The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 12.22.12
“The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.” Henry Miller
I witness myself as the world passes by (above) by David Arthur-Simons, 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 waxed eloquent as the moon waxed gibbous, a face differently deciphered, here from there; we twisted lives and lusty loves beneath a red umbrella; we found resort in a new retort, busted balls for bull; we shot from everything to nothing in the arc of a star; we sucked another into ourselves, our super nova never stop loving you whole; we saw all reduced to digital dimensions, dominated, our rebellion dormant; we awoke in cold sweat recollections, teetering on a loon-decided tumble into madness. Phew! Shake it off. Coffee... ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Hills Filled with Fright
What are you afraid of?
The shadow cabinet,
the gloomy cupboard,
the essential framework decided by the loons.
Between two levels of this game
you play each time it rains.
Your throat is sore:
the devil dwells in,
your head aches so
you wish you could unscrew it.
You feel lonely, lost and torn out.
The shores you used to love and watch roaring when you were young
are far
from these hills, and crests, and mounts, and vineyards at certain heights.
Let me repeat this once again. What are are you afraid of? Are you afraid of height?
Are you afraid of what your passions could lead you to perform?
Debilitating acts and profoundly shameful thoughts
dark images, pink images, blurred and tainted,
flesh on flesh, pricks and balls
mingled and intertwined
at dusk, at twilight
in toilets you
toy them
once
more.
- Walter Ruhlmann
(1 poem added 12.22.12)
editor's note: Oh, sweet warm bed, the morning-after shaky sunlight thin upon the wall. What a fright last night, indeed; the onset of insanity? The end of the world? No, wait... it was the office Christmas party. Much worse - stay in bed 'til the new year! - mh
The thing plugged into the wall.
Weren’t we supposed to glamour and awe at the way you made life simple?
Made life easy?
Instead we spend hours of precious lives working at you like a pimple,
wondering the cause.
When you so easily break or freeze,
where is the ease?
The ease you promised when you “saved us time” or “organized our lives”.
No, you lied.
You dump files into place we can not traverse.
You destroy afternoons with even worse,
a virus you catch, for which there is no medicine.
Just aggravation over your pretension
and grieving for your choice selection of tidbits of our memories and information
You will feel no remorse in forgetting.
An irrevocable amnesia.
A destruction of digital proportions.
An extortion;
That only you can leave humanity to rue any such creations.
- GMSpear
(1 poem added 12.21.12)
editor's note: The only defense against this demanding dominatrix lies within our daily digital dialect: - mh
BeetleJuice
They say Betelgeuse will explode soon.
Or maybe it already has?
gone super-nova.
Twisted into itself, like my fingers in your hair.
knotting and dotting their way into your stratosphere.
Where the days bleed into each-other, forming a diaphanous haze over my frame
of reference, over my conscious mind.
Becoming a stained-glass nest for my fingers to crawl inside (inside your fingers).
my ethereal home between your ears, your arms, your fears.
a knot.
a knot upon another.
knotted, and nested in the mane that is the incipient celestial being within my
ribcage.
Coating my fingers in the bluely-lit iris's found behind the lions tousled hair.
Burying my body between the planes of your existence, the layers of stars that
inhabit and flow from your fingertips.
The fingerprints my own call home.
Ineffable.
- Alayne Ballantine
(added 12.20.12)
editor's note: It's a black hole lotta love. - mh
American Girl
Before I was nothing,
I was everything.
I was tears,
Hot, heavy, salt burning.
I was everything.
I was desire
Slinking body, feline eyelashes, they could not ignore.
But I was just a kid
(Honey, close your eyes)
I was Air Jordan
And how I loved him so.
I was high,
(But it’s been around so long, they said)
I was ecstasy.
I’ve never seen a shooting star.
I was everything, you know.
- Lauren Huntley
(added 12.19.12)
editor's note: You've got it (enter your Country here) Girl; ain't seen nothing that isn't everything you are. - mh
Assholed
I transcended your bullshit
without alcohol or mushrooms
just as your head transcended
your anus and got stuck right up
your self-righteous asshole.
It’s ok: you’ve never passed shit
in your entire life; your mouth
is probably filling up with diamonds
right now. You’re a perpetual goldmine,
Ouroboros snake of genius; what a shame
no one can hear your precious voice
pass the flesh of your buttocks,
corpulent with ego,
pockmarked with cellulite whimsy,
portrayed as sacred scrolls
that are really only good
for wiping.
Although, this poem
will not reach your consciousness,
distorted as it is by the echo
of my own insecurity.
- Colin Dardis
(added 12.18.12)
editor's note: A fine an' flowery way to extend our deepest condolences to the person who provokes this - may we never be them. - mh
The girl with the red umbrella
The smoke from my fading cigarette
rises and parts,
going their separate ways.
Like Garbo in a silent movie,
A shadow appears in a darkened doorway.
My life is monochrome.
I call her Gilda.
It probably isn’t her name, I know, but
I once watched an old film,
with Rita Hayworth.
It was in black and white and
I was a kid.
That Gilda haunts me still.
The girl, my Gilda,
holds a red umbrella.
It’s not raining.
I look up at the evening moon
in a clear autumn sky.
Not a cloud.
She holds it over her head
while smoking a Camel on the corner
of Washington and Vine
and watches each car go by.
Her hair is bleached, like strands of straw,
colors of dying snow,
and her eyes,
tar pools in a translucent face.
My Gilda waits for the workmen,
driving home after a dirty day.
She can make them forget.
She’s Amnesia girl.
If I was a man... if I was half a man
I’d take her away and show her the movie,
and say to her.
“This is who you are.”
But I just sit by the cafe window,
sipping lukewarm latte, a virgin voyeur.
Every day I play out the scene,
an unused extra in an unseen film.
Gilda, my Gilda looks my way
for a moment
and then
she stoops and stops a passing car.
This scene’s no fun anymore.
The girl with the red umbrella
is someone else’s Gilda now.
- Alun Williams
(added 12.17.12)
editor's note: So many lives we would make into others than they are, just to amuse ourselves. Then they break away under their own volition. Hmmmm... maybe that's why god is so pissed. - mh
Moongazing in Manila
The air is stripped of inanities tonight
and I grow breathless seeing
an apparition of the city sky, revealing
a golden host aureoled in light.
From my window, I decipher
the profile of a man’s face
etched on her cheek.
But the towering condominiums,
now mushrooming the city,
pitifully diminish her royalty
into a minute disc.
I go to sleep and memorize
the image of her in mind:
infinitesimal like the tiny point of light
now resting
behind these eyes.
- Rina Angela Corpus
(added 12.16.12)
editor's note: All over this globe, the same glowing orb makes the same memory point behind closed eyes. - 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...
Singin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
•••••••••••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we waxed eloquent as the moon waxed gibbous, a face differently deciphered, here from there; we twisted lives and lusty loves beneath a red umbrella; we found resort in a new retort, busted balls for bull; we shot from everything to nothing in the arc of a star; we sucked another into ourselves, our super nova never stop loving you whole; we saw all reduced to digital dimensions, dominated, our rebellion dormant; we awoke in cold sweat recollections, teetering on a loon-decided tumble into madness. Phew! Shake it off. Coffee... ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Hills Filled with Fright
What are you afraid of?
The shadow cabinet,
the gloomy cupboard,
the essential framework decided by the loons.
Between two levels of this game
you play each time it rains.
Your throat is sore:
the devil dwells in,
your head aches so
you wish you could unscrew it.
You feel lonely, lost and torn out.
The shores you used to love and watch roaring when you were young
are far
from these hills, and crests, and mounts, and vineyards at certain heights.
Let me repeat this once again. What are are you afraid of? Are you afraid of height?
Are you afraid of what your passions could lead you to perform?
Debilitating acts and profoundly shameful thoughts
dark images, pink images, blurred and tainted,
flesh on flesh, pricks and balls
mingled and intertwined
at dusk, at twilight
in toilets you
toy them
once
more.
- Walter Ruhlmann
(1 poem added 12.22.12)
editor's note: Oh, sweet warm bed, the morning-after shaky sunlight thin upon the wall. What a fright last night, indeed; the onset of insanity? The end of the world? No, wait... it was the office Christmas party. Much worse - stay in bed 'til the new year! - mh
The thing plugged into the wall.
Weren’t we supposed to glamour and awe at the way you made life simple?
Made life easy?
Instead we spend hours of precious lives working at you like a pimple,
wondering the cause.
When you so easily break or freeze,
where is the ease?
The ease you promised when you “saved us time” or “organized our lives”.
No, you lied.
You dump files into place we can not traverse.
You destroy afternoons with even worse,
a virus you catch, for which there is no medicine.
Just aggravation over your pretension
and grieving for your choice selection of tidbits of our memories and information
You will feel no remorse in forgetting.
An irrevocable amnesia.
A destruction of digital proportions.
An extortion;
That only you can leave humanity to rue any such creations.
- GMSpear
(1 poem added 12.21.12)
editor's note: The only defense against this demanding dominatrix lies within our daily digital dialect:
BeetleJuice
They say Betelgeuse will explode soon.
Or maybe it already has?
gone super-nova.
Twisted into itself, like my fingers in your hair.
knotting and dotting their way into your stratosphere.
Where the days bleed into each-other, forming a diaphanous haze over my frame
of reference, over my conscious mind.
Becoming a stained-glass nest for my fingers to crawl inside (inside your fingers).
my ethereal home between your ears, your arms, your fears.
a knot.
a knot upon another.
knotted, and nested in the mane that is the incipient celestial being within my
ribcage.
Coating my fingers in the bluely-lit iris's found behind the lions tousled hair.
Burying my body between the planes of your existence, the layers of stars that
inhabit and flow from your fingertips.
The fingerprints my own call home.
Ineffable.
- Alayne Ballantine
(added 12.20.12)
editor's note: It's a black hole lotta love. - mh
American Girl
Before I was nothing,
I was everything.
I was tears,
Hot, heavy, salt burning.
I was everything.
I was desire
Slinking body, feline eyelashes, they could not ignore.
But I was just a kid
(Honey, close your eyes)
I was Air Jordan
And how I loved him so.
I was high,
(But it’s been around so long, they said)
I was ecstasy.
I’ve never seen a shooting star.
I was everything, you know.
- Lauren Huntley
(added 12.19.12)
editor's note: You've got it (enter your Country here) Girl; ain't seen nothing that isn't everything you are. - mh
Assholed
I transcended your bullshit
without alcohol or mushrooms
just as your head transcended
your anus and got stuck right up
your self-righteous asshole.
It’s ok: you’ve never passed shit
in your entire life; your mouth
is probably filling up with diamonds
right now. You’re a perpetual goldmine,
Ouroboros snake of genius; what a shame
no one can hear your precious voice
pass the flesh of your buttocks,
corpulent with ego,
pockmarked with cellulite whimsy,
portrayed as sacred scrolls
that are really only good
for wiping.
Although, this poem
will not reach your consciousness,
distorted as it is by the echo
of my own insecurity.
- Colin Dardis
(added 12.18.12)
editor's note: A fine an' flowery way to extend our deepest condolences to the person who provokes this - may we never be them. - mh
The girl with the red umbrella
The smoke from my fading cigarette
rises and parts,
going their separate ways.
Like Garbo in a silent movie,
A shadow appears in a darkened doorway.
My life is monochrome.
I call her Gilda.
It probably isn’t her name, I know, but
I once watched an old film,
with Rita Hayworth.
It was in black and white and
I was a kid.
That Gilda haunts me still.
The girl, my Gilda,
holds a red umbrella.
It’s not raining.
I look up at the evening moon
in a clear autumn sky.
Not a cloud.
She holds it over her head
while smoking a Camel on the corner
of Washington and Vine
and watches each car go by.
Her hair is bleached, like strands of straw,
colors of dying snow,
and her eyes,
tar pools in a translucent face.
My Gilda waits for the workmen,
driving home after a dirty day.
She can make them forget.
She’s Amnesia girl.
If I was a man... if I was half a man
I’d take her away and show her the movie,
and say to her.
“This is who you are.”
But I just sit by the cafe window,
sipping lukewarm latte, a virgin voyeur.
Every day I play out the scene,
an unused extra in an unseen film.
Gilda, my Gilda looks my way
for a moment
and then
she stoops and stops a passing car.
This scene’s no fun anymore.
The girl with the red umbrella
is someone else’s Gilda now.
- Alun Williams
(added 12.17.12)
editor's note: So many lives we would make into others than they are, just to amuse ourselves. Then they break away under their own volition. Hmmmm... maybe that's why god is so pissed. - mh
Moongazing in Manila
The air is stripped of inanities tonight
and I grow breathless seeing
an apparition of the city sky, revealing
a golden host aureoled in light.
From my window, I decipher
the profile of a man’s face
etched on her cheek.
But the towering condominiums,
now mushrooming the city,
pitifully diminish her royalty
into a minute disc.
I go to sleep and memorize
the image of her in mind:
infinitesimal like the tiny point of light
now resting
behind these eyes.
- Rina Angela Corpus
(added 12.16.12)
editor's note: All over this globe, the same glowing orb makes the same memory point behind closed eyes. - 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...
Singin',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
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