The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 03.10.12
“Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.” Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Old Chevy (above) by featured photographer, Sheri L. Wright, 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 started with a surreal checklist, dotted eyes and crossed teas; we resigned ourselves to a rose is a wretched rose is a lilly's revenge; we queried dirt with questions for sky; we dug deeper to discern that nothing is as good an answer as radishes; we lingered in the loser's lounge, looking for peanuts; we reveled in sweet reminiscence, rewarded hunger with a reeling downhill run; lastly, snapped back to weekly reality, we weakly cried our checklist, not for random repose, but for a ravished generation yet to come... - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Future Generations’ Tear
I am crying not for the house,
That has gone.
I am crying not for the husband,
I lost, I love most.
I am crying not for the people,
Who are suffering like me.
I am crying not for the community,
That is destroyed by another.
I am crying not for the meals,
Necessary for my livelihood.
I am crying but for the one,
That I hold in my bosom.
I am crying thinking for her,
Who had lost her brothers.
I am crying for the generation,
We are leaving downtrodden.
- LP Bastola
(1 poem added 03.10.12)
editor's note: Cry we must for those who know not to cry for themselves. - mh
A chance.
In the wet grass where you left me I listen to the cars spinning around the park.
Stop sign. Wheels spinning on the straight-away. Stop sign. Wheels spinning.
Cars, and the eucalyptus leaves rustling, high up and quiet,
like someone breathing in another room.
Once your voice drops off and you light a match in the shadows,
I can hear only the cars and the leaves.
Unmoored by the moon, so easy-settled in the black,
and the too-bright distant city, I sit in dewed grass, midnight damp soaking jeans.
Who cares. Not I.
My mouth tastes
like beer and whiskey, like tonight and the night
before, and tomorrow night. Tastes like
you and nights spent wheeling around neighborhoods we hadn’t seen before, seeking
cracked plastic seats and wood-stilted bar stools,
the best Sazerac and the cheapest booze on tap.
Always the same: whiskey and beer, beer and whiskey.
Always the same: your mouth like stale cigarettes and
your bed like a sleeping bag beside a campfire.
My addictions are simple.
Sitting there on the hillside, I remember what I always remember
when I spin your face inside my mind:
the way I felt when you fucked me for the first time,
flipping me on my stomach and pressing me down
with your rough-skinned hands, telling me that maybe I should let you come back for more.
And I’m up and running down the slope,
and we’re a tangle of bourbon and sweat on the sidewalk
with night forms whorling around us,
blurring past our tongues unabashed ready and more than ready,
unhinged and reeling, neon in the city light, white in the taxi glare,
black in bracketed shadows dropping
and lifting in the gloom, hurtling and hungry as we are.
- Catherine McQuade
(1 poem added 03.09.12)
editor's note: Why leave life to chance when you can take it as it comes? Eat, drink... - mh
Towards the Morning
The doorways inhale and exhale
Their intoxicating breath amidst the silence
Satiated by the insomnia of musicians
Playing to crowds that gather to be alone
Hoping to absorb the evisceration through their pachyderms
And nourish their sallow faces
Disappearing in a puff of smoke
Signalling their distance from each other
Drowning their sorrows
While waving in the throe
Not wanting to be brought ashore
But left to consolidate their fate.
- Anthony Ward
(added 03.08.12)
editor's note: The disconnected congregate to communally ignore their elephants in the room; the only camaraderie they enjoy. - mh
If I Go before You Do
It is getting late,
time is pressing,
of that alone I am sure.
Confidence
is an empty thing -
a lake in to which
Narcissus likes to gaze.
What do you do these days?
Is it the same as me?
Rewind, reduce, erase?
Sometimes, I think
I would like
to talk to you about many things.
But when I consider them more carefully,
they become but one:
time, time and time alone -
the need to grasp at that
which can not be held,
the desire to understand
that which can not be understood.
It's absurd isn't it?
All these questions, answers, inquiries, replies?
The wish for meaning
is nothing but a hole in the ground.
My expectations. Dash. Zero.
My hopes. Dash. None at all.
If I go
before you do,
plant radishes for me.
I will plant cabbages for you.
- J. H. Martin
(1 poem added 03.07.12)
editor's note: Aha! A vegetable version of "nothing ventured." If nothing is all we get, then I'll take radishes any day. Nirvana! - mh
SEEDS
Are we dead
before we are born?
Do we sense
the long void of husked
silence, lying
like a seed,
dormant?
Do we suddenly spring
from our cauls
to swirl
in the cycles of light
only to wither
and return
to the wombed earth,
dead again?
- Robert E. Petras
(1 poem added 03.06.12)
editor's note: Seek meaning in the asking. The answers come too late to matter here and now. - mh
The Blackest Rose
In the garden,
Lily,
does wait.
I'm the blackest rose,
ready,
to pollinate.
Her milk white
–bark,
is smooth and fine.
I consider,
I,
just might take my time.
Like a needle
–poised
I'll penetrate.
And in every
–pore
I'll permeate.
In this seamy
place,
flowers carry blood.
I'll make her
drink,
the liquid love.
Her sullen heart,
we'll
never last.
And wither up,
–stop,
turn to ash.
When the curtain
falls,
we exit left.
I'll always be the
cancer,
of this myth.
- Michael Atreides Lair
(added 03.05.12)
editor's note: Terminal horticulture, life as love as myth. No green thumb here. Better cultivate some other skill to fall back on. - mh
List Of This Week's Activities
Sunday:
Buffalo my hurry-up wings gardening imperceptible earth sky
back in the breast plate of ingredients to create the concoction.
Monday:
Buy a rain statue of Farmer Brown's henhouse after supper whack
warm bee's wax nonagenarian bizarre pink net may be four miles away.
Tuesday:
Telephone my underground aquifer in Walla Walla and leave a message
that says "Psychotherapy is the label printed inside cotton briefs."
Wednesday:
Show my version of Mount Rushmore to my boss at work and then
quaky severance pay pink slip the hollowed bones a nut does it.
Thursday:
Send an email to the looking glass porter in which you casually mention
your love of linoleum floors in a hammock, swaying in a tropical breeze.
Friday:
Invite the gum wrapper over for Labrador pasta of bullets on a merry-go
round with a custom-made noose for desert. Then rear-end the accordion.
Saturday:
Clean out the entire Texas panhandle of Bible belt tarmacs using a
hand-held chorus of hallelujahs blinking their turn signals.
- Maurice Oliver
(1 poem added 03.04.12)
editor's note: Imagine a check-list that constantly changes and you'll come close to a week like this one. Non-sequi - wha'? - 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...
Namin' It,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Old Chevy (above) by featured photographer, Sheri L. Wright, 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 started with a surreal checklist, dotted eyes and crossed teas; we resigned ourselves to a rose is a wretched rose is a lilly's revenge; we queried dirt with questions for sky; we dug deeper to discern that nothing is as good an answer as radishes; we lingered in the loser's lounge, looking for peanuts; we reveled in sweet reminiscence, rewarded hunger with a reeling downhill run; lastly, snapped back to weekly reality, we weakly cried our checklist, not for random repose, but for a ravished generation yet to come... - mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Future Generations’ Tear
I am crying not for the house,
That has gone.
I am crying not for the husband,
I lost, I love most.
I am crying not for the people,
Who are suffering like me.
I am crying not for the community,
That is destroyed by another.
I am crying not for the meals,
Necessary for my livelihood.
I am crying but for the one,
That I hold in my bosom.
I am crying thinking for her,
Who had lost her brothers.
I am crying for the generation,
We are leaving downtrodden.
- LP Bastola
(1 poem added 03.10.12)
editor's note: Cry we must for those who know not to cry for themselves. - mh
A chance.
In the wet grass where you left me I listen to the cars spinning around the park.
Stop sign. Wheels spinning on the straight-away. Stop sign. Wheels spinning.
Cars, and the eucalyptus leaves rustling, high up and quiet,
like someone breathing in another room.
Once your voice drops off and you light a match in the shadows,
I can hear only the cars and the leaves.
Unmoored by the moon, so easy-settled in the black,
and the too-bright distant city, I sit in dewed grass, midnight damp soaking jeans.
Who cares. Not I.
My mouth tastes
like beer and whiskey, like tonight and the night
before, and tomorrow night. Tastes like
you and nights spent wheeling around neighborhoods we hadn’t seen before, seeking
cracked plastic seats and wood-stilted bar stools,
the best Sazerac and the cheapest booze on tap.
Always the same: whiskey and beer, beer and whiskey.
Always the same: your mouth like stale cigarettes and
your bed like a sleeping bag beside a campfire.
My addictions are simple.
Sitting there on the hillside, I remember what I always remember
when I spin your face inside my mind:
the way I felt when you fucked me for the first time,
flipping me on my stomach and pressing me down
with your rough-skinned hands, telling me that maybe I should let you come back for more.
And I’m up and running down the slope,
and we’re a tangle of bourbon and sweat on the sidewalk
with night forms whorling around us,
blurring past our tongues unabashed ready and more than ready,
unhinged and reeling, neon in the city light, white in the taxi glare,
black in bracketed shadows dropping
and lifting in the gloom, hurtling and hungry as we are.
- Catherine McQuade
(1 poem added 03.09.12)
editor's note: Why leave life to chance when you can take it as it comes? Eat, drink... - mh
Towards the Morning
The doorways inhale and exhale
Their intoxicating breath amidst the silence
Satiated by the insomnia of musicians
Playing to crowds that gather to be alone
Hoping to absorb the evisceration through their pachyderms
And nourish their sallow faces
Disappearing in a puff of smoke
Signalling their distance from each other
Drowning their sorrows
While waving in the throe
Not wanting to be brought ashore
But left to consolidate their fate.
- Anthony Ward
(added 03.08.12)
editor's note: The disconnected congregate to communally ignore their elephants in the room; the only camaraderie they enjoy. - mh
If I Go before You Do
It is getting late,
time is pressing,
of that alone I am sure.
Confidence
is an empty thing -
a lake in to which
Narcissus likes to gaze.
What do you do these days?
Is it the same as me?
Rewind, reduce, erase?
Sometimes, I think
I would like
to talk to you about many things.
But when I consider them more carefully,
they become but one:
time, time and time alone -
the need to grasp at that
which can not be held,
the desire to understand
that which can not be understood.
It's absurd isn't it?
All these questions, answers, inquiries, replies?
The wish for meaning
is nothing but a hole in the ground.
My expectations. Dash. Zero.
My hopes. Dash. None at all.
If I go
before you do,
plant radishes for me.
I will plant cabbages for you.
- J. H. Martin
(1 poem added 03.07.12)
editor's note: Aha! A vegetable version of "nothing ventured." If nothing is all we get, then I'll take radishes any day. Nirvana! - mh
SEEDS
Are we dead
before we are born?
Do we sense
the long void of husked
silence, lying
like a seed,
dormant?
Do we suddenly spring
from our cauls
to swirl
in the cycles of light
only to wither
and return
to the wombed earth,
dead again?
- Robert E. Petras
(1 poem added 03.06.12)
editor's note: Seek meaning in the asking. The answers come too late to matter here and now. - mh
The Blackest Rose
In the garden,
Lily,
does wait.
I'm the blackest rose,
ready,
to pollinate.
Her milk white
–bark,
is smooth and fine.
I consider,
I,
just might take my time.
Like a needle
–poised
I'll penetrate.
And in every
–pore
I'll permeate.
In this seamy
place,
flowers carry blood.
I'll make her
drink,
the liquid love.
Her sullen heart,
we'll
never last.
And wither up,
–stop,
turn to ash.
When the curtain
falls,
we exit left.
I'll always be the
cancer,
of this myth.
- Michael Atreides Lair
(added 03.05.12)
editor's note: Terminal horticulture, life as love as myth. No green thumb here. Better cultivate some other skill to fall back on. - mh
List Of This Week's Activities
Sunday:
Buffalo my hurry-up wings gardening imperceptible earth sky
back in the breast plate of ingredients to create the concoction.
Monday:
Buy a rain statue of Farmer Brown's henhouse after supper whack
warm bee's wax nonagenarian bizarre pink net may be four miles away.
Tuesday:
Telephone my underground aquifer in Walla Walla and leave a message
that says "Psychotherapy is the label printed inside cotton briefs."
Wednesday:
Show my version of Mount Rushmore to my boss at work and then
quaky severance pay pink slip the hollowed bones a nut does it.
Thursday:
Send an email to the looking glass porter in which you casually mention
your love of linoleum floors in a hammock, swaying in a tropical breeze.
Friday:
Invite the gum wrapper over for Labrador pasta of bullets on a merry-go
round with a custom-made noose for desert. Then rear-end the accordion.
Saturday:
Clean out the entire Texas panhandle of Bible belt tarmacs using a
hand-held chorus of hallelujahs blinking their turn signals.
- Maurice Oliver
(1 poem added 03.04.12)
editor's note: Imagine a check-list that constantly changes and you'll come close to a week like this one. Non-sequi - wha'? - 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...
Namin' It,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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