::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 07.24.09 :::
“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.” Allen Ginsberg
3Mar 26 CIM 26 (above) by David Arthur-Simons, one of our resident mad ones currently showcased in the Mad Gallery.
Are you hungry for your weekly taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Well if you are, this is the right place to be! We are serving you up a swirling variety of poetic morsels from the most maddest of the mad poets from all corners of this big, blue, swirly marble and showcase them just for you!
Get ready to sink your teeth into some tasty poetry! Here it is, pippin' hot and ready for your consumption. Bon appétit!
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT LABOR RELATIONS ACT
I dust the smoke of a campfire
with an old crow feather. I pull
a smattering of latin out of my pocket
to drape as tinsel on an Bastille day
blue rose. I wash choruses
out of my lorazepam tablets.
I must stop now.
All my vowels threaten a strike
and suspend the negotiations:
I bent the collective bargaining rules
on the new poetry contract,
insisting the letter "y" choose solely
to be a vowel or a consonant
for consistency's sake.
Kenneth P. Gurney
(3 poems added 07.24.09)
YO!
(message found in a bottle washed-up on some beach)
Yo!
...I've been two years on this island somewhere in the Pacific... Nothing on it. Just coconut trees... Been here so long I now converse with the coconuts that have fallen to the ground... They talk back, of course, but with an accent I couldn't place (English, yet with the first and last letter drop with most words - and spoken in a husky, whispery, whimpery voice); and full of complaints, as if cast out from Eden. Getting to be so lonely I wouldn't in the least mind an oyster keeping its pearl, if it could at least sing...
(Lots of wild pearls here, but of a low grade, and all as speckled and crooked, like very bad teeth)
...Didn't mean to come here, much less stay... crashed here... don't know what happened to Jin Pawley, the pilot, who was my flight instructor... one moment he was saying we gotta go back (to Fiji) and the next he was swearing a blue streak... I woke up in a storm, lightning flashing like crazy, and no Jin Pawley anywhere around
Talk about panic!
One of the coconuts hoarsely whispered to me that, maybe, the guy was eaten by sharks ("etan ba 'arks") ... The plane had nose-dived into water not far from shore, but still deep enough for the ugly-snouted predators to think they were invited to a buffet)
Awful!
So I thought I'd send out this message to whoever you are to ask for help
I so want out of here!
Will you help me?
I'm even willing to convert to any religion whose god would get me out of here!
Oh, I'm an a-thee-ist, if you must know, though, lately, I've gotten myself involved in some sort of religion: "koka-kai-nee-ka" (pronounced, 'okah-i-ee-ah), a mystical endeavor on the part of the coconut to will itself to sprout legs, so that it doesn't have to roll itself around to get from here to there, but walk... Those with "highlights" on their rough, mat-like hair have "attained" this ability, I'm told, although I've not met or even seen any... I guess, with legs, they'd all run off somewhere
...If you can't get help to me, however, could you get someone to speak to me telepathically? - you know, send me thought-messages?... can you?... I know I can receive, but I can't yet transmit... The big guy here (with the biggest, hairiest head you ever saw) is optimistic, though: he thinks that in just a few more months, at most, I'll be able to freely zing my thoughts out there, across the sea... I tried it once or twice but was sorely frustrated; it was yet too early for me to think I could... Hit a barracuda in the eye that one time and got it going wild some; the other time it somehow boomaranged, right back at my head and started a tsunami of a migraine...
I also don't mind telling you that I'm tired eating nothing but sea food here... have started devouring coconuts -- the ones that can't talk, of course. I'm no cannibal!
Billy Beau Ruark
Norbert Luciano
(2 poems added 07.23.09)
(hello).
I - (this poem is in the first
person, because everything
is in the first
person) - hate you.
I am - (though what
am I?) - angry at
you, specifically
for what you
said to me
today,
"What happened to
the Jordan I knew and
loved?"
I am not actually
mad at
you,
I just cannot come
to terms with my
hatred for
existence - (the
only thing that
one can justifiably be
mad at) - and I also
think that your
question was
unfair,
one should never ask a
question one does
not want to hear
answered,
"He is dead," I
responded,
"We are simply vestigial structures
and we are silly to
think otherwise."
You looked at me like
a lost puppy dog, like
a child who lost his
puppy dog, like
a parent who's child is
heart-broken because
he lost his
puppy dog.
"I don't understand,"
you said - (though, like
most things true,
this was somehow
annoying) - "vestigial
structures?"
"THE PUPPY DOG IS NOT WHAT
I AM LOOKING FOR! THAT IS
NOT WHAT IS LACKING!" I
screamed - (if it is not to be
screamed, it is not to be
said) - "WE ARE WISDOM
TEETH."
I - (this poem is self absorbed
because every action we
commit is
self absorbed) - felt bad
for yelling,
so
i apologized (we all need
to apologize, for every
thing),
and you hugged me.
The Jordan you knew is still
there, he is just deadened,
deafened,
drowning
in it all,
when he gets better -
(does anything truly
'get better'?) -
I'll tell him
that you said "Hello."
Jordan Castro
(3 poems added 07.22.09)
Eleventh Hour
There is a coil at my center. The hamstring
hare will sort this out. I have no other
endings in me. There are only two
herringbones chasing each other.
They save old grace. The punch-
stealers have to sink something
in the nose of a doctor Martin
Morton Martin Morton Marlin
gotta stave eatin' save yourself
Somethin's got prime meatin'
on the bones of this bailiff here
and he ain't cryin' to mama.
Why don't you sit here and wait
for the next way to get us out of here
You ain't foolin' yourself
no more than the others. Tearin' around here
like they own the place. You must be
somethin' simple, flyin' all around
and scarin' the chickens. The button's
up. There's no use in tryin' the door.
There's no way downtown.
Janann Dawkins
(2 poems added 07.21.09)
ISM ISMS
communism capitalism socialism fAasCH-
ism schisms mysticism dogmatism romanticism trash
shamanism
populism
technologism
occidentalism
orientalism
ism isms jism isms productionism bash
-- do you bathe in your ism,
do you confide in your ism, rely on your ism, spy on their ism while their ism decries your ism, have you determined the ism of your ism, are you or anyone you know a recipient of ismic welfare, at your earliest convenience please get your ism a chest x-ray,
& when you dare, beyond the blind foreswear
take a moment & query your ism -
catholocism protestantism judaism islamism hinduism gnosticism buddhism recidivism formalism surrealism protectionism liberalism parochialism ooh my we've got us a systematism ...
radicalism racism fanatacism isolationism syllogism neologism parallelism conservativism slash
ism ism schism ism schismism is-m
commune with your ism commerce with your ism
eroticism lesbianism homosexualism heterosexualism sodomism
alcoholism
consumerism
fetishism
ism ism ism too many isms
got those too many ism blues
gonna march on washington
with territorialism
with reactionism
protestin those anarchism anachronism industrialism hypnotism isms
Heller Levinson
(2 poems added 07.20.09)
Monkey Business
I wish I were a chimp
like all the other guys
hanging out at The Missing Link
sucking off Bush Baby bones,
this arboreal urge
and anthropoid pose
win the ladies with my pan troglodyte pout
and my promiscuous loins,
play with my own dung
build a monument of it
to the god of all dung--
Cheeta Dungee.
And the fact
that I can pass a mirror test
get rewarded with a banana
a sexy chiquita
makes me all alpha wet,
almost human.
When it gets too crowded
on the ground
I'll think I'll fly into space,
just to have a piece of primacy.
Kyle Hemmings
(3 poems added 07.19.09)
God Likes It When I'm Humble
I am slipping, man
I am losing confidence
I am questioning the reasons
I am unsure
I wonder what I'm working towards
I wonder what I've forgot
I am dying in Austin
This perverse illussion
This perfect town
Hold me by my rattail, momma
Hold me back
Hold me to my word, momma
These people here
Acting like people
Scare me
I am not like them
I am exactly like them
I thought I was special
They are better than me
I am nothing
I have no ego
I am jealous, though
Of how much ego you
Don't have
Turn me sideways
Turn me round
Maybe I can write a poem
Maybe I am lying
Help me, brotha
I am dying
Help me I don't know
Help
I am not that far away
I am losing traction
I am slipping, man
I've heard the noise before
Statue Liberty
I've pressed enough buttons
I pressed more buttons
I've changed the way I talk
To people
I've changed the way I talk
To dogs
I hear noise
Ka
I hear the bird Kaw
Kaaaaa
Pressing buttons Aggghhhhh
Pressing more buttons
I change the way I
Walk
I change the way I
Talk
I try to understand
Everything
I fall short
I am proud of my effort
Distant
I am proud of myself
Delusion
I am proud of my brother
Jealous
I am trying very hard
I am lying to myself
I am a good liar
I am a good person
I am a good thing
I am good
I am nothing
I am neither
I am curious
I am willing
I am nothing
I am sure
I am uneasy
I am not dead
(but... when I am)
Bury me with my Puma's
God loves me
When I'm
Humble
Cheyenne Gallion
(1 poem added 07.18.09)
((originally published in Mad Swirl Six: The Blue Note Issue))
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
MmmMmmMmm-ad! Now was that not some tasty poetry? If your appetite still isn't satiated, Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum is open 24/7 and it's ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT! We're tellin' ya', the Forum is full of all different kinds of poetic tastinesseses. We now have over 100 poets on our menu and that number grows everyday! Check it out...right...NOW! You won't regret it. We promise.
Your Waiters,
Johnny O
Chief Mad Man
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry."
Mark Strand
P.S. LAST CALL: Mad Swirl Six: "The Blue Note" Issue is soon going out of print. Who wants some of this before it's too late? 28 full-color pages! 23 audio tracks! This collection of swirling madness does its darndest to capture the most maddest of the mad ones & the insanity that is the Dallas poetry scene! For $6.50 you can get your hands on this limited edition, numbered copy, soon-to-be out of print issue of Mad Swirl! Click here for details.
3Mar 26 CIM 26 (above) by David Arthur-Simons, one of our resident mad ones currently showcased in the Mad Gallery.
Are you hungry for your weekly taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Well if you are, this is the right place to be! We are serving you up a swirling variety of poetic morsels from the most maddest of the mad poets from all corners of this big, blue, swirly marble and showcase them just for you!
Get ready to sink your teeth into some tasty poetry! Here it is, pippin' hot and ready for your consumption. Bon appétit!
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT LABOR RELATIONS ACT
I dust the smoke of a campfire
with an old crow feather. I pull
a smattering of latin out of my pocket
to drape as tinsel on an Bastille day
blue rose. I wash choruses
out of my lorazepam tablets.
I must stop now.
All my vowels threaten a strike
and suspend the negotiations:
I bent the collective bargaining rules
on the new poetry contract,
insisting the letter "y" choose solely
to be a vowel or a consonant
for consistency's sake.
Kenneth P. Gurney
(3 poems added 07.24.09)
YO!
(message found in a bottle washed-up on some beach)
Yo!
...I've been two years on this island somewhere in the Pacific... Nothing on it. Just coconut trees... Been here so long I now converse with the coconuts that have fallen to the ground... They talk back, of course, but with an accent I couldn't place (English, yet with the first and last letter drop with most words - and spoken in a husky, whispery, whimpery voice); and full of complaints, as if cast out from Eden. Getting to be so lonely I wouldn't in the least mind an oyster keeping its pearl, if it could at least sing...
(Lots of wild pearls here, but of a low grade, and all as speckled and crooked, like very bad teeth)
...Didn't mean to come here, much less stay... crashed here... don't know what happened to Jin Pawley, the pilot, who was my flight instructor... one moment he was saying we gotta go back (to Fiji) and the next he was swearing a blue streak... I woke up in a storm, lightning flashing like crazy, and no Jin Pawley anywhere around
Talk about panic!
One of the coconuts hoarsely whispered to me that, maybe, the guy was eaten by sharks ("etan ba 'arks") ... The plane had nose-dived into water not far from shore, but still deep enough for the ugly-snouted predators to think they were invited to a buffet)
Awful!
So I thought I'd send out this message to whoever you are to ask for help
I so want out of here!
Will you help me?
I'm even willing to convert to any religion whose god would get me out of here!
Oh, I'm an a-thee-ist, if you must know, though, lately, I've gotten myself involved in some sort of religion: "koka-kai-nee-ka" (pronounced, 'okah-i-ee-ah), a mystical endeavor on the part of the coconut to will itself to sprout legs, so that it doesn't have to roll itself around to get from here to there, but walk... Those with "highlights" on their rough, mat-like hair have "attained" this ability, I'm told, although I've not met or even seen any... I guess, with legs, they'd all run off somewhere
...If you can't get help to me, however, could you get someone to speak to me telepathically? - you know, send me thought-messages?... can you?... I know I can receive, but I can't yet transmit... The big guy here (with the biggest, hairiest head you ever saw) is optimistic, though: he thinks that in just a few more months, at most, I'll be able to freely zing my thoughts out there, across the sea... I tried it once or twice but was sorely frustrated; it was yet too early for me to think I could... Hit a barracuda in the eye that one time and got it going wild some; the other time it somehow boomaranged, right back at my head and started a tsunami of a migraine...
I also don't mind telling you that I'm tired eating nothing but sea food here... have started devouring coconuts -- the ones that can't talk, of course. I'm no cannibal!
Billy Beau Ruark
Norbert Luciano
(2 poems added 07.23.09)
(hello).
I - (this poem is in the first
person, because everything
is in the first
person) - hate you.
I am - (though what
am I?) - angry at
you, specifically
for what you
said to me
today,
"What happened to
the Jordan I knew and
loved?"
I am not actually
mad at
you,
I just cannot come
to terms with my
hatred for
existence - (the
only thing that
one can justifiably be
mad at) - and I also
think that your
question was
unfair,
one should never ask a
question one does
not want to hear
answered,
"He is dead," I
responded,
"We are simply vestigial structures
and we are silly to
think otherwise."
You looked at me like
a lost puppy dog, like
a child who lost his
puppy dog, like
a parent who's child is
heart-broken because
he lost his
puppy dog.
"I don't understand,"
you said - (though, like
most things true,
this was somehow
annoying) - "vestigial
structures?"
"THE PUPPY DOG IS NOT WHAT
I AM LOOKING FOR! THAT IS
NOT WHAT IS LACKING!" I
screamed - (if it is not to be
screamed, it is not to be
said) - "WE ARE WISDOM
TEETH."
I - (this poem is self absorbed
because every action we
commit is
self absorbed) - felt bad
for yelling,
so
i apologized (we all need
to apologize, for every
thing),
and you hugged me.
The Jordan you knew is still
there, he is just deadened,
deafened,
drowning
in it all,
when he gets better -
(does anything truly
'get better'?) -
I'll tell him
that you said "Hello."
Jordan Castro
(3 poems added 07.22.09)
Eleventh Hour
There is a coil at my center. The hamstring
hare will sort this out. I have no other
endings in me. There are only two
herringbones chasing each other.
They save old grace. The punch-
stealers have to sink something
in the nose of a doctor Martin
Morton Martin Morton Marlin
gotta stave eatin' save yourself
Somethin's got prime meatin'
on the bones of this bailiff here
and he ain't cryin' to mama.
Why don't you sit here and wait
for the next way to get us out of here
You ain't foolin' yourself
no more than the others. Tearin' around here
like they own the place. You must be
somethin' simple, flyin' all around
and scarin' the chickens. The button's
up. There's no use in tryin' the door.
There's no way downtown.
Janann Dawkins
(2 poems added 07.21.09)
ISM ISMS
communism capitalism socialism fAasCH-
ism schisms mysticism dogmatism romanticism trash
shamanism
populism
technologism
occidentalism
orientalism
ism isms jism isms productionism bash
-- do you bathe in your ism,
do you confide in your ism, rely on your ism, spy on their ism while their ism decries your ism, have you determined the ism of your ism, are you or anyone you know a recipient of ismic welfare, at your earliest convenience please get your ism a chest x-ray,
& when you dare, beyond the blind foreswear
take a moment & query your ism -
catholocism protestantism judaism islamism hinduism gnosticism buddhism recidivism formalism surrealism protectionism liberalism parochialism ooh my we've got us a systematism ...
radicalism racism fanatacism isolationism syllogism neologism parallelism conservativism slash
ism ism schism ism schismism is-m
commune with your ism commerce with your ism
eroticism lesbianism homosexualism heterosexualism sodomism
alcoholism
consumerism
fetishism
ism ism ism too many isms
got those too many ism blues
gonna march on washington
with territorialism
with reactionism
protestin those anarchism anachronism industrialism hypnotism isms
Heller Levinson
(2 poems added 07.20.09)
Monkey Business
I wish I were a chimp
like all the other guys
hanging out at The Missing Link
sucking off Bush Baby bones,
this arboreal urge
and anthropoid pose
win the ladies with my pan troglodyte pout
and my promiscuous loins,
play with my own dung
build a monument of it
to the god of all dung--
Cheeta Dungee.
And the fact
that I can pass a mirror test
get rewarded with a banana
a sexy chiquita
makes me all alpha wet,
almost human.
When it gets too crowded
on the ground
I'll think I'll fly into space,
just to have a piece of primacy.
Kyle Hemmings
(3 poems added 07.19.09)
God Likes It When I'm Humble
I am slipping, man
I am losing confidence
I am questioning the reasons
I am unsure
I wonder what I'm working towards
I wonder what I've forgot
I am dying in Austin
This perverse illussion
This perfect town
Hold me by my rattail, momma
Hold me back
Hold me to my word, momma
These people here
Acting like people
Scare me
I am not like them
I am exactly like them
I thought I was special
They are better than me
I am nothing
I have no ego
I am jealous, though
Of how much ego you
Don't have
Turn me sideways
Turn me round
Maybe I can write a poem
Maybe I am lying
Help me, brotha
I am dying
Help me I don't know
Help
I am not that far away
I am losing traction
I am slipping, man
I've heard the noise before
Statue Liberty
I've pressed enough buttons
I pressed more buttons
I've changed the way I talk
To people
I've changed the way I talk
To dogs
I hear noise
Ka
I hear the bird Kaw
Kaaaaa
Pressing buttons Aggghhhhh
Pressing more buttons
I change the way I
Walk
I change the way I
Talk
I try to understand
Everything
I fall short
I am proud of my effort
Distant
I am proud of myself
Delusion
I am proud of my brother
Jealous
I am trying very hard
I am lying to myself
I am a good liar
I am a good person
I am a good thing
I am good
I am nothing
I am neither
I am curious
I am willing
I am nothing
I am sure
I am uneasy
I am not dead
(but... when I am)
Bury me with my Puma's
God loves me
When I'm
Humble
Cheyenne Gallion
(1 poem added 07.18.09)
((originally published in Mad Swirl Six: The Blue Note Issue))
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
MmmMmmMmm-ad! Now was that not some tasty poetry? If your appetite still isn't satiated, Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum is open 24/7 and it's ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT! We're tellin' ya', the Forum is full of all different kinds of poetic tastinesseses. We now have over 100 poets on our menu and that number grows everyday! Check it out...right...NOW! You won't regret it. We promise.
Your Waiters,
Johnny O
Chief Mad Man
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry."
Mark Strand
P.S. LAST CALL: Mad Swirl Six: "The Blue Note" Issue is soon going out of print. Who wants some of this before it's too late? 28 full-color pages! 23 audio tracks! This collection of swirling madness does its darndest to capture the most maddest of the mad ones & the insanity that is the Dallas poetry scene! For $6.50 you can get your hands on this limited edition, numbered copy, soon-to-be out of print issue of Mad Swirl! Click here for details.
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