrane riffs
and the blues,
it starts to snow
on the windshield
tiny flakes
like stolen kisses,
the sky is absent
and the fare rises
the hungry poet
jumps out of the taxi
on asphalt streets
hitches for a ride
on moonstruck miles
a surrealist
with action paintings
in her car
picks up the poet
who goes to the university
Ginsburg is there
with kisses for us.

- BZ Nditch

(added 01.15.12)

editor's note: No fare? Then it's fair to jump ship and hitch with another passing in the night. Ginsberg watches over all wayward poets. - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Expressin' It,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.14.12

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better” Martin Luther King, Jr


Digital illustration by Johnny Olson

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we got behind the wheel of a fast dash from a checkered past; white-line weary, we shot our wad at a road-side rest; next morning garden gaiety gripped us, unaware of all blossoms bring to arrest attentions; which next went 2D, LCD-screen flat, fueled by avarice, our insatiable, media-whetted appetites; to compensate, forbidden fruit floating from our gaping maws, we contemplated constraint and a cloistered life; we were consumed in the story of our own falling, frozen decision and frittered dominion; finally we cashed in all for a pilfered pass to paradise, Peter pacified, Paul's pocket picked. Saints preserve us, saints be all! - mh

Sweeping generalities
(under the table)

Just because
everything
is falling together
doesn’t mean
it isn’t falling
and just because
everything
is coming together
doesn't mean
it can’t come apart
so I am going
to go through with
my obligatory
responsibilities
with white trash
panache
and allow myself
to be midwifed
into mid-life
and then
I will party
crash the pearly
gates
with my
never-said-I-was-a-saint
VIP pass
which I stole
from Paul
to give to
Peter

- Ivan Jenson

(1 poem added 01.14.12)

editor's note: Falling and coming, it's all for the benefit of middle-aged passage from here to the next. Paul's got pockets full that will never be missed and Peter will be none the wiser. - mh

Decision and Dominion

One decade held in pixels, stalled
forced figure locked in motion.
His dominion his decision then
by art of stealing souls preserved
the camera caught The Falling Man.

Though eyes perceive new narratives,
I will not claim to know his thoughts.
That leaping man, I too can see,
as many do, and many will
I too can cast his narrative,
suggestive claim his state of mind.
Yet Falling Man remains unknown.

Refuse my impositions slight
dominion his decision, though
I too will stare, I too can see:
reject my need for knowledge.
For the Falling Man now pixel print
symbolic held one decade framed.
Existence is decision and
dominion I refuse to steal.

- JW Mark

(added 01.13.12)

editor's note: It's all about to be or not. Choose dominion, bear responsibility; while decision defies choosing, ye be what ye be. - mh

Nun

I would have been a nun
had I kept my soft virginal glory
intact -

the whisky replaced by the tea-caddy,
the negligee by the gown.
The cock replaced by the crucifix;
according to the law of purity.

Waiting for bread to break its
silence.

The soup to stir -

filling the air with condensation,
and in this way blessing us. Now it is
weeping tears of joy, unable to
stop.

The fruit remains a mystery.

- A. Swimmer

(1 poem added 01.12.12)

editor's note: Oh, what we could be, would be. Eat the fruit, don't eat the fruit; the air is still full of condensate, your tears or someone else's. - mh

Depredation

The works of man, o builders,
are smothering our planet,
suffocating the surface
with endless coats of concrete,
denying respiration,
yet expecting survival.
Toxins pollute the land,
poison the air,
sterilize the seas.
Those who care,
hoping our children
will have a future,
bravely raise their voices,
but are thoroughly stifled
by the confusing clamor
broadcasted daily
by the servants of profit
to distract us from tomorrows.

- Gary Beck

(1 poem added 01.11.12)

editor's note: We thought we heard something here, but the TV was loud and there was a commercial about something we want. Now we've forgotten both, damn! - mh

Snapdragons Crackle

Snapdragons crackle
in the air for Maura
and her flowing gait,

a swagger neither Nora
nor Maureen would ever
let a suitor savor.

Maura knows
that in her wake
men with scythes

and burlap sacks,
creep like gators,
eyes afire, jaws agape.

Nora and Maureen
can smell these men.
Unlike Maura

and her flowing gait,
Nora and Maureen will smile,
take their time and wait.

- Donal Mahoney

(1 poem added 01.10.12)

editor's note: Flower garden subterfuge abounds. Cinderella inflorescence fills the stunted bloom, deformed by jealous over-pruning. - mh

Ten years Later #5

The road is long
and cold:
this scandalous sex
living hugeness,
vivacious,
unscrupulously spread itself
before my amazed eyes.

The road is long
and dry:
the uterus is rotten
blood drips
slowly
the world
implodes.

The road is long
but I feel good
and on your body
I explode
through all the pores
of my skin.

- Walter Ruhlmann

(1 poem added 01.09.12)

editor's note: It's not the road, so much. It's the mileage... and knowing the good road-side rest-stops. - mh

Driven

Mesmerized.
Yellow lines flash.
Blending;
the hum of the open road.
Driven to fly;
shedding shackles.

Haunted.
Her tear stained face.
Calling me back.
Drinking dandelion wine together;
we had it all.
Driven,
unable to turn back.

- Mike Berger

(1 poem added 01.08.12)

editor's note: Even turning back becomes the new forward. Keep the pedal to the metal and the windows down. - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Dedicatedin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.07.12

“Submissive to everything, open, listening” Jack Kerouac


Ayahuasca (above) by featured artist, Christian Millet, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!

•••••••••••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we floated into this New Year tipping and tugging on old restraints; we acknowledged the harsh reality of forced retirement with no gold watch; we dabbled in dog-death remedies, found nothing to offer but pain management; we found a new acolyte, eager to please, enlightenment understood - all about "him"; we continued the cult, twanged a taught thread, unraveled his god-like garment; that god discarded, we found a new one (long old), coldly controlling our conscpicuous consumption; lastly, we dumped that one, too, grabbed no substitute, rather strung our strained supplication through the stars, looking for a Listener... still waiting for a reply. - mh

•••••••••••

A letter to God

O Lord! I feel where you dwell: in corners
or on walls; in the streets or on tall tower-tops –
you are not beyond my ken
but you pretend you are a million miles away…
you just see the way stone statues do.

But oh!
MISERIES WE LIVE; MISERIES WE DIE.
We’re entangled on the hooks of questions that you,
and only you, can uncurl. Lord,
O Lord!
Your world is but half unfinished.
You have left everything in a mess!
Are we to finish it with our miseries
of minds and hearts?
Are we to act for you?

I’m surprised how you just see your creation roll down
and down
I’m surprised how you just see your children
grow wilder each passing day.

While I’m awake, you seem to be asleep
While I’m mad, you seem to be carefree
While I’m begging for your attention, you seem to be preoccupied
Oh Lord! What obliges you to latch your compassion?

I fear you might spot me for my grumble
But this is what I have to ask you for your grace.
Your eternal serenity, silence or peace
is what we all need, Oh Lord!

This soul has waited for so long for your smiling glance!
Keep me on your lap.
Show me the way forth.
Humanity, my love, is so desperate to dance in your kingdom!

Your world has resorted to
such dangerous paths
of clashes
between religions
between cultures
between impulses of devilish hungers.
I reckon man is to reverse his way
and join the Nazis’ uproar
or kill himself for a side of a coin.
Oh Lord! Isn’t there any limit
to your toleration?

You mustn’t be silent, O Lord!
You live in every breath of our lives:
you are a beggar; you are a billionaire
you are so generous; you are so mean –
every story has you, the silent side,
at the rear or in deep
letting go things unnoticed
and uncontrolled.

How could you be dead
when I can intensely feel you?
Come forth, my Lord!
Take back
the power from our miserable lives!
We are bad at giving and we are bad at taking.
That is the only problem we have been living.
Lord, come forth and release us from our guilt-ridden psyche!

- Chiranjibi Niroula

(1 poem added 01.07.12)

editor's note: Our earthly brain tweakers and soul preachers can't answer these questions, though good they are. We trust celestial answers are pending in frequencies our fragile ears can register. Shush now... listen. - mh

MOVING IMAGES OF THE 2nd DIMENSION

It's fantasy.
Created for your mind.
And you willingly submit yourself to an entrapment...
You are trapped in space and time -
It's a fault of the system you created once - the routined existence...
and you shall pay for it
with things that are dear to you -
pay with money, emotions, and time.

Emotions cannot reason,
you cannot think with that little corner in the brain you call heart (I call it amygdala)...
It begins and ends in your home...
In your living room...
With a smaller canvas 14 to 40 inches;
or papers filled with information that lures you;
Lures you out of your home,
and into the big dark castle - with surround sound.

It is a Fantasy Dome.
In there, you expect to travel into a new space every time;
and you are never traveling light,
you carry these commodities,
for the other senses that you don't indulge,
you want to make the best of the 2 hours; the culture of it, the whole experience of it.

Your sense of taste,
of smell and of touch...
you want to feel good.
The Show begins.

First they'll flirt with you.
They may make you laugh,
smile; make you start liking what you see.
They have to. You have to.
You have to be eased into the whole process;
They will never use force,
your indulgence is too precious.

It's all a relaxing supply of serotonin and dopamine...
quiet little chemical impulses, in your brain...
Making you happy,
taking you into that fantasy you want.
They'll even use examples from your daily life.
Things you need to relate to,
Things that make you feel, "That is me,
that is my idea, my voice."

And you use all your reasoning - but everything based on emotions...
They sum you up into simple formulas of life,
A Mission you always wanted to achieve,
Romance - love letters, beautiful conversations,
a kiss on the first date, or the wish for it.

Adventures, fears, and everything you wished for in your
boring little life.
Accompanied with music,
to entrap your emotions some more...
make you feel like it's you that you are watching...
And then before you know it - a twist.

Overworking your amygdala,
they present you with another mission to accomplish.
And another, and another.
You never get tired of the indulgence,
while always sitting in that dark space.
You forget the thousands like you; watching, feeling,
because you find your connection.
They want you connected.
They will never let you go free.. and you do not want to be free either;
you want escape...
into the mind of a bunch of men and women taking you for a ride into their minds...
their imaginations.

But you make it your own...
when they leave you,
you still don't come out of it,
and you are never free when you leave the dark dome.
The trip is never over...

Right after you go home,
that girl from Twilight will sell you an I-pod in your living room.

- AbhiManyu Dixit

(added 01.06.12)

editor's note: The same cluster of nuclei resides within all; TV Land is omnipresent. Buyer beware! - mh

Pale Girl

The phantom, the naïve flirting
her infant of a thousand parents
she had a “bad heart”
always for him

up on the hill, Dr. The Great
Bear is happier but really envied
because we strip tease and
weep upon a big rainbow
for my Triassic funny bone,
the little orphaned thread to my heart.

Angel veins are like jelly
fish twisted in my fingernails
I stand in your momentary
swoon skin and bone,
I do it gold baby.
Herr and burn-
Let’s stay for the air.

- Kayla Siobhan

(1 poem added 01.05.12)

editor's note: He musta been some nattily dressed professorial so-and-so. He can herringbone choke on his own self-adoration, cuz we won't. - mh

book store

I tortured you with long French titles and how I love Les Mis,
and you took it well, bored but smiling, yawning but trying
to be interested in what I was.

You mocked my lack of reading and listed the ones I should.
I wrote them all in my purple pad and hoped I really would
to learn about you and your interests.

It wasn’t until I was quiet and reading, yes reading, on my own
that you crept beside me, and happily I obliged thee
for a moment stolen amongst the stacks, playwrights in fact.

At least we have one interest in common;
at least we are both interested in you.

- GMSpear

(added 01.04.12)

editor's note: Hmmm. Let's read him to be him. Every author, even god, aspires to this. - mh

Matter of Time

A dog dying on my living room floor,
The vet said only a matter of time,
pain killers given for the pain,
but what of the rest of us,
dying always only a matter of time,
Where are my pills?

- Douglas Polk

(added 01.03.12)

editor's note: Doctor can't prescribe the right remedy? Self medicate; the antidotes are multiple, the gamble is an adventure. It is a dog's life! - mh

Getting Religion

After having worked all your life,
The new lords of management
Have arrived with their new religion,
Preaching the glories of poverty,
Not for them, just for you
And others of your ilk and age.

Soon you will be shown the door,
The imprint of a large iron boot
Bruised into your backside.
The lords of management encourage you
To enjoy your new freedom
As you fight among the beggars
For a place on the sidewalk
With a cardboard bed,
And an open air urinal.

- Joseph Farley

(1 poem added 01.02.12)

editor's note: This is enough to make atheists of us all. No god but mammon? (Let's welcome Joe to our Contributing Poets, read more on his page.) - mh

Scull

Nothing more
than a small un-painted boat,
cracked boards leaking water
no name on the stern

pulling gently on its chain
like an old dog
eager to be home;

but if I lie back on those boards
mouth open wide
to suckle a little rain
I would howl and howl
till the river roared back,

and between us
we broke our chains.

- Ian Mullins

(added 01.01.12)

editor's note: What way to begin a year full of new is better than to swim in the stream up or down unfettered? - mh

•••••••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Submittingly Yours,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor