The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 08.06.11

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T. S. Eliot


Drifting (above) by featured artist and fellow mad one, Joseph A. Garrison, one of over 20 artists currently coloring the virtual walls in Mad Swirl's eclectic electronic collective Mad Gallery. We know you'll wanna see more fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you will GO!

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This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we started with a good look after ideal-driven tonsorial transitory self-tweaks; we were born along for a fragrant fraction of time in an angel's slipstream; we fact-checked our hunting dog sense of world and self; we languored in listless lethargy, avoiding the sharpness of life for the softness of dreams; we cooled our brows in a grandmother mist and stepped out our legacy for animals and objects to read when we're gone; we dodged a drench and stymied a stench to partake in the pleasures of a well-earned hand-job; lastly, we pondered the proprieties of the celestial freeway, where getting there first justifies all the jostles and jabs we take at our fellow speeders through space. We went from a moon-like head to a head-trip moon - what a week!

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

The First One into Space is Often the Last to Say Please

Addition and subtraction
could never prepare me for the ovens
of the world.

Black and white
is how Bogart picked up girls
with screenwriters' lines
piano side,

while Elvis swivelled his Graceland hips
and Eisenhower spied on the Russians.

The first one into space
is often the last to say:

please.

Ever since kindergarten
I've been trying for maternity leave.

- Ryan Quinn Flanagan

(2 poems added 08.06.11)

editor's note: The race to space ran a course devoid of propriety, there was excessive celebrating in the endzone of the Sea of Tranquility - penalties were assigned. They brought back rocks and trophies - winners don't have to say "please". (Another crazy one from Ryan on his page - check it out.) - mh

Escaping Disgrace

Sub sequential prize derives from a condoned fricative dive.
Futile to the newborn smile, derived an angle from
the pre tense marine drench now risen immense.
Placate the inquisitive stench with a squint of horizon
bliss enjoyment from the crisp of the sunset dip.
Astound on teams of impeding please, amplified to the branch of placid physique.
Never lose the fear of heights, that sight inspires might,
build that fright a ladder and climb past demise.
Eclipse the ever expensive debt and brevity will take shine reciprocating dispensed sighs.
Like an oriental massage, make pleasure the job.

- Avery Zaduk

(added 08.05.11)

editor's note: Yes! No disgrace in that; reciprocated sighs, ladders climbed out of fright - sounds like pleasure to me! - mh

FOOTSTEPS

It was a beautiful rain,
like grandmother fingers
massaging my face.

The mist was a gentle language;
liquid words from a gray heaven of
tumbling clouds.

My footsteps lay marked on the lawn,
a message of my passing
to a stone wall and the field
beyond.

- Roger G. Singer

(1 poem added 08.04.11)

editor's note: Hmmmm, makes one wonder, is the message of our passing understood in the way we mean it? - mh

Opium Dreams

everybody looks so strange underwater
lukewarm skin to scratch off in silence
sweat & smile—i raise my creature head
& light a cigarette, waking from the dream

i lost my mind in streams of nausea
found the truth on rotten streets
(alleycat—where are you going tonight?
looking for love)

sad eternity in a glass skull
i can't move my mouth to communicate

same as me,

right now i feel—holy & dumb
trying to find a beast in the abyss

you shined a light in my face
i laughed—sick & confused
i can't leave my plastic womb
the other side hurts my eyes

i'm picking up pieces of my personality
my heart breaks every day when i wake up
i can't stand this world of knives
i'd rather take drugs & stay at home

- Ray Barklow

(added 08.03.11)

editor's note: Knives everywhere, sharp and slicing, the slit of the eye, the slash of the mouth. Yes, better to dream than to chance the cutting of knives. - mh

THE UNWINDING

Hedgehogs have changed little
over the last 15 million years.
We could drink to that.
A balloon can rise
at the rate of 1,000 meters
every ten minutes if filled
with sufficient hydrogen.
That must be accurate,
considering sufficiency
is as open as air, being
nothing specific such as
the sidewinder is native
to no Northern habitat.
Some facts are wild boars found
in pine forests, others akin
to plumage of a partridge brought
down by pellets and carried
between the teeth of a spaniel
to the hunter at the edge of daylight.

- William Page

(1 poem added 08.02.11)

editor's note: Some facts don't tally to any corporate bottom line, but in the corporeal tally, at the "edge of daylight", the facts outnumber our faculties to comprehend them all. (William Page joins our congress of Contributing Poets with this submission - check out his new page!) - mh

IN THE AIR, AS YOU WERE WALKING BY

Eloquently exiting fragrances fill~
The displacement of your surrounding air;
These full flavors swim by my will~
Dancing in the heart of chaos with care…

Memories made of this momentary space~
Become a spice within the perfect sort;
Entwined with a ribbon of Angel’s lace~
And invisible flights of passion, too short.

- Michael R. King

(1 poem added 08.01.11)

editor's note: Too short, indeed! Go on, lean in, take a big whiff - can't put a smell that good in a bottle. Gotta sniff it while you can! - mh

Unnatural disasters

Last time I shaved my head, it was to protest
a war, hacking the waist-length mane
in a display no politician would see.

In Binghamton and Albany, I was buzzed
most of the time; never let it grow
long enough to sacrifice.

I’ll likely lop off the locks
inching down my back to clothe
some terminal kid’s naked head or
soak up spilled oil; to sell if I get laid off.

Another year, it might be chemo
that bares my scalp. At least I know
I look good bald, with my shapely skull.

- Sari Krosinsky

(added 07.31.11)

editor's note: Through thick or thin, it pays to know how you'll see and how you'll look. - 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...

Explorin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

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