The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 09.17.11
"With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion." ~ Edgar Allan Poe
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... was a nightmare dream scare (wings, claws and gas-mask stare); a perusal of the politics of poverty (we see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya); a mirror masked mope for what must be (tongued the toothsome tease); a destructive dive in a too-tight tank (better to treadwater); a lilliputian look at legs (chairs, tables, nurse, Death); an incitement (insight into an innkeeper's arrested riot); and an appeal for amnesty (and end to ill intentions). OK, we acquiesce! - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Harbour No Ill
I want to reach inside your heart
and pluck out all those little warring men and women.
After that I wrote another note to myself:
The war has passed, The. War. Has. Passed -
even the enemy have forgotten about it and have thrown
their weapons away, traded them for a 'leaf moon'.
Traded them for a dozen pairs of white socks or 2 dozen
Mustangs, a peace pipe - There. Will. Be. Peace.
Never again shall we roll in the flowers or dirt:
Never again shall we fight - instead we shall produce lectures
on the 'way of love', for we so love each other; we can
hardly contain ourselves.
We shall lay in the August sunshine (oh yes!),
blissed up,
and nothing shall arouse us but a kiss – though we shall
sneeze a little, (achoo!) due to breathing in incense -
and if by chance one of us should grow vain or egotistical:
wielding power over other men – then, my friends, then we shall
hold firm counsel, and we shall call upon peace commissioners
to settle all disputes.
My friends, my friends!!, we shall penetrate the very core of
man. By God -
we shall wear their innards as proof of it. We shall carry their
hearts around in pretty little boxes, after death, knowing they
make a fine companion indeed.
And after that, dear friends, we shall grow old, yet continue
to flower - going about our daily business in our birthday suits.
At night we shall stamp away misery with our boots,
dance, dance like bloody maniacs,
etc etc etc.
Let this be the end of the matter. This be the end of the
poem.
Harbour no ill.
- A. Swimmer
(1 poem added 09.17.11)
editor's note: OK, all you maniac dancers! I have here a heart in a box worth saving. Any takers? - mh
Nec Spe Nec Metu
A pariah,
a parasite,
a fugitive
with no fixed address,
money or provisions,
these blue grey eyes
topped by
a spiked blonde crop,
belong to a stranger
to everyone but trouble,
the charming villain of the piece.
In bright
midday sunlight
warming the back of my hand,
smoke twists round
my fingers' black edges
twitching on an ashtray's rim.
Golden shards
bounce off its cut glass
and illuminate
the right side of my face
but leave
the left side in shadows;
filling
my arched brow's furrows,
sinking into my sallow cheeks.
Today
may be young
but I'm drunk as hell
and sick and tired
of listening to
happy hour philosophers
and staring at the same picture
hanging on the too-white wall.
Yeah, I see you,
you bloody fool:
sitting at the back of a bar alone,
half obscured
by the darkness that surrounds you,
eyes pointed up at a painting
lit up by beams
shining through a small window.
What the hell
are you looking at?
The shopping crowd,
jostling in the street outside
and the plastic gangsters,
part-time crooks,
wide-eyed old men,
and morning after wrecks
putting the world to rights inside.
My laughter smears
with the squares of light
across the sticky floor.
Shut up.
There is no truth, beauty or grace here.
Nothing that will outlast our tawdry days.
All your posturing is absurd.
Do you think anybody cares?
Smash the bottle. Pick up the chair.
I don't.
Get the hell out of here
before I tear away the separation,
slash the space between us
and cut off your balls and fry them in oil.
You want a vision of paradise?
There ain't none in this damned place.
Too proud to be humble, too strong to be tender,
it's going down man,
down,
down,
down.
- J. H. Martin
(1 poems added 09.16.11)
editor's note: Here is hope in a poem; fear in the word, not spoken, never heard. Go ahead, break that bottle, throw that chair. Better, yet, speak those words right out loud! - mh
Hospital
These are the people who tend to the healing,
my mother says, the mending and setting of bones,
the cuts, sutures, fingers in rubber,
thread through skin
plaster and metal against muscle and wet organ.
This is the land of recreation,
of doctor's plates and metal tables.
This is where we wait and wait, 1983.
But at only six years old this too
is the land of under-chairs,
of shoelaces
of finger-counting, alphabets and books.
This is the land of the beep beep beep machines
of funny nose-tickling smells,
of pretending penny-farthings,
of the inside outside upside
of dreams and naps
summer-drying up
of tears and more tears and what high
tall tables and what hard bread.
where all things are made and unmade
and remade again,
what shiny tools,
what clean floors,
what time-travel
space ship dimension
naturally, a family
but still no because
what lips
of my mother shushing, shushing me
pressing my head to her leg
hold still, hot hand to cheek
what tall
what lips thin line of the nurse
saying words that are just letters
strung together,
and she says
the man with the funny smell is dead,
we're sorry,
but he's gone.
- Ally Malinenko
(1 poem added 09.15.11)
editor's note: Wonderful picture memory; childhood image sensory recall. Great! Too bad we couldn't get those from the man with the funny smell. What memories did he take with him? - mh
Mermaid
Jesus—
he came to her in $4.95 cigarette packs,
her with a body like poetry;
she just smiled when they touched it;
she couldn't feel anymore
that body like an empty shell.
And when she saw it,
the shimmering scales
of a too-tight dress,
on a too-tight soul,
she realized she was a fish,
and she drowned in the pool.
- Lauren Sukin
(1 poem added 09.14.11)
editor's note: Drown in the bowl, gasp on the ground, fall from the sky. Jesus, look what can be obtained for just $4.95. (Welcome Lauren to our constantly growing group of Contributing Poets - see more of her poems on her new page.) - mh
GLORIOUS IMPATIENT
When that day arrives..
The one I have been waiting for in a lonely room
With hiked up stockings and a drunk, infatuated cigarette..
My bag, with its insides splintered
And glossy mauve bubbles of a lovebird havingsex and admiringpassionatebeauty
I wonder what it will feel like not rushing out of the bedroom
Right after sex and curtaining my recently feasted-upon body..
Because it moans, that it is possessed.
So I start
Scathing my face with soap until it dissolves in the mirror
And dreaming in the flushing water
Tweaking nipples, asking myself like a haunted tape recorder..
Questions I choose to ignore. The taste of that familiar name I refuse to forget.
His colors that still swagger in my veins, meandering like a mythical snake..
Lolling its tongue, juicing eyes into a vortex.
I see nothing. And no logic and no dialogue.
Words seem stapled on to the cupboard or maybe misted in perfume..
Or tangled up in the windowpanes.
Everything crumbles when I think of belonging or facing a mirror
When the clothes tear down.
But someone told me, the day will arrive soon when these empty seconds
Will suddenly gain meanings and there will be no pain. No crying and not my face
Again, rubbed with erased kohl and this impossible longing
Will flower into glorious impatience which women like me..
Have learned to savor and we choose to keep, chunks of it
Always in our mouth.
- Afreen Chaudhary
(added 09.13.11)
editor's note: Strange to you? Really? Go to the mirror, open your mouth and say, "Ah!" - mh
Beggar: The Natural Identity
I'm a beggar,
I beg street to street,
door to door,
Some people neglect me,
I become unhappy and despondent,
Because I have my own leadership,
I want to lead my own life in my own way,
I don't bother someone who neglects me,
Do I? Never!
Some people applaud me,
I become exultant,
I become ecstatic and jovial,
Because they know my leadership as like theirs,
Someone calls me the unwanted,
And they say I am the load for the earth,
But if I'm not in the earth,
How do they show the difference between me and them?
I'm satisfied for my life,
Because I have to just beg,
I appreciate others’ leadership so I beg to them.
I don't have any other chores to do,
The God has created me for the same,
Because He has confirmed my identity,
So I have to represent it ever in my life.
I don't have clothes to put on,
The winter is my enemy,
It chills me and it makes me dead,
I lie over and under the mist and snow,
Passers come and cross me kicking,
They think me a log,
Rich come in Mercedes and strike me,
They back the gear and turn around,
The temple grins and laughs at me,
I feel the hard time!
I see others are also executing their rights,
Then, why not for me?
Justice and mercy of the God is the same,
For all of us,
Why am I a beggar and
Why are you rich?
I only know the reason!
Do you know? No..
The nature is mine not yours,
Because it's dearer to me,
It is close to me,
You are enjoying the artificial things,
But I survive in natural ones,
Your life is like a machine,
Anytime it turns down,
But mine? It runs much longer.
You discriminate others, I not.
Because I’m just a beggar!
You are not one unlike me!
- Chiranjibi Niroula
(1 poem added 09.12.11)
editor's note: We all came here naked; naked we will leave. We are beggars, indeed! Can you spare a dime? - mh
ZIDANE'S DREAM, Part One
in his home town
people often disappeared
scared
but they led their nor-
mal lives unable to stop
on his 18th birthday
Zidane was looking forward
a party had been thrown
a piece of news popped up
on the radio
he wore a surgeon's mask
had a pump in hand
outside he pushed the window
he heard a man yell
people began to run
it was too late
the virus
he tried to move
wings now hung under either arm
in a state of shock
the words “Dark Children”
Zidane began to cry
“Be calm …”
a nurse had walked in
claws replaced his fingernails
a voice on the other side of the curtain
the only thing that remained was a face
“We are brethren now...”
- Michael Ian Sattler
(added 09.11.11)
editor's note: The ultimate horror story. These days, only the richest of the rich can afford wings to fly and Brethren to greet them. Think I might like this virus. Can't wait for the sequel. - 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...
Being Passionately Purposeful,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... was a nightmare dream scare (wings, claws and gas-mask stare); a perusal of the politics of poverty (we see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya); a mirror masked mope for what must be (tongued the toothsome tease); a destructive dive in a too-tight tank (better to treadwater); a lilliputian look at legs (chairs, tables, nurse, Death); an incitement (insight into an innkeeper's arrested riot); and an appeal for amnesty (and end to ill intentions). OK, we acquiesce! - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Harbour No Ill
I want to reach inside your heart
and pluck out all those little warring men and women.
After that I wrote another note to myself:
The war has passed, The. War. Has. Passed -
even the enemy have forgotten about it and have thrown
their weapons away, traded them for a 'leaf moon'.
Traded them for a dozen pairs of white socks or 2 dozen
Mustangs, a peace pipe - There. Will. Be. Peace.
Never again shall we roll in the flowers or dirt:
Never again shall we fight - instead we shall produce lectures
on the 'way of love', for we so love each other; we can
hardly contain ourselves.
We shall lay in the August sunshine (oh yes!),
blissed up,
and nothing shall arouse us but a kiss – though we shall
sneeze a little, (achoo!) due to breathing in incense -
and if by chance one of us should grow vain or egotistical:
wielding power over other men – then, my friends, then we shall
hold firm counsel, and we shall call upon peace commissioners
to settle all disputes.
My friends, my friends!!, we shall penetrate the very core of
man. By God -
we shall wear their innards as proof of it. We shall carry their
hearts around in pretty little boxes, after death, knowing they
make a fine companion indeed.
And after that, dear friends, we shall grow old, yet continue
to flower - going about our daily business in our birthday suits.
At night we shall stamp away misery with our boots,
dance, dance like bloody maniacs,
etc etc etc.
Let this be the end of the matter. This be the end of the
poem.
Harbour no ill.
- A. Swimmer
(1 poem added 09.17.11)
editor's note: OK, all you maniac dancers! I have here a heart in a box worth saving. Any takers? - mh
Nec Spe Nec Metu
A pariah,
a parasite,
a fugitive
with no fixed address,
money or provisions,
these blue grey eyes
topped by
a spiked blonde crop,
belong to a stranger
to everyone but trouble,
the charming villain of the piece.
In bright
midday sunlight
warming the back of my hand,
smoke twists round
my fingers' black edges
twitching on an ashtray's rim.
Golden shards
bounce off its cut glass
and illuminate
the right side of my face
but leave
the left side in shadows;
filling
my arched brow's furrows,
sinking into my sallow cheeks.
Today
may be young
but I'm drunk as hell
and sick and tired
of listening to
happy hour philosophers
and staring at the same picture
hanging on the too-white wall.
Yeah, I see you,
you bloody fool:
sitting at the back of a bar alone,
half obscured
by the darkness that surrounds you,
eyes pointed up at a painting
lit up by beams
shining through a small window.
What the hell
are you looking at?
The shopping crowd,
jostling in the street outside
and the plastic gangsters,
part-time crooks,
wide-eyed old men,
and morning after wrecks
putting the world to rights inside.
My laughter smears
with the squares of light
across the sticky floor.
Shut up.
There is no truth, beauty or grace here.
Nothing that will outlast our tawdry days.
All your posturing is absurd.
Do you think anybody cares?
Smash the bottle. Pick up the chair.
I don't.
Get the hell out of here
before I tear away the separation,
slash the space between us
and cut off your balls and fry them in oil.
You want a vision of paradise?
There ain't none in this damned place.
Too proud to be humble, too strong to be tender,
it's going down man,
down,
down,
down.
- J. H. Martin
(1 poems added 09.16.11)
editor's note: Here is hope in a poem; fear in the word, not spoken, never heard. Go ahead, break that bottle, throw that chair. Better, yet, speak those words right out loud! - mh
Hospital
These are the people who tend to the healing,
my mother says, the mending and setting of bones,
the cuts, sutures, fingers in rubber,
thread through skin
plaster and metal against muscle and wet organ.
This is the land of recreation,
of doctor's plates and metal tables.
This is where we wait and wait, 1983.
But at only six years old this too
is the land of under-chairs,
of shoelaces
of finger-counting, alphabets and books.
This is the land of the beep beep beep machines
of funny nose-tickling smells,
of pretending penny-farthings,
of the inside outside upside
of dreams and naps
summer-drying up
of tears and more tears and what high
tall tables and what hard bread.
where all things are made and unmade
and remade again,
what shiny tools,
what clean floors,
what time-travel
space ship dimension
naturally, a family
but still no because
what lips
of my mother shushing, shushing me
pressing my head to her leg
hold still, hot hand to cheek
what tall
what lips thin line of the nurse
saying words that are just letters
strung together,
and she says
the man with the funny smell is dead,
we're sorry,
but he's gone.
- Ally Malinenko
(1 poem added 09.15.11)
editor's note: Wonderful picture memory; childhood image sensory recall. Great! Too bad we couldn't get those from the man with the funny smell. What memories did he take with him? - mh
Mermaid
Jesus—
he came to her in $4.95 cigarette packs,
her with a body like poetry;
she just smiled when they touched it;
she couldn't feel anymore
that body like an empty shell.
And when she saw it,
the shimmering scales
of a too-tight dress,
on a too-tight soul,
she realized she was a fish,
and she drowned in the pool.
- Lauren Sukin
(1 poem added 09.14.11)
editor's note: Drown in the bowl, gasp on the ground, fall from the sky. Jesus, look what can be obtained for just $4.95. (Welcome Lauren to our constantly growing group of Contributing Poets - see more of her poems on her new page.) - mh
GLORIOUS IMPATIENT
When that day arrives..
The one I have been waiting for in a lonely room
With hiked up stockings and a drunk, infatuated cigarette..
My bag, with its insides splintered
And glossy mauve bubbles of a lovebird havingsex and admiringpassionatebeauty
I wonder what it will feel like not rushing out of the bedroom
Right after sex and curtaining my recently feasted-upon body..
Because it moans, that it is possessed.
So I start
Scathing my face with soap until it dissolves in the mirror
And dreaming in the flushing water
Tweaking nipples, asking myself like a haunted tape recorder..
Questions I choose to ignore. The taste of that familiar name I refuse to forget.
His colors that still swagger in my veins, meandering like a mythical snake..
Lolling its tongue, juicing eyes into a vortex.
I see nothing. And no logic and no dialogue.
Words seem stapled on to the cupboard or maybe misted in perfume..
Or tangled up in the windowpanes.
Everything crumbles when I think of belonging or facing a mirror
When the clothes tear down.
But someone told me, the day will arrive soon when these empty seconds
Will suddenly gain meanings and there will be no pain. No crying and not my face
Again, rubbed with erased kohl and this impossible longing
Will flower into glorious impatience which women like me..
Have learned to savor and we choose to keep, chunks of it
Always in our mouth.
- Afreen Chaudhary
(added 09.13.11)
editor's note: Strange to you? Really? Go to the mirror, open your mouth and say, "Ah!" - mh
Beggar: The Natural Identity
I'm a beggar,
I beg street to street,
door to door,
Some people neglect me,
I become unhappy and despondent,
Because I have my own leadership,
I want to lead my own life in my own way,
I don't bother someone who neglects me,
Do I? Never!
Some people applaud me,
I become exultant,
I become ecstatic and jovial,
Because they know my leadership as like theirs,
Someone calls me the unwanted,
And they say I am the load for the earth,
But if I'm not in the earth,
How do they show the difference between me and them?
I'm satisfied for my life,
Because I have to just beg,
I appreciate others’ leadership so I beg to them.
I don't have any other chores to do,
The God has created me for the same,
Because He has confirmed my identity,
So I have to represent it ever in my life.
I don't have clothes to put on,
The winter is my enemy,
It chills me and it makes me dead,
I lie over and under the mist and snow,
Passers come and cross me kicking,
They think me a log,
Rich come in Mercedes and strike me,
They back the gear and turn around,
The temple grins and laughs at me,
I feel the hard time!
I see others are also executing their rights,
Then, why not for me?
Justice and mercy of the God is the same,
For all of us,
Why am I a beggar and
Why are you rich?
I only know the reason!
Do you know? No..
The nature is mine not yours,
Because it's dearer to me,
It is close to me,
You are enjoying the artificial things,
But I survive in natural ones,
Your life is like a machine,
Anytime it turns down,
But mine? It runs much longer.
You discriminate others, I not.
Because I’m just a beggar!
You are not one unlike me!
- Chiranjibi Niroula
(1 poem added 09.12.11)
editor's note: We all came here naked; naked we will leave. We are beggars, indeed! Can you spare a dime? - mh
ZIDANE'S DREAM, Part One
in his home town
people often disappeared
scared
but they led their nor-
mal lives unable to stop
on his 18th birthday
Zidane was looking forward
a party had been thrown
a piece of news popped up
on the radio
he wore a surgeon's mask
had a pump in hand
outside he pushed the window
he heard a man yell
people began to run
it was too late
the virus
he tried to move
wings now hung under either arm
in a state of shock
the words “Dark Children”
Zidane began to cry
“Be calm …”
a nurse had walked in
claws replaced his fingernails
a voice on the other side of the curtain
the only thing that remained was a face
“We are brethren now...”
- Michael Ian Sattler
(added 09.11.11)
editor's note: The ultimate horror story. These days, only the richest of the rich can afford wings to fly and Brethren to greet them. Think I might like this virus. Can't wait for the sequel. - 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...
Being Passionately Purposeful,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Comments