The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 05.18.13

“A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill,

what and when to burn, or even how to theorize.

It reminds you... where and when and how

you are living and might live,

it is a wick of desire.”

Adrienne Rich

Passionate Pallette (above) by Paul McMillan, 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 were told a mermaid's take on what she could make of the ink on an illustrated mariner; we looked at a lover's hope-held scene, a slippery slope with full caffeine; we dodged an anesthetic to embrace the antithetic, forsook frigid for fur; we brought a burnt offering, breasts for a beast, undeserved; we carved out love on a living tree, S & M to the Nth degree; we indulged an insatiable appetite, ate every(one)thing in sight; we ultimately acknowledged that all was not right but greatly wrong, followed with an out-loud utterance, a SCREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAMMM of fright (not a song). After this week, what's love's best remedy? Said Hamlet, "Get thee to a nunnery (or monastery), go!" ~ mh

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

Play The Role

We should all be
Like white women in
50’s B-movies.

They screamed to the
Top of their lungs,

Eyes bulged out to
The size of volleyballs

Their hands either pressed
On their pale cheeks or
Extended out as they
Look away.

Because the evil thing
Covered in plastic and makeup
Creeps along to seal their doom.

There might be something
They can do to prevent it
(Such as the logical idea of
Running), but they don’t.

They scream motionless
Hoping someone hears and
Saves them – but they won’t.

Yeah, we should all be doing
That right now. Scream. That’s
The only thing missing.

- Roderick Richardson

(1 poem added 05.18.13)

editor's note: Aaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee, helpmehelpmehelpmehe-e-e-e-e-e-elp! (The monster is still there...) - mh

CANNIBAL SUICIDE

I poured a finger of scotch into a coffee cup
and ate the cup and licked up the spilled scotch
and ate the mouth of the fifth down to the neck and
was wolfing the table leg, when
mother came in to iron some bugs out
of her pocket calculator
and couldn’t help but notice the ruined fifth,
the cup nowhere and the table wobbly
on three legs. She threatened to knuckle down
and hand it to me,
but I trumped her rump,
tugged the table leg out of my throat
and clubbed her to death. Blood spattered
the venetian blinds and mother slumped
to the foot of the refrigerator.

I threw up a window and sat on a foot stool and
reswallowed the table leg
and munched on the arm of a chair
till I was stuffed, then jerked down the wallphone
and ate out the mouthpiece
and considered sucking the news off the tv,
but decided instead to put the mouth
of a firearm to my temple
and pray.

- Willie Smith

(1 poem added 05.17.13)

editor's note: Sounds more like salvation for this confused carnivore. Crikey! - mh

Shape of a Heart

We play the game called Exquisite Corpse –
you with the curlicued lust lines
of your tragic fine-point pens,
I with charcoal-smudged
weather reports and raucous blackbirds –
two sides unseen of the same
folded paper’s fearful symmetry.

I hand you the scalpel, Dottoressa,
and turn away at the first red spots
beading along the curve you cut,
a rotated cardioid, the rolling circle
that traces a two-lobed valentine.

- Ray Sharp

(added 05.16.13)

editor's note: This is playing doctor for keeps; no greater love... - mh

Herostratus

Burn me down
from the roof
to the ground-
in multi-breasted glory,
my beastly yearning-
I want it burning,
you bastard!
Because I love you,
my Alexander. I have
forsaken my sanctity
for your golden curls.
I’d rather be ashes
than a Goddess now!
My temple slips
beneath swamp-myth
to fuel your firelight.

- Trier Ward

(added 05.15.13)

editor's note: The height of devotion and self-sacrifice. No hero is worthy of this! - mh

Dating Immune Novocain

I’m dating a man who’s immune to Novocain:

the only other man in my bar,
sitting across from me, beside the bartender-
he reaches over and grabs the Dilbert
While We Were
Downsizing pad on which
I had written, “I’m dating a man
who’s immune to Novocain”-
and tells me,
I have a purple and yellow yak in my pants.

And I look in his numb eyes:
I’ve always loved petting zoos.

- Steven Minchin

(1 poem added 05.14.13)

editor's note: Animal magnetism over unrequited angst every time. Say it with feeling and we'll follow you anywhere! - mh

Lube and Coffee

We spent the morning having sex
in the room you rented,
the mattress on the floor in the corner
and music playing loud
so the neighbors couldn’t hear
you slam open the door of my body.

When we came up for air,
we walked to the town square,
bought lube at the corner store,
spent an hour drinking coffee
and watching people walk by the river.

Tonight, I am waiting for you
to head home from work.
A rainstorm dances with the windowpane,
so I think of that day again—
your lips tasted sweet with latte foam,
the sun warmed our faces,
We had so many places to go.

May we always hold that hope.

- Isaiah Vianese

(added 05.13.13)

editor's note: Finally, an acceptable circumstance for slamming a door. Yes, hold that hope! - mh

War Paint

Friday night we quarrel
he's drunk on Wild Turkey
and passes out in the bar
so I take him home.
The next night we stay in bed for thirteen hours
is this unlucky?
Sunday we eat Sashimi and rice
I make a mess
he laughs and feeds me red wine,
the sailor's tattoos burn impressions in my mind
the issue is here and now -
no yes or no, just resonance.
His arms are hairy from diving deep
saturated for hours with cold ocean salt water
bringing me abalone presents,
face betraying nothing, restraint is necessary.
I wake in a blue painted room
filled with knives, guns, and velvet paintings
that he bought in Tijuana
a Folsum prison calendar hangs from a nail
his brother guards the murderers who made it.
The sailor covers his arms
with black tattoos
an inky needle prints a dragon in Hong Kong
trailing wild psychedelic fumes next to a
snarling tiger crouched to pounce from Kaneohe Bay,
in a dirty Philipino parlor
he planted an unfinished rose
with a small pink tongue licking my ear
the thorny vines missing...
five times in thirteen hours.
I'm no fool, I think,
in black war paint he swims down under
with eel, Bat Rays, keen Leopard shark,
playing weird games with mermaid's hands
in dark water caves
the sea's deep demands pressing his dirt bones
so they shrivel, cracking beneath her weight.

- Sissy Buckles

(2 poems added 05.12.13)

editor's note: The marauding mariner, as seen by the mermaid. Nice! (With this one, we welcome Sissy to our crazy clan of Contributing Poets! There's more of her madness on her new page - check it out.) - 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...

Desirin',

Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor