The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 12.01.12
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” Abraham Maslow
The Roots (above) by Jimmy Ovadia, one of over 20 featured 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 yours right over here and a-way you'll GO!
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we fished to fry, the oil kept hot, no cookin's done when "here" you're not; we sought lily luxury, sustained and secure, exceeded only by our stays of execution; we wavered in water, wondering withered, untraveled ways against what water wields in wasted minds; we gasped an' gulped, oxygen deprived, frantically feeling our way to our hidey-hole haven; we reclined in clandestined covert, looking to leave legacy in toothpick tax shelters, unashamed; we avoided our angst-ridden anxieties in flagrant imaginings of positive possessions of the one who got away; finally, we festered in fetid recall of one remorseful, mad moment, unable to rebate infinite investments in upward evolution unfettered. Extend your reach to wrest that ring from stubborn revisionist historians. Read on!~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
never enough time.
Johnny, my friend, I am writing
you to say goodbye. You know
where I live, though others don’t. What you don’t know is
that I have family who has been, for now, permitted
to live. I beg you, in passing
this
letter on, please redact the name of the place where my wife
& daughters are, for the moment, being permitted
to survive.
In the small village outside S– S––, where the mist rises out
of the rocks thick as the bread
we lacked—we had only crumbs
in our bare kitchen
cupboards & the rats absconded with those.
In S–– S–––, we live
our lives in the heart of the beast, though we can’t hear it
pounding. When I see a stray
rabid animal, my urge is
not to reach for a knife. I cannot claim the same
when I see a soldier
& his AK47, even if it is a child.
Especially if it is a child.
Upon my first visit to America—after the four numb
years that followed the night
before my sister’s Quinceañera, when Papa’s hair was grabbed, to force
his head back & expose his throat to slit. Mama was not so lucky:
four men first shoved their cocks
& then their bayonets
into her. I watched, whimpering, paralyzed, through the slats
of the hidden compartment
inside our (bare, always bare) cupboards—
I became
more fearful
& more furious than I’d ever been before,
than I’d ever imagined it was possible to be: a plethora of excess
as Florida’s palm
trees waving their branches in the fragrance of salt
water wind. Every car back
-firing was a bullet meant for me
Each man wearing camouflage
was hiding
their tools for murder, tools for rape in their oversized
pockets;
Which is why I did
what I did. What you have
heard is true: I disguised myself
as a journalist to gain
access to the house of a mass
murderer, a general
in President —’s army. I sat in his kitchen; he waved
away three fair
-haired whores; the first
massaged his shoulders, the second,
his feet; the third was sucking his cock.
I shared his cigars
& the cognac he drank.
Not long after, his bare
foot, black
-eyed wife served paella. He discussed the difficulties
of being a patriot
in a country full of terrorists
& thieves. I would, he said, exhaling
a thick cloud of reeking smoke, slaughter every last campesino in this
wretched place, if I only had
the time; alas, I must dispatch my men to do it
for me. The word campesino he spat
out, a chunk of rotten
meat fouling up his feast. But I do allow myself
one small satisfaction. He upended jar after
jar of severed tongues.
This is just part
of the reason why I slit his throat, & the throats of his whores,
his wife, & his three small sons.
Now I am one of the men
awaiting execution, whispering No hay tiempo
suficiente, Nunca hay tiempo suficiente. It is the sound of scythes
slicing through wheat, the ache of the song of fields in S– S––.
On one side, the wind outside the prison
concrete; on the other, my hands, touching the rough cement
as I walk
back & forth, back & forth; it is my wife’s breath
that slips into my cell
each night, it is her hand I imagine
to be my own. I live in a small country.
There is nothing one man will not do to another.
- Michelle Greenblatt
(1 poem added 12.01.12)
editor's note: Challenge your considerations of what one would never do, when one can never know, if never in the same situation with never enough time. (We welcome back one of Mad Swirl's charter contributors with this submission. See more of Michelle's work on her page.) - mh
Farewell
Goodbye and leave me
Leave me in the inertia of leaving
Leave me when you progressively travel
A bit of you at every milestone
You may be some numeric miles from Russia,
And a few dollars from US
While I’ll not move an inch
And transpire into nothingness
Leave me to strew my poems
Over a famous Irish Coffee
Over there in Mussoorie
When a room still waits for me
For me, for me
The train stands there
The dogged passengers lift their holidays
And I go blank
Taking a holiday from holidays
The seedy night bars in Mumbai
Where beer smuggles unwillingly
A smoke-choked lung coughs out sea shells
There, there, I lie falsely loved
Do not wait for me, am long long gone
Gone with the Mumbai Monsoons
Gone with violent terror on missing the right station
Gone with simple insanity
Gone with ill smelling pleasure
So when you come looking for your reclaimed guilt
I am gone, long gone, gone for ever
- Sreemanti Sengupta
(added 11.30.12)
editor's note: If your inertia instills guilt, you shouldn't leave. But, you will, won't you? Hence, the lonely traveler. - mh
One, Matchstick Pessimist
I am squalor.
I dwell on the spark of a match that –
Soils the clean shirt of the night.
I am the mist of a dream.
I am a London pigeon stained by the countryside.
I am puff pastry, I am diet coke.
I am missed trains.
I am “sorry you did not get the job”
I am “this train is being held here to regulate the service”
I am awkward glances
I am the beautiful blossom boy at Stepney Green
I am a broken battered toy, a Slut on the Game
I am an exchanged stare
I am heartache
I am longing
I am your favourite child
I am your worst enemy.
I behold the sun as a foolish old man
And force him to surrender his pale daughter
And in doing so I shall sully the corridors of Angel throats’
Just as white waves choke pale sea
Allowing only a tuneless whisper to crawl, note by note
From ‘neath a muted memory.
Leaving what in this wretched merry place?
Only my reprimand.
But should I find that I descend in stature from -
A great wood to a splinter,
Then I shall laugh, laying
In wait, sealed away.
Waiting to strike,
And paint the dark.
- Sean Macro
(added 11.29.12)
editor's note: Wood to splinter to strike and sputter. If this is your one, be careful how you number your two. - mh
lines like branches in the sky
once
all i wanted was
marijuana, martinis,
your lips, and champagne
cigarettes, straight teeth,
cold beer, and cocaine
scratch marks and bite marks
and rug burn and slack
now
all i need is a hole
to bury my intimacies in
and these lines
like branches in the sky
with buds like eyes and hunger
and poems like trees
recycling the carbon dioxide
of our suffering
into the poetry of pain
- Paul Koniecki
(2 poems added 11.28.12)
editor's note: A hole is like a poem; hard to carry, harder to fill. (Another one from Paul on his page; he'll show you his...) - mh
I want to be water
I want to be water
bending light
exposing translucent truth
distorted by surface waves
I want to be water
mutable meandering stream
nourishing banks surrounding
trails carved in the dirt
I want to be water
so that flying missiles
break surface tension and
diffuse inside calm insulation
I want to be water
undulating the reflection of the sun
providing respite for blazing heat
extinguishing wild red fires
I want to be water
abundant yet scarce
found in all living things, but
difficult to extract and purify
I want to be water
so you have to go deeper,
deeper, darker into the unknown, searching
for secrets buried in the ocean floor
I want to be water
enveloping, saturating the brave
divers in wetsuits, materializing
in hidden caverns to come up for air
I want to be water
sweeping sediment away from one resource
only to deposit it in another place and time
facilitating growth down the road
I am water
vacillating between ice
and steam, forgetting
the tranquility of my natural state
- Lilly Penhall
(1 poem added 11.27.12)
editor's note: Hard to maintain that natural state when distracted by so many manifestations of self. Yes, I want to be that, too! - mh
lily
winter raindrop breaks stone --
glass & wing struggle up in the spark,
exciting a comet cry, a blind
lily spiral across azure distance --
that impetuous petal is annihilated
over a dark field canvas
like an unbroken
Clydesdale gallop -- tempestuous
powder mane casts sparkle & shadow,
silver neck a bullet --
bolt tooth hooks
& synaptic throat gulp snowflakes.
stars burn to still furrow & relaxed lap of water
while I remember ocean,
your arms a cradle into evening,
my back rocking, rocking, a lullaby
hovers somewhere above one's shoulders' slope --
our melody stroking against surface
crest and wane,
asking each other to stay.
- Holly R. Appling
(added 11.26.12)
editor's note: In a lily's bloom come waves of love lullabies. Yes, hold them forever on unbroken crests. - mh
Be here NOW
Whoever wants HATRED instead of LOVE,
WAR instead of TOLERANCE,
RELIGION instead of TRUTHFUL SPIRIT
NOISE instead of SILENCE
Lands NOWHERE
In this BUSY world
As it seems,
People are having fish to fry,
As if life does not stop
Neither do time, people, places,
And all other objects around us
Are we busy living Or busy dying?
- Santosh Kalwar
(1 poem added 11.25.12)
editor's note: Yes! Mind your business, here and now, before someone minds it for you. - 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...
Bein' Peace-Full,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we fished to fry, the oil kept hot, no cookin's done when "here" you're not; we sought lily luxury, sustained and secure, exceeded only by our stays of execution; we wavered in water, wondering withered, untraveled ways against what water wields in wasted minds; we gasped an' gulped, oxygen deprived, frantically feeling our way to our hidey-hole haven; we reclined in clandestined covert, looking to leave legacy in toothpick tax shelters, unashamed; we avoided our angst-ridden anxieties in flagrant imaginings of positive possessions of the one who got away; finally, we festered in fetid recall of one remorseful, mad moment, unable to rebate infinite investments in upward evolution unfettered. Extend your reach to wrest that ring from stubborn revisionist historians. Read on!~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
never enough time.
Johnny, my friend, I am writing
you to say goodbye. You know
where I live, though others don’t. What you don’t know is
that I have family who has been, for now, permitted
to live. I beg you, in passing
this
letter on, please redact the name of the place where my wife
& daughters are, for the moment, being permitted
to survive.
In the small village outside S– S––, where the mist rises out
of the rocks thick as the bread
we lacked—we had only crumbs
in our bare kitchen
cupboards & the rats absconded with those.
In S–– S–––, we live
our lives in the heart of the beast, though we can’t hear it
pounding. When I see a stray
rabid animal, my urge is
not to reach for a knife. I cannot claim the same
when I see a soldier
& his AK47, even if it is a child.
Especially if it is a child.
Upon my first visit to America—after the four numb
years that followed the night
before my sister’s Quinceañera, when Papa’s hair was grabbed, to force
his head back & expose his throat to slit. Mama was not so lucky:
four men first shoved their cocks
& then their bayonets
into her. I watched, whimpering, paralyzed, through the slats
of the hidden compartment
inside our (bare, always bare) cupboards—
I became
more fearful
& more furious than I’d ever been before,
than I’d ever imagined it was possible to be: a plethora of excess
as Florida’s palm
trees waving their branches in the fragrance of salt
water wind. Every car back
-firing was a bullet meant for me
Each man wearing camouflage
was hiding
their tools for murder, tools for rape in their oversized
pockets;
Which is why I did
what I did. What you have
heard is true: I disguised myself
as a journalist to gain
access to the house of a mass
murderer, a general
in President —’s army. I sat in his kitchen; he waved
away three fair
-haired whores; the first
massaged his shoulders, the second,
his feet; the third was sucking his cock.
I shared his cigars
& the cognac he drank.
Not long after, his bare
foot, black
-eyed wife served paella. He discussed the difficulties
of being a patriot
in a country full of terrorists
& thieves. I would, he said, exhaling
a thick cloud of reeking smoke, slaughter every last campesino in this
wretched place, if I only had
the time; alas, I must dispatch my men to do it
for me. The word campesino he spat
out, a chunk of rotten
meat fouling up his feast. But I do allow myself
one small satisfaction. He upended jar after
jar of severed tongues.
This is just part
of the reason why I slit his throat, & the throats of his whores,
his wife, & his three small sons.
Now I am one of the men
awaiting execution, whispering No hay tiempo
suficiente, Nunca hay tiempo suficiente. It is the sound of scythes
slicing through wheat, the ache of the song of fields in S– S––.
On one side, the wind outside the prison
concrete; on the other, my hands, touching the rough cement
as I walk
back & forth, back & forth; it is my wife’s breath
that slips into my cell
each night, it is her hand I imagine
to be my own. I live in a small country.
There is nothing one man will not do to another.
- Michelle Greenblatt
(1 poem added 12.01.12)
editor's note: Challenge your considerations of what one would never do, when one can never know, if never in the same situation with never enough time. (We welcome back one of Mad Swirl's charter contributors with this submission. See more of Michelle's work on her page.) - mh
Farewell
Goodbye and leave me
Leave me in the inertia of leaving
Leave me when you progressively travel
A bit of you at every milestone
You may be some numeric miles from Russia,
And a few dollars from US
While I’ll not move an inch
And transpire into nothingness
Leave me to strew my poems
Over a famous Irish Coffee
Over there in Mussoorie
When a room still waits for me
For me, for me
The train stands there
The dogged passengers lift their holidays
And I go blank
Taking a holiday from holidays
The seedy night bars in Mumbai
Where beer smuggles unwillingly
A smoke-choked lung coughs out sea shells
There, there, I lie falsely loved
Do not wait for me, am long long gone
Gone with the Mumbai Monsoons
Gone with violent terror on missing the right station
Gone with simple insanity
Gone with ill smelling pleasure
So when you come looking for your reclaimed guilt
I am gone, long gone, gone for ever
- Sreemanti Sengupta
(added 11.30.12)
editor's note: If your inertia instills guilt, you shouldn't leave. But, you will, won't you? Hence, the lonely traveler. - mh
One, Matchstick Pessimist
I am squalor.
I dwell on the spark of a match that –
Soils the clean shirt of the night.
I am the mist of a dream.
I am a London pigeon stained by the countryside.
I am puff pastry, I am diet coke.
I am missed trains.
I am “sorry you did not get the job”
I am “this train is being held here to regulate the service”
I am awkward glances
I am the beautiful blossom boy at Stepney Green
I am a broken battered toy, a Slut on the Game
I am an exchanged stare
I am heartache
I am longing
I am your favourite child
I am your worst enemy.
I behold the sun as a foolish old man
And force him to surrender his pale daughter
And in doing so I shall sully the corridors of Angel throats’
Just as white waves choke pale sea
Allowing only a tuneless whisper to crawl, note by note
From ‘neath a muted memory.
Leaving what in this wretched merry place?
Only my reprimand.
But should I find that I descend in stature from -
A great wood to a splinter,
Then I shall laugh, laying
In wait, sealed away.
Waiting to strike,
And paint the dark.
- Sean Macro
(added 11.29.12)
editor's note: Wood to splinter to strike and sputter. If this is your one, be careful how you number your two. - mh
lines like branches in the sky
once
all i wanted was
marijuana, martinis,
your lips, and champagne
cigarettes, straight teeth,
cold beer, and cocaine
scratch marks and bite marks
and rug burn and slack
now
all i need is a hole
to bury my intimacies in
and these lines
like branches in the sky
with buds like eyes and hunger
and poems like trees
recycling the carbon dioxide
of our suffering
into the poetry of pain
- Paul Koniecki
(2 poems added 11.28.12)
editor's note: A hole is like a poem; hard to carry, harder to fill. (Another one from Paul on his page; he'll show you his...) - mh
I want to be water
I want to be water
bending light
exposing translucent truth
distorted by surface waves
I want to be water
mutable meandering stream
nourishing banks surrounding
trails carved in the dirt
I want to be water
so that flying missiles
break surface tension and
diffuse inside calm insulation
I want to be water
undulating the reflection of the sun
providing respite for blazing heat
extinguishing wild red fires
I want to be water
abundant yet scarce
found in all living things, but
difficult to extract and purify
I want to be water
so you have to go deeper,
deeper, darker into the unknown, searching
for secrets buried in the ocean floor
I want to be water
enveloping, saturating the brave
divers in wetsuits, materializing
in hidden caverns to come up for air
I want to be water
sweeping sediment away from one resource
only to deposit it in another place and time
facilitating growth down the road
I am water
vacillating between ice
and steam, forgetting
the tranquility of my natural state
- Lilly Penhall
(1 poem added 11.27.12)
editor's note: Hard to maintain that natural state when distracted by so many manifestations of self. Yes, I want to be that, too! - mh
lily
winter raindrop breaks stone --
glass & wing struggle up in the spark,
exciting a comet cry, a blind
lily spiral across azure distance --
that impetuous petal is annihilated
over a dark field canvas
like an unbroken
Clydesdale gallop -- tempestuous
powder mane casts sparkle & shadow,
silver neck a bullet --
bolt tooth hooks
& synaptic throat gulp snowflakes.
stars burn to still furrow & relaxed lap of water
while I remember ocean,
your arms a cradle into evening,
my back rocking, rocking, a lullaby
hovers somewhere above one's shoulders' slope --
our melody stroking against surface
crest and wane,
asking each other to stay.
- Holly R. Appling
(added 11.26.12)
editor's note: In a lily's bloom come waves of love lullabies. Yes, hold them forever on unbroken crests. - mh
Be here NOW
Whoever wants HATRED instead of LOVE,
WAR instead of TOLERANCE,
RELIGION instead of TRUTHFUL SPIRIT
NOISE instead of SILENCE
Lands NOWHERE
In this BUSY world
As it seems,
People are having fish to fry,
As if life does not stop
Neither do time, people, places,
And all other objects around us
Are we busy living Or busy dying?
- Santosh Kalwar
(1 poem added 11.25.12)
editor's note: Yes! Mind your business, here and now, before someone minds it for you. - 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...
Bein' Peace-Full,
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Comments