The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 04.09.11
“Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” Henry Miller
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were approached with an off-season admittance of disengagement in holiday hijinx based on the recognition of what lies behind, followed by an appeal to open our eyes to everything else, then two odes to eyes specific, those of the poet and those of the childhood memory, to the look of the self-satisfied lothario musing over a titillating tryst, looked again from the inside out into eyes that see our indifference, then lastly looked at an amazed late mate come home to judgment but blessed instead with a wonderful reward.
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
•••••••••••
Home Honey, I'm High
Days end. Eight hours of insults, half a life of escaping, I head to the casino where I reside. Grime sliding from hallway walls, muffles the reverberations of maggot memories. My welcome mat.
Who will be there this time? Soft and smooth, with my heart held in velvet hands, or am I stepping in to a den of madness, where vise like teeth trap wicked words, that wait to gnash at the last remnants of my soul?
Turning the knob to nothing means nothing. Vile can sit as silent as an autumn moon. I enter because I live here. I Love here. I die here, yet I can avoid it no more than I can a sneeze.
Emboldened from hours behind a glass, braced, I turn my key and am struck. Odors of unknown origin, confront what’s left of my senses after years of intake. Fixating blurry sockets to what, I can’t tell. Sights not seen play out before me. A shadow of a leg, oily and slanted, draped at odd angle. Arms crossed in repose. Lips, plum and pursed, suggesting. Inviting. Caught
between Pall Mall marred fingers, a note.
Kids are at your Mom’s, phones off the hook and dinner is on the sofa.
- Rob Dyer
(3 poems added 04.09.11)
editor's note: Mis-guided grace, capricious intervention - to spin the wheel and watch the white ball tumble right onto your lucky number. This is the gamble that breeds addiction. - mh
•••••••••••
SHE SUFFERS
A delicate heart. Magnolia soft,
scented by angels; she looks deep
with eyes into the pools of man.
Long city tendrils wrap tight her
waist; she walks secure on streets
absent of homes.
Her footsteps echo a jazzy beat while
She sings strong words into
abandoned air.
She is a symphony for those without.
Her game has no rules.
She suffers well.
- Roger G. Singer
(1 poem added 04.08.11)
editor's note: Such is contagious, a tear is brought to every eye. We see her, don't see her, every day. There, but for our fill-in-the-blank idealogical faith blinders, go we. - mh
•••••••••••
Orgiastic Crosswalk
Dusk on Broadway, you were
forlorn at the Condor
doors spread-eagled, open, splayed
on the corner—
something lost.
forgotten.
like the Garden of Eden
an easy step across the street
glowing neon screaming, please,
Easier to remember the feeling than the face
but maybe it’s better to forget,
to rise with the fog
not as you were roused
the night before, with legs
neck-twined and trying
to please—attempts better
saved for lives
better spent.
But mornings could not be livelier walked
because newness is relative
and innocence only nightly lost.
So smiling at pedestrians,
the too-serious small girl
in the felt panda hat,
Velcro chin-strapped,
feels natural on your aging face
although last night,
almost-sated on-the-cusp thirst-slaking near-full,
unquenchable,
you fucked her grown-up
counterpart.
- Catherine McQuade
(added 04.07.11)
editor's note: Caught, red-faced and red-handed, we are the old and worn sun-baked face, trying to conceal our memory of a long, lascivious pull from the brim of the cup of life. There is our veritable fountain of youth. (Now, wipe your chin and get moving.) - mh
•••••••••••
A Man on the Stair
First floor, second, up I run,
Here he is, the familiar man,
Always there, between
The second floor and the third.
Cracks in the stone stair
Portray him, visible only to me,
I never fail to meet
His eyeless stare.
Third floor, second, first,
Down I went, never turning back,
Continents away,
No regrets, no despair,
No cracks in the stairs,
I use an elevator today.
Why then if I drift
Toward the past,
To the shabby house
Of my childhood years,
The first face I see
Is him, always there,
Etched on the stone stair.
I never fail to meet
His eyeless stare.
- Irena Pasvinter
(1 poem added 04.06.11)
editor's note: Hard to shake those childhood terrors. Real, for we make them so. Eyes that stare, whistles in the dark. - mh
•••••••••••
A pair of his pensive eyes
Plunged into an azure depth
Wishing to know some how
Flight enigmatic searching life after life
Where you can not reach to strife
Wind he is of desert blows the sand
Moved the world with an errand.
His only devotion may freeze your life
Inspiration to the eloquence oh! poet
Taken away to the never land
Thousands entreat they fail to persuade I am awake
Many a reclusion dream to dream
Staring to the house of a woodpecker
End of a reverie into a question ask
Who will understand his eyes?
Stretching from horizon to horizon
Into a thought of strange journey
Leading me into a lost solitude
And formation of a visual answer
Comes into existing words
Where my effort in contradiction
Finds a feather of a poet
And familiar pain of an artist.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(added 04.05.11)
editor's note: Whether we grope in the darkness or run in the light, turns of sun and moon do not determine the extent of our illumination or the smoothness of our path. Look in to look out! - mh
•••••••••••
Breathing Fire
Heaven on Earth?
Mama don't cry
babies gone exploring
so give him a wide
berth
He travels Lucid through this
American Dream
Vigil as a vanguard upon the hillside
Baby spreads his dreaming wings
to soar the waves of existential thought
Hunting for meaning
Hoping
Alternative knowledge shall show the truth
that science and religion wishes they could find through study and blind eyes.
Only to keep secret what is discovered.
Baby seeks to know more
as Science seeks to disprove so many internal truths
but results in proving their existence anyway
Let them remove their perspective lenses to see
what is actually there.
View the portrait from all angles
Inside and out
before calling it a fraud.
Listen to the words of millions
This year baby can see that the universal conscious
has finally opened pandora's box
hundreds and thousands of stories being published,
written, spoken, and viewed
all revealing
in not so hidden messages the truth we'll all see
with lids pealed back in awe of sights often imagined
but rarely if ever
truly seen with opened eyes
such as these
Heaven on Earth
it'll soon be clear
If you open your mind
you'll see it all there.
- Wes Chambers
(added 04.04.11)
editor's note: Clearest is the sight of life seen through new-born eyes. Who says we need to be told what to think of what we see for the first time? Go, Baby, Go! - mh
•••••••••••
NO IN MY NOEL
I learned at an early age
What happens to all snowmen,
Why the fake beards
As I sat upon his lap
And took his hard candy.
Now there is only no in my noel.
But I fool them in my
Berry reds and holly greens
Perpetual as prize ribbons
Now New Years breaks with bad breath
While the world awaits with
Its perfect white teeth, I run like a gnome.
- Clinton Van Inman
(added 04.03.11)
editor's note: "Please, I beg you; I will endeavor to keep the Spirits of the Past, the Present and the Future in my heart throughout the year. Only, spare me, spare me." - Ebeneezer Scrooge
•••••••••••
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...
Forgetting Ourselves,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were approached with an off-season admittance of disengagement in holiday hijinx based on the recognition of what lies behind, followed by an appeal to open our eyes to everything else, then two odes to eyes specific, those of the poet and those of the childhood memory, to the look of the self-satisfied lothario musing over a titillating tryst, looked again from the inside out into eyes that see our indifference, then lastly looked at an amazed late mate come home to judgment but blessed instead with a wonderful reward.
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
•••••••••••
Home Honey, I'm High
Days end. Eight hours of insults, half a life of escaping, I head to the casino where I reside. Grime sliding from hallway walls, muffles the reverberations of maggot memories. My welcome mat.
Who will be there this time? Soft and smooth, with my heart held in velvet hands, or am I stepping in to a den of madness, where vise like teeth trap wicked words, that wait to gnash at the last remnants of my soul?
Turning the knob to nothing means nothing. Vile can sit as silent as an autumn moon. I enter because I live here. I Love here. I die here, yet I can avoid it no more than I can a sneeze.
Emboldened from hours behind a glass, braced, I turn my key and am struck. Odors of unknown origin, confront what’s left of my senses after years of intake. Fixating blurry sockets to what, I can’t tell. Sights not seen play out before me. A shadow of a leg, oily and slanted, draped at odd angle. Arms crossed in repose. Lips, plum and pursed, suggesting. Inviting. Caught
between Pall Mall marred fingers, a note.
Kids are at your Mom’s, phones off the hook and dinner is on the sofa.
- Rob Dyer
(3 poems added 04.09.11)
editor's note: Mis-guided grace, capricious intervention - to spin the wheel and watch the white ball tumble right onto your lucky number. This is the gamble that breeds addiction. - mh
•••••••••••
SHE SUFFERS
A delicate heart. Magnolia soft,
scented by angels; she looks deep
with eyes into the pools of man.
Long city tendrils wrap tight her
waist; she walks secure on streets
absent of homes.
Her footsteps echo a jazzy beat while
She sings strong words into
abandoned air.
She is a symphony for those without.
Her game has no rules.
She suffers well.
- Roger G. Singer
(1 poem added 04.08.11)
editor's note: Such is contagious, a tear is brought to every eye. We see her, don't see her, every day. There, but for our fill-in-the-blank idealogical faith blinders, go we. - mh
•••••••••••
Orgiastic Crosswalk
Dusk on Broadway, you were
forlorn at the Condor
doors spread-eagled, open, splayed
on the corner—
something lost.
forgotten.
like the Garden of Eden
an easy step across the street
glowing neon screaming, please,
Easier to remember the feeling than the face
but maybe it’s better to forget,
to rise with the fog
not as you were roused
the night before, with legs
neck-twined and trying
to please—attempts better
saved for lives
better spent.
But mornings could not be livelier walked
because newness is relative
and innocence only nightly lost.
So smiling at pedestrians,
the too-serious small girl
in the felt panda hat,
Velcro chin-strapped,
feels natural on your aging face
although last night,
almost-sated on-the-cusp thirst-slaking near-full,
unquenchable,
you fucked her grown-up
counterpart.
- Catherine McQuade
(added 04.07.11)
editor's note: Caught, red-faced and red-handed, we are the old and worn sun-baked face, trying to conceal our memory of a long, lascivious pull from the brim of the cup of life. There is our veritable fountain of youth. (Now, wipe your chin and get moving.) - mh
•••••••••••
A Man on the Stair
First floor, second, up I run,
Here he is, the familiar man,
Always there, between
The second floor and the third.
Cracks in the stone stair
Portray him, visible only to me,
I never fail to meet
His eyeless stare.
Third floor, second, first,
Down I went, never turning back,
Continents away,
No regrets, no despair,
No cracks in the stairs,
I use an elevator today.
Why then if I drift
Toward the past,
To the shabby house
Of my childhood years,
The first face I see
Is him, always there,
Etched on the stone stair.
I never fail to meet
His eyeless stare.
- Irena Pasvinter
(1 poem added 04.06.11)
editor's note: Hard to shake those childhood terrors. Real, for we make them so. Eyes that stare, whistles in the dark. - mh
•••••••••••
A pair of his pensive eyes
Plunged into an azure depth
Wishing to know some how
Flight enigmatic searching life after life
Where you can not reach to strife
Wind he is of desert blows the sand
Moved the world with an errand.
His only devotion may freeze your life
Inspiration to the eloquence oh! poet
Taken away to the never land
Thousands entreat they fail to persuade I am awake
Many a reclusion dream to dream
Staring to the house of a woodpecker
End of a reverie into a question ask
Who will understand his eyes?
Stretching from horizon to horizon
Into a thought of strange journey
Leading me into a lost solitude
And formation of a visual answer
Comes into existing words
Where my effort in contradiction
Finds a feather of a poet
And familiar pain of an artist.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(added 04.05.11)
editor's note: Whether we grope in the darkness or run in the light, turns of sun and moon do not determine the extent of our illumination or the smoothness of our path. Look in to look out! - mh
•••••••••••
Breathing Fire
Heaven on Earth?
Mama don't cry
babies gone exploring
so give him a wide
berth
He travels Lucid through this
American Dream
Vigil as a vanguard upon the hillside
Baby spreads his dreaming wings
to soar the waves of existential thought
Hunting for meaning
Hoping
Alternative knowledge shall show the truth
that science and religion wishes they could find through study and blind eyes.
Only to keep secret what is discovered.
Baby seeks to know more
as Science seeks to disprove so many internal truths
but results in proving their existence anyway
Let them remove their perspective lenses to see
what is actually there.
View the portrait from all angles
Inside and out
before calling it a fraud.
Listen to the words of millions
This year baby can see that the universal conscious
has finally opened pandora's box
hundreds and thousands of stories being published,
written, spoken, and viewed
all revealing
in not so hidden messages the truth we'll all see
with lids pealed back in awe of sights often imagined
but rarely if ever
truly seen with opened eyes
such as these
Heaven on Earth
it'll soon be clear
If you open your mind
you'll see it all there.
- Wes Chambers
(added 04.04.11)
editor's note: Clearest is the sight of life seen through new-born eyes. Who says we need to be told what to think of what we see for the first time? Go, Baby, Go! - mh
•••••••••••
NO IN MY NOEL
I learned at an early age
What happens to all snowmen,
Why the fake beards
As I sat upon his lap
And took his hard candy.
Now there is only no in my noel.
But I fool them in my
Berry reds and holly greens
Perpetual as prize ribbons
Now New Years breaks with bad breath
While the world awaits with
Its perfect white teeth, I run like a gnome.
- Clinton Van Inman
(added 04.03.11)
editor's note: "Please, I beg you; I will endeavor to keep the Spirits of the Past, the Present and the Future in my heart throughout the year. Only, spare me, spare me." - Ebeneezer Scrooge
•••••••••••
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...
Forgetting Ourselves,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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