The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 03.23.13

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate.” ~ T. S. Eliot


Her Menace-ness (above) by Jack Miller, 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

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This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we ticked to the tock of a garden clock, self-wound by the sun; we sought said sun with tunnel dwellers, hoping for light at the end of the line; we pinned and preserved a display case deity, demigod do-gooder 'til hearts are broken; we bankrupted the money machine makers, bought immortality in a bottom drawer; we dragged through daylight drudgery, images pent up, piled on, then dreamed out in nightly discord dissipation; we watched for the warning signs of the shadow man's approach, lock the kids in the closet, take the gun from the shelf; we sought to shuffle off a sad swamp life for a bit o' tempting, titillating text life. All this wireless communication comes with no strings attached. Text, everyone, text like the wind! ~ mh

Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...

middle of the weak

Your grass is brown and wet and dead.
I think of the word "moor" -
Othello, Heathcliff,
loose ships make fast to the shore.

My heart drops
in the muck
with a hiss.

I text you
"my reason for reason is gone and i am lost".

A different girl texts me,
"Spending the evening with my friend who just got out of jail. Be home late."

My heart is
an antelope.

My heart is
a verb.

My heart is a pocket hole in an infertile boggy area.

I like the second girl.

- Paul Koniecki

(2 poems added 03.23.13)

editor's note: Shed a tear for this sad heart, bogged down in a soggy relationship. I think I like the second girl, too. (More madness from Paul on his page. Really, it's "madness" - check it out.) - mh

Warning Signs

I don’t want to watch the news.
It’s all lies.
The government is in my head.
One time in 9th grade I found a dead girl blanketed in pills
But they revived her.
I think she’s doing okay now.
I hear my mom say that to concerned meddlers
They’re glad I’m eating again.

I know not to ask my roommates to turn down the music.
It’s usually just in my head.
The shadow man doesn’t bother me as much anymore
He probably likes the music
That’s how I know he’s coming,
It’s usually piano.

I’m only 20. I have to remind myself.
I’m just tired please leave me alone.
I’ll go weeks without talking.
I can’t tell if I like being in my own world.
I know I can’t leave.
I’ve tried.
They’ve killed our children and now they’re taking our guns.

- Lauren E Huntley

(added 03.22.13)

editor's note: Like it or not, the world we see is the world we've got. Just the same, let's keep our guns loaded and the music turned up. - mh

RUGGED IMAGES

The window releases a gasp
of inside life,
of half voices and doors closing.

Delinquent sounds muddy the outside.
A car radio lips out
a samba, entertaining tapping fingers
and flowered dresses swaying.

Casual clouds, rugged images
cast to the street, sliding into alleys,
covering the homeless.

Café tables stream with words
As they flip over condiments, ice water
and pretentious menus.

Dreams are made from day,
dripping into night without sound.

- Roger G. Singer

(1 poem added 03.21.13)

editor's note: Yes, yes! Our daily drenchings in fortitudes, fears, frustrations and fancies are sopped up by our tired minds to be wrung out in our dreams. Thanks, Roger! - mh

DAS CAPITAL

Grandad said,
"No one should be
a money machine."
"Greenbacks,"
he called money
or sometimes "Monopoly,"
when he discovered
an ATM
outside his bank
after slaving all night
since he was seven
and turned away
he was expiring
on the pavement
because thieves
broke into the bank,
"What's the difference,
inside or out?"
he whispered,
"most people
live by default;
the bribe taking pols,
editorial writers,
monocled judge
and hung juries,"
even at
this neglected hour
fear on the street
on a bankrupted day,
now grandad you are gone
encircled by time
in rooted bitterness
of an uncollected
memory
with interest
now stored in my poems
and housed away
at the bottom drawer
of an auctioned desk
with no one to give
an account.

- B.Z. Niditch

(1 poem added 03.20.13)

editor's note: Reduce me to lower-case money machine; make me rhyme with "clean," or, if you choose, "obscene." The politicos and the judges will gain nothing of value from my atm (alternate transcendental mind), at least nothing to trade on the exchange. It's bottom drawers for me, too. - mh

Cupid's Last Hoorah!

lets grab Cupid by his chubby wings
and pin him like a plump lil' butterfly,

into our sad and faded photo albums;
right there, with our old broken hearts

and well, this seems like tasteful art to me,
but then again, he does deserve some pain

6-22-11

- James Kenneth Blaylock

(added 03.19.13)

editor's note: We can get them to open a new wing in the Smithsonian just for this exhibit; all gods and icons preserved alongside broken beliefs. - mh

Meditation on Hope

We have been waiting for quite some time
on this subway platform underground.

The men with the suits.
The women with their bags.
The homeless and drunk.

We the masses.

We’ve been waiting together
for the local train.

We shift and sigh.
We roll our eyes
as the fifth express train screams past us

and the tunnel for the local is still empty
and waiting like a mouth to be kissed

I look around at these people
I don’t know
and how in this moment we are all together.

Me and the lady with her romance book.

Me and the baby asleep in the stroller.

Me and the man who keeps one hand hooked on the pole
even as he leans over the rails to see
if the train is coming.

He’s afraid of being pushed. A lot of people
have been pushed lately.

After the sixth express train passes,
I realize

that in all those places they told me it would be
at the election booth
in the chapel
at the bedside of a sick and dying loved one
crouched on sore knees hands clasped in prayer

they were wrong.

Hope,
true real hope lives here
in this underground tunnel
brought together by us little people
in our little lives

who just want to go
home.

- Ally Malinenko

(1 poem added 03.18.13)

editor's note: Simple hopes, simple rewards; the penny stocks of faith. - mh

Tick

the flowers in the garden are screaming, screaming at the sun
morning glories uncurl, unfurl, split wide in their song
mouths and tongues laid bare against the pink of the morning light
an opera for the insects uncurling beneath the soil

leaves unfurling beneath the sudden lightness of evaporating dew
the vines rustle against the brick of houses in a clockwork tick
that follows the flickering sun as it moves across the sky
steady as the heartbeat of a pianist's metronome

- Holly Day

(1 poem added 03.17.13)

editor's note: A grandly blooming garden is the height of horticultural horology. You can set your watch by one. - mh

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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...

Penetratin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor

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