::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum: 04.10.09 :::

(I am under no Laws but God's by David Arthur-Simons, one of our mad swirling resident artists in the Mad Gallery)

"The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does." Allen Ginsberg

Welcome to a weekly taste of the Mad Swirl Poetry Forum. We have collected poetry from the maddest poets from the maddest corners of the world and have showcased them here in the Forum just for you. The Poetry Forum is in flux, living and breathing, evolving and changing constantly...so please come and come often for the latest additions and submissions!

Work Is Time that You Trade for Money

Work
is time
that you trade
for money.

Leisure
is time
for the sake
of itself.

What if you love work?
Now we have a problem.

So I sold mountains,
waiving endless gold
throwing purple pollen,
forming bright stars
from midnight
beneath the ocean
that rise together
until they connect.

(Do you remember the time
you got a sleep-related injury?

I do.
Never forget it.)

The cavernous space
of a moment
when seasons change,
unrelated to the revolution
of the Earth
around the sun,
related to revolution itself.

Steel bars
and zebra stripes,
school bus colored sun
in motionless resignation,
pens and pencils
in wardrobes,

That is where I work.
I sell my best non-renewable resource
for as much money
as possible
as fast as I can.

Desks that teeter on mountaintops
while snow is falling,
melting upon the stacks
of papers and receipts
for things that do not exist anymore,
reminders from the last century
of things I have never done.

Black notebooks
with sinister dealings
and steel raindrops:
meteor streams
I pass through
on the way out

on the way in
to a small cafe
to drink
warm cashmere coffee
with an old friend,
And set fire to raindrops:

Starlight suspension bridges
and quasars
that keep you tripped out
in the fourth dimension,
here,
where time
is sold for money
that can't
buy time.

(1.2.09)

Chris Hamilton

(2 poems added 04.10.09)

Cold Steel Trigger

Coming back from the Reading Festival a homeless guy in a train station is about to hit us for some cash until he sees our pile of old green canvass kit bags & say Are you lads in the Army? though who knows what freakish unit he thinks we are in as we stand around smoking & swigging from cans in jeans & boots & leather jackets all stubble & scowls from lack of sleep & although we say no & offer him some change he won’t take it & slinks off disturbed in the misapprehension that Her Majesty’s Armed Forces contains a regiment of blokes as wild-looking as Apocalypse Now picturing us hanging out the back of a helicopter with a Gatling gun rattling brass cases flying out & The Doors booming from a tape deck as the jungle below burns with fingers on a cold steel trigger rather than slipping inside the warm hot-pants & nylon tights of grunge chicks in knee-high boots & the thrill of feeling the soft but firm curls of pubic hair & silky wet slip of moist pink lips as she sighs softly with clammy breath panting on the nape of your neck.

Jon Tait

(added 04.09.09)

Blood Ties

Mother's on the fire escape and won't come in
until Father agrees to eat his steak,
which is too well done, he says. It's not rare
like I like it, he insists. Rare is charred
on the outside, pink on the inside. Rare

is red. Mother has had enough, tossing the fork
and the carving knife back on the kitchen
counter. They clatter like swords on the floor
in a swashbuckler movie. I can eat
it, her steak, I mean, if I take small bites
and chew them thoroughly. My teeth are young
and Father's are so old he doesn't have
any. Rare's not healthy, Mother says. Rare

is raw. Nonsense, Father says. Rare is cooked
sufficiently. Me, I don't mind all that
blood on my plate, as long as it stays there.
I eat and eat and chew and chew until
what's left is a little crimson lake. I
tried once to drink it, lifted my plate to
my lips but Mother and Father both warned
me to watch my manners. I tried a straw
but they nixed that, too. Then I tried my spoon
but Father raised his voice and told me, No.

After that I never ate rare again.
It's always been medium to well done
but even medium-rare is too much
for Father. And Mother plays with her food

on steak nights now, going through the motions,
cutting some of her steak, pushing it here
and there on her plate, stashing it inside
her mashed potatoes or among the beans.
So this evening she just broke down, I guess,
and overcooked, in Father's guestimate,
three perfectly fine sirloin cuts. What's this,
he said. Well done? We had rare last time,
she returns. And the time before that. And
the time before that. I cut in. Hush up,
they say. I beg your pardon, I say, but
may I offer a solution? Silence,

but they look at me as if they expect
me to vomit. What if we have our steaks
the way we each like 'em? Father gets rare.
Mother gets well done. I'll have either one
or something in between. They clear their throats.
You don't understand, he says to me.
It's the principle of the thing. I'm smart
to be just eight years old but I don't know
what he means. That's when Mother rises

and says, Enough, I've had enough, and grabs
her sweater off the back of the chair and
walks quickly to the fire escape and slams
the door. I get up to coax her back but
Father says, Stay where you are boy. Sit down.
Yessir, I say. But I've cleaned my plate and
there's nothing left to eat except dessert.

Then Father goes to the door and cracks it
and says, C'mon, Honey, don't be that way,
or something like that, I don't hear him well.
But I hear her: No! Then he goes outside
and I'm expecting them to duel it out
like that Errol Flynn and old what's-his-name.
But when I go to the window to spy
they've got their arms around each other
and their eyes are closed. So I lock the door

and when they try to get back in, they can't.
Open this goddamn door, Father calls. Please?
Not until you explain yourselves, I say.
You're too damned young to understand, he says.
You got that right, I retort. If you don't
open this door, he says, I'll burn your butt.
Unless I open it, I say, you can't.
He's got you there, Mother says, smiling up
at him, his right arm around her shoulder.
He looks down at her and smiles back. Join us,

he says. Okay, I say. I'm coming out.
I do and sit down where they sat because
I know it will be warm from their bottoms
but they slip inside and slam the door and
I'm locked out. That's not funny, I yell. Yes,
it is, they yell back, through metal and fire
--I mean that I'm white-hot angry. Burning.
Boiling over and turning to a crisp.

Let me in. I'm pounding on the door. Not
until you've learned your lesson, Mother says.
What lesson is that, I yell. Never trust
your parents, Father hollers. They laugh as
they leave. I look through the window--they sit
at the table again, across from each
other, and talk with their eyes and shyness.
Fooey, I say to God--I guess--up there
among all those stars. If I live to be

as old as Methuselah I'll never
understand grown-ups. What's to understand,
the moon says. Someone's cat meows. A dog
begins to howl. I wish they'd never been
born, I breathe. I'm sorry that I had 'em.

Gale Acuff

(added 04.08.09)

Baseball

I couldn't swing the bat
properly.
They told me to choke up
but I couldn't swing
for shit.
They put me
in the outfield.
Grounders rolled
between my legs
and I looked stupid
chasing after them.
I couldn't catch a pop fly.
I was scared of the ball.
When it ended up
in my glove
I didn't know where
to throw it
so i threw it anywhere
but never threw it
far enough.
I sprained my index finger
three times.
The uniforms made me itch.
I always wanted
to scratch my balls
but the cup kept getting
in the way.

Nowadays,
I don't play baseball.
I sit around
miserable
with my miserable friends
pretending things were not as miserable
when we were kids
playing baseball.
But I still feel
like I'm standing in the outfield
with my sweaty, itchy balls
and things are just as crummy
as they'll ever be
or maybe
just as crummy
as they'll always be.

Zachary Whalen

(3 poems added 04.07.09)

It’s only the dark.

There is a certain part of me that sleeps
during the daytime,
that stays awake during the nighttime:
we only see eye to eye on middle grounds.
This part of me is hidden underneath skin.
Underneath bone.
Underneath blood.
Buried.
Just like my heart.

Connections are often bad, or cut loose.
I sometimes hear nothing but screaming.
Though not through voice.
Through color.
It's only the dark.
It makes me feel completely empty…

sometimes.

I don't feel it so much right at this moment.
Instead I hear thumping.
My pulse.
My pulse.
My pul_____________.

I miss you.
I miss you so much,
my dreams are filled with you.

And there is always a part of me that stays awake through it all.

William Pauley III

(3 poems added 04.06.09)

going out in a burst of fury

furious anguish of discovery:
it can burn!
the dusty moth found out
too late
that she was but a pretty flame,
flirty, beckoning, irresistible --
insatiable!

Norbert Luciano

(3 poems added 04.05.09)

Dukkha (states will dissolve the wire)

I sutured my eyes tight,
Spliced my tongue into two
Wired my jaws shut with steel wire,
& here I sit wondering
What the world looks like now
Afraid of my silence
Cause I am a wicked
Forked tongue wild man
& here I sit the t.v. is on entertaining me
Politicians perched on a burning pyre
Flickering on and off in the markets
Of Tahiti
In Rome
& censored in Iran
Absorbed by millions of eyes & ears
Cutting to a scene, a commercial on repeat,
Speaking its Vietnamese with govr’t control
& on the corner the people tip their paper-hats
To the monk on fire
His ashes frozen in prayer
Sullen and tragic
He broke all the rules and the destroyed the path
He is speeding out of control
His soul will now wander
Cursing the jewels
Slipping in & outside the ball of 8
The ball of 8
For they have abandoned him
His Suicidal refuge
His abhorrence of hate
Cries in defeat
Burning in the steet
& hear I sit in my own refusals
Blinding my easy eyes
Silencing my soulful cries
Listening to the t.v. static
Absorbing the Technicolor
Control
I can smell the politician burn
I can hear the cries of the monk
Somewhere round midnight the street machines will rise
Sucking up the remains of the politician
Disposing him to the landfills of modernism
Brushing aside the ashes of the monk
Preserving them in reverence, leaving them in the gutter
For his sad sangha brothers
Who will rise up in the morning
Dressed in yellow
Slowing walking in their procession
Crying for their friend & his demonic possession
& hear I sit wanting to cry
Jaws clenched with pressure
Eyes sutured in black
Tongue hanging slack
Wailing from the inside,
Breaking my skin apart,
Then I fall to pieces
This moment of surrender
Shatters the windows
Blows out the doors
Creating a big black hole
Echoing round this weather’d globe
Calling up a windstorm
Hurling a hurricane of words
& they come crashing down
On every shore
Leaving my reflection on the waters
Now the world cannot sit idly by
Not noticing me
For they all are knocked down
To their knees
With the force of my sorrowful sound
& hear I sit
Scattered all over the world
Flickering on and off with the sunshine
That fills this space
Reverberating with a Technicolor
Boom opening the door
To space
Where I wander from place to space
Silent and blind
Scared and dismissed
Please make a wish
Offer me yer goodbye
& cry & cry for the world
The world where you no longer play free
The world where your dukkha states
Will dissolve when you become aware &
When you decide to notice me in the skies
Notice me in the skies
The first precept in the story
Rising with the sunshine & fairy tales
Of yesterday’s when
Of yesterday’s when…

John C Sweet

(1 poem added 04.04.09)

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