The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 06.26.10
“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.” Anais Nin
Dream #2 (above) by mad painter and featured artist (also a featured poet in this week's "Best of") Sergio A. Ortiz , one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery.
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
dollars cents money
negated all the conventions so
aptly, skillfully
throw away culture of industry
impossibility implicit in admittance of
failure, unsuccessfully
rationalize engagement of corporate
life, existence
commodities expecting social perfection
dollars cents money
barter for souls with no exchange rate for
panic attacks, cultural anxiety
Shannon Peil
(3 poems added 06.26.10)
editor's note: And then there are the extras; bonus bitch-slaps and put-downs, while your back becomes a rung on someone else's ladder. Yeah, put that down on your five-year plan! - mh
•••••••••••
Too Far, Too Long Gone
(Methadone and Schizoid Personality Disorder)
There is no justice on piss-stained floors
which carry the burden of every broken
body-broken-mind-broken-hash-pipe and halo dust
atop a thin mattress soaked with God-knows-what.
Cross our toes and mutter until the next
nurse with the next Thorazine trip in a post-nasal
dripping whine stabs us in the ass again. (Oh, baby!)
Not allowed to watch the television today
all for flipping off the government cameras
embedded behind the screens
while Barney sings “I Love You, You Love Me”
over and over and over will it ever end?
We know Barney is the Anti-Christ. And a purple pedophile.
Let’s pretend to be Batman again, flapping
our hospital gowns and shrieking for no known reason.
That needle might seek us out again.
We aren’t getting better days-months-years later
still on every med imaginable and some not even
scientifified yet—or whatever you Docs do
in your spare time. Roll in money, mix more
chemical compounds that we turn into more defiance
just to get more scientifified dope. Oops—
Big Bro knows our sullied secret now, but it’s still time for another dose.
Please pass the spoon for—umm—safe keeping.
Sure, rehab works for quitters. None of the “we” are.
So we sit in group session and talk about Mickey Mouse,
atom bombs, flashback nightmares and melting walls.
Oh, the pretty colors. Who said LSD wasn’t a beautiful thing?
We say we want to be Mickey Mouse, mousing through dissolving hidey-holes
in bricks of the basement while some Meth-freak asshole
builds another bomb. What a nightmare!
Ha, ha: got more Thorazine from that bitch with a beard.
Maybe it’s a moustache, but we can’t tell—too blurry
anymore. In a minute, she might blink her lips.
Ah, piece and quiet. Piece of ass while ball-gagged qualifies.
Maybe we can play ping pong tomorrow,
tell more lies for the effect we desire, tap-a-pat-tap
our veins for. Getting cranky is slow without Speed, but
give us a minute and we can accommodate those mood swings.
Just watch. No, not the TV because Batman (“The Man”) says so. Stupid cameras.
We’ll be on that see-saw roller coaster of binge and purge
and pills and withdrawal and manic and depression
and obsessing about the lightbulb blinking in the bathroom
since we know it’s Morse code for something.
Riding highs and lows with every-dose-every-needle-every-body
busted before we ever played ping-pong or swing set steeple chase
to see just who is the real crazy here—us or “The Man”.
Ten Kool-Aid packages on the guy who invented pills
to “cure” addiction. Any takers? We didn’t think so.
Snort the sugar lines and move it along so that we can
have our turn at medical benediction:
to receive the body-of-Christ-in-a-gel-cap across our tongues and rock
side-to-downside in the scientifified homeostasis chamber
while Doc-the-Man counts his blessing of bills in the collection basket
labeled Incoming and stamped with eagles. We’ve seen it.
No justice and piss again. Pissed again. And still, no checkmark on the chart
of getting better. Maybe Doc and Ratched-with-facial-hair
(which is still up for debate—moustache or beard?)
are close enough to see us for what we are: hopeless/helpless.
But we can play OCD once more if we all hum along.
Why? We forgot the damn words. Oh, crap—no,
don’t make us leave. Doorways are frozen places to ferment in
and it’s awfully hard to keep the candle burning
long enough to make everything right. To fix it all away.
Just for me; that’s all the “we” there ever was.
Kim Keith
(added 06.25.10)
editor's note: I knew there was a term for the great, machined realities our fine medical community foists upon us from time to time; when something has been developed specifically for our betterment and cure, "scientifified." Yeah! Scientifify this! - mh
•••••••••••
Doing it Jack Allen style
With the grip of a possessed lover
you took my hand,
leading me backwards
to the alley where we met
and broke each other.
Amid the concrete, empty soda cans
and trashy love songs from sleepy alley men,
we burned each other
with love that left our signatures
on the walls, graffiti-style,
Yet,
as the band played on and
your breath grew strong,
you never heard my nails break,
or see my fingers bleed onto mortar
as I made a crack,
big enough to hook my life into.
Lynne Hayes
(added 06.24.10)
editor's note: Yer proud o' that mark on the wall, aren't ya? You bring all yer friends 'round back to show it off, don't ya? Never noticed the crack and the hook and that long trail of bleeding heart, did ya? Hey, Big Boy!? Did ya? - mh
•••••••••••
His Other Lover
(cocaine)
A stunning beauty is she
A place to rest your head
She makes you feel so worthy
But in the end you were so misled
She does not wear those high heels
Although she is quite tall
She is just so little
So slight
So small
She will promise you the Ocean
She begs to never let you down
Her boat is docked and ready
But under her sea you will drown
She will always tell you
Just what you want to hear
But just like you whispered to me
Its sweet nothings in your ear
She is not materialistic
Wont judge your race or creed
But if you double cross her
She might not let you leave
You chose her though I loved you
I see she won the fight
But between your hell and heaven
I hope you see the light
Meaghan Lank
(added 06.23.10)
editor's note: We can be loved or consumed. May we have the sense to recognize the difference, and the luck to be loved. - mh
•••••••••••
On Their Eightieth Birthday
dedicated to the Governor of Arizona
His aunt thinks she’s a tapestry?
-First she thought she was a Tapir,
then a pole. I stuffed a butt plug in her mouth,
but she asked for a loincloth.
She fell in love with my skin, wanted to peel
it, peel me—Our lady of the Broken Condoms,
Latina Americana gringa wanna be
with the sagging breast implants.
What was he doing with gunpowder in his pockets?
—You know why he wears those tight pants!
Yeah, but if you stare at his tray
he calls you every urban word he ever learned
from Justin Timberlake.
—Baby he needs to go back to school
before he bad-mouths me.
Gel and visits to the hairdresser
twice a month to put on those caramel
highlights... metro-sexual? I don’t think so.
snap-snap - zip-zip
—Girl, she empties his wallet
before putting on those condoms every time.
Dumb-ass gringo wanna be.
—Um-hum, like Osvaldo Del Rio!
No, that’s the Puerto Rican Actor
that beats up his women.
You know, I’m talking about
that Mexican guy from Univision,
Fernando Del Rincón.
He can brush his hair back all he wants,
he’s still going to look like a mestizo.
Sergio A. Ortiz
(2 poems added 06.22.10)
editor's note: Yeah! Thanks, Sergio! Take that, Ms. Brewer - you and all your constituency! When we come to visit you, you'll want to check our papers, too. We may look white / black / brown / red / yellow, but that's nothing to fear so much as our subversively colorful ideas. Keep us away from your young and impressionable! (There's another good one, just in from Sergio, on his page - check it out!) - mh
•••••••••••
rinse and repeat
hope is not for the weak of heart
the flight delays can kill you
so we write and disperse the little things,
as thank you notes disappear behind pay stubs and beauty secrets
never used, laugh at the lines of your life now
etched in stone residues
that only one more time, can ever erase
even though
you apply and reapply,
rinse and repeat and always
discard properly,
but somehow recycling day passes, leaving blue
bins full of meaningful information
Generation hexed will fail to absorb
into their ectoplasmic shrines, built
to the God of I told You So and
See Now what happens
when timid steps carry you up to a point
where steel-toed boots could have brought you
yet your arrival would not be greeted with
half the fanfare
you would expect
for someone who has no one
but themselves
to blame
Rob Dyer
(added 06.21.10)
editor's note: Maybe the trash is better buried deep in the land-fill and forgotten; instead of recycled into the same old excuses we make to ourselves for not moving forward. "Out damned spot!" - mh
•••••••••••
foul language was the common tongue
foul language was the common tongue
and every shadow shaped
a foreign form of need
darkness had desire
to be extolled above the light
but no words found
gave shadow
favor
and the dark grew bitter
and became lonely
what lay beneath
and out of reach
of dawn and day
the witch unknown
and great with child
behind closed doors
where whispers lie
gave birth in darkness
late at night
a sickly daughter
for shadows wife
fear and darkness
lovers lay
embraced in hollow
perfidy
sing songs of sorrow
to birds of prey
that curse the moonlight
and the day
and all the while
their laughter grew
a sinister audience
to them drew
those things that light
did not embrace
found kinship in
this woeful place
where fear and darkness
ruled alone
fears sister hatred
placed her throne
and her creatures screamed
their songs of things
better left unsaid
with sharpened teeth
and gnashing dread
a call to order
chaos made
for barren night
and simple shade
to join the ranks
both deep and black
of a burdened army
for light attack
Jesse Doughty
(1 poem added 06.20.10)
editor's note: The struggle between light and darkness is around us every day, bloodiest in the late and early when stretching shadows would scratch long fingers down the face of light. - mh
•••••••••••
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 here...
Breathin', Cryin' & Singin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Dream #2 (above) by mad painter and featured artist (also a featured poet in this week's "Best of") Sergio A. Ortiz , one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery.
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
dollars cents money
negated all the conventions so
aptly, skillfully
throw away culture of industry
impossibility implicit in admittance of
failure, unsuccessfully
rationalize engagement of corporate
life, existence
commodities expecting social perfection
dollars cents money
barter for souls with no exchange rate for
panic attacks, cultural anxiety
Shannon Peil
(3 poems added 06.26.10)
editor's note: And then there are the extras; bonus bitch-slaps and put-downs, while your back becomes a rung on someone else's ladder. Yeah, put that down on your five-year plan! - mh
•••••••••••
Too Far, Too Long Gone
(Methadone and Schizoid Personality Disorder)
There is no justice on piss-stained floors
which carry the burden of every broken
body-broken-mind-broken-hash-pipe and halo dust
atop a thin mattress soaked with God-knows-what.
Cross our toes and mutter until the next
nurse with the next Thorazine trip in a post-nasal
dripping whine stabs us in the ass again. (Oh, baby!)
Not allowed to watch the television today
all for flipping off the government cameras
embedded behind the screens
while Barney sings “I Love You, You Love Me”
over and over and over will it ever end?
We know Barney is the Anti-Christ. And a purple pedophile.
Let’s pretend to be Batman again, flapping
our hospital gowns and shrieking for no known reason.
That needle might seek us out again.
We aren’t getting better days-months-years later
still on every med imaginable and some not even
scientifified yet—or whatever you Docs do
in your spare time. Roll in money, mix more
chemical compounds that we turn into more defiance
just to get more scientifified dope. Oops—
Big Bro knows our sullied secret now, but it’s still time for another dose.
Please pass the spoon for—umm—safe keeping.
Sure, rehab works for quitters. None of the “we” are.
So we sit in group session and talk about Mickey Mouse,
atom bombs, flashback nightmares and melting walls.
Oh, the pretty colors. Who said LSD wasn’t a beautiful thing?
We say we want to be Mickey Mouse, mousing through dissolving hidey-holes
in bricks of the basement while some Meth-freak asshole
builds another bomb. What a nightmare!
Ha, ha: got more Thorazine from that bitch with a beard.
Maybe it’s a moustache, but we can’t tell—too blurry
anymore. In a minute, she might blink her lips.
Ah, piece and quiet. Piece of ass while ball-gagged qualifies.
Maybe we can play ping pong tomorrow,
tell more lies for the effect we desire, tap-a-pat-tap
our veins for. Getting cranky is slow without Speed, but
give us a minute and we can accommodate those mood swings.
Just watch. No, not the TV because Batman (“The Man”) says so. Stupid cameras.
We’ll be on that see-saw roller coaster of binge and purge
and pills and withdrawal and manic and depression
and obsessing about the lightbulb blinking in the bathroom
since we know it’s Morse code for something.
Riding highs and lows with every-dose-every-needle-every-body
busted before we ever played ping-pong or swing set steeple chase
to see just who is the real crazy here—us or “The Man”.
Ten Kool-Aid packages on the guy who invented pills
to “cure” addiction. Any takers? We didn’t think so.
Snort the sugar lines and move it along so that we can
have our turn at medical benediction:
to receive the body-of-Christ-in-a-gel-cap across our tongues and rock
side-to-downside in the scientifified homeostasis chamber
while Doc-the-Man counts his blessing of bills in the collection basket
labeled Incoming and stamped with eagles. We’ve seen it.
No justice and piss again. Pissed again. And still, no checkmark on the chart
of getting better. Maybe Doc and Ratched-with-facial-hair
(which is still up for debate—moustache or beard?)
are close enough to see us for what we are: hopeless/helpless.
But we can play OCD once more if we all hum along.
Why? We forgot the damn words. Oh, crap—no,
don’t make us leave. Doorways are frozen places to ferment in
and it’s awfully hard to keep the candle burning
long enough to make everything right. To fix it all away.
Just for me; that’s all the “we” there ever was.
Kim Keith
(added 06.25.10)
editor's note: I knew there was a term for the great, machined realities our fine medical community foists upon us from time to time; when something has been developed specifically for our betterment and cure, "scientifified." Yeah! Scientifify this! - mh
•••••••••••
Doing it Jack Allen style
With the grip of a possessed lover
you took my hand,
leading me backwards
to the alley where we met
and broke each other.
Amid the concrete, empty soda cans
and trashy love songs from sleepy alley men,
we burned each other
with love that left our signatures
on the walls, graffiti-style,
Yet,
as the band played on and
your breath grew strong,
you never heard my nails break,
or see my fingers bleed onto mortar
as I made a crack,
big enough to hook my life into.
Lynne Hayes
(added 06.24.10)
editor's note: Yer proud o' that mark on the wall, aren't ya? You bring all yer friends 'round back to show it off, don't ya? Never noticed the crack and the hook and that long trail of bleeding heart, did ya? Hey, Big Boy!? Did ya? - mh
•••••••••••
His Other Lover
(cocaine)
A stunning beauty is she
A place to rest your head
She makes you feel so worthy
But in the end you were so misled
She does not wear those high heels
Although she is quite tall
She is just so little
So slight
So small
She will promise you the Ocean
She begs to never let you down
Her boat is docked and ready
But under her sea you will drown
She will always tell you
Just what you want to hear
But just like you whispered to me
Its sweet nothings in your ear
She is not materialistic
Wont judge your race or creed
But if you double cross her
She might not let you leave
You chose her though I loved you
I see she won the fight
But between your hell and heaven
I hope you see the light
Meaghan Lank
(added 06.23.10)
editor's note: We can be loved or consumed. May we have the sense to recognize the difference, and the luck to be loved. - mh
•••••••••••
On Their Eightieth Birthday
dedicated to the Governor of Arizona
His aunt thinks she’s a tapestry?
-First she thought she was a Tapir,
then a pole. I stuffed a butt plug in her mouth,
but she asked for a loincloth.
She fell in love with my skin, wanted to peel
it, peel me—Our lady of the Broken Condoms,
Latina Americana gringa wanna be
with the sagging breast implants.
What was he doing with gunpowder in his pockets?
—You know why he wears those tight pants!
Yeah, but if you stare at his tray
he calls you every urban word he ever learned
from Justin Timberlake.
—Baby he needs to go back to school
before he bad-mouths me.
Gel and visits to the hairdresser
twice a month to put on those caramel
highlights... metro-sexual? I don’t think so.
snap-snap - zip-zip
—Girl, she empties his wallet
before putting on those condoms every time.
Dumb-ass gringo wanna be.
—Um-hum, like Osvaldo Del Rio!
No, that’s the Puerto Rican Actor
that beats up his women.
You know, I’m talking about
that Mexican guy from Univision,
Fernando Del Rincón.
He can brush his hair back all he wants,
he’s still going to look like a mestizo.
Sergio A. Ortiz
(2 poems added 06.22.10)
editor's note: Yeah! Thanks, Sergio! Take that, Ms. Brewer - you and all your constituency! When we come to visit you, you'll want to check our papers, too. We may look white / black / brown / red / yellow, but that's nothing to fear so much as our subversively colorful ideas. Keep us away from your young and impressionable! (There's another good one, just in from Sergio, on his page - check it out!) - mh
•••••••••••
rinse and repeat
hope is not for the weak of heart
the flight delays can kill you
so we write and disperse the little things,
as thank you notes disappear behind pay stubs and beauty secrets
never used, laugh at the lines of your life now
etched in stone residues
that only one more time, can ever erase
even though
you apply and reapply,
rinse and repeat and always
discard properly,
but somehow recycling day passes, leaving blue
bins full of meaningful information
Generation hexed will fail to absorb
into their ectoplasmic shrines, built
to the God of I told You So and
See Now what happens
when timid steps carry you up to a point
where steel-toed boots could have brought you
yet your arrival would not be greeted with
half the fanfare
you would expect
for someone who has no one
but themselves
to blame
Rob Dyer
(added 06.21.10)
editor's note: Maybe the trash is better buried deep in the land-fill and forgotten; instead of recycled into the same old excuses we make to ourselves for not moving forward. "Out damned spot!" - mh
•••••••••••
foul language was the common tongue
foul language was the common tongue
and every shadow shaped
a foreign form of need
darkness had desire
to be extolled above the light
but no words found
gave shadow
favor
and the dark grew bitter
and became lonely
what lay beneath
and out of reach
of dawn and day
the witch unknown
and great with child
behind closed doors
where whispers lie
gave birth in darkness
late at night
a sickly daughter
for shadows wife
fear and darkness
lovers lay
embraced in hollow
perfidy
sing songs of sorrow
to birds of prey
that curse the moonlight
and the day
and all the while
their laughter grew
a sinister audience
to them drew
those things that light
did not embrace
found kinship in
this woeful place
where fear and darkness
ruled alone
fears sister hatred
placed her throne
and her creatures screamed
their songs of things
better left unsaid
with sharpened teeth
and gnashing dread
a call to order
chaos made
for barren night
and simple shade
to join the ranks
both deep and black
of a burdened army
for light attack
Jesse Doughty
(1 poem added 06.20.10)
editor's note: The struggle between light and darkness is around us every day, bloodiest in the late and early when stretching shadows would scratch long fingers down the face of light. - mh
•••••••••••
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 here...
Breathin', Cryin' & Singin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Comments