::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum 10.16.09 :::

“An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to discard more armor.” Eric Maisel


The Magic Hour (above) by mad painter Jimmy Ovadia, one of over 20 resident artists currently being displayed in Mad Swirl's Mad Gallery.

In case you missed it, here's a taste of the yummy poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...

these boots

chris from upstairs
showed at my door
with a pair of
tan leather
red-wings.

he's got
slight brain damage
and ptsd
from bad foster care placements
as a kid.
he didn't
tell me any of that.
i met his caseworker
in the hall
one afternoon.

heard you're leaving,
he said.
sad to see you go
consider you
my good friend.

told him
i need something bigger
than an efficiency
cause my son's
gonna start
spending the night
couple times a week.
that and the cockroaches:
i don't mind em
but don't want my son
having to deal with that.

yea
if i wasn't on ssdi
i'd find something better myself,
he said
and handed me
the boots.

i seen yours
sitting out front your door
all winter
looking pretty scraggly.
we're about same size
figured you could
use a new pair.

told me
they belonged
to his twin brother:
he died
in a construction accident
down in tempe arizona
five years ago.

they're too tight
in the foot
for me.
tim had narrower feet
and didn't have
shit for brains
like me neither,
he said
and stuck out his hand
and said
if things went sour
at my new place
i was welcome
to his couch.

- Justin Hyde

(3 poems added 10.16.09)

No longer a writer, washed up, overcast

In this instance an immersion of the writer; who hereby decrees that he is no longer a writer, will benefit the following story as the narrator, or orator if you will, with a flick of the wrist he hovers over the collective consciousness of humanity looking for his own body; much like a cat looking into a fish bowl that has been overrun by sea monkeys, resulting in the capture of his former self, the writer, leaving him dangling in the air, feet kicking and shouting profanities like a meek mouse quarreling over a morsel of food.

The orator, who is no longer one of the literary elite, holds between his pointer finger and thumb the umbilical cord of his former self, now this is quite curious for upon his initial inspection into the collective consciousness it had revealed no such extension protruding from any of the miniature bodies, In fact the only life line that was apparent was their gaping mouths and their empty eyes that reflected each other’s anguish, no cords were seen, no dried out ropes were visible, and no source of connection was readily available, perhaps the mindless chatter that filled the air expanding this bubble was their connection, a slow realization of birth penetrates the orators mind, who no longer spreads words on paper, yet has resorted to conducting grand speeches inside his oversized head, and he remembers when he was ripped from the safe confines of his mother’s womb.

Perhaps the angry slew of words slung at him were of the same emotion, the same disconnect that can cause a person to react in panic, if he were not dangling in mid-air attached to his once vital life force he would be running about his house trying to douse the many panic fires he had set in his disheveled state of fear.

Nevertheless the former wordsmith clutched the cord that felt like the shed skin of an Oberon snake who was finally victorious with his many failed attempts at devouring himself, too much pressure would cause the cord to crumble and leave the small, angry man to drop to his death much like a fallen angel who had been sent back to the earth to signal of the coming apocalypse, with his synapses firing in slow motion the conductor, who no longer controls the crowds, cautions his muscles to be graceful and delicate with their grasp on this sad little mans fate for he would not, could not stomach, the fact that he could be the cause of any abuse or death to such a lonely screamer, a fleeting thought passed through the resigned artists mind that had more than enough space to contain the dreams of the entire collective, this thought was almost rationale and could restore the balance once again to the now uneven flow of the occupants inside the bubble, but if he returned his self, which probably is just a small measure of his own ego, then he feared that he would be stuck on the outside looking in for the rest of eternity,

And even a former writer who has determined that he is washed up, spent, casting wishes into a dried up well, could not sustain that harsh reality of being so entirely disconnected from the world and all of its pains and surely he could not endure the isolation for even one minute, for even a writer who has snapped his pen in half knows deep down that the spirit inside of him, the mad, ravenous voice cannot be contained forever, so the declaration of a writer who publicly states that he is no longer a writer just craves the attention and affirmation that he is one of the greats and he must carry on is just a ruse and a frantic ploy to be remembered after death as he was so cherished when the collective society celebrated the birth of another damned soul, adding to the burden they all carefully construct when the first smack on the ass resounds in the sterile rooms where the families eagerly awaits their next victim.

- John C Sweet

(1 poem added 10.15.09)

LATE NIGHT SPECIAL

I went three for one at Ace’s Pizza
And got handed my arse
In a blizzard of fists
All I asked for was olives
They gave me capers
With a young buck
Who placed his ring upon my crown
And his belly in my face
And the staff shouted police
And then please no mores
There’s tomato all over the
Black and checker floor tiles
And I guess I was trying to chuckle
But I couldn’t as he was so angry
With my head and
With the idiot within it
So I gave in

- Anthony Murphy

(added 10.14.09)

MASKS

They wore masks, multicolored masks for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, at work and in the home, in the spring, summer, fall, and winter, different faces for different occasions and seasons;

ordinary faces, nondescript, boring faces, barren faces,
dispassionate faces, forgettable faces;

they possessed charming faces, glittering faces, faces of joy
and laughter;

and hypnotic faces too, hiding dark truths and secrets.

Inside Auschwitz, they wore savage faces, twisted faces,
gnarled faces, brittle faces exploding into monstrous rage.

But at Solahutte, a recreation lodge by the Sola River
outside the death camp, SS officers and SS female
auxiliaries (Helferinnen) shed steel masks of sin,

concealing hidden layers of iron hatred and ineffable
evil metastasizing in brain cells devoid of soul.

And they covered their dark faces with gold masks of
joy and laughter.

They wore multicolored masks and now, we struggle to
decipher who they really were.

Some speak of the banality of evil.
Were they ordinary people-good,
civilized folks obedient to authority,

or a volcano of Aryan identity and
madness ready to explode in the
secret innards of Auschwitz?

I see their smiling faces at Solahutte,
unscarred by savage deeds,
and I suspect the latter.

- Mel Waldman

(3 poems added 10.13.09)

Hey Joe
To Johnny Olson from Mad Swirl magazine, whose poem “Joe” put me in such a mad swirl.

I have been down back one ways
I have faced the odds
Within, those without too.
Joe, john, johnny, or hello Joe.
I have know hunger
the odds within me
Would always get me, Joe

hello, Joe.
"It hurts when a mate dies
Does it not?"
are all our dreams fading?
Sometimes, I do not
Want to be here,
Joe;
I have always been a lonely poet,

an exile, a stranger to myself,
Or what I was expected to be.

This nation was baptized in blood
in Turkey.
Some we look up for failures;
Ned Kelly, Les Darcy,
Lenny McPherson,
Turkey;
hey Joe.

I raise my glass again to the God Dionysus
The God of the vine
who taught us to turn the fruit of the vine
into wine.

What you you think, Joe,
the land of the brave and free is it fading?

“The Leaves of Grass”,
Billy Holiday,

“The Death of a Salesman”,
Lenny Bruce,
Martin Luther King.
are our dreams dying?
are they, Joe?

Well Joe,

what is it to be a man?

What is this thing or something else,

this phantom or ghost that haunts us,

that we must yield to

but nothing else not even death.
Hey Joe?

I have felt you here around me.
I caught a glimpses of sparkling light.
I am used to having the dead around,
I live with them.
They can do me no harm;
and besides I need the company,
Could only have been you or Ricky,

Joe.

Ricky died last November.
For Ricky

enough was never enough.
He died from a toxic tonic.
It is not Ricky,

it could only be you

Joe.

Ricky told me with relish,
the last time he had plenty,
how he fucked his brains out.
Ricky was a lost soul

he needed his tonics.
The only way

To escape the voices
in his head.

Hey Joe,
I know you are listening.
All my heroes

died at Gallipoli.

I have never met my real father,
or had a mother's love;
hey Joe

My first father my uncle
he use to go to Tommo's,

A two-up game;
Used to drive the coppers crazy;

it did,

the location changed daily,

they could never find it,

to bust it.
it was invitation only,
in a day before mobile phones;
that meant you had to be in the know.

Lenny McPherson,
Joe Misner,
Tom Domican,

Tilly Devine,
Kate Leigh;

Hey Joe,

The world is stranger than fiction.
is it not?
I know
how fate can turn in upon us;
you do, too,
don't you

Joe?

Birth is woman's business,
death is the only thing for us.

It just is how it is.
Women must yield to the pain of child-birth;
we are taught to yield to nothing.

Love is always stronger than pride
is it not?
let me tell you about an angel
the fact is I do not know her
but I know she is beautiful with a delicate touch
as only a woman can have;
I who have loved and lost,
as love always does;
we expect too much from it;
but what there.

what else is there,
hey Joe?

Hey Joe.

The mind is the last boundary
and where it will take us,
I do not know.
I do not know anything;
not even if it is the mind or the heart.
all I know is that we must love;
is that not so,
hey Joe.

- John Najjar

(added 10.12.09)

Onward

Walking backwards
uphill
towards the cemetery outside
the Italian fishing village I spy on
terraced tomato gardens,
shirts, pants and underwear drying on balconies,
rickety scaffolds braced against sturdy apartment buildings
needy of a well-deserved colorful facelift.

Zigzagging the asphalt road
past a two-hundred year old place of worship,
epiphany strikes
shedding light, revealing the manner of perspective
on my former path
of striding forward
with both eyes open only
to the path of what has been
or should have been
and not the endless possibilities
of what existence can be
...today.

Interrupting the mountain ferals
felines playing catch-me-if-you-can contests
behind the gravestones,
I place a stake of purple bougainvillea
on my ancestor’s white marble marker
one amongst many pioneers of the region
- Basso, Rosasco and Columbo -
legends who ruled the land with nets,
poles and cargo from the sea.

The seaport Arabic clock tower
butted-atop the Gothic church
rings nine times;
five minutes later,
another near the graveyard
repeats time’s unrelenting march forward
reminding me of papa’s age
- eighty-one –
when the ocean took him
before I could say I love you
one last time.

Returning to the small town,
I see
children dressed for the heat
wading in the fountain
sneaking behind parked cars
playing
hide and seek in the town’s square.
Grandparents, parents
seated on stone walls, benches,
gossiping with their hands
telling stories of families
love gained,
love lost.

One hundred flights of stairs later
towards my apartment in the former castle stronghold
I hear Marco Polo!
from the teenagers
on the playground near the train station
and whispers of anticipation
for fireworks,
a village anniversary,
a rave of sensuality,
music and celebration.

Dusk slowly turns night
from my balcony
and I notice
boys and girls
continue their elusive games
while lovers play kiss and tell
behind the train station terminal
unaware, uncaring too,
as the tourists and locals savor
their last licks
of spumoni
and slices of life,
pepperoni, porcini, pesto.

Parents scream out their windows
children plead back for more time,
lovers remain silent in the shadows
whispering between the bed sheets
for something more
than what life offers
tonight.

Looking ahead
down the backward path
I, too, envision a future
that calls me away from the water,
the land, our home,
as do each man, woman, teenager and child
who pray and dream for summer adventures
of a life severed from the past,
backwards in technology,
but not culture, heritage,
or spirit
in their small corner of the universe.

onward

- Joseph D. DiLella

(3 poems added 10.11.09)

Poem on a napkin of no use to you

And there are days
When all that passes my eyes
Are hollow point rounds
While knees crush anonymous
Motel floors
My blood is steam cleaned
Just in time for
The adultery that holds a family
In time for
The coke deal that puts
government formula to
Infant lips
I'm right on time
I'd rather be a forgotten blood cell
In lonesome truckstop love
Than bones wrapped in wasted cloth

- Jason S Bowe

(added 10.10.09)

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 every EVERY there is! Join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum whenever the mood strikes. We mad ones LOVE us some company!

Swirl-iciously Yours

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

“What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.” Voltaire


Ladies & Gentlemen, Loose-Women & Pickpockets, Hipsters & Squares, step right up! The mad ones at Mad Swirl are proud to present to you...Swirl-A-Bout! On 11.07.09 we will be featuring the maddest mad ones that we know! Poets? Lots of 'em! Musicians? 10-4 good buddy! Visual artists? Do we! Fire breathers? Yup. Burlesque dancers? You can bet your pretty lil' bottom dollar we do! Click here to find more about Swirl-A-Bout!

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