The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 11.20.10
“With no surroundings there can be no path, and with no path one cannot become free.” Gary Snyder
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
Flash
I would never leave you to clean the secrets off the walls.
All I ask is that you light my cigarette between moments of intensity,
When I am still.
It’s hard to take so little when you offer so much,
But I am shrinking as I strip layers of buildup from the lens.
You understand, it just happens, and I am just me.
I depart in madness, but arrive in peace.
In November, the leaves become sick and die.
I watch them from my roof and feel them ignite before they fall.
Jessica Barrett
(added 11.20.10)
editor's note: Every now and then, someone strings some words together in a dazzling daisy-chain that douses me with emotional eruptions which defy definition. I am just floating backwards on the resonance of these great words. "Aw, Shaddap and drink a glass-a wadda!" - mh
•••••••••••
listen carefully
recited from somewhere distant
like the oral history
of a culture gone unmentioned
in any history book
he spat stories
that stuffed the room with dust
blotting everything else out
and between sentences
that pause to cough -
deafening echoes cracked with
wet inevitability
and brandy
just waiting
Shannon Peil
(1 poem added 11.19.10)
editor's note: Well, sonny boy, lemme tell ya zackly like it is - it don' matter what I say, or how you take it. So long as you reco'nize - it's zackly like that! Thanks, Shannon! - mh
•••••••••••
Your Shirts
You looked so handsome
that day you were handcuffed.
The white linen of your shirt
flying freely
around your torso, smooth.
And your jaw
set against the bluest sky, square.
Lips lifted to meet same eyes,
matching smirk.
Another day,
some weeks later,
you lifted your
heavy black uniform shirt
to show me where,
on your back,
you’d been stabbed.
Where the blade scratched
down, downward across
the same smooth torso.
The bruises, they looked like
blotches of watercolor to me.
Beautiful, subtle
yellows and greens
reaching for a violent
red climax, deep, deep, and harsh.
And another day
I found you
with no shirt on.
Socks tucked inside
those chanklas,
and you cry, cry, cried
into my chest,
tears wetting your week-old beard.
That torso, now belly distended
heaved the sobs of
shirts worn past and I kissed
your squirrel-red chest
to make it better.
So, yesterday,
wearing one of your shirts,
I walked out
of the bookstore and into
the warmest yellow air and, really
its yellowness swept my bones
inside out, so warm
I shivered sadness.
This air shaking me,
shook me, shook me
inside your hollow shirt.
Emily E. Riggert
(added 11.18.10)
editor's note: Let's open a clothing library where broken hearts can store those bits of clothing which induce strong recollections. Anyone can check'em out to live someone else's story, just leave a deposit (maybe a glistening tear) and don't keep'em past their due dates. Sooner or later, they all gotta be checked back in. - mh
•••••••••••
MY CONVERSATIONS WITH DEATH: AN OBJECT OF TERROR AND CURIOSITY
I speak to You each night. Don’t know your face, but I sense
your presence. My body screams with pain. I’m that
horrific creature in Munch’s The Scream. Yes,
that dark ghost of a ghost screaming into
the whirling, swirling
Void.
Most of the time, I can tolerate this agony. When I can’t,
I take one painkiller late at night. Sometimes, I need
the pill only once a month. Yet there are times,
I need it every night. My doctor says I’ve
got episodes of intolerable pain.
I suppose so.
And my heart is weak too. Periodically, my high blood
pressure sails out of control, docking in a bay
of human debris, a wet wasteland of
death and decay.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I desperately crave life,
the rhythmic breaths of hope and creation,
holy inhalations and exhalations,
the metaphysical mysteries
of Being and
Existence.
In my darkest moments, I still cling to Eros,
my life force. I’m not ready to say
goodbye. Don’t wish to leave
this strange universe,
not now, perhaps,
never.
Of course, I know I can’t stay here forever.
It’s just a wish, a fantasy, not reality.
But I’ve got books to write and
patients to save and heal.
I need more time to
complete my
life’s work.
Time!
I must confess that I’m terrified of death.
Occasionally, I’m curious too.
Sometimes, I believe in
G-d and an afterlife.
But I also fear
that death is
the end.
Finis!
This is my ultimate wish. At the end of my
life, whenever that is, and I don’t want
to know the exact date and time,
I want Death to visit and
soothe me; I wish to
leave the earth
courageously,
without fear,
without
regrets.
I wish
to say
goodbye with dignity and inner peace.
I ask Death to visit me several
times before the final moment.
I ask Death to soothe my
soul. I ask that She
come as a little
girl or boy,
frightened
and alone
and
abandoned. She will beg me to hold her.
Like a good father, I will rescue her
from her darkest fears. I will
hold and rock her and
soothe her troubled
soul.
When I have forgotten all my horrific
fears and my only concern is the
welfare of this poor child, I
will let go of life; slowly,
painlessly, I will let go.
She will kiss me on my forehead and
gently hold me too. At peace,
I will travel to another
place. Without fear,
I shall be very
curious and
free.
Mel Waldman
(2 poems added 11.17.10)
editor's note: We have had a few of these conversations, too. Although we do all the talking, Death nods a head... we can feel it. (See another good one, an eloquent opinion, on Dr. Mel's page.) - mh
•••••••••••
THE NIGHT CYNTHIA DEBARTOLO STOLE A GIANT
INFLATED SINCLAIR GAS STATION DINOSAUR
First the inflated Sinclair gas-station dinosaur
came down
stuffed comfortably into the back seat
of your Plymouth convertible.
Then the routine Ft. Pierce patrol car
idled up beside your
morning-glory-blue eyes
with their canary specks
flickering off the Atlantic.
What’d you hope to gain
by absconding with that dinosaur?
Or perhaps it wasn’t the dinosaur after all,
so much as your heavy kisses
two months later
clouding my ’57 Chevy’s back windows
like steam billowing from large pots
of boiling potatoes.
Alan Britt
(1 poem added 11.16.10)
editor's note: I remember a stolen cigarette machine and the cold, empty back seat of my '63 VW bus. Damn poets who live larger than me and then entice me with a vicarious potato boiling! (Welcome Alan to our Contributing Poets - check out his new page.) - mh
•••••••••••
Child Soldiers Demobilized
Hundreds of child soldiers
in eastern Congo's war
recently returned home,
often to the village
where they killed and pillaged.
Some were forced to leave
by threats of vengeance.
Others were ostracized
by their own families.
Some who were welcomed home
beat their heads against the wall
until they were tranquilized.
Others remained mute for days,
eyes darting back and forth
like frightened animals.
These children were kidnapped,
used by the rebels
as fighters, laborers
often as sex slaves,
manipulated victims,
now only fit for war,
or mental institutions.
Gary Beck
(1 poem added 11.15.10)
editor's note: Every country has our child soldiers, coming back from war, fodder for the mental institutions. Selah! (Thanks, Gary!) - mh
•••••••••••
Imagine
Open your eyes, imagine, surprise...
experience your life, outside the lies...
Outside the lines? See time...it flies...
experience your life, before it dies...
I'm outside the box, I chose to be me,
outside the box, that's life for me...
Outside the box, you see it? It's there...
Outside the box, dont blink, dont stare...
'Cause I found the door, but I need the key,
to unlock the door, of reality...
I looked threw the keyhole and life looked so great...
on the drugs that I took... the drugs that I take.
It's like a new World, a new shine of light,
a feeling flows through me... I refuse to fight.
This is so real, so real and so true...
this is so real, but what can I do,
To show you this World, and show you that light,
I'll show you my World, just out of your sight,
Here's my real goal: To open your mind...
to see what you're feeling, and see what I find.
So open your eyes, imagine, surprise...
experience your life, outside the lies...
Outside the lines? See time... it flies...
experience your life... before it dies.
Todd Carey
(added 11.14.10)
editor's note: Knock, knock! Who's there?... Who indeed? Open your mind's door, invite in the stranger, see what transpires - like this new one from a new name in the Swirl. Welcome, Todd! We know you've got more to say... - 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...
Path Makin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...
•••••••••••
Flash
I would never leave you to clean the secrets off the walls.
All I ask is that you light my cigarette between moments of intensity,
When I am still.
It’s hard to take so little when you offer so much,
But I am shrinking as I strip layers of buildup from the lens.
You understand, it just happens, and I am just me.
I depart in madness, but arrive in peace.
In November, the leaves become sick and die.
I watch them from my roof and feel them ignite before they fall.
Jessica Barrett
(added 11.20.10)
editor's note: Every now and then, someone strings some words together in a dazzling daisy-chain that douses me with emotional eruptions which defy definition. I am just floating backwards on the resonance of these great words. "Aw, Shaddap and drink a glass-a wadda!" - mh
•••••••••••
listen carefully
recited from somewhere distant
like the oral history
of a culture gone unmentioned
in any history book
he spat stories
that stuffed the room with dust
blotting everything else out
and between sentences
that pause to cough -
deafening echoes cracked with
wet inevitability
and brandy
just waiting
Shannon Peil
(1 poem added 11.19.10)
editor's note: Well, sonny boy, lemme tell ya zackly like it is - it don' matter what I say, or how you take it. So long as you reco'nize - it's zackly like that! Thanks, Shannon! - mh
•••••••••••
Your Shirts
You looked so handsome
that day you were handcuffed.
The white linen of your shirt
flying freely
around your torso, smooth.
And your jaw
set against the bluest sky, square.
Lips lifted to meet same eyes,
matching smirk.
Another day,
some weeks later,
you lifted your
heavy black uniform shirt
to show me where,
on your back,
you’d been stabbed.
Where the blade scratched
down, downward across
the same smooth torso.
The bruises, they looked like
blotches of watercolor to me.
Beautiful, subtle
yellows and greens
reaching for a violent
red climax, deep, deep, and harsh.
And another day
I found you
with no shirt on.
Socks tucked inside
those chanklas,
and you cry, cry, cried
into my chest,
tears wetting your week-old beard.
That torso, now belly distended
heaved the sobs of
shirts worn past and I kissed
your squirrel-red chest
to make it better.
So, yesterday,
wearing one of your shirts,
I walked out
of the bookstore and into
the warmest yellow air and, really
its yellowness swept my bones
inside out, so warm
I shivered sadness.
This air shaking me,
shook me, shook me
inside your hollow shirt.
Emily E. Riggert
(added 11.18.10)
editor's note: Let's open a clothing library where broken hearts can store those bits of clothing which induce strong recollections. Anyone can check'em out to live someone else's story, just leave a deposit (maybe a glistening tear) and don't keep'em past their due dates. Sooner or later, they all gotta be checked back in. - mh
•••••••••••
MY CONVERSATIONS WITH DEATH: AN OBJECT OF TERROR AND CURIOSITY
I speak to You each night. Don’t know your face, but I sense
your presence. My body screams with pain. I’m that
horrific creature in Munch’s The Scream. Yes,
that dark ghost of a ghost screaming into
the whirling, swirling
Void.
Most of the time, I can tolerate this agony. When I can’t,
I take one painkiller late at night. Sometimes, I need
the pill only once a month. Yet there are times,
I need it every night. My doctor says I’ve
got episodes of intolerable pain.
I suppose so.
And my heart is weak too. Periodically, my high blood
pressure sails out of control, docking in a bay
of human debris, a wet wasteland of
death and decay.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I desperately crave life,
the rhythmic breaths of hope and creation,
holy inhalations and exhalations,
the metaphysical mysteries
of Being and
Existence.
In my darkest moments, I still cling to Eros,
my life force. I’m not ready to say
goodbye. Don’t wish to leave
this strange universe,
not now, perhaps,
never.
Of course, I know I can’t stay here forever.
It’s just a wish, a fantasy, not reality.
But I’ve got books to write and
patients to save and heal.
I need more time to
complete my
life’s work.
Time!
I must confess that I’m terrified of death.
Occasionally, I’m curious too.
Sometimes, I believe in
G-d and an afterlife.
But I also fear
that death is
the end.
Finis!
This is my ultimate wish. At the end of my
life, whenever that is, and I don’t want
to know the exact date and time,
I want Death to visit and
soothe me; I wish to
leave the earth
courageously,
without fear,
without
regrets.
I wish
to say
goodbye with dignity and inner peace.
I ask Death to visit me several
times before the final moment.
I ask Death to soothe my
soul. I ask that She
come as a little
girl or boy,
frightened
and alone
and
abandoned. She will beg me to hold her.
Like a good father, I will rescue her
from her darkest fears. I will
hold and rock her and
soothe her troubled
soul.
When I have forgotten all my horrific
fears and my only concern is the
welfare of this poor child, I
will let go of life; slowly,
painlessly, I will let go.
She will kiss me on my forehead and
gently hold me too. At peace,
I will travel to another
place. Without fear,
I shall be very
curious and
free.
Mel Waldman
(2 poems added 11.17.10)
editor's note: We have had a few of these conversations, too. Although we do all the talking, Death nods a head... we can feel it. (See another good one, an eloquent opinion, on Dr. Mel's page.) - mh
•••••••••••
THE NIGHT CYNTHIA DEBARTOLO STOLE A GIANT
INFLATED SINCLAIR GAS STATION DINOSAUR
First the inflated Sinclair gas-station dinosaur
came down
stuffed comfortably into the back seat
of your Plymouth convertible.
Then the routine Ft. Pierce patrol car
idled up beside your
morning-glory-blue eyes
with their canary specks
flickering off the Atlantic.
What’d you hope to gain
by absconding with that dinosaur?
Or perhaps it wasn’t the dinosaur after all,
so much as your heavy kisses
two months later
clouding my ’57 Chevy’s back windows
like steam billowing from large pots
of boiling potatoes.
Alan Britt
(1 poem added 11.16.10)
editor's note: I remember a stolen cigarette machine and the cold, empty back seat of my '63 VW bus. Damn poets who live larger than me and then entice me with a vicarious potato boiling! (Welcome Alan to our Contributing Poets - check out his new page.) - mh
•••••••••••
Child Soldiers Demobilized
Hundreds of child soldiers
in eastern Congo's war
recently returned home,
often to the village
where they killed and pillaged.
Some were forced to leave
by threats of vengeance.
Others were ostracized
by their own families.
Some who were welcomed home
beat their heads against the wall
until they were tranquilized.
Others remained mute for days,
eyes darting back and forth
like frightened animals.
These children were kidnapped,
used by the rebels
as fighters, laborers
often as sex slaves,
manipulated victims,
now only fit for war,
or mental institutions.
Gary Beck
(1 poem added 11.15.10)
editor's note: Every country has our child soldiers, coming back from war, fodder for the mental institutions. Selah! (Thanks, Gary!) - mh
•••••••••••
Imagine
Open your eyes, imagine, surprise...
experience your life, outside the lies...
Outside the lines? See time...it flies...
experience your life, before it dies...
I'm outside the box, I chose to be me,
outside the box, that's life for me...
Outside the box, you see it? It's there...
Outside the box, dont blink, dont stare...
'Cause I found the door, but I need the key,
to unlock the door, of reality...
I looked threw the keyhole and life looked so great...
on the drugs that I took... the drugs that I take.
It's like a new World, a new shine of light,
a feeling flows through me... I refuse to fight.
This is so real, so real and so true...
this is so real, but what can I do,
To show you this World, and show you that light,
I'll show you my World, just out of your sight,
Here's my real goal: To open your mind...
to see what you're feeling, and see what I find.
So open your eyes, imagine, surprise...
experience your life, outside the lies...
Outside the lines? See time... it flies...
experience your life... before it dies.
Todd Carey
(added 11.14.10)
editor's note: Knock, knock! Who's there?... Who indeed? Open your mind's door, invite in the stranger, see what transpires - like this new one from a new name in the Swirl. Welcome, Todd! We know you've got more to say... - 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...
Path Makin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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