The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 08.27.11
"I hoped that the trip would be the best of all journeys: a journey into ourselves" Shirley MacLaine
Red Graffiti (above) by featured artist and fellow mad one, Ana Vohryze, 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!
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... was a head-tweaker from front to back; first, we unmasked the mysteries faced in various containers - honey box, toy box, idiot box; we found a natural shelter from separation anxiety; then we got rained out; we pondered and wandered the length and breadth of the thing, suffered no cuts on its silk edge; we worried the treatment team over lost dreams, lost memory, lost tomorrows; then, we were called to own up to what we live, fine advice for the owners we are (likers or not); lastly, all was well, welcomed and back to a new beginning! I needed a good tweakin', you? - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Welcome Back
It's been awhile. It took a spell to feel well but now I'm back on track. Ol' Humpty Dumpty me fell off the wall carelessly and my broken pieces scattered thin and it took all the King's horses and forces to put me back together again. But, I am back...
I'm finding my heart again. Seems all I needed was a kick in the seat and just a little traction for my wayward feet. Now... I'm planted firmly (sorta) and my head's back on straight (kinda) and my mind ain't dwelling and cloudy and shouting at my sleeve bleeding heart which is finally starting to feel and thumping excitedly at all the possibilities awaiting me. The ticker was sick but not no more. What's opened up with all this reconstruction from its mass destruction is a bigger door! From my heart's shore to its other shore, from tip-top ceilings to down low floors! Now there's room for so much more. I am back my friends and ready to feel.
I'm finding my eyes again. I'm no longer staring at yesterday's whats, whys, whos and whens. I grew so tired seeing only yesterday's classes with half-filled glasses. Now I'm looking out and seeing what is presently. My eyes have longed to see the here and now... soaking in this urban scene, quietly chaotic and loudly serene seeing hot assed summer breezes waving dreamily to the pock-holed pavement, Tejano music bloating and fading, floating and falling, accordion chords ricocheting off these technicolor walls on this X+ street seeing all kinds of beat and diggin' on how beautiful it feels to see again. I am back my friends and ready to see.
I'm finding my ears again. All I kept hearing was chatter and lies, soul shaking sighs, breaking good-byes. But they opened up and I'm ready to sit and listen, to really hear, to perk up and give you my undivided attention and to fully absorb all these pictures you've been saying and praying and hoping just to be heard. Speak to my years, sing to my tears, shout to my fears, whisper in my ears, I hear you. I truly do. I am back my friends and ready to hear.
I'm finding my voice again. It was cracked and weak, ignored and meek. But it's no longer keeping quiet. I got some words that have been waiting to speak, patiently sitting and bidding their time to bounce out in shouts out of my mouth and pair up and make them some rhymes! I've saved up a few stories or two too, believe you me. And my shout is back on, along with my whisper, too. They've just been waiting for the right time to play and say... "The time is now!" because I am back my friends and ready to speak.
I'm finding that the finding finds me finding more doors. Discovering something everyday as I'm scratchin' at my surface. There's still a whole lot more of me left to explore in this quest of rediscovering all of me. But you know what I really feel? I feel back, my friends, and really feeling real.
- Johnny Olson
(1 poem added 08.27.11)
editor's note: Finding is so much sweeter after losing. Welcome back, indeed! Think I'll get reacquainted with myself, too. - mh
Owner
It takes a lot of livin’
To own the life
To buy it with dollars
And tears and fights
To love it for its beauty
Its scars and fears
Life’s too priceless to take the chance
To alter your course
Based on another man’s stance
Trust what you believe
Feel what you trust
To own your life
Knowing the debt’s been paid
No burden of assumptions or judging
Along the way
Freed from the collector
Of guilt and remorse
Freedom to live
Within the life of your course
- Denise Lumley
(1 poem added 08.26.11)
editor's note: Yeah, you got it, might as well own it! No matter what you have to pay, it's better than repo. (Let's welcome Denise to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets - see more of her poems on her new page.) - mh
TOMORROW NEVER COMES
I feel no pain. But I know something is wrong. I do not believe I will be here tomorrow. I don’t know where I’m going. But I’m prepared to let fate take its course. I have been having nightmares. Each time I disappear leaving no trace behind. Is it death or abduction? I cannot understand what it is. Perhaps your treatment team could unveil this mystery. I can’t claim to be a prophet, but I sense things. Something big is going to happen. I don’t know what. Please forgive me for being vague. Maybe I am not supposed to know my fate until the moment things go down. I am not one for surprises or predictions. I hope I am still here tomorrow. I just have an intuition that I will be gone, my memory wiped out, my dreams just dreams that never got off the ground. I want to say so long to everyone just in case tomorrow never comes for me. I could be wrong about everything. It won’t be the first time and certainly not the last. These nightmares give me bad headaches. Maybe something is in my brain that needs to be pulled out. I probably sound like I have some screw loose.
- Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
(1 poem added 08.25.11)
editor's note: I think the treatment team needs to get a hold of the extraction team to speed this rescue before the dream team shuts the whole thing down. I am getting... really... sleepy... - mh
A FULLY REALIZED NATURAL TECHNOLOGY
whether the meaning of the thing
is this way whether or not the design
or the method of the thing is known
those for whom it was owned are
the net and for the sake of the net
which is the net there is a nervous
irreversible life which really is not
avoided and the delicate pattern of
which is thought of so for whom it
was concerning is not because it is
known so in regard to the center of
it because it itself existed for that
being in order to make technical the
silk of the extreme edge which is
a fully realized natural technology
that evolved over millions of years
and to understand it simply and
exactly just examine the interlock for
which is made and inferred in the
system and you will learn that what
ever good you encounter will be in
and of itself and the device actually
does work it does work whether or
not it is actualized with the hand
- satnrose
(2 poems added 08.24.11)
editor's note: Yes, indeed; everything works whether we take it in hand or not! Net without end, amen! (Read another from satnrose on his page - a great way to prepare for the future; see it from the past.) - mh
Splattering of rain
Until it is late midnight
rain splatters into exhausted eardrums
and saturates the sleep,
What a headache, pal!
The noise is so exasperating – and unceasing,
One turns this way and that way –
reads for a while, but finds water dripping
from the book as well
onto his belly…
and cuddles up against the warm blanket
but the blanket is no wall in between –
- Haris Chand Adhikari
(added 08.23.11)
editor's note: ...and parentheses are no umbrella! - mh
Arbor on the Loop
Almond, ash, and linden leaves
drip droplet rains into our mouths,
asleep before the autumn wheat
when no one else is speaking
upon the fragrant park lane.
The hill folds open like a book
as couples lay like calligraphies
inside a wreath of garter snakes.
I buried a brown chicken egg
in a silver box beside the walk
then inside I later found
a little bone and feather grown
to prepare ourselves for separation.
Passings of foot stamp and hoof
dragged a metamorphosed road
over the arbor we shaded.
- John Swain
(1 poem added 08.22.11)
editor's note: Shade of tree, warmth of sun and droplets on the tongue take all the anxiety out of separation. - mh
a fiendish honey
a female talks
about what happens to beasts after death
and the music captures them:
craving to sit. hungering to dream
in the delinquent’s electric room.
the massacre girls are laughing about their
speed pleasures.
After dark they laugh about their sins.
All the while the hot night massacre
simmers under manhole covers
hiding the essential delights.
pleasure 1:
a heart of masks
vibrating surreptitiously as she smiles.
pleasure 2:
a heart of madness
driven into the gap between us
not hearing.
a fiendish honey
covers her face not wanting
to respond to the questions
but she knows the heat of revenge
that has her hooked.
the traffic girls behind her slowly recite
the disciplines of the island morgue discos
that lead to forensic fucking and
the pawned pleasures of the plastic store signs.
red honey
red juice
torture the overly ambitious
all the way home.
we’ll sleep in a toy box.
she asks for the television
to be switched off. sit in a corner.
fucked by time, we’ll talk about the anatomy
of the anonymous
- Peter Marra
(added 08.21.11)
editor's note: After the discussion grows old - massacres, heart masks and life anatomical - keep the remote handy! - 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...
Trippin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Red Graffiti (above) by featured artist and fellow mad one, Ana Vohryze, 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!
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... was a head-tweaker from front to back; first, we unmasked the mysteries faced in various containers - honey box, toy box, idiot box; we found a natural shelter from separation anxiety; then we got rained out; we pondered and wandered the length and breadth of the thing, suffered no cuts on its silk edge; we worried the treatment team over lost dreams, lost memory, lost tomorrows; then, we were called to own up to what we live, fine advice for the owners we are (likers or not); lastly, all was well, welcomed and back to a new beginning! I needed a good tweakin', you? - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Welcome Back
It's been awhile. It took a spell to feel well but now I'm back on track. Ol' Humpty Dumpty me fell off the wall carelessly and my broken pieces scattered thin and it took all the King's horses and forces to put me back together again. But, I am back...
I'm finding my heart again. Seems all I needed was a kick in the seat and just a little traction for my wayward feet. Now... I'm planted firmly (sorta) and my head's back on straight (kinda) and my mind ain't dwelling and cloudy and shouting at my sleeve bleeding heart which is finally starting to feel and thumping excitedly at all the possibilities awaiting me. The ticker was sick but not no more. What's opened up with all this reconstruction from its mass destruction is a bigger door! From my heart's shore to its other shore, from tip-top ceilings to down low floors! Now there's room for so much more. I am back my friends and ready to feel.
I'm finding my eyes again. I'm no longer staring at yesterday's whats, whys, whos and whens. I grew so tired seeing only yesterday's classes with half-filled glasses. Now I'm looking out and seeing what is presently. My eyes have longed to see the here and now... soaking in this urban scene, quietly chaotic and loudly serene seeing hot assed summer breezes waving dreamily to the pock-holed pavement, Tejano music bloating and fading, floating and falling, accordion chords ricocheting off these technicolor walls on this X+ street seeing all kinds of beat and diggin' on how beautiful it feels to see again. I am back my friends and ready to see.
I'm finding my ears again. All I kept hearing was chatter and lies, soul shaking sighs, breaking good-byes. But they opened up and I'm ready to sit and listen, to really hear, to perk up and give you my undivided attention and to fully absorb all these pictures you've been saying and praying and hoping just to be heard. Speak to my years, sing to my tears, shout to my fears, whisper in my ears, I hear you. I truly do. I am back my friends and ready to hear.
I'm finding my voice again. It was cracked and weak, ignored and meek. But it's no longer keeping quiet. I got some words that have been waiting to speak, patiently sitting and bidding their time to bounce out in shouts out of my mouth and pair up and make them some rhymes! I've saved up a few stories or two too, believe you me. And my shout is back on, along with my whisper, too. They've just been waiting for the right time to play and say... "The time is now!" because I am back my friends and ready to speak.
I'm finding that the finding finds me finding more doors. Discovering something everyday as I'm scratchin' at my surface. There's still a whole lot more of me left to explore in this quest of rediscovering all of me. But you know what I really feel? I feel back, my friends, and really feeling real.
- Johnny Olson
(1 poem added 08.27.11)
editor's note: Finding is so much sweeter after losing. Welcome back, indeed! Think I'll get reacquainted with myself, too. - mh
Owner
It takes a lot of livin’
To own the life
To buy it with dollars
And tears and fights
To love it for its beauty
Its scars and fears
Life’s too priceless to take the chance
To alter your course
Based on another man’s stance
Trust what you believe
Feel what you trust
To own your life
Knowing the debt’s been paid
No burden of assumptions or judging
Along the way
Freed from the collector
Of guilt and remorse
Freedom to live
Within the life of your course
- Denise Lumley
(1 poem added 08.26.11)
editor's note: Yeah, you got it, might as well own it! No matter what you have to pay, it's better than repo. (Let's welcome Denise to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets - see more of her poems on her new page.) - mh
TOMORROW NEVER COMES
I feel no pain. But I know something is wrong. I do not believe I will be here tomorrow. I don’t know where I’m going. But I’m prepared to let fate take its course. I have been having nightmares. Each time I disappear leaving no trace behind. Is it death or abduction? I cannot understand what it is. Perhaps your treatment team could unveil this mystery. I can’t claim to be a prophet, but I sense things. Something big is going to happen. I don’t know what. Please forgive me for being vague. Maybe I am not supposed to know my fate until the moment things go down. I am not one for surprises or predictions. I hope I am still here tomorrow. I just have an intuition that I will be gone, my memory wiped out, my dreams just dreams that never got off the ground. I want to say so long to everyone just in case tomorrow never comes for me. I could be wrong about everything. It won’t be the first time and certainly not the last. These nightmares give me bad headaches. Maybe something is in my brain that needs to be pulled out. I probably sound like I have some screw loose.
- Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
(1 poem added 08.25.11)
editor's note: I think the treatment team needs to get a hold of the extraction team to speed this rescue before the dream team shuts the whole thing down. I am getting... really... sleepy... - mh
A FULLY REALIZED NATURAL TECHNOLOGY
whether the meaning of the thing
is this way whether or not the design
or the method of the thing is known
those for whom it was owned are
the net and for the sake of the net
which is the net there is a nervous
irreversible life which really is not
avoided and the delicate pattern of
which is thought of so for whom it
was concerning is not because it is
known so in regard to the center of
it because it itself existed for that
being in order to make technical the
silk of the extreme edge which is
a fully realized natural technology
that evolved over millions of years
and to understand it simply and
exactly just examine the interlock for
which is made and inferred in the
system and you will learn that what
ever good you encounter will be in
and of itself and the device actually
does work it does work whether or
not it is actualized with the hand
- satnrose
(2 poems added 08.24.11)
editor's note: Yes, indeed; everything works whether we take it in hand or not! Net without end, amen! (Read another from satnrose on his page - a great way to prepare for the future; see it from the past.) - mh
Splattering of rain
Until it is late midnight
rain splatters into exhausted eardrums
and saturates the sleep,
What a headache, pal!
The noise is so exasperating – and unceasing,
One turns this way and that way –
reads for a while, but finds water dripping
from the book as well
onto his belly…
and cuddles up against the warm blanket
but the blanket is no wall in between –
- Haris Chand Adhikari
(added 08.23.11)
editor's note: ...and parentheses are no umbrella! - mh
Arbor on the Loop
Almond, ash, and linden leaves
drip droplet rains into our mouths,
asleep before the autumn wheat
when no one else is speaking
upon the fragrant park lane.
The hill folds open like a book
as couples lay like calligraphies
inside a wreath of garter snakes.
I buried a brown chicken egg
in a silver box beside the walk
then inside I later found
a little bone and feather grown
to prepare ourselves for separation.
Passings of foot stamp and hoof
dragged a metamorphosed road
over the arbor we shaded.
- John Swain
(1 poem added 08.22.11)
editor's note: Shade of tree, warmth of sun and droplets on the tongue take all the anxiety out of separation. - mh
a fiendish honey
a female talks
about what happens to beasts after death
and the music captures them:
craving to sit. hungering to dream
in the delinquent’s electric room.
the massacre girls are laughing about their
speed pleasures.
After dark they laugh about their sins.
All the while the hot night massacre
simmers under manhole covers
hiding the essential delights.
pleasure 1:
a heart of masks
vibrating surreptitiously as she smiles.
pleasure 2:
a heart of madness
driven into the gap between us
not hearing.
a fiendish honey
covers her face not wanting
to respond to the questions
but she knows the heat of revenge
that has her hooked.
the traffic girls behind her slowly recite
the disciplines of the island morgue discos
that lead to forensic fucking and
the pawned pleasures of the plastic store signs.
red honey
red juice
torture the overly ambitious
all the way home.
we’ll sleep in a toy box.
she asks for the television
to be switched off. sit in a corner.
fucked by time, we’ll talk about the anatomy
of the anonymous
- Peter Marra
(added 08.21.11)
editor's note: After the discussion grows old - massacres, heart masks and life anatomical - keep the remote handy! - 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...
Trippin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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