The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 12.04.10

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination”

John Winston Ono Lennon

(10.09.1940 – 12.08.1980)

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste of the poetry we featured this week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...

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War Crimes

I sunk deep into a shoebox I found by dad’s pistol,
demonically, like Adam’s teeth into his wife’s apple
dark pictures spilled out like white milk.

I had never seen these before
since dad ended the war, a solider with a
Tommy gun hammering his shoulder in

stills of history which makes generations believe
the whole world was black and white TV.

Hills the size of two story homes built
of skinny hairless boys, their mothers,
and big hungry bellies were

pushed by black and white bulldozers
operated by men with peroxide skin
into pitch-dark ditches.

“Dad, these people are dead, right?
They must be.”
“No. We could hear the top of the pile breathing
and the bones of the bottom, crushing.”

Allies came with chocolates and Democracy,
and saw the buried but alive,
just in time for war crimes.

“Dad, what did you do?”

Shaking like a lone October leaf,
he explained how he carried
himself when seeing science and status quo
exterminating humans—

“We shot those sons of bitches off the dozers.
We blew them to pieces; my .45 tore a German’s
face into five slices of skull and skin.”

If there was any blood,
it was photograph black.

Dad closed the shoebox,
put the war back on the shelf
and got himself a beer.

Tyler Malone

(2 poems added 12.04.10)

editor's note: Thanks to Tyler for sharing this one - some of the closest folks to us have seen and done things so hard and far from what we know, yet open a can of beer from the top, just like everyone. Selah! (Another great one from Tyler - one of many ways to spell "trouble"... check it out.) - mh

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The last night in the galaxy

On her bed, she sang along with the bips of her heart monitor,
Blazing in dazzling joy as her last song would come to an end.
Gleaming like the crimson light of dawn on her own horizon,
Her happiness blossomed before her last breath swept her away.

Her soul had danced its last tango for the nurses to see;
Each invisible corpuscle swayed joyfully on her river,
Toward the unknown crimson ocean far away.
Her life, an old wren, reaching its nest to rest its wings.

tri tran

(added 12.03.10)

editor's note: Ah, sweet death, when approached as an old wren's rest. Beautiful! Swing low, sweet chariot! - mh

•••••••••••

THE HOUR OF THE WOLF

one person can lose only so much blood before before falling salt
tears salt in blood salt in the brain salt in rain so the spark spins
around in my heart a start in my ears I can hear blood the dogs
can smell fear a foot in the snow and a foot in the doorway I am
such a fool I really don't know the sun comes up tomorrow is not
a given with the hickory our sycamore has a war lasting decades
touch ice don't feel it fine line between cold and numb but cross
it unawares almost broke my knee flying down the slippery steps
lying on black ice wife came running out saw me groaning on the
ground and said "Does it hurt?" felt stupid too there was nothing
I could do except lie there and "ooooooooooo......" then an old
photograph that looks just like an old friend in another life when
it gets too cold it's like a secret fire that skin only knows dreamed
of a dog on my chest woke up there he was laughing at me boy
down in the gutter a shard of glass beneath the ice reflect the sun
sometimes the false dawn is called the hour of the wolf but there's
no wolf either dust in a dead room is the only thing moving except
for my heart a bowl of fish soup a loaf of multigrain bread a tub of
butter the finches are back looking for sunflower seeds they were
here before stuck between the dream and the awakening I forgot
who I was again spring again celebrate it while you can know so
what tomorrow? who knows what I found? a lost treasure? even
I don't know cardinal on his branch blooming redder than cherry
he is so happy! guess it was a bug that ran under the drawer but
I can't be sure the house finch is an invasive species that has no
where else to go last turn not a pecker this time it was a sparrow
maybe blue next time I was feeding the squirrels one nut at a time
when one bit me on the thumb I guess he was bored or was simply
impatient but it hurt like hell but if squirrels don't think then what's
going through his mind when we see eye-to-eye?

satnrose

(2 poems added 12.02.10)

editor's note: Sometimes non-sequitur is not so "non" - when you're thinking of wolves, someone says, "pass the salt," then you free associate your word way to a face-to-face with your inner beast - or, maybe you're just a nut. (Another good one from satnrose on his page, too - check it out.) - mh

•••••••••••

Twisted Sister

His chin length blond hair flies
She wants it to blow against her
His brows lowered, grim and dark
but then smiling
Dark clouds roll
Smile—light, bright.

A cloud of black smoke rises
She looks toward him,
Waves of dark hair
Eyes are flooding
She will fight to save it.

His life in danger, his blond hair in tufts
Axe swinging
He wants to die
Her face,
covered in filth, crinkled, anguish
blood rushes through veins
She becomes his.

Running hands threw dark brown curls
How has life become so twisted?
Biting lips and heaving hips
Belonging, no taking
she clings to him like she clings to life.

His grip loosening
Jumping into blackness
flinging long hair back, out of his eyes
Detaching
Soul not belonging
but her body is his.

The wrench attached to her heart
spins around, tighter and tighter
gasping for breath, wanting for direction
Gasping and crying, moaning and breathing,
All within her
grabbing for something to hold on to.

Desperate, wanting
Can’t focus, blurry eyed
One is holding the wrench,
the other twisting it
Wanting both, getting neither
All have changed.

Victoria Vasterling

(added 12.01.10)

editor's note: So long as Wiley Coyote keeps his trust in ACME, he will frequently find himself bereft of roadrunner, while suspended above the cavern, for - just - that - split - second... - mh

•••••••••••

Industrial Vagina Complex

I
am standing in an elevator
next to a pregnant Yemini woman

She
dressed in long, flowing, azure robe
and black headscarf

Me
dressed in camouflage cargo pants
and baby blue polo shirt

We
the elevator’s only passengers
ascend
innocently in this soaring glass box
that clings tenuously
to the spine of a phallic skyscraper
overlooking the glittering Dubai night

As we float upwards
the Yemeni’s
pungent perfume
tickles my nasal hairs
And she
stares absently
her neck angular
her face facing downwards
at the elevator’s marble floor

The Muzak version of “Up on the Roof”
only I hear
is suddenly interrupted
by a loud snapping sound
and I look over
and spot steaming liquid seeping out from underneath the Yemeni’s robe

She then drops to the floor
yells out something in Arabic
begins having contractions

I
am no doctor
though I have watched a lot of doctors on TV
and so I kneel towards her
ready for the baby to pop out
as if I were a catcher awaiting a pitch

She
hikes up her robe
isn’t wearing panties
and from the vortex
of her shadowy, cavernous vagina
I see something black emerge

I reach in to yank it out
and am startled to find
that it’s not the baby’s head I’d anticipated
Instead
it’s a sleek laptop computer
that slides out of her vagina smoothly
automatically
ejecting itself

I hold
the warm, wet laptop in my hands
transfixed by it
as it glows angelically illuminated by the crescent moon
shining in softly through our elevator’s clear exterior

Instead
of an umbilical cord
an Ethernet cable
connects the computer
to the Yemeni woman’s uterus

The computer
starts to vibrate
and make sounds
similar to those of old dial-up 58K modems
so I gently open the top
and on its screen I see a Windows Media Player
playing video in looped, reverse motion

The video appears to be
of a smiling newborn baby
beachside
levitating above a burning mosque
that crumbles slowly
into crashing blue waves of the eastern Mediterranean

The baby
painted in placenta and blood
wears only a suicide vest
is spinning counterclockwise
and in his little left hand
holds a platinum Visa credit card
which he swipes spastically
into the ashy air

The laptop’s screen then freezes up
leaving the baby suspended in stasis
against a fiery sky

And so I start pressing CONTROL-ALT-DELETE
feverishly
Again, Again, Again, and Again

But nothing happens
and so I look up
and the Yemeni woman has vanished

And I’m no longer in the elevator either
I’m standing on an escalator
at a mall in Minnesota
holding a shopping bag
that contains

A bottle of perfume and
A brand new laptop computer

Newamba Flamingo

(1 poem added 11.30.10)

editor's note: Unchecked consumerism unleashes manic surreal visions in an American shopping mall; moral questions veiled in wideband digital transmissions defy explanation by unwitting poet. International implications draw censure from the Dept of Homeland Security. Details at 11:00! - mh

•••••••••••

Drizzle

I drizzle.
I am sensitive though jovial.
I explore this enthusiasm,
though I foresee the line between acme and abyss.
I yearn to amble into it, through it.
I flutter and envision the humanity.

This drizzle enters further into my body,
It electrifies me, and I am myself.
This drizzle allows me to ignore mockery
And send it far off.
Oh, now I am liberated.

I acquaint my vagueness.
My insightful cuts of string,
Then I bound up to pinnacle.
My nerves are free,
Then I appreciate my supremacy.

The drizzle further congeals me,
Oh, how serene! Such harmony!
My life is mine, not for others to live,
I covet only this.
There is no lump, no dominion.

I become myself not through others.
I am further stimulated and I smile.
I stretch out.
As I trace and boost this inner realm.

This is congruity for social progress.
It storms away the subjugation.
The drizzle creates the new hegemony,
Then my soul is justified.

Chiranjibi Niroula

(2 poems added 11.29.10)

editor's note: Who can justify a soul? Only we who would speak and those who would hear. To be heard, this is all any of us wants. (Another great one from Chiranjabi, "Liberated Soul", on his page - check it out.) - mh

•••••••••••

Crusin’

Slits of split screen
scenery seep through
rain stained windowpane,
tall buildings that converse
with cloudless skies about
who’s seen and
heard more, lights that beam
like stars, motionless, locked
in a dueler’s stand still,
each one begging for some artificial
wish and forming new constellations
that flicker.
We whizz by
going 65, 70, paying little attention.
Underneath us, the bridge is a Freddie
Freeloading kind of blue,
humming silent oceans,
bodiless misunderstandings,
that escape unnoticed
and an old gray haired angel
with arthritic wings,
overhears our straying thoughts
and thinks, maybe,
just maybe, they will be
his way back home.

Willie Nunnery

(added 11.28.10)

editor's note: Another testament to the unrecognized truth that we all have transported angels, unaware. - mh

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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...

Imagining,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor