::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum 12.11.09 :::
“You call it madness, but I call it love.” Don Byas
Photo (above) by mad photographer Billy Baque, one of over 20 plus resident artists currently being displayed in Mad Swirl's eclectic Mad Gallery.
In case you missed it, here's just a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
Bright & Easy
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I hope and pray these words ring true.
We are coming to a place
in this collective race in history
when we need some divinity
Our world is crumblin’
Our futures tumblin’
and the bright future that
was promised to me
just isn't as bright and easy
as they said it would be
as they hoped it would be
when they sang...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
When? When will they?
Sometimes there seems to be
nothin' but trouble a'brewing
scrolling headline news crawls
scrolling in my mind...
useless wars, needless famines,
fat-cat economy crashes,
angry earth weather clashes
this global we that we be
in our collective entity
needs to see that...
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I pray that this is so.
I pray every day
that every everything's
are gonna get easier
are gonna get brighter
but I fear they must get harder
before they get easier
and I know they must get darker
before they get brighter
I know.
I know.
I know they must.
So I pray and I trust that...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
I feel the shifting.
My spirit is lifting.
The overriding tides of
love and compassion
of harmony and peace
washes over me in divine waves
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I am cleansed by the realization
that I am the love
I seek to feel
that I have the compassion
I need to heal
that I am the harmony
that makes me real
that I have the peace
I long to feel
it is me
it is you
it is we
lets believe that...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
Right now...right now...
I know. I know they will.
- Johnny Olson
(1 poem added 12.11.09)
•••••••••••
Woman Day
Well, this is the reason to write poetry
And poetry isn’t something
A few people do
It’s something nearly every one does
If no one believed in it
The human race wouldn’t
have lasted
This long
Babies, birthday parties, the weekend,
A Good Time, picnics, baseball games,
Halloween
Smoking weed and talkin with friends
Are all very poetic
Well here’s a poetic moment:
This girl sitting on your lap
Smelling of cigarettes and
Perfume
Young smiling and laughin
And lookin into each
Other’s eyes so seductively
That it arouses you, with loud
Music playing.
She’s like you, and not a whole
Lot of people are like you.
You dance with her, and she has
The rhythm down.
This motion: the going up and down
The beer, the cigarettes
This magic moment should
Last for ever
Like the song goes
Or maybe longer than
It does
- Damion Hamilton
(1 poem added 12.10.09)
•••••••••••
Dear Death
Forgive me, for at the end of this poem
you shall not see my name
For I fear your sister Fate
Is at times a little over zealous
And I really do love my life
Ok. So you know that’s a lie.
I was on your Christmas list
you may have even
smelt the aspirin frothing vodka puddle
to which I woke
Christmas day.
But things have changed now
I’m sure you’ve noticed
Its been some years since you last
Stood tapping your feet
With rhythmic impatience
As though a father
Waiting for their child to dress.
Before that futile severing of life
You and I met once before
When you tasted my breath
sweet from my mothers milk
It was my right lung,
unformed, deflated.
I was next to her when the bleep
of machine
startled her from her semi-sleep.
Dear Death
May I ask a question or two?
Is the soul still warm
as you pocket it like a just found penny?
And do the blood splattered bones
of a child jutting from beneath
the mangle of steal and foam
ever lay heavy on your mind?
Please, do not feel it necessary
to reply just yet,
save it for some forty years away
reply gently
as I am sleeping
entering me like a dream of youth
taking my breath
as though
a hand scooping sand
from the base of the sea.
- Vincent James Turner
(added 12.09.09)
•••••••••••
Seven 9/11’s (9/11 9/11…)
34 Miles
squeezed from a quarter
of a Mitsubishi’s fuel-tank
from grey sun to no moon
for you and me: two Kamikazes
the road’s as flat as my cell’s
reception; the hills sleep
as lumps under sheets.
Our tragedy can be NO
less than irony—today is
Stone to Ash September.
It’s raining sideways, but the
sky’s not on fire…
anymore
wipers work too slow; they
don’t whisk away the terror
you call my name—like a murder
is called out in a crowd. I call it
love
as clouds flick at clueless trees
with yellow finger tips.
Dear,
the rain’s getting worse here
we do pass a dead deer; it lets
the rain roll right off its back.
it’s not us—it’s today
and this goddamn rain
at least
there’s no city to see
collapse—catch glass
with our lips; see City Sky
Rain fathers and mothers.
A few more miles are squeezed out
as my name rings out to
the hill’s: earth’s elbows and
as no ring slips on her finger
for seven Years
earth’s shoulders shrugged
and only cared about
the occasional cloud
they carry on as
Mitsubishi Kamikazes and
other immortal tragedies
we check service bars, beg God,
and scream as we’re riddled
with rain spats on windshields
that don’t stop
for 7 Years
34 Miles or
“A Moment
of Silence”
- Tyler Malone
(3 poems added 12.08.09)
•••••••••••
Morning Madness
Tectonic mind seesaws
Like a mad wild pig
Snortin’, gnawin’
Against the burnin’ pyre
A cold star
Plunges into the ash balls
And melts with the screaming sinews
- Arun Budhathoki
(added 12.07.09)
•••••••••••
Rutter
The fucking foxes have come for me
Roses are bent
Tulip bells tormented
The window button
Gives at my grasp
When back bent
And salvo
My gun has no shot
So word is redundant
And bullshit is heard
Word crap is herded
Like grunts in a pen
Sighs from the open
She as a vixen
Wants it again
- Anthony Murphy
(1 poem added 12.06.09)
•••••••••••
i imagine
my foot coming down
on a cockroach
is the equivalent
to a nuclear
bomb being dropped
and my act
of force with
the corresponding death
gives me
this image in my mind
of the day where
some jackass
finds it justified
for religion
for politics
for money
to drop a bomb
which makes
another jackass
respond with a bomb
and we are
reduced
to nothing but
ashes
and as the days
pass mother nature
laughs
reclaims
her throne
and all that
will remain
are cockroaches
who will thrive
in our ruins
and have no sense
of remorse
for our departure.
- Casey Quinn
(added 12.05.09)
•••••••••••
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! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be swirling it here 24/7!
Your Mad Servants,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” Robert Frost
Photo (above) by mad photographer Billy Baque, one of over 20 plus resident artists currently being displayed in Mad Swirl's eclectic Mad Gallery.
In case you missed it, here's just a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
Bright & Easy
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I hope and pray these words ring true.
We are coming to a place
in this collective race in history
when we need some divinity
Our world is crumblin’
Our futures tumblin’
and the bright future that
was promised to me
just isn't as bright and easy
as they said it would be
as they hoped it would be
when they sang...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
When? When will they?
Sometimes there seems to be
nothin' but trouble a'brewing
scrolling headline news crawls
scrolling in my mind...
useless wars, needless famines,
fat-cat economy crashes,
angry earth weather clashes
this global we that we be
in our collective entity
needs to see that...
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I pray that this is so.
I pray every day
that every everything's
are gonna get easier
are gonna get brighter
but I fear they must get harder
before they get easier
and I know they must get darker
before they get brighter
I know.
I know.
I know they must.
So I pray and I trust that...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
I feel the shifting.
My spirit is lifting.
The overriding tides of
love and compassion
of harmony and peace
washes over me in divine waves
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
I am cleansed by the realization
that I am the love
I seek to feel
that I have the compassion
I need to heal
that I am the harmony
that makes me real
that I have the peace
I long to feel
it is me
it is you
it is we
lets believe that...
O-o-h child, things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child, things'll get brighter
Right now...right now...
I know. I know they will.
- Johnny Olson
(1 poem added 12.11.09)
•••••••••••
Woman Day
Well, this is the reason to write poetry
And poetry isn’t something
A few people do
It’s something nearly every one does
If no one believed in it
The human race wouldn’t
have lasted
This long
Babies, birthday parties, the weekend,
A Good Time, picnics, baseball games,
Halloween
Smoking weed and talkin with friends
Are all very poetic
Well here’s a poetic moment:
This girl sitting on your lap
Smelling of cigarettes and
Perfume
Young smiling and laughin
And lookin into each
Other’s eyes so seductively
That it arouses you, with loud
Music playing.
She’s like you, and not a whole
Lot of people are like you.
You dance with her, and she has
The rhythm down.
This motion: the going up and down
The beer, the cigarettes
This magic moment should
Last for ever
Like the song goes
Or maybe longer than
It does
- Damion Hamilton
(1 poem added 12.10.09)
•••••••••••
Dear Death
Forgive me, for at the end of this poem
you shall not see my name
For I fear your sister Fate
Is at times a little over zealous
And I really do love my life
Ok. So you know that’s a lie.
I was on your Christmas list
you may have even
smelt the aspirin frothing vodka puddle
to which I woke
Christmas day.
But things have changed now
I’m sure you’ve noticed
Its been some years since you last
Stood tapping your feet
With rhythmic impatience
As though a father
Waiting for their child to dress.
Before that futile severing of life
You and I met once before
When you tasted my breath
sweet from my mothers milk
It was my right lung,
unformed, deflated.
I was next to her when the bleep
of machine
startled her from her semi-sleep.
Dear Death
May I ask a question or two?
Is the soul still warm
as you pocket it like a just found penny?
And do the blood splattered bones
of a child jutting from beneath
the mangle of steal and foam
ever lay heavy on your mind?
Please, do not feel it necessary
to reply just yet,
save it for some forty years away
reply gently
as I am sleeping
entering me like a dream of youth
taking my breath
as though
a hand scooping sand
from the base of the sea.
- Vincent James Turner
(added 12.09.09)
•••••••••••
Seven 9/11’s (9/11 9/11…)
34 Miles
squeezed from a quarter
of a Mitsubishi’s fuel-tank
from grey sun to no moon
for you and me: two Kamikazes
the road’s as flat as my cell’s
reception; the hills sleep
as lumps under sheets.
Our tragedy can be NO
less than irony—today is
Stone to Ash September.
It’s raining sideways, but the
sky’s not on fire…
anymore
wipers work too slow; they
don’t whisk away the terror
you call my name—like a murder
is called out in a crowd. I call it
love
as clouds flick at clueless trees
with yellow finger tips.
Dear,
the rain’s getting worse here
we do pass a dead deer; it lets
the rain roll right off its back.
it’s not us—it’s today
and this goddamn rain
at least
there’s no city to see
collapse—catch glass
with our lips; see City Sky
Rain fathers and mothers.
A few more miles are squeezed out
as my name rings out to
the hill’s: earth’s elbows and
as no ring slips on her finger
for seven Years
earth’s shoulders shrugged
and only cared about
the occasional cloud
they carry on as
Mitsubishi Kamikazes and
other immortal tragedies
we check service bars, beg God,
and scream as we’re riddled
with rain spats on windshields
that don’t stop
for 7 Years
34 Miles or
“A Moment
of Silence”
- Tyler Malone
(3 poems added 12.08.09)
•••••••••••
Morning Madness
Tectonic mind seesaws
Like a mad wild pig
Snortin’, gnawin’
Against the burnin’ pyre
A cold star
Plunges into the ash balls
And melts with the screaming sinews
- Arun Budhathoki
(added 12.07.09)
•••••••••••
Rutter
The fucking foxes have come for me
Roses are bent
Tulip bells tormented
The window button
Gives at my grasp
When back bent
And salvo
My gun has no shot
So word is redundant
And bullshit is heard
Word crap is herded
Like grunts in a pen
Sighs from the open
She as a vixen
Wants it again
- Anthony Murphy
(1 poem added 12.06.09)
•••••••••••
i imagine
my foot coming down
on a cockroach
is the equivalent
to a nuclear
bomb being dropped
and my act
of force with
the corresponding death
gives me
this image in my mind
of the day where
some jackass
finds it justified
for religion
for politics
for money
to drop a bomb
which makes
another jackass
respond with a bomb
and we are
reduced
to nothing but
ashes
and as the days
pass mother nature
laughs
reclaims
her throne
and all that
will remain
are cockroaches
who will thrive
in our ruins
and have no sense
of remorse
for our departure.
- Casey Quinn
(added 12.05.09)
•••••••••••
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! Wanna join in the poetic conversations going on in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be swirling it here 24/7!
Your Mad Servants,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” Robert Frost
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