::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 08.14.09 :::
“The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.” Publius Ovidius Naso Ovid
Feeling White (above) brought to you from the photographic mad eye of Jennifer Chandler, one of over 20 resident artists hanging in Mad Swirl's Mad Gallery!
Boy oh boy, there's just so many swirlings going on in our mad, Mad Swirl world that the countless possibilities are almost overwhelming. (note: we said almost) We got lots in store coming up for all y'all in the next couple/few months. Want a teaser? 1727 on the Levee in Dallas. Want another teaser? Mad Swirl VII. Want another teaser? Mad Reviews. You want yet another teaser? Well then keep reading...
Do you hear that? Listen... Hear it now? How can you not hear mad poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? All you gotta do is listen. As for us, just when we think it can't get any better, better it gets! Each week we are blessed to review, publish and promote this Beat-utiful dialogue that comes from the most maddest of the mad poets from ALL corners of this big, blue, swirly marble of ours. Once again, we are honored to showcase them each week just for you.
Are ya' ready? Well you better get ready. Get set...
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
The dogs in my backyard
are dead
and although I am still leaning towards this window
I can no longer hear their barking against the moon;
the cats are sleeping on the red rug
redder than a blooming rose,
redder from your blood
and I think of leaping bodies from the bridges
of the world,
while I am ready to jump from the lip of the grave
into the mad swirl of the nothingness.
The curtains of the future are waving and yet there
is no wind.
Peycho Kanev
(3 poems added 08.14.09)
Has Peycho piqued your interest? Then click here to read Mad Swirl's review and to order a copy of "r".
Frozen apples fiercely flaming on fire while frozen solid
I looked at the dreams wavering on my right forearm, tires danced and rolled gleefully, molten glass smiled at the sun, and the moon felt neglected, A cloud of comets remained in place trying to take this all in(perceptively), I looked into a pot of boiling spaghetti noodles, and each noodle was a tiny freight train and I thought about baskets fulls of yet tinier baskets waiting to be sold into mundane slavery, a psychotic man swam in a swimming pool of glass shards, he felt like he was in heaven before he quickly bled to death, all the freshly formed open wounds tried to form their own union under the pretense that they served a purpose in the scheme of things good or bad as they are normally perceived...
Eric J. Brinovec
(2 poems added 08.13.09)
Pieces Of Me
I'm watching you
As the sun rises through filtered shades
I sit wrapped in only a blanket
Crocheted by the hands that hours before
Caressed every inch
With delicate touch
More than just the kisses that left shudders
down my spine...currents upon waves
More than the moments I levitated, curved to reach every inch of you
I am still drenched in the thought of you
Sleeping head to pillow
I know you don't feel what I feel
Primal heat and longing only
scratch the surface
of this thing between us
Is it love? What is that?
In this lifetime we search
and when we tire of the search we dance.
How we find the partners
is destiny turning the page,
karma's clock ticking
till we meet in the middle of the chessboard
to where you and I are now.
Even the pawn can steal the king.
With the right moves it is all about time
space and opportunity.
So given the opportunity
it is all up to you.
Look down...
you have these pieces
all lined up
neatly in a row,
My heart beats to
your every whispered word,
Damn it my breath catches
when you call my name.
no one says it like you,
My body responds to you
till we are both swimming
in the sea of our own making,
slick with sweat, never caring...oblivious.
My lips long to linger
long past the hour of obligation,
for it is that hour
that feeds the soul.
With these pieces
you have claimed...I am holding
the final prize.
I watch you sleep and wonder
when will the final piece fall.
Will I give up the challenge,
Because you and I are both
creatures of the same
you not giving up,
me... not ready to accept
that I want the whole package.
Don't misunderstand,
I am not talking about
merging two houses,
I am talking about being real.
I am talking about admitting
that life is better spent investing
in entwining souls..
than picking up and moving on
when things don't go to suit you.
You see...
even if you got up
in an hour from now
brushed your teeth and kissed me goodbye
for the final time
I would still be here.
If you never chose to call me again,
wouldnt you miss how I laugh
how I cry at silly movies
even the ones I have seen fifty times
won't you miss my homemade
sauce on Sundays...
that smell that moves
through the house
and calls you from what
you are writing in the other room.
You will miss my soul,
and I am holding this piece
for you...
because if you threw up in the air
all the pictures of us...
let them rain down...
hit you in the face as they land
you will never keep this piece.
It is waiting for the one
who will be watching me sleep...
the one who will hold my hand
as the sun sets on our final days
Because you never gave me...
the pieces of you.
Diana Rose
(3 poems added 08.12.09)
A Familiar Event: The Search to Be “The Coolest Nigga”
The two opposites, both human, started of with one common goal:
True Manifestation of COOL/
Both checked their watches/
One watch was minimalist yet flashy, plastic and plain,
The other’s time keeper was silver (yet he wished it were platinum) and smothered with cubic [Insert word for fake diamonds here] like the ones on his chain/
One arrived “fashionably late” the other an hour later to seem uninterested and busy/
And everyone could ask where he had been and why he was late?
The clothes of one cost what the clothes of the other was supposed to manifest/
Both criticized by those stuck in the rags of status-quo; both criticized one another for the box each represented in the box outside of status-quo.
Both represented, or desired to represent streets, only they were different ones.
One found dreams of grandeur in myths and small lies and exaggerations about a true ghetto and street life, while the other in the uptown living he strived to earn: The one that was restricting and pushing his family under not the roof of his own home, but the roof of the world’s poverty line.
One quiet and pensive the other loud and easily noticed (which is what he wants).
Both left the way they came in: In search of the true manifestation of COOL.
They tried to top each other’s good-nights and farewells; one comedic and warm, the other comedic and standoffish giving everybody the “nights not over for me” routine.
Tragically nobody gave a fuck or even noticed their lame and failed attempts at the acquisition of cool because they too were indulged in its search. Every one left thinking there was no other cooler nigga there than them. I left with my minimalist watch and over-priced rags thinking there was no such thing as “the coolest nigga,” and then, however, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror.
Jesus de la Torre
(added 08.11.09)
Gods of Chance
This is the June of 3am,
The time of night when Summer
Lifts the skirt of her thighs,
A discreet dance of ‘rings around the moon,’
I watch atop my balcony the boats
As they make love to the laps of cerulean waves
And dream myself a constellation atop the water.
I imagine each woman is a piece of me,
Right down to my paint-stained poets hands,
When at night Monet whispers into my ears
The sins of each sunflower, the seedling, the lie.
How I try to mimic his short thrusts and strong strokes
Beneath the naked spark of a moon beam.
Sometimes when I paint, and paste, and rearrange
The magnetic parts of me, truth slaps me
Like a raw circuit of copper wire,
And I manage to believe I’m not married,
Have never born the noose cords of romance,
Dry as a dead rose petal, it’s browned thorn menacing.
I fall into the abyss of starving-artist reverie,
Pretending there’s no new lover in my bed,
Bathing my sheets the gasoline-stink of sex.
I listen to folk songs and try on the single life
Like a pair of old jogging shoes, lying empty
All these years, but awaiting another mornings run.
And I remember the Norse campus in my head,
The woman sentiment of empty pockets and dreams
Cracking the center of my core like antique China tea-cups,
How life found me living amongst empty yogurt cartons
And the bland taste of tuna fish straight from the can,
Amongst words upon lines upon notebooks of bleeding prose,
Useless without an agent, or so they preached it vehemently.
Back then I believed dreams were things you folded
And stuffed into your pockets, quotes from dead Presidents,
Classic vignettes of famous poets,
Haiku of the immoral Victorian feminists,
They were whims atop a bruise-stricken thumb nail
A penny-well toss to the Gods of fate and chance.
Stacy Lynn Mar
(3 poems added 08.10.09)
For Sound Bite Purposes
A little snow. Branches broken then
shattered on the ground. An empty
brown table scared. A knob that
shines. Gray squirrels. Small change.
A cloudy November day. Fieldstones
leading to the porch. New England
farms. An empty room where a radio
plays. Or stray cats. Two trucks with
broken headlights. Wreathes of steam
rising from the thermos. Damp hair.
Fish wrapped in newspaper. French or
else Russian. One painted red. Until
the camera zooms. And the whole
thing develops into something much
lighter than a gob of spit.
Maurice Oliver
(1 poem added 08.09.09)
In Flight
You had me
or I you,
a mutual advantage
over our collective
disadvantages?
Enemies gossiped.
Friends snickered.
Loved ones hated
the thought of our time
together,
merging our wasted lives
into a swirling whirlwind
of laughter,
booze
and other modern day
accessories that would
shock them
or any traditional
backward
small town crowd.
Today
you jet east,
I drive west,
never to meet in the middle
until fate
destiny you call it
decides to throw us
together
in the same two-bit town
that only nowhere
calls home
to people
like us
with nothing but
hopes, dreams, and ambitions
of starting over
where they left-off
again
and again
. . . and again.
Joseph D. DiLella
(1 poem added 08.08.09)
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
We truly do believe that the poetry you just read speaks for itself. This buzzing world of poetic conversations is always within earshot. If you dig what you read, visit our Poetry Forum anytime. Heck, if you get the urge, join in on the poetic conversations! We'd love to have ya'.
Mad Swirlingly Yours,
Johnny O
Chief Mad Man
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
"The poet makes himself a seer by a long, vast and reasoned derangement of the senses - every form of love, of suffering, of madness." Arthur Rimbaud
Feeling White (above) brought to you from the photographic mad eye of Jennifer Chandler, one of over 20 resident artists hanging in Mad Swirl's Mad Gallery!
Boy oh boy, there's just so many swirlings going on in our mad, Mad Swirl world that the countless possibilities are almost overwhelming. (note: we said almost) We got lots in store coming up for all y'all in the next couple/few months. Want a teaser? 1727 on the Levee in Dallas. Want another teaser? Mad Swirl VII. Want another teaser? Mad Reviews. You want yet another teaser? Well then keep reading...
Do you hear that? Listen... Hear it now? How can you not hear mad poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? All you gotta do is listen. As for us, just when we think it can't get any better, better it gets! Each week we are blessed to review, publish and promote this Beat-utiful dialogue that comes from the most maddest of the mad poets from ALL corners of this big, blue, swirly marble of ours. Once again, we are honored to showcase them each week just for you.
Are ya' ready? Well you better get ready. Get set...
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
The dogs in my backyard
are dead
and although I am still leaning towards this window
I can no longer hear their barking against the moon;
the cats are sleeping on the red rug
redder than a blooming rose,
redder from your blood
and I think of leaping bodies from the bridges
of the world,
while I am ready to jump from the lip of the grave
into the mad swirl of the nothingness.
The curtains of the future are waving and yet there
is no wind.
Peycho Kanev
(3 poems added 08.14.09)
Has Peycho piqued your interest? Then click here to read Mad Swirl's review and to order a copy of "r".
Frozen apples fiercely flaming on fire while frozen solid
I looked at the dreams wavering on my right forearm, tires danced and rolled gleefully, molten glass smiled at the sun, and the moon felt neglected, A cloud of comets remained in place trying to take this all in(perceptively), I looked into a pot of boiling spaghetti noodles, and each noodle was a tiny freight train and I thought about baskets fulls of yet tinier baskets waiting to be sold into mundane slavery, a psychotic man swam in a swimming pool of glass shards, he felt like he was in heaven before he quickly bled to death, all the freshly formed open wounds tried to form their own union under the pretense that they served a purpose in the scheme of things good or bad as they are normally perceived...
Eric J. Brinovec
(2 poems added 08.13.09)
Pieces Of Me
I'm watching you
As the sun rises through filtered shades
I sit wrapped in only a blanket
Crocheted by the hands that hours before
Caressed every inch
With delicate touch
More than just the kisses that left shudders
down my spine...currents upon waves
More than the moments I levitated, curved to reach every inch of you
I am still drenched in the thought of you
Sleeping head to pillow
I know you don't feel what I feel
Primal heat and longing only
scratch the surface
of this thing between us
Is it love? What is that?
In this lifetime we search
and when we tire of the search we dance.
How we find the partners
is destiny turning the page,
karma's clock ticking
till we meet in the middle of the chessboard
to where you and I are now.
Even the pawn can steal the king.
With the right moves it is all about time
space and opportunity.
So given the opportunity
it is all up to you.
Look down...
you have these pieces
all lined up
neatly in a row,
My heart beats to
your every whispered word,
Damn it my breath catches
when you call my name.
no one says it like you,
My body responds to you
till we are both swimming
in the sea of our own making,
slick with sweat, never caring...oblivious.
My lips long to linger
long past the hour of obligation,
for it is that hour
that feeds the soul.
With these pieces
you have claimed...I am holding
the final prize.
I watch you sleep and wonder
when will the final piece fall.
Will I give up the challenge,
Because you and I are both
creatures of the same
you not giving up,
me... not ready to accept
that I want the whole package.
Don't misunderstand,
I am not talking about
merging two houses,
I am talking about being real.
I am talking about admitting
that life is better spent investing
in entwining souls..
than picking up and moving on
when things don't go to suit you.
You see...
even if you got up
in an hour from now
brushed your teeth and kissed me goodbye
for the final time
I would still be here.
If you never chose to call me again,
wouldnt you miss how I laugh
how I cry at silly movies
even the ones I have seen fifty times
won't you miss my homemade
sauce on Sundays...
that smell that moves
through the house
and calls you from what
you are writing in the other room.
You will miss my soul,
and I am holding this piece
for you...
because if you threw up in the air
all the pictures of us...
let them rain down...
hit you in the face as they land
you will never keep this piece.
It is waiting for the one
who will be watching me sleep...
the one who will hold my hand
as the sun sets on our final days
Because you never gave me...
the pieces of you.
Diana Rose
(3 poems added 08.12.09)
A Familiar Event: The Search to Be “The Coolest Nigga”
The two opposites, both human, started of with one common goal:
True Manifestation of COOL/
Both checked their watches/
One watch was minimalist yet flashy, plastic and plain,
The other’s time keeper was silver (yet he wished it were platinum) and smothered with cubic [Insert word for fake diamonds here] like the ones on his chain/
One arrived “fashionably late” the other an hour later to seem uninterested and busy/
And everyone could ask where he had been and why he was late?
The clothes of one cost what the clothes of the other was supposed to manifest/
Both criticized by those stuck in the rags of status-quo; both criticized one another for the box each represented in the box outside of status-quo.
Both represented, or desired to represent streets, only they were different ones.
One found dreams of grandeur in myths and small lies and exaggerations about a true ghetto and street life, while the other in the uptown living he strived to earn: The one that was restricting and pushing his family under not the roof of his own home, but the roof of the world’s poverty line.
One quiet and pensive the other loud and easily noticed (which is what he wants).
Both left the way they came in: In search of the true manifestation of COOL.
They tried to top each other’s good-nights and farewells; one comedic and warm, the other comedic and standoffish giving everybody the “nights not over for me” routine.
Tragically nobody gave a fuck or even noticed their lame and failed attempts at the acquisition of cool because they too were indulged in its search. Every one left thinking there was no other cooler nigga there than them. I left with my minimalist watch and over-priced rags thinking there was no such thing as “the coolest nigga,” and then, however, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror.
Jesus de la Torre
(added 08.11.09)
Gods of Chance
This is the June of 3am,
The time of night when Summer
Lifts the skirt of her thighs,
A discreet dance of ‘rings around the moon,’
I watch atop my balcony the boats
As they make love to the laps of cerulean waves
And dream myself a constellation atop the water.
I imagine each woman is a piece of me,
Right down to my paint-stained poets hands,
When at night Monet whispers into my ears
The sins of each sunflower, the seedling, the lie.
How I try to mimic his short thrusts and strong strokes
Beneath the naked spark of a moon beam.
Sometimes when I paint, and paste, and rearrange
The magnetic parts of me, truth slaps me
Like a raw circuit of copper wire,
And I manage to believe I’m not married,
Have never born the noose cords of romance,
Dry as a dead rose petal, it’s browned thorn menacing.
I fall into the abyss of starving-artist reverie,
Pretending there’s no new lover in my bed,
Bathing my sheets the gasoline-stink of sex.
I listen to folk songs and try on the single life
Like a pair of old jogging shoes, lying empty
All these years, but awaiting another mornings run.
And I remember the Norse campus in my head,
The woman sentiment of empty pockets and dreams
Cracking the center of my core like antique China tea-cups,
How life found me living amongst empty yogurt cartons
And the bland taste of tuna fish straight from the can,
Amongst words upon lines upon notebooks of bleeding prose,
Useless without an agent, or so they preached it vehemently.
Back then I believed dreams were things you folded
And stuffed into your pockets, quotes from dead Presidents,
Classic vignettes of famous poets,
Haiku of the immoral Victorian feminists,
They were whims atop a bruise-stricken thumb nail
A penny-well toss to the Gods of fate and chance.
Stacy Lynn Mar
(3 poems added 08.10.09)
For Sound Bite Purposes
A little snow. Branches broken then
shattered on the ground. An empty
brown table scared. A knob that
shines. Gray squirrels. Small change.
A cloudy November day. Fieldstones
leading to the porch. New England
farms. An empty room where a radio
plays. Or stray cats. Two trucks with
broken headlights. Wreathes of steam
rising from the thermos. Damp hair.
Fish wrapped in newspaper. French or
else Russian. One painted red. Until
the camera zooms. And the whole
thing develops into something much
lighter than a gob of spit.
Maurice Oliver
(1 poem added 08.09.09)
In Flight
You had me
or I you,
a mutual advantage
over our collective
disadvantages?
Enemies gossiped.
Friends snickered.
Loved ones hated
the thought of our time
together,
merging our wasted lives
into a swirling whirlwind
of laughter,
booze
and other modern day
accessories that would
shock them
or any traditional
backward
small town crowd.
Today
you jet east,
I drive west,
never to meet in the middle
until fate
destiny you call it
decides to throw us
together
in the same two-bit town
that only nowhere
calls home
to people
like us
with nothing but
hopes, dreams, and ambitions
of starting over
where they left-off
again
and again
. . . and again.
Joseph D. DiLella
(1 poem added 08.08.09)
•-•-•-•-•-•-•
We truly do believe that the poetry you just read speaks for itself. This buzzing world of poetic conversations is always within earshot. If you dig what you read, visit our Poetry Forum anytime. Heck, if you get the urge, join in on the poetic conversations! We'd love to have ya'.
Mad Swirlingly Yours,
Johnny O
Chief Mad Man
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
"The poet makes himself a seer by a long, vast and reasoned derangement of the senses - every form of love, of suffering, of madness." Arthur Rimbaud
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