The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 08.18.12
“Ah just act the way ah feel.” Elvis Presley
Digital illustration by Johnny O
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we walked away from wizened winter to steal a stint in summer's youth; we rode an old rail to reminisce; we foisted accusatory fashion featuring a forsaken finger; we turned transitory truth into beatified blessing; we scrubbed the scratch of a painful past; we indulged aphrodisiac teen-aged angst; we saw the shake of romantic states effected by an invisible man. ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Tectonics
I was having a cigarette
And drinking earl grey tea with a mad dash of rum
Outside the Starbucks
Talking to this elementary school teacher.
She told me all about how much she likes working
With the kids,
And the time she accidentally said
‘Fuck’
On a field trip.
I laughed and poured a bit of rum in her cup.
After a few more pours,
She told me about her two kids
At home,
How hard it is to meet someone.
I didn’t say anything.
John then came and sat down,
He worked at the airport,
Not a pilot or anything,
But from what I heard, a pretty solid job.
He started talking about all the
Dildos
Baggage handlers find
Looking for
Bombs.
I got up to piss, the fifth empty now,
And the school teacher told me
She liked my hair,
And kissed me before I walked in.
I took a long piss,
Knowing that I have let her down:
That what she wanted
I didn’t have,
And what I had
She didn’t want.
When I came out of the bathroom,
I saw the two of them
Through the shop window,
John had scooted over to my seat,
And they were sitting nice and close.
I was out of it, out of the trouble,
The trap.
I walked out the side door
To bypass them,
Lit another cigarette,
Passed the art gallery on the corner,
And walked down Big Bend to Conoco
Planning to use the last twenty for a
Pack of reds and a sixer,
Walk across the condemned strip mall,
And listen to Brahms
In the park.
It was a quiet night, a peaceful night.
In another hour or two, John will get all that ass:
The only thing to
Save him
Now
Is the New Madrid Fault
Finally cracking and dragging us all
Into the ground.
- Robert D. Lyons
(3 poems added 08.18.12)
editor's note: Sometimes, one can change the movement of continents just by leaving the room. (Read about Robert's process in two more new ones on his page.) - mh
“Find what you love and let it kill you” – C.B.
16 year old
Fell mushy gushy love drops
Over a sentence sucking synapses
Into bitch-in-heat orgasms.
Aphrodisiac syllables
Boiled over spaghetti sauce insides
Like sonic speed time lapse rose bloom.
That furnace fired hot
In heart valve,
Stomach lining,
And pelvic bone,
Really sent her shivering
Like walking tightropes of
Inverted equator.
Came enough times
To document jawlines
Wasting mouths
Wasting tongue
Because they don’t taste.
Enough to
Wash out roaches
With feelers brushed back
In some 90’s haircut.
Enough for storytellers
To etch her deep
In the walls of
California coffee shops.
Never had to make the call,
“The juicer’s jammed!”
Because there will always be pages,
Always self-servicing saucy stanzas,
Always dead poets reading
Under her showerhead.
Say she does jam,
Say molten masturbation
Molds into fly guts,
Then, it must mean
Success.
All dried up
Means she felt
It all.
- Ryan Kendall
(added 08.17.12)
editor's note: Novice nubile diversions in verse do not dabble; they drain to the drop of compulsion and angst driven obsession. True love, indeed! - mh
Dominance By Number
“it became sacred / only when they went away.” ~ Adrienne Rich
You have left your fingerprints
all over my life.
And I can no longer read the past
that has protected me.
I have tried to scrub them off.
But the lines of my skin dissolved instead.
Feeding the illusion
that we were one.
Now you are gone.
So I am nothing.
Short of alone.
And miles beyond afraid.
- A.J. Huffman
(1 poem added 08.16.12)
editor's note: Unprotected, undefined, yet unafraid. A heart bereaved or a new religion. Keep faith, lovers! (Let's welcome A.J. to our Contributing Poets!! Check out her poems on her new page.) - mh
What is Truth?
How can anyone know it?
The moment you speak about it,
the words miss their target, run aground
and turn up late.
Why? Cause like all language, mathematic and scientific endeavors
"the map is not the territory".
Spoken words are just mental reflections of our own perceptual bias
based upon a memory of truth that occurred a moment ago.
At best, we can only say one thing for certain;
we give witness to truth in every breath we share.
So be mindful in the moment. Be a blessing.
- Claude Barrett
(1 poem added 08.15.12)
editor's note: It's a cheap question if used to wash ones hands. Better to bless, yes! - mh
Scold to Go
If I severed my airborne finger
implanted it in your chest
and walked off
would you shudder and succumb
with my accusations embedded in you?
- Steven Minchin
(1 poem added 08.14.12)
editor's note: Choose offenders carefully. One down, seven left; save two for nose thumbing. - mh
RIDING THE Q TRAIN
Riding the Q train to Brooklyn, returning to my roots,
I look out the window; a glorious sun paints the sky
turquoise, and the sea a glittering mirror of blended
blues and greens and majestic gold.
And I listen to the susurrations of the sea in my
dreamscape as the Q hisses and growls, bellows
and shrieks; the antediluvian train rushes forth
and stops suddenly as it struggles to cross the
Manhattan Bridge.
The Q’s on fire beneath the August sun. It chugs
along the seething tracks to a primeval Brooklyn,
as pristine as the whooper swan sailing above
Iceland and across the globe;
Cygnus cygnus soars high in the heavens and
across Space and Time,
vanishing in a snow-covered memory.
Riding the Q train to Old Brooklyn, I long to go
home; I want to disappear in the deep snow of
my youth; it’s winter there for the boy I used to
be. Mother sits with him and feeds him grand
dreams.
I crave Old Brooklyn where Mother died too
soon. Her ghost sits with the apparition of
the boy-poet.
I long to return. But I can’t. Or can I? The Q
is about to enter DeKalb Avenue, the first
station in Brooklyn.
I close my eyes and fall asleep. I dream about
the whooper swan. We vanish together.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 08.13.12)
editor's note: Riding an old train with new perspective; memories forever hung in now. - mh
The summer’s in doubt
The summer’s in doubt
and I’m happiest in the sun.
Walking down Oxford Road,
I don dark shades.
There are young students. I’m a sad old git,
can’t carry off the trends now.
The summer used to last forever,
now time’s slipping by.
Once I drove an open top MG
in the Cheshire countryside.
Now I fantasise how life could be
if I were twenty again.
The summer’s in doubt,
more so year on year.
Don’t throw my smile back at me,
I don’t want to live on the margin.
I’m perplexed
and clinging on.
- Michael Holme
(1 poem added 08.12.12)
editor's note: Keep looking for that endless summer long after the first snowflakes fall. - 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...
Feelin' It,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we walked away from wizened winter to steal a stint in summer's youth; we rode an old rail to reminisce; we foisted accusatory fashion featuring a forsaken finger; we turned transitory truth into beatified blessing; we scrubbed the scratch of a painful past; we indulged aphrodisiac teen-aged angst; we saw the shake of romantic states effected by an invisible man. ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Tectonics
I was having a cigarette
And drinking earl grey tea with a mad dash of rum
Outside the Starbucks
Talking to this elementary school teacher.
She told me all about how much she likes working
With the kids,
And the time she accidentally said
‘Fuck’
On a field trip.
I laughed and poured a bit of rum in her cup.
After a few more pours,
She told me about her two kids
At home,
How hard it is to meet someone.
I didn’t say anything.
John then came and sat down,
He worked at the airport,
Not a pilot or anything,
But from what I heard, a pretty solid job.
He started talking about all the
Dildos
Baggage handlers find
Looking for
Bombs.
I got up to piss, the fifth empty now,
And the school teacher told me
She liked my hair,
And kissed me before I walked in.
I took a long piss,
Knowing that I have let her down:
That what she wanted
I didn’t have,
And what I had
She didn’t want.
When I came out of the bathroom,
I saw the two of them
Through the shop window,
John had scooted over to my seat,
And they were sitting nice and close.
I was out of it, out of the trouble,
The trap.
I walked out the side door
To bypass them,
Lit another cigarette,
Passed the art gallery on the corner,
And walked down Big Bend to Conoco
Planning to use the last twenty for a
Pack of reds and a sixer,
Walk across the condemned strip mall,
And listen to Brahms
In the park.
It was a quiet night, a peaceful night.
In another hour or two, John will get all that ass:
The only thing to
Save him
Now
Is the New Madrid Fault
Finally cracking and dragging us all
Into the ground.
- Robert D. Lyons
(3 poems added 08.18.12)
editor's note: Sometimes, one can change the movement of continents just by leaving the room. (Read about Robert's process in two more new ones on his page.) - mh
“Find what you love and let it kill you” – C.B.
16 year old
Fell mushy gushy love drops
Over a sentence sucking synapses
Into bitch-in-heat orgasms.
Aphrodisiac syllables
Boiled over spaghetti sauce insides
Like sonic speed time lapse rose bloom.
That furnace fired hot
In heart valve,
Stomach lining,
And pelvic bone,
Really sent her shivering
Like walking tightropes of
Inverted equator.
Came enough times
To document jawlines
Wasting mouths
Wasting tongue
Because they don’t taste.
Enough to
Wash out roaches
With feelers brushed back
In some 90’s haircut.
Enough for storytellers
To etch her deep
In the walls of
California coffee shops.
Never had to make the call,
“The juicer’s jammed!”
Because there will always be pages,
Always self-servicing saucy stanzas,
Always dead poets reading
Under her showerhead.
Say she does jam,
Say molten masturbation
Molds into fly guts,
Then, it must mean
Success.
All dried up
Means she felt
It all.
- Ryan Kendall
(added 08.17.12)
editor's note: Novice nubile diversions in verse do not dabble; they drain to the drop of compulsion and angst driven obsession. True love, indeed! - mh
Dominance By Number
“it became sacred / only when they went away.” ~ Adrienne Rich
You have left your fingerprints
all over my life.
And I can no longer read the past
that has protected me.
I have tried to scrub them off.
But the lines of my skin dissolved instead.
Feeding the illusion
that we were one.
Now you are gone.
So I am nothing.
Short of alone.
And miles beyond afraid.
- A.J. Huffman
(1 poem added 08.16.12)
editor's note: Unprotected, undefined, yet unafraid. A heart bereaved or a new religion. Keep faith, lovers! (Let's welcome A.J. to our Contributing Poets!! Check out her poems on her new page.) - mh
What is Truth?
How can anyone know it?
The moment you speak about it,
the words miss their target, run aground
and turn up late.
Why? Cause like all language, mathematic and scientific endeavors
"the map is not the territory".
Spoken words are just mental reflections of our own perceptual bias
based upon a memory of truth that occurred a moment ago.
At best, we can only say one thing for certain;
we give witness to truth in every breath we share.
So be mindful in the moment. Be a blessing.
- Claude Barrett
(1 poem added 08.15.12)
editor's note: It's a cheap question if used to wash ones hands. Better to bless, yes! - mh
Scold to Go
If I severed my airborne finger
implanted it in your chest
and walked off
would you shudder and succumb
with my accusations embedded in you?
- Steven Minchin
(1 poem added 08.14.12)
editor's note: Choose offenders carefully. One down, seven left; save two for nose thumbing. - mh
RIDING THE Q TRAIN
Riding the Q train to Brooklyn, returning to my roots,
I look out the window; a glorious sun paints the sky
turquoise, and the sea a glittering mirror of blended
blues and greens and majestic gold.
And I listen to the susurrations of the sea in my
dreamscape as the Q hisses and growls, bellows
and shrieks; the antediluvian train rushes forth
and stops suddenly as it struggles to cross the
Manhattan Bridge.
The Q’s on fire beneath the August sun. It chugs
along the seething tracks to a primeval Brooklyn,
as pristine as the whooper swan sailing above
Iceland and across the globe;
Cygnus cygnus soars high in the heavens and
across Space and Time,
vanishing in a snow-covered memory.
Riding the Q train to Old Brooklyn, I long to go
home; I want to disappear in the deep snow of
my youth; it’s winter there for the boy I used to
be. Mother sits with him and feeds him grand
dreams.
I crave Old Brooklyn where Mother died too
soon. Her ghost sits with the apparition of
the boy-poet.
I long to return. But I can’t. Or can I? The Q
is about to enter DeKalb Avenue, the first
station in Brooklyn.
I close my eyes and fall asleep. I dream about
the whooper swan. We vanish together.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 08.13.12)
editor's note: Riding an old train with new perspective; memories forever hung in now. - mh
The summer’s in doubt
The summer’s in doubt
and I’m happiest in the sun.
Walking down Oxford Road,
I don dark shades.
There are young students. I’m a sad old git,
can’t carry off the trends now.
The summer used to last forever,
now time’s slipping by.
Once I drove an open top MG
in the Cheshire countryside.
Now I fantasise how life could be
if I were twenty again.
The summer’s in doubt,
more so year on year.
Don’t throw my smile back at me,
I don’t want to live on the margin.
I’m perplexed
and clinging on.
- Michael Holme
(1 poem added 08.12.12)
editor's note: Keep looking for that endless summer long after the first snowflakes fall. - 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...
Feelin' It,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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