The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.23.10
"How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity." William S. Burroughs
Underwater Fire #6 (above) by painter Jim Fuess, one of over 20 resident artists currently being displayed in Mad Swirl's eclectic Mad Gallery.
Just in case you missed it, here's just a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
Wordless
Somewhere outside New Orleans I lost my voice
about there the pages in my journal are blank.
This country was too big for me,
and my small noises.
When the car started bucking
just outside the hundred miles
of Mojave
I couldn’t help but smile.
Even as an adult, these things you fear can really come true.
But by the time we got to Salinas,
we were used to the revving and
I was back to driving without shoes.
I still didn’t have my voice
and had to keep shouting things twice
to you
over the roar of the wind
through the open windows.
After we bickered outside the John Steinbeck library
and sometime before we drove up Polk Street
in San Francisco
you said,
that you didn’t think we would really do this.
I told you of course we would,
what else could two lost people do?
Where else do you go when the frustration
of being dispossessed
for years turns your vision black?
What else is there when all your belongings
fit into the corner of the garage
of your childhood home,
and your father is upstairs waiting
to tell you they took him off the chemo?
But you didn’t hear anything past
of course we would,
because my voice was snuffed out.
You just heard my resilience, saw my smile,
and believed that I believed it was this easy.
© 2009
- Ally Malinenko
(2 poems added 01.23.10)
•••••••••••
TEN HOURS NORTH OF DAYTONA AT A REST STOP ON I-95
pissing away
three cups of
acrid, black
vending machine coffee
alongside men in wife beaters
who force deep coughs
and spit gobs
of tobacco staind phlegm
into a magical piss trough
where all things
suddenly
become equal.
© 2009
- A.g. Synclair
(1 poem added 01.22.10)
•••••••••••
Muse in Eve
Two oranges
Perpendicular
The face o’ a dying man
Raze the feverish bluish head
On the horizon
I attend their wounds
Vertical
Jangling vandalism
- Arun Budhathoki
(added 01.21.10)
•••••••••••
The Martyr Part II The Hallucination
upon my waking eyes
what mysterious dream is this?
a blade of grass
in the horrifying darkness of my mind
what ghost lingers inside these walls?
the flowers upon the floating steel
who might've sent them?
where did I come from?
what have I begun?
I feel the cold silence of death
what mystical rattle
motel room 9
or is it 6;
is it 6?
the devil's knocking at the door
is it locked;
is it 6?
they've got me tied down
the bed sheets cocooning my
exoskeletal threshold
what are these angelic beasts?
the animals beyond these walls
howling every midnight
and scratching at the window's sill;
the ghosts that chase me
through the trees of the cold winter's wilderness
mother, I'm frightened out of my skin
where did I begin?
my heart is cut and bleeding
and my words and body are floating away
love is forgotten
and pain is never ending
what must I learn?
how must I burn?
how long is this waltz
off such a forever shortening dock?
what conspiracy is this?
my lover on the telephone
what mirror stands before me?
the television is staring between me
I can't hear the laughter of the smell of fruit
you're in on it too,
but I love you..
this room is 6;
it must be 6
the devil's knocking down that pearly white door
his dress lifted up; obscuring his face
and the clouds; woe, the storm is madly loud
I can't have my eyes see this anymore
this room; it is 6
nothing makes sense here anymore
I just meddle in the snow
around and around I go...
- Nicholas Martin
(added 01.20.10)
•••••••••••
Intermission
It's all the same,
love.
Yet here we are
with our peaches
and cream champagne.
Candles enough to
resuscitate the dead.
Moonlight rains down
like a poem.
If there must be
a secret to all of this
fuss, let it be, simply
the thought, that we
are not yet corpses
nor have we lived
too many bitter years.
So, our love leans out
sometimes and neither one
of us believes in angels.
Still, the ground swells
when it rains
and every morning,
a dozen little birds sing.
And from the bedroom window
we can watch the sun rise
like a soldier charging
the field or a shaman
anesthetizing the earth
with words.
I live today. I remember
now. We both live today
and what are we supposed
to do with this knowledge,
but live beyond the pain
of the past. No, I do not
mean to insinuate repression
nor create any violations
within the term love,
as if four letters could
ever contain every shadow,
each nuance, the ups and downs
within a blind spot.
Tomorrow is Sunday.
We should compose a new version
of things. Suppose,
on a night like this,
so bright a laymen can hardly
acknowledge, we didn't do
a damn thing
but kiss.
Now there is love.
Call it death by lips.
- Lisa Zaran
(3 poems added 01.19.10)
•••••••••••
Sixteen Forever
She was a beauty of red hair
And Skechers sneakers
In the back row, farthest seat to the right
Where she’d hide her copy of Lolita
And feign a bored stare
Of the ‘anti-Shakespearian.’
The boys in sophomore English
Used to make fun of her,
Groaning her name like an orgasm,
“Ooo-pheeee-liiii-aaaaaa.”
Yesterday was a black candle
Burning it’s wick to a flaxen end
In a fall fair too small for even
The back roads of a Mississippi town.
They would wind their way through
A maze of carnival side-shows
To a tent for the pro-exhibitionist
In her red pump heels and fake diamonds.
She’d gaze into a ten dollar crystal ball
And tell the men from the Harley’s
All the grimy little things dirty men
Like to hear when they’re half stoned.
She was married quick at seventeen,
White shoulder strap of her wedding dress
Dropping so the single men could catch
A glimpse of her second-hand skin.
Her husband worked long hours
So she’d dance at Old Shady’s bar and hub
For some extra cash and a good time.
She made all the old men with flaccid penises
Feel a whole lot younger for just a little while.
Marilyn Monroe was her favorite hero,
And at night she’d dance naked in front of her window
With nothing on but the radio.
Waving to her fake fans and blowing
Hot red lipstick kisses to the cracks
In the walls where the moans of all
Her secret lovers would lie in wait
Of that centerfold perfection.
Naked and writhing in her sea-gray eyes
And hail-storm hair, her voice cooing
And moaning like an aphrodisiac
while she asked them to say it just one more time.
“Say it like you mean it, dahling.
Ooo-pheeee-liiii-aaaaaa.”
- Stacy Lynn Mar
(3 poems added 01.18.10)
•••••••••••
Aunt Christine’s fingernails
Ten Majestic Queens
with long, oval, Crowns:
double sided with iridescent paint.
Queens flighty as their crowns tap the table top
rap the rolling pin, scrape the sauce pan
Obedient Sovereigns
exercising their Divine Right to cook dinner
a theocracy ordained by Christine
Queens embrace
ten admiring Subjects
(who are under the watch of
Christine’s young niece)
Subjects covered in:
magic marker
cookie icing
elmer’s glue
sticky stuff
Queens are soft and clean,
but
Their Crowns:
like little shovels,
picking up paint
charcoal
cooking flour
all the ingredients necessary
for being Christine
- Jen Monte
(added 01.17.10)
•••••••••••
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 year, every decade, 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 there!
Mad Swirlin' Around,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.” William S. Burroughs
Underwater Fire #6 (above) by painter Jim Fuess, one of over 20 resident artists currently being displayed in Mad Swirl's eclectic Mad Gallery.
Just in case you missed it, here's just a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
Wordless
Somewhere outside New Orleans I lost my voice
about there the pages in my journal are blank.
This country was too big for me,
and my small noises.
When the car started bucking
just outside the hundred miles
of Mojave
I couldn’t help but smile.
Even as an adult, these things you fear can really come true.
But by the time we got to Salinas,
we were used to the revving and
I was back to driving without shoes.
I still didn’t have my voice
and had to keep shouting things twice
to you
over the roar of the wind
through the open windows.
After we bickered outside the John Steinbeck library
and sometime before we drove up Polk Street
in San Francisco
you said,
that you didn’t think we would really do this.
I told you of course we would,
what else could two lost people do?
Where else do you go when the frustration
of being dispossessed
for years turns your vision black?
What else is there when all your belongings
fit into the corner of the garage
of your childhood home,
and your father is upstairs waiting
to tell you they took him off the chemo?
But you didn’t hear anything past
of course we would,
because my voice was snuffed out.
You just heard my resilience, saw my smile,
and believed that I believed it was this easy.
© 2009
- Ally Malinenko
(2 poems added 01.23.10)
•••••••••••
TEN HOURS NORTH OF DAYTONA AT A REST STOP ON I-95
pissing away
three cups of
acrid, black
vending machine coffee
alongside men in wife beaters
who force deep coughs
and spit gobs
of tobacco staind phlegm
into a magical piss trough
where all things
suddenly
become equal.
© 2009
- A.g. Synclair
(1 poem added 01.22.10)
•••••••••••
Muse in Eve
Two oranges
Perpendicular
The face o’ a dying man
Raze the feverish bluish head
On the horizon
I attend their wounds
Vertical
Jangling vandalism
- Arun Budhathoki
(added 01.21.10)
•••••••••••
The Martyr Part II The Hallucination
upon my waking eyes
what mysterious dream is this?
a blade of grass
in the horrifying darkness of my mind
what ghost lingers inside these walls?
the flowers upon the floating steel
who might've sent them?
where did I come from?
what have I begun?
I feel the cold silence of death
what mystical rattle
motel room 9
or is it 6;
is it 6?
the devil's knocking at the door
is it locked;
is it 6?
they've got me tied down
the bed sheets cocooning my
exoskeletal threshold
what are these angelic beasts?
the animals beyond these walls
howling every midnight
and scratching at the window's sill;
the ghosts that chase me
through the trees of the cold winter's wilderness
mother, I'm frightened out of my skin
where did I begin?
my heart is cut and bleeding
and my words and body are floating away
love is forgotten
and pain is never ending
what must I learn?
how must I burn?
how long is this waltz
off such a forever shortening dock?
what conspiracy is this?
my lover on the telephone
what mirror stands before me?
the television is staring between me
I can't hear the laughter of the smell of fruit
you're in on it too,
but I love you..
this room is 6;
it must be 6
the devil's knocking down that pearly white door
his dress lifted up; obscuring his face
and the clouds; woe, the storm is madly loud
I can't have my eyes see this anymore
this room; it is 6
nothing makes sense here anymore
I just meddle in the snow
around and around I go...
- Nicholas Martin
(added 01.20.10)
•••••••••••
Intermission
It's all the same,
love.
Yet here we are
with our peaches
and cream champagne.
Candles enough to
resuscitate the dead.
Moonlight rains down
like a poem.
If there must be
a secret to all of this
fuss, let it be, simply
the thought, that we
are not yet corpses
nor have we lived
too many bitter years.
So, our love leans out
sometimes and neither one
of us believes in angels.
Still, the ground swells
when it rains
and every morning,
a dozen little birds sing.
And from the bedroom window
we can watch the sun rise
like a soldier charging
the field or a shaman
anesthetizing the earth
with words.
I live today. I remember
now. We both live today
and what are we supposed
to do with this knowledge,
but live beyond the pain
of the past. No, I do not
mean to insinuate repression
nor create any violations
within the term love,
as if four letters could
ever contain every shadow,
each nuance, the ups and downs
within a blind spot.
Tomorrow is Sunday.
We should compose a new version
of things. Suppose,
on a night like this,
so bright a laymen can hardly
acknowledge, we didn't do
a damn thing
but kiss.
Now there is love.
Call it death by lips.
- Lisa Zaran
(3 poems added 01.19.10)
•••••••••••
Sixteen Forever
She was a beauty of red hair
And Skechers sneakers
In the back row, farthest seat to the right
Where she’d hide her copy of Lolita
And feign a bored stare
Of the ‘anti-Shakespearian.’
The boys in sophomore English
Used to make fun of her,
Groaning her name like an orgasm,
“Ooo-pheeee-liiii-aaaaaa.”
Yesterday was a black candle
Burning it’s wick to a flaxen end
In a fall fair too small for even
The back roads of a Mississippi town.
They would wind their way through
A maze of carnival side-shows
To a tent for the pro-exhibitionist
In her red pump heels and fake diamonds.
She’d gaze into a ten dollar crystal ball
And tell the men from the Harley’s
All the grimy little things dirty men
Like to hear when they’re half stoned.
She was married quick at seventeen,
White shoulder strap of her wedding dress
Dropping so the single men could catch
A glimpse of her second-hand skin.
Her husband worked long hours
So she’d dance at Old Shady’s bar and hub
For some extra cash and a good time.
She made all the old men with flaccid penises
Feel a whole lot younger for just a little while.
Marilyn Monroe was her favorite hero,
And at night she’d dance naked in front of her window
With nothing on but the radio.
Waving to her fake fans and blowing
Hot red lipstick kisses to the cracks
In the walls where the moans of all
Her secret lovers would lie in wait
Of that centerfold perfection.
Naked and writhing in her sea-gray eyes
And hail-storm hair, her voice cooing
And moaning like an aphrodisiac
while she asked them to say it just one more time.
“Say it like you mean it, dahling.
Ooo-pheeee-liiii-aaaaaa.”
- Stacy Lynn Mar
(3 poems added 01.18.10)
•••••••••••
Aunt Christine’s fingernails
Ten Majestic Queens
with long, oval, Crowns:
double sided with iridescent paint.
Queens flighty as their crowns tap the table top
rap the rolling pin, scrape the sauce pan
Obedient Sovereigns
exercising their Divine Right to cook dinner
a theocracy ordained by Christine
Queens embrace
ten admiring Subjects
(who are under the watch of
Christine’s young niece)
Subjects covered in:
magic marker
cookie icing
elmer’s glue
sticky stuff
Queens are soft and clean,
but
Their Crowns:
like little shovels,
picking up paint
charcoal
cooking flour
all the ingredients necessary
for being Christine
- Jen Monte
(added 01.17.10)
•••••••••••
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 year, every decade, 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 there!
Mad Swirlin' Around,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
“I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.” William S. Burroughs
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