::: A Taste of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 12.18.09 :::
“It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.” Henry David Thoreau
Several Ways of Looking at a Cranium (above) by featured artist and digital illustrator K.R. Copeland, one of over 20 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...
Porn
I sit around at night
Looking at porn
Trying to arouse
But I just can’t quit,
The intrusion of a thought
A brake in the role play
A moment to question
How far am I
No luck in stability
Only those who find my star to shine
Then it fades lack luster and rusted
Is my life against the grain
That I feel so trapped
Within a christian bubble
For all I want I am not sure
But for now
Am I searching?
Am I playing?
What inner dilemma
Torn between society and the mind
My physical desires yearn
My mind and soul discern
The fruitlessness of my adventures
I’ve loved
But have never openly accepted
Except one
And she even now knows
That she must finish her dreams
Her desires
I’ve lost most of mine
But she still has hers
And my love has gone unreturned as well
For another loves me as a friend
This of all cruel jokes of fate
That she be my best friend
Still I’ve been down this road
And Disney movies never projected a happy ending
For a character like me
Yet is it I don’t want
That which I can have
And post a pedestal
For that which I can’t have
The pains of life
The emotion which direct
Exactly which path
Which way we pick
Is the porn we choose
- Paul Hammerquist
(added 12.18.09)
•••••••••••
Launch
The steeple stood tall on
a launching pad over a
simple church of stone
The spire atop it stretched ever
higher seeking to pierce through
a membranous sky.
Time to launch ratcheted down
in cadence with the belfry's chimes,
as prayer and song, in concert with
the organ's music, lifted our
spirits
As zero was called and ignition
achieved, I lay flowers at the foot
of your grave, under the glow
of your shuttle rising
- Eric Miller
(added 12.17.09)
•••••••••••
When She Doesn't Sleep at Night She Turns Manic
Some dog’s rusted throat spasms a yell a few houses down,
straining at its chain in the alley.
She lays on her carpet in a pile of morning sun
and forces wide her eyes, but they slide back closed.
Prison hinges and nails wait longer
than the cell dweller inside.
Out front, clover bees examine the new sod.
And her phantom hand squeals on the faucet machinery.
Plastic wings rise against the steam of sprayed water on cement,
and the green blades are draping over each other’s damp backs.
As the last drips sizzle in the pipe,
she drops the hose and walks away.
Inside, she floats up the stairs, curling in the corner
where her dress hangs smoothed from its door hook.
The ironing board’s still warm. She scrapes apart its metal legs,
spreading the device out flat. Now her chores are done.
So she hovers fresh, silk-robed in the early summer sun,
sleeves fluttering: she soars out the window.
- Catherine Zickgraf
(added 12.16.09)
•••••••••••
AUTUMN VOICES
Autumn speaks to me in multicolored voices. First, it whispers hope in majestic gold words of new beginnings, caressing my soft skin with celestial zephyrs and a cosmic kiss from my G-d, Hashem. This is the autumn of my youth, my innocent childhood that beckons me with endless longing and nostalgia, without violence or malice, without the masks of sin. Autumn’s first voice feeds me hope, an antediluvian feeling that all is good.
Autumn shrieks orange-yellow-and-red sacrifice, the holy voices of faith. And I remember the biblical story of G-d and Abraham. The omnipotent Almighty commanded Abraham to kill his son Isaac. In an act of faith, Abraham took Isaac to Mount Moriah. There, he bound his son. As he lifted his knife to sacrifice Isaac, an angel cried out and stopped Abraham from killing his son. Abraham freed Isaac and slaughtered a ram instead. Now, autumn’s loud, potent voice of mercy reminds me that on Rosh Hashanah, a holy man blows the ram’s horn, the shofar. In my adolescence, I used to listen to the holy explosions. And the beautiful hypnotic blasts moved my soul, launching me on a journey to G-d. Today, autumn’s second voice feeds me faith. And I trust Hashem, my G-d, all-loving and omnipotent.
Autumn howls in the never-ending moment of mourning, wailing loudly throughout the dark day and night of unbearable sorrow-the timeless day of soul-shattering evil. It wears death and in a grotesque metamorphosis, its enchanting multicolored leaves have turned pitch-black. My soul vanished when the Twin Towers exploded-imploded and human debris sailed to earth in a cloud of toxic dust. Autumn’s third voice eats my hope and faith again and again in perpetual trauma. It is the autumn of my adulthood that eats my lost soul, buried in the catacombs of despair. Yet slowly, I heal, as I listen once more to the autumn voices of my childhood and adolescence.
Autumn whispers hope, shrieks faith, and howls despair. I lost my soul but found it in the autumn voices of my distant past. Long ago, I was close to my G-d, Hashem. Now, He waits for the man to relearn the secrets of the child. Listen! Autumn speaks in multicolored voices, as sweet as the mellifluous colors of hope and faith. The leaves fall, wafting on zephyrs. Time slips away, like ballet dancers pirouetting and whirling into the past. And I travel through the labyrinth of my psyche, past a gifted violinist playing holy music on a Stradivarius and a passionate artist painting the Tree of Life. But if you listen to the vast silence of the Void, you will hear the sound of my tears as I approach Yesterday and Hashem, my G-d. A child once more, I listen to the holy man shriek faith with each blast of the shofar. And the Shem Ha-M’forash (The Ineffable Name) covers me with a blanket of love, breathing soul into my being with a cosmic kiss. Now, I love through the endless day and night of my existence as the leaves fall and autumn voices speak.
- Mel Waldman
(2 poems added 12.15.09)
•••••••••••
NEFERTITI'S SWAN SONG
Past buttonholes and bullet wounds, I'm hurling face-down in sunshine
and wet clover--- covered in pear juice
I'm spelunking smack dab into the jeweled heart of a hotly sizzled everything
where I cherish the rollicking thought of baby blue Krishna in paradise,
like something out of Maxfield Parrish,
then delving, rolling, I glide into the word-deep verdancy of Keats
or rise mountainously to the pristine kisses of John Muir.
Day and night, I can't believe the chatter:
this whole globe throbbing with Beauty's redundant soliloquy.
- Kallima Hamilton
(added 12.14.09)
•••••••••••
PEOPLE THOUGHTS
The power of his
give
burdened a warm
release
like blankets rich with
sleep.
He walked through
meadows
of past dreams
scattered
like newspapers
yellowed with the age of
lost.
Crumpled headlines,
pieces
of what was once
searching
like the settling of
museum dust,
sealed itself to
objects
and places
like people
thoughts
forgotten in yesterdays
wind.
- Roger G. Singer
(3 poems added 12.13.09)
•••••••••••
AN AMERICAN PICNIC
We sat on the porch and watched the storm roll in.
At first it was just a flash in the distance
Then
The wind picked up
It began to rain
The thunder became louder.
And I sat there and I drank my diet Pepsi
And she smoked her joint.
A bolt of lightning lit up the
The front lawn
we both jumped back
we got scared
we wanted to hide
but by the time we had decided
to retreat back into the house
the storm already passed
leaving us with nothing but the softening rain.
From inside the house
we could hear my step mother calling for my father.
She had rheumatoid arthritis
and she had a hard time getting up from the couch.
it didn’t take much to make this woman feel helpless.
She kept calling for my father
Asking him if the car windows were rolled up.
we could almost hear him ignoring her.
if he was actually asleep he would have been snoring.
It was almost like we could hear him
But really all that could be heard was my step mother's yelling
and the fading sound of distant thunder coming from the passing storm
- Justin Grimbol
(added 12.12.09)
•••••••••••
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!
Swirlifiably Yours,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“I think we all have madness in us, it's just that I've realized mine and found a way to let it out.” John Glover
Several Ways of Looking at a Cranium (above) by featured artist and digital illustrator K.R. Copeland, one of over 20 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...
Porn
I sit around at night
Looking at porn
Trying to arouse
But I just can’t quit,
The intrusion of a thought
A brake in the role play
A moment to question
How far am I
No luck in stability
Only those who find my star to shine
Then it fades lack luster and rusted
Is my life against the grain
That I feel so trapped
Within a christian bubble
For all I want I am not sure
But for now
Am I searching?
Am I playing?
What inner dilemma
Torn between society and the mind
My physical desires yearn
My mind and soul discern
The fruitlessness of my adventures
I’ve loved
But have never openly accepted
Except one
And she even now knows
That she must finish her dreams
Her desires
I’ve lost most of mine
But she still has hers
And my love has gone unreturned as well
For another loves me as a friend
This of all cruel jokes of fate
That she be my best friend
Still I’ve been down this road
And Disney movies never projected a happy ending
For a character like me
Yet is it I don’t want
That which I can have
And post a pedestal
For that which I can’t have
The pains of life
The emotion which direct
Exactly which path
Which way we pick
Is the porn we choose
- Paul Hammerquist
(added 12.18.09)
•••••••••••
Launch
The steeple stood tall on
a launching pad over a
simple church of stone
The spire atop it stretched ever
higher seeking to pierce through
a membranous sky.
Time to launch ratcheted down
in cadence with the belfry's chimes,
as prayer and song, in concert with
the organ's music, lifted our
spirits
As zero was called and ignition
achieved, I lay flowers at the foot
of your grave, under the glow
of your shuttle rising
- Eric Miller
(added 12.17.09)
•••••••••••
When She Doesn't Sleep at Night She Turns Manic
Some dog’s rusted throat spasms a yell a few houses down,
straining at its chain in the alley.
She lays on her carpet in a pile of morning sun
and forces wide her eyes, but they slide back closed.
Prison hinges and nails wait longer
than the cell dweller inside.
Out front, clover bees examine the new sod.
And her phantom hand squeals on the faucet machinery.
Plastic wings rise against the steam of sprayed water on cement,
and the green blades are draping over each other’s damp backs.
As the last drips sizzle in the pipe,
she drops the hose and walks away.
Inside, she floats up the stairs, curling in the corner
where her dress hangs smoothed from its door hook.
The ironing board’s still warm. She scrapes apart its metal legs,
spreading the device out flat. Now her chores are done.
So she hovers fresh, silk-robed in the early summer sun,
sleeves fluttering: she soars out the window.
- Catherine Zickgraf
(added 12.16.09)
•••••••••••
AUTUMN VOICES
Autumn speaks to me in multicolored voices. First, it whispers hope in majestic gold words of new beginnings, caressing my soft skin with celestial zephyrs and a cosmic kiss from my G-d, Hashem. This is the autumn of my youth, my innocent childhood that beckons me with endless longing and nostalgia, without violence or malice, without the masks of sin. Autumn’s first voice feeds me hope, an antediluvian feeling that all is good.
Autumn shrieks orange-yellow-and-red sacrifice, the holy voices of faith. And I remember the biblical story of G-d and Abraham. The omnipotent Almighty commanded Abraham to kill his son Isaac. In an act of faith, Abraham took Isaac to Mount Moriah. There, he bound his son. As he lifted his knife to sacrifice Isaac, an angel cried out and stopped Abraham from killing his son. Abraham freed Isaac and slaughtered a ram instead. Now, autumn’s loud, potent voice of mercy reminds me that on Rosh Hashanah, a holy man blows the ram’s horn, the shofar. In my adolescence, I used to listen to the holy explosions. And the beautiful hypnotic blasts moved my soul, launching me on a journey to G-d. Today, autumn’s second voice feeds me faith. And I trust Hashem, my G-d, all-loving and omnipotent.
Autumn howls in the never-ending moment of mourning, wailing loudly throughout the dark day and night of unbearable sorrow-the timeless day of soul-shattering evil. It wears death and in a grotesque metamorphosis, its enchanting multicolored leaves have turned pitch-black. My soul vanished when the Twin Towers exploded-imploded and human debris sailed to earth in a cloud of toxic dust. Autumn’s third voice eats my hope and faith again and again in perpetual trauma. It is the autumn of my adulthood that eats my lost soul, buried in the catacombs of despair. Yet slowly, I heal, as I listen once more to the autumn voices of my childhood and adolescence.
Autumn whispers hope, shrieks faith, and howls despair. I lost my soul but found it in the autumn voices of my distant past. Long ago, I was close to my G-d, Hashem. Now, He waits for the man to relearn the secrets of the child. Listen! Autumn speaks in multicolored voices, as sweet as the mellifluous colors of hope and faith. The leaves fall, wafting on zephyrs. Time slips away, like ballet dancers pirouetting and whirling into the past. And I travel through the labyrinth of my psyche, past a gifted violinist playing holy music on a Stradivarius and a passionate artist painting the Tree of Life. But if you listen to the vast silence of the Void, you will hear the sound of my tears as I approach Yesterday and Hashem, my G-d. A child once more, I listen to the holy man shriek faith with each blast of the shofar. And the Shem Ha-M’forash (The Ineffable Name) covers me with a blanket of love, breathing soul into my being with a cosmic kiss. Now, I love through the endless day and night of my existence as the leaves fall and autumn voices speak.
- Mel Waldman
(2 poems added 12.15.09)
•••••••••••
NEFERTITI'S SWAN SONG
Past buttonholes and bullet wounds, I'm hurling face-down in sunshine
and wet clover--- covered in pear juice
I'm spelunking smack dab into the jeweled heart of a hotly sizzled everything
where I cherish the rollicking thought of baby blue Krishna in paradise,
like something out of Maxfield Parrish,
then delving, rolling, I glide into the word-deep verdancy of Keats
or rise mountainously to the pristine kisses of John Muir.
Day and night, I can't believe the chatter:
this whole globe throbbing with Beauty's redundant soliloquy.
- Kallima Hamilton
(added 12.14.09)
•••••••••••
PEOPLE THOUGHTS
The power of his
give
burdened a warm
release
like blankets rich with
sleep.
He walked through
meadows
of past dreams
scattered
like newspapers
yellowed with the age of
lost.
Crumpled headlines,
pieces
of what was once
searching
like the settling of
museum dust,
sealed itself to
objects
and places
like people
thoughts
forgotten in yesterdays
wind.
- Roger G. Singer
(3 poems added 12.13.09)
•••••••••••
AN AMERICAN PICNIC
We sat on the porch and watched the storm roll in.
At first it was just a flash in the distance
Then
The wind picked up
It began to rain
The thunder became louder.
And I sat there and I drank my diet Pepsi
And she smoked her joint.
A bolt of lightning lit up the
The front lawn
we both jumped back
we got scared
we wanted to hide
but by the time we had decided
to retreat back into the house
the storm already passed
leaving us with nothing but the softening rain.
From inside the house
we could hear my step mother calling for my father.
She had rheumatoid arthritis
and she had a hard time getting up from the couch.
it didn’t take much to make this woman feel helpless.
She kept calling for my father
Asking him if the car windows were rolled up.
we could almost hear him ignoring her.
if he was actually asleep he would have been snoring.
It was almost like we could hear him
But really all that could be heard was my step mother's yelling
and the fading sound of distant thunder coming from the passing storm
- Justin Grimbol
(added 12.12.09)
•••••••••••
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!
Swirlifiably Yours,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“I think we all have madness in us, it's just that I've realized mine and found a way to let it out.” John Glover
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