The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.08.11

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” Abraham Maslow


Nuck (above) by our featured artists and longtime contributors to the mad gallery, J.R. Copeland and Jeff Crouch, 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...

•••••••••••

Deaf

(to be read frantically, in whispers)

December is saying how much it hates the snow.
Can't be bothered, as it reduces its body to weeks,
to days then dwindles down into hours.

I sit on the stoop, holding my breath and study
the world, taking in little, making the best of it,
counting minutes like any good girl should.

Birds, like little honky-tonk Christmas ornaments
flit from tree to tree. I smile for all I'm worth
as if a girl from the trailer park can suddenly find
herself sitting on a park bench in Paris.

This is the end of the world.

Lisa Zaran

(2 poems added 01.08.11)

editor's note: Everything dwindles to a last minute. Everything starts out full of endless possibilities, then empties. We can think of so many things we wanted to do. We are adept at holding off the end of the world, until the vey last minute... (Another good one from Lisa on her page. Check it out!) - mh

•••••••••••

Traffic Light

Green, Yellow, Red
Walk
Stop

Yet again I missed the light
What could have been
What should have been

My chance to burst to
The frontier of the background
Defining the jagged shimmer
Of the tender life force

But I wait, pondering
Is this a pre-carved destiny?

Green, Yellow, Red
Walk

Allen Qing Yuan

(added 01.07.11)

editor's note: Hmmmm. Footsteps destined? I think not. I can turn left or right, or right when you think I am starting to turn left. I can change my mind anytime I wish, with no divine manipulation; I'm thinking of a number, any number... DAMN! Missed the light again! - mh

•••••••••••

Rival

Fast forwarding tumours pulled you out of school at ten.
The medics carved an adult out of you; premature.
Flanked by giant cats, you’d gone to some Californian Egypt
In my mind. You were saved
But alien to us back home.
Once returned your poetry seemed tame to me. But elegant;
The suburban judges lapped it up. At school
you snatched the merit from everything I tried.
Hopeless, my words were always chaos, it was simpler to love you.
Your trim pathetic fallacies, Your form, rhythm and rhyme.
You were so logical. I was gut.
But I think I’m the better for it
Now I’ve caught up.

Hazel Quigley

(added 01.06.11)

editor's note: Write to quell the burning in your gut. Or, write to satisfy the judges. The poet's choice; tame the capricious muse to achieve commercial consistency, or sit before an empty page for hours, wrestling with your rival. - mh

•••••••••••

NOVEMBER IS ALWAYS USELESS

I don’t want to be your confusion.
I don’t want to be heart broken.
It’s hard enough
To hold it together
When the ice
Starts
November over.

We all know about November
And the way
The weather turns
Us against ourselves,
Sending us outwardly seeking
For a way to warm
The spirit.

For a broken one,
These are treacherous
Waters
To wade through!

So, in the moonlight,
In the water,
In a graceful pace
I walk

Away from the solidarity
Of the ground
I keep my feet on.
Slowly, I flow toward you

And death
And ice
And terror
Cannot frighten me
The way that your eyes do.

It’s near impossible
To stop
Looking
In the direction
You have come from,
A road I have not noticed,
A road I thought was closed off.

In an honest fit, I panic

Trying to
Retract
It,
Back into non-existence
And I don’t know how to do that.

I meant to honor
Myself
In November,
In the icy winds
That attempted
To destroy me.

I meant to honor,
But I guess I’m
Just avoiding
Myself...
And
This season,
To seek out something
Missing.

It feels like betrayal.
It’s happened
Before,
When I found myself
Frozen
In time,
In November.

But, should these waters stop
Flowing,
Should moon rays turn to malice,
I find comfort in knowing
that
ice will refreeze these
Waters
making it less likely that I
Drown in them.

Margaret Stringham

(added 01.05.11)

editor's note: Warm heart, deep waters - maybe a good freeze is the best defense. Or, maybe we learn to swim and wait for Spring - mh

•••••••••••

A Buried Dream

Loading a dishwasher with plates,
Hanging shirts on a rope,
I do my best to appear relaxed
Mourning my secret hope.

A cleaning lady comes once a week,
The place stays neat for a day.
Returning from work I absently seek
To straighten the disarray.

In fifty years or hundred at most
Robots will do all the chores,
Cleaning and cooking for their host,
Preserving his time and force.

I can't partake from the future fruit
No matter how much I strive.
I load the dishes and cook the food
And bury my dream alive.

Irena Pasvinter

(1 poem added 01.04.11)

editor's note: Damn the insensitive bastards who pumped us full of these dreams! We should hang them! Filling our heads with ideas of future "time and force." Work, eat, sleep, wake, work! That's the way! Easy now, succumb to that rythym, take it in stride. Damn the creative outcasts who gave us all these dreams! We should call them poets! - mh

•••••••••••

TRAUMA MAN

Who am I? The other calls me Trauma Man. I hold shards of ineffable evil inside my psyche, a broken cauldron of boiling anguish. And I mourn for my shattered faith.

Once, I possessed absolute trust in the universe and Hashem, my G-d. Throughout my adolescence, the power of my faith protected me. Then I lost my last strands of strength, for my faith was severed from my being, like Samson’s hair cut off by the seductive Delilah. One day, a beautiful part of me died. And after this first death, I died again and again.

Now, I seize vanishing glimpses and vestiges of my ancient beliefs.

The Darkness calls me Trauma Man, for I hold it inside my Jewish soul, and slowly, insidiously it eats my Spirit, and soon, I look like an Auschwitz victim, naked and emaciated, only ghostly bones with a mask of death.

I no longer look human. But I am a person. Still, they say I resemble a ghost of Auschwitz who inhaled Zyklon B. After his death, his corpse was fed into an unholy fire. The Nazis waited for him to disappear inside the crematorium, his body defiled and humiliated before, during, and after death.

The other calls me Trauma Man. A dreamer, he has visions of beauty. My alter ego, he is the part of me who seemed to die over four decades ago. Yet he still exists in a corner of my wounded soul.

At night, I listen to the lonely silence that stretches across my dreamscape. I listen and sometimes he speaks to me about the splendid universe and Hashem, my G-d. And although I cling to the Darkness, he reveals holy truths. He evokes ancient memories. And for a few seconds, I recapture the faith I once possessed.

The Darkness calls me Trauma Man. I mourn for my shattered faith. Yet from time to time, my twin speaks to me and feeds me hope and an iota of faith. I eat his gifts. And my soul begins to heal.

They call me Trauma Man. But I am blessed, even though the Darkness consumes me. I believe. I sit quietly and wait for Hashem, my G-d.

Mel Waldman

(2 poems added 01.03.11)

editor's note: As we embark upon another journey through another new year, filled with new opportunities, may we find our twin to feed us hope and faith, lest we starve. If we have grown too weak or have lost our way, then may our twin find us. Thanks, Dr. Mel! (See this poem's [older?] brother on Mel Waldman's poetry page - another good one from Dr. Mel!) - mh

•••••••••••

Backyard Animals

At night, they feast on the earthworms in the rich, brown soil
They defecate quietly in even rows in the center of the backyard grass,
play ding -dong ditch at the back door, interrupting
any hope you had of a decent night’s sleep.
They make a teeter-totter with the rake across one of their backs.

They play poker in your best dress shirts they pull from the clothesline
Your neighbors call in wonder of their behavior
but since you did not invite them you can only throw up your hands,
sob into your cereal when you see their leftovers
scattered across the browning lawn in the mornings after.

The sky is a bare midriff lying on a beach.
There is nothing but wispy clouds and sun and it all seems to profligate their
delinquent behavior.
There are no handcuffs, there are no straightjackets
just grass, and seed, and wings.

Their cigar butts and domino tiles collect in the bushes where they’ve been
tossed
and they ridicule you with their lisping tongues as they uncap another beer
they’ve stolen from the garage fridge.
They soothe the cracked skin on the bottoms of their feet
in the bird bath
After midnight they use the tiki torches
to stoke a fire in the pit
as they smile at you menacingly through the screen door.
If only they’d take their meds regularly, none of this would happen.

They never leave a party at the right time.
One is always left trailing behind,
overgrown toenails scratching the cement pavers as they
scurry away.

You find an empty lipstick case and compact in the dirt next to the garden gate
try hard not to imagine what happened there,
but
knowing them all for the flirts they are,
you can’t help but imagine an accurate picture.

You wonder, you wish

you pray for migration.

Tamara Trujillo

(added 01.02.11)

editor's note: There goes the neighborhood! One animal to another, I'm headin' for the 'burbs - they have bigger yards there. - 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...

Ultimately Peaceful,

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

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