The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 03.19.11
“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” Albert Einstein
Inamorate (above) by featured artist, Kiki Curry, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery.
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... well, first there was the lamp-post mage to tweak our sluggish perceptions of heavenly imparts, in time to prepare us for a dissertation on the writer's process and the dimpled digit, which sharpened our scalpels to dissect a dance in delirium, rubbed us raw enough to vulnerably embrace the abrasions love inflicts, which was not sufficient to save us from further observations on the cosmology and morphology of love, or insulate our salacious psyches from seduction into second-best, lastly leaving us weak and raw to feel the deep heart-thrum joy-sadness that comes from executing a truly unselfish act; for this we must, the future holds our hopes/need for reciprocation. (Thanks you, poets all!)
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
•••••••••••
Confessions on your Eleven Days of Dying
On your last days when I pretended
not to know the horror you were living
through every time you pointed your finger
towards the half-light; your knucklebone
trembling with might, like the golden
plover marking its homeward course?
a shearwater navigation of aerodynamic
grace, while I gazed out the window
remembering a place of blue hydrangeas
and singing towers with their unfailing
beauty as if that vision could erase the scene
before me or the broken-hum of gurgling
while I lifted you up for your scheduled dose;
a thimbleful of morpheme where no opposing
wind or daughter’s selfishness could delay
the hurried wingbeats in your final hours of flying.
- Carol Lynn Grellas
(added 03.19.11)
editor's note: Just the smallest sound proffered, the tiniest word, or idea that can be comprehended through dying ear-holes. Gently weaned from life; free to enter, cold-turkey, into the next. - mh
•••••••••••
Returning Your Things
He told me I was terrible at washing dishes,
held the fork up towards the dirty window.
See the egg, he said showing me the residue
painted on the tines.
I had to rewash them all, he says.
I don’t say anything
because last night
he talked about his ex-girlfriend
for so long he started to cry.
He told me how they were going to get married
and she packed up one day
while he was in class
and disappeared.
He suspects it was Arizona she went to,
and tells me when we graduate, we can go there too.
He pulls me close to him at night
just to have something to push away in the morning.
Later, I will come by when he is in class.
And leave his t-shirt with this roommate.
He’s just messed up, the roommate tells me.
I nod and hand over his things, wanting
to be anywhere but in this dirty hallway.
The living room is filled with
the blue grey light of the television,
that most unnatural light,
and it casts the roommate in silhouette.
You should have said yes when I asked you out, the roommate tells me,
taking the t-shirt.
I can make you happy, he says.
He takes my hand,
gently,
rubs the inside of my wrist,
like a beloved pet
and puts it on his hard cock,
Come inside, he says.
Please! and then my name,
And then,
please,
softer
- Ally Malinenko
(1 poem added 03.18.11)
editor's note: Moving from one's mess to another's; picking up, dropping off. Allowing to be picked, to keep from falling. Love, love, love - so lazy, lackluster... let me off here, please. - mh
•••••••••••
Ode to Footsteps
Of day’s slumber the thud of discordant footsteps
Scream like your cold embrace I loathed always
The shadow of night tearing apart the unguarded heart
The scattered yellowish leaves finally smirk for not being lonely
The cold winds twitch the bones of love
Jeering louder than sounds from brokenhearted homes
Take a knife and cut the nerves of entanglement
Nerves of this bonded love
A tree in ripening winter with naked branches
Cut it and blood rushes out without a scream
We wear our masks and pretend to love each other
While we are busy cutting our branches
Bleeding without screams
In the distance I hear the footsteps moaning, choking
Longing for love that didn’t grow
Wasn’t it you that cut the branches of love?
- Arun Budhathoki
(1 poem added 03.17.11)
editor's note: It's not easy to grow love. Careful now, the pruning blade. Cut too deep, and love dies. Woe is love! - mh
•••••••••••
True Romance
The choices we fall into for romance
Must be why they call the moon-touched lunatics.
We let all sense escape us, give in to chance
Seduced, junkies, into hunger for a fix
Belief, a bedfellow strange to reason's well-trod path,
In fairytale ever after lovers twain
Well-schooled, trained in logic, adept in math
Yet we shed it all to hop that mythic train
Expose our tender souls to cruel deceit
And maybe violence, maybe wounds that slowly kill
Yet we run into destruction, foreswear retreat
For the chance, the hope, the ecstasy, the thrill.
- Laurie Corzett
(1 poem added 03.16.11)
editor's note: Yes, we are addicts, indeed. Scrounging our fortunes to buy a ticket on that train. All aboard! - mh
•••••••••••
Peak
a chemical enclosure, taut.
i watch me lose into their
face. on the bank with
the dancing sand spiders and the
naturally unarranged flowers, our silly
games lead up to All of God
watching the two of us, as if
the cliff walls were grandstands
sold out to every
critter flower plant and
mineral,
the performance leaving
us speechless.
Life's peak cut a bit out of
everyone's guts and placed it neatly
in front of them for viewing
purposes. maybe it was more
of an experimental surgery, with
all the leading doctors witnessing,
but the sand sure
felt more like a stage under
our knees than an operating
table.
the chemicals
release and, 'was it just
the costume rehearsal?' the
surgical blade cut my work
out for me.
- Michael Sullivan
(added 03.15.11)
editor's note: Everytime, we pique before the peak. Everytime, it's just within view; but the air's too thin and the blade cuts too deep. We descend, holding our newly eviscerated guts in a crystal jar for future examination. Life is chemically induced. - mh
•••••••••••
Old Dogs (Transcribed from Handwritten Notes, of Course)
I miss inkwells
even though I've never used one
Some writers
many maybe
don't write
anymore
They type
They're TYPERS
Well I'm a fucking WRITER
Pen and ink
smudged paper
crinkly noises
bent corners
indentation on my middle finger
writer
And old dogs like me
are dying out
Emerson left a million pages
of journals
Twain's hand-drawn scribbles
cover his manuscripts
Evidence of process
But where
I ask you
in this digital age
Is the evidence
that a writer's mind
(or fingers)
were ever at work?
(It's all deleted)
My mistakes are still here
my old ideas
my discarded thoughts
They're all still here
just waiting
under covers
for someone to find them
- Richard F. Yates
(2 poems added 03.14.11)
editor's note: Yeah, Buddy! Is that a callous on your finger or are you just glad to read me? (Glad to read Richard in his first offering to the Swirl this year - see another one, about safe driving and eternity, on his page.) - mh
•••••••••••
2ND THROUGH 11TH
Look up.
There’s a portrait of you
among the clouds.
The song of your heart
is written
on the skyline.
Your life story
is in every condominium unit
lit up from within,
glowing with promise
through the sheer curtains
on the windows.
You know that sun up there?
It loves you passionately.
It longs to watch you
smile and close your eyes,
slowly,
so it can rest on your lashes
and caress your eyelids.
Look up and
there’s a message for you
whispering through the trees.
The birds may be trying
to pass on a prophecy.
The geometric perspective
of the length and angle
of that lamp post
holds a mystical secret
you might be given
the privilege to share.
The next epiphany
could be a blood relative
of the appearance
of the first star,
so look for it.
Take the time to look up,
when you walk
from the office
to the bus stop,
and find yourself.
Discover who you are
exactly where you are
because you may not
be able to afford
the fast and fancy cars
they drive in,
but they can’t afford
to slow down
and see
the scenery
you’re seeing.
And you have to be there
for that beauty.
Give it justice.
Look up.
- Iris Orprecio
(added 03.13.11)
editor's note: Yes! Agreed!!! We are missing sublime messages if we concentrate only on street signs and the billboards, ignorant of trees and starling swarms. Thank you, Iris! This is encouraging! - 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...
Hazily Crazy,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Inamorate (above) by featured artist, Kiki Curry, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery.
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... well, first there was the lamp-post mage to tweak our sluggish perceptions of heavenly imparts, in time to prepare us for a dissertation on the writer's process and the dimpled digit, which sharpened our scalpels to dissect a dance in delirium, rubbed us raw enough to vulnerably embrace the abrasions love inflicts, which was not sufficient to save us from further observations on the cosmology and morphology of love, or insulate our salacious psyches from seduction into second-best, lastly leaving us weak and raw to feel the deep heart-thrum joy-sadness that comes from executing a truly unselfish act; for this we must, the future holds our hopes/need for reciprocation. (Thanks you, poets all!)
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
•••••••••••
Confessions on your Eleven Days of Dying
On your last days when I pretended
not to know the horror you were living
through every time you pointed your finger
towards the half-light; your knucklebone
trembling with might, like the golden
plover marking its homeward course?
a shearwater navigation of aerodynamic
grace, while I gazed out the window
remembering a place of blue hydrangeas
and singing towers with their unfailing
beauty as if that vision could erase the scene
before me or the broken-hum of gurgling
while I lifted you up for your scheduled dose;
a thimbleful of morpheme where no opposing
wind or daughter’s selfishness could delay
the hurried wingbeats in your final hours of flying.
- Carol Lynn Grellas
(added 03.19.11)
editor's note: Just the smallest sound proffered, the tiniest word, or idea that can be comprehended through dying ear-holes. Gently weaned from life; free to enter, cold-turkey, into the next. - mh
•••••••••••
Returning Your Things
He told me I was terrible at washing dishes,
held the fork up towards the dirty window.
See the egg, he said showing me the residue
painted on the tines.
I had to rewash them all, he says.
I don’t say anything
because last night
he talked about his ex-girlfriend
for so long he started to cry.
He told me how they were going to get married
and she packed up one day
while he was in class
and disappeared.
He suspects it was Arizona she went to,
and tells me when we graduate, we can go there too.
He pulls me close to him at night
just to have something to push away in the morning.
Later, I will come by when he is in class.
And leave his t-shirt with this roommate.
He’s just messed up, the roommate tells me.
I nod and hand over his things, wanting
to be anywhere but in this dirty hallway.
The living room is filled with
the blue grey light of the television,
that most unnatural light,
and it casts the roommate in silhouette.
You should have said yes when I asked you out, the roommate tells me,
taking the t-shirt.
I can make you happy, he says.
He takes my hand,
gently,
rubs the inside of my wrist,
like a beloved pet
and puts it on his hard cock,
Come inside, he says.
Please! and then my name,
And then,
please,
softer
- Ally Malinenko
(1 poem added 03.18.11)
editor's note: Moving from one's mess to another's; picking up, dropping off. Allowing to be picked, to keep from falling. Love, love, love - so lazy, lackluster... let me off here, please. - mh
•••••••••••
Ode to Footsteps
Of day’s slumber the thud of discordant footsteps
Scream like your cold embrace I loathed always
The shadow of night tearing apart the unguarded heart
The scattered yellowish leaves finally smirk for not being lonely
The cold winds twitch the bones of love
Jeering louder than sounds from brokenhearted homes
Take a knife and cut the nerves of entanglement
Nerves of this bonded love
A tree in ripening winter with naked branches
Cut it and blood rushes out without a scream
We wear our masks and pretend to love each other
While we are busy cutting our branches
Bleeding without screams
In the distance I hear the footsteps moaning, choking
Longing for love that didn’t grow
Wasn’t it you that cut the branches of love?
- Arun Budhathoki
(1 poem added 03.17.11)
editor's note: It's not easy to grow love. Careful now, the pruning blade. Cut too deep, and love dies. Woe is love! - mh
•••••••••••
True Romance
The choices we fall into for romance
Must be why they call the moon-touched lunatics.
We let all sense escape us, give in to chance
Seduced, junkies, into hunger for a fix
Belief, a bedfellow strange to reason's well-trod path,
In fairytale ever after lovers twain
Well-schooled, trained in logic, adept in math
Yet we shed it all to hop that mythic train
Expose our tender souls to cruel deceit
And maybe violence, maybe wounds that slowly kill
Yet we run into destruction, foreswear retreat
For the chance, the hope, the ecstasy, the thrill.
- Laurie Corzett
(1 poem added 03.16.11)
editor's note: Yes, we are addicts, indeed. Scrounging our fortunes to buy a ticket on that train. All aboard! - mh
•••••••••••
Peak
a chemical enclosure, taut.
i watch me lose into their
face. on the bank with
the dancing sand spiders and the
naturally unarranged flowers, our silly
games lead up to All of God
watching the two of us, as if
the cliff walls were grandstands
sold out to every
critter flower plant and
mineral,
the performance leaving
us speechless.
Life's peak cut a bit out of
everyone's guts and placed it neatly
in front of them for viewing
purposes. maybe it was more
of an experimental surgery, with
all the leading doctors witnessing,
but the sand sure
felt more like a stage under
our knees than an operating
table.
the chemicals
release and, 'was it just
the costume rehearsal?' the
surgical blade cut my work
out for me.
- Michael Sullivan
(added 03.15.11)
editor's note: Everytime, we pique before the peak. Everytime, it's just within view; but the air's too thin and the blade cuts too deep. We descend, holding our newly eviscerated guts in a crystal jar for future examination. Life is chemically induced. - mh
•••••••••••
Old Dogs (Transcribed from Handwritten Notes, of Course)
I miss inkwells
even though I've never used one
Some writers
many maybe
don't write
anymore
They type
They're TYPERS
Well I'm a fucking WRITER
Pen and ink
smudged paper
crinkly noises
bent corners
indentation on my middle finger
writer
And old dogs like me
are dying out
Emerson left a million pages
of journals
Twain's hand-drawn scribbles
cover his manuscripts
Evidence of process
But where
I ask you
in this digital age
Is the evidence
that a writer's mind
(or fingers)
were ever at work?
(It's all deleted)
My mistakes are still here
my old ideas
my discarded thoughts
They're all still here
just waiting
under covers
for someone to find them
- Richard F. Yates
(2 poems added 03.14.11)
editor's note: Yeah, Buddy! Is that a callous on your finger or are you just glad to read me? (Glad to read Richard in his first offering to the Swirl this year - see another one, about safe driving and eternity, on his page.) - mh
•••••••••••
2ND THROUGH 11TH
Look up.
There’s a portrait of you
among the clouds.
The song of your heart
is written
on the skyline.
Your life story
is in every condominium unit
lit up from within,
glowing with promise
through the sheer curtains
on the windows.
You know that sun up there?
It loves you passionately.
It longs to watch you
smile and close your eyes,
slowly,
so it can rest on your lashes
and caress your eyelids.
Look up and
there’s a message for you
whispering through the trees.
The birds may be trying
to pass on a prophecy.
The geometric perspective
of the length and angle
of that lamp post
holds a mystical secret
you might be given
the privilege to share.
The next epiphany
could be a blood relative
of the appearance
of the first star,
so look for it.
Take the time to look up,
when you walk
from the office
to the bus stop,
and find yourself.
Discover who you are
exactly where you are
because you may not
be able to afford
the fast and fancy cars
they drive in,
but they can’t afford
to slow down
and see
the scenery
you’re seeing.
And you have to be there
for that beauty.
Give it justice.
Look up.
- Iris Orprecio
(added 03.13.11)
editor's note: Yes! Agreed!!! We are missing sublime messages if we concentrate only on street signs and the billboards, ignorant of trees and starling swarms. Thank you, Iris! This is encouraging! - 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...
Hazily Crazy,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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