The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.28.12
“When I say artist I mean the man who is building things. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush, some with a shovel, some choose a pen.” Jackson Pollock
Industrial Suburbia (above) by featured artist, Fabio Sassi, 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 mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we prepared ourselves with nine new adages, ancient or nascent, not so clear, but clearly new to us; we observed another adage in etiquette, nothing said leaves no impression, better than the converse; we heard the noise, saw through the blur of two souls unable (or unwilling) to access their adages; we plied a new one, learned from bad experience, water for bread for water for bread, when both need both; we dropped our adages, pled for answers, knowing only hills and bridges would hear the questions; we bobbed in the broken bits of our bad fortune, looking for crazy glue where adages wouldn't do; then lastly, we traversed familiar scapes to an unfamiliar emptiness we know one day we'll know too well. Another adage should ensue - quick, think of something... - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
The view from above the cityscape is vast. It moves
and feeds my spirit. Yet my hazel eyes look south
and touch the elongated Void, an unbearable emptiness
mixed with metallic dust and human debris, rushing
toward my private mansion like never-ending waves of
desert dunes; and soon my house and I will be buried
alive.
So I look north, away from Yesterday’s wasteland and
the eerie, ineffable images imprinted in my psyche;
I look away. Yet still, I see swirling particles, once
human, sailing through the toxic air, plummeting to
earth. I can’t bear to see such evil.
I saunter off on the High Line, a defunct railroad
structure resurrected as a celestial park above the
streets of Manhattan.
My journey begins after sunrise on a sultry August
morning. I stroll across a walkway surrounded by
wildflowers.
From time to time, I stop and reflect. The freight
trains used to run here decades ago. Now, a
glorious landscape of greenery replaces the
antediluvian rail line.
Lost in reverie, I walk for hours and swallow
2
the divine dreamscape. Half-a-day seems
like a lambent flame brushing across my face
before vanishing.
I drink effervescence. Time no longer exists.
And yet, after meandering through the
labyrinth of my mind and across walkways
and promenades, I turn around and head
south.
I stop at the Chelsea Market Passage and sit
at a table. It’s almost sunset.
My eyes drift toward the Hudson River.
I wait.
I anticipate a glorious sunset. Yet
surreptitiously, I gaze at the
Manhattan skyline.
I see what isn’t there. The emptiness
eats my spirit.
The view is vast and devastating.
Each time I look back,
I die again.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 01.28.12)
editor's note: The view is amazing from up there, but the air is thin. It's hard to know if what we discern is true vision or oxygen deprivation. - mh
BROKEN
I am lost and on my own
Disconnected I stand alone
A fragment of what was before
Severed and joined as one no more
The missing piece has been and gone
Detached from where it should belong
Separated, dichotomized
From what it previously occupied
I'm now a part of something new
And I can't be fixed with crazy glue.
The sharp jagged edges mean a lot
hurts deeper than a paper-cut
Desolate I roam the land
Like broken glass tossed on the sand.
Segregated, there I lie
Like pointy splinters cast aside.
Disengaged so many years,
Holding on to shattered tears.
Torn apart, I've learned to blend in
To what are now my surroundings.
Divided, I long for the days of old.
And to what made this broken man,
Whole.
- Arthur L. Seymour
(added 01.27.12)
editor's note: Encouraging couplets! "Really?" you say. When you're standing in the middle of such a pile of pieces, there's nothing to do but pick'em up! Encouraging! - mh
List of questions
A large group of kids
kidding
and following
their cattle
to the forest.
Across the vale
on the sunlit slope
a bell ringing
as low as the bells
hung on the napes
of these hungry cattle.
Down on the river
a broken, single wire bridge waiting
for the big people from the big city
for some years now
and up here on this passage
I’m a list of questions.
But who is to answer?
- Haris Adhikari
(1 poem added 01.26.12)
editor's note: Poets will ask anyway; we make our own answers. - mh
A letter to my enemy
I write this
with an open hand
I have learned
that the death
of your children
will not keep
my children safe
Fire will birth more fire
an eye for an eye
will leave us
old stumbling
blind men
childless
amongst
the dust devils
dry
But if I bring you bread
Will you give me water?
- Michael Corrigan
(added 01.25.12)
editor's note: Why starve? Proud resolve requires neither. - mh
YOUNG MASTERS
Unblurred to one and all
spoiled bodies
ridden by each-word-a-blow tempers,
thundering outhouse, porch and stairway.
When they're unlatched
ringside seaters squinny.
He swigs hold-and-corner methadone
backstage of bins
while she drags the truth of her face
into see-red mania.
- Christopher Barnes
(added 01.24.12)
editor's note: No need to don your magnifiers to see this bit of relational hide-and-seek, the poet makes it perfectly clear. - mh
Inwit
All my native wit can tender
Must procure as blind above the surface
Of those inconsistent waters, sometimes
Dashing sunlit on the lake
My native wit’s worth can’t be paid
In legal tender, but still in dividends
So strike as oars that smite the waves
Or show me to safe passage
Destination: lavish dinners with spirits
To chase and be chaste, palatal
My beating heart preserve, my mind
For the presentation to guests
Of something to remove all doubt
- Euphrates Moss
(added 01.23.12)
editor's note: "In" or "dim"; it's better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open one's mouth and... - mh
HAIKUS OF THE GREEN OLIVE
Subverted Life:
Religions have perverted
The Free Spirit.
The Sacred Chao
Is for these screwed-up times.
Speak for Yourself!
Deities change.
Gospel according to Freud
From de Dog Star!
Erotic Poetry
Is a telegram for us?
Book of Uterus!
Face to face with You!
The Epistle to Paranoids
Is for Polites.
Each of these yarns
And my past to spread them:
Whole thing myself.
I got the Record
About you will learn more
And understand less.
Everything knowing
With Principia Discordia
About Nothing.
Knowledge of a sage
Put twinkles in Your Eyes.
Wisdom of a Child!
- Daniel de Culla
(added 01.22.12)
editor's note: Here find nine mind nuggets for your perusal. Chew on one or two; if all, you'll need a "stretcher." Eat me! Drink Me! - 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...
Buildin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Industrial Suburbia (above) by featured artist, Fabio Sassi, 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 mo' fo' sho' so move that mad mouse of yo's right over here and a-way you'll GO!
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we prepared ourselves with nine new adages, ancient or nascent, not so clear, but clearly new to us; we observed another adage in etiquette, nothing said leaves no impression, better than the converse; we heard the noise, saw through the blur of two souls unable (or unwilling) to access their adages; we plied a new one, learned from bad experience, water for bread for water for bread, when both need both; we dropped our adages, pled for answers, knowing only hills and bridges would hear the questions; we bobbed in the broken bits of our bad fortune, looking for crazy glue where adages wouldn't do; then lastly, we traversed familiar scapes to an unfamiliar emptiness we know one day we'll know too well. Another adage should ensue - quick, think of something... - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
The view from above the cityscape is vast. It moves
and feeds my spirit. Yet my hazel eyes look south
and touch the elongated Void, an unbearable emptiness
mixed with metallic dust and human debris, rushing
toward my private mansion like never-ending waves of
desert dunes; and soon my house and I will be buried
alive.
So I look north, away from Yesterday’s wasteland and
the eerie, ineffable images imprinted in my psyche;
I look away. Yet still, I see swirling particles, once
human, sailing through the toxic air, plummeting to
earth. I can’t bear to see such evil.
I saunter off on the High Line, a defunct railroad
structure resurrected as a celestial park above the
streets of Manhattan.
My journey begins after sunrise on a sultry August
morning. I stroll across a walkway surrounded by
wildflowers.
From time to time, I stop and reflect. The freight
trains used to run here decades ago. Now, a
glorious landscape of greenery replaces the
antediluvian rail line.
Lost in reverie, I walk for hours and swallow
2
the divine dreamscape. Half-a-day seems
like a lambent flame brushing across my face
before vanishing.
I drink effervescence. Time no longer exists.
And yet, after meandering through the
labyrinth of my mind and across walkways
and promenades, I turn around and head
south.
I stop at the Chelsea Market Passage and sit
at a table. It’s almost sunset.
My eyes drift toward the Hudson River.
I wait.
I anticipate a glorious sunset. Yet
surreptitiously, I gaze at the
Manhattan skyline.
I see what isn’t there. The emptiness
eats my spirit.
The view is vast and devastating.
Each time I look back,
I die again.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 01.28.12)
editor's note: The view is amazing from up there, but the air is thin. It's hard to know if what we discern is true vision or oxygen deprivation. - mh
BROKEN
I am lost and on my own
Disconnected I stand alone
A fragment of what was before
Severed and joined as one no more
The missing piece has been and gone
Detached from where it should belong
Separated, dichotomized
From what it previously occupied
I'm now a part of something new
And I can't be fixed with crazy glue.
The sharp jagged edges mean a lot
hurts deeper than a paper-cut
Desolate I roam the land
Like broken glass tossed on the sand.
Segregated, there I lie
Like pointy splinters cast aside.
Disengaged so many years,
Holding on to shattered tears.
Torn apart, I've learned to blend in
To what are now my surroundings.
Divided, I long for the days of old.
And to what made this broken man,
Whole.
- Arthur L. Seymour
(added 01.27.12)
editor's note: Encouraging couplets! "Really?" you say. When you're standing in the middle of such a pile of pieces, there's nothing to do but pick'em up! Encouraging! - mh
List of questions
A large group of kids
kidding
and following
their cattle
to the forest.
Across the vale
on the sunlit slope
a bell ringing
as low as the bells
hung on the napes
of these hungry cattle.
Down on the river
a broken, single wire bridge waiting
for the big people from the big city
for some years now
and up here on this passage
I’m a list of questions.
But who is to answer?
- Haris Adhikari
(1 poem added 01.26.12)
editor's note: Poets will ask anyway; we make our own answers. - mh
A letter to my enemy
I write this
with an open hand
I have learned
that the death
of your children
will not keep
my children safe
Fire will birth more fire
an eye for an eye
will leave us
old stumbling
blind men
childless
amongst
the dust devils
dry
But if I bring you bread
Will you give me water?
- Michael Corrigan
(added 01.25.12)
editor's note: Why starve? Proud resolve requires neither. - mh
YOUNG MASTERS
Unblurred to one and all
spoiled bodies
ridden by each-word-a-blow tempers,
thundering outhouse, porch and stairway.
When they're unlatched
ringside seaters squinny.
He swigs hold-and-corner methadone
backstage of bins
while she drags the truth of her face
into see-red mania.
- Christopher Barnes
(added 01.24.12)
editor's note: No need to don your magnifiers to see this bit of relational hide-and-seek, the poet makes it perfectly clear. - mh
Inwit
All my native wit can tender
Must procure as blind above the surface
Of those inconsistent waters, sometimes
Dashing sunlit on the lake
My native wit’s worth can’t be paid
In legal tender, but still in dividends
So strike as oars that smite the waves
Or show me to safe passage
Destination: lavish dinners with spirits
To chase and be chaste, palatal
My beating heart preserve, my mind
For the presentation to guests
Of something to remove all doubt
- Euphrates Moss
(added 01.23.12)
editor's note: "In" or "dim"; it's better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open one's mouth and... - mh
HAIKUS OF THE GREEN OLIVE
Subverted Life:
Religions have perverted
The Free Spirit.
The Sacred Chao
Is for these screwed-up times.
Speak for Yourself!
Deities change.
Gospel according to Freud
From de Dog Star!
Erotic Poetry
Is a telegram for us?
Book of Uterus!
Face to face with You!
The Epistle to Paranoids
Is for Polites.
Each of these yarns
And my past to spread them:
Whole thing myself.
I got the Record
About you will learn more
And understand less.
Everything knowing
With Principia Discordia
About Nothing.
Knowledge of a sage
Put twinkles in Your Eyes.
Wisdom of a Child!
- Daniel de Culla
(added 01.22.12)
editor's note: Here find nine mind nuggets for your perusal. Chew on one or two; if all, you'll need a "stretcher." Eat me! Drink Me! - 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...
Buildin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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