The Best of Mad Swirl : 08.17.13
“It's not what I do, but the way I do it. It's not what I say, but the way I say it” Mae West
digital illustration by Johnny O
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...we walked wonderfully on the street where we (want to) live; we spun a strange sonnet with a fruited start and a fat end; we died a death dry and spited, should have tried her love requited; we multiplied mob ire in the frame of forgotten fire; we turned it down to turn it up; we unwrapped and acquiesced to the joy of being a chair; we embraced the biz of metaphor, no other trade worth working for. It's a glad disease. The only cure; read and write as much as you please. ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Poet Business
The way tree limbs look
like arms and legs,
how they join
at shoulders and hips
and crotches,
the way pink dawn
fills the negative space
between naked limbs
after a night of unrequited
whiskey,
the shapes
of flowers and pine cones,
bird beaks and speckled eggs,
warm sun on freckled legs,
love and bread and
sex and death and
how standing in the middle of a river
can be mistaken for a metaphor,
the way a kiss
can be anything else
but is always
a kiss.
- Ray Sharp
(2 poems added 08.17.13)
editor's note: A lucrative business; lacking lucre (filthy stuff), rich in reflective returns (can't get enough). (We welcome Ray to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this poem and one more on his new page, The Days. Check it out.) - mh
wrap your roll me around
dear friend, wrap your throat around my hands and let me have you
no, no that doesn't sit right no, friend, that doesn't sit right at all
dear friend, wrap yourself like a present on our second birthday and all we love is the paper, all we love is the act, but it is fast and it is quick and we care not for the gift itself but for the paper
give us back that paper let us be so loud with it let us rip it into tiny pieces so you have a mess to clean up but you will watch us, you will watch us and your cheeks will raise with us because all we want is the paper and the tearing and the mess
we are exploring, let us
yes friend, dear friend, this is starting to sit right
wrap your 1969 chevelle around that street light and we can relate our bodies to that sense of forced destruction
we always did prefer deloreans
no friend, i am not comparing you to a write-off, i am comparing you to the attraction in the collision
yes friend, wrap your tobacco in that paper we once fell for and roll me along with your tongue when you seal it
yes friend, that sits right
wrap your roll me around your wrap around me your roll
no, no friend that doesn't sit right
wrap your let me roll you over around your wrap me up
no, dear friend that doesn't sit right
wrap your let me roll you over on a monday morning
wrap your let me sit right
wrap your let me sit right here
friend, i should've told you
it sits right when my thighs do the wrapping
- Annie Winder
(added 08.16.13)
editor's note: Happy to be chair. Yes! This'n sits right w' me. - mh
Heard
convinced that I needed the aids
I took my hearing out this morning,
listened as my bicycle took me round the blocks.
brain processed the morning
without impediments.
heard the wind puffing against my ears
freedom songs.
heard some birds tittering in the distance,
soft melodies of their freedom.
heard my knees creaking to the accompaniment
of my squeaky seat.
heard this poem planted there
to traipse among the falling cherry buds
wailing konnichiwa tunes.
my heart heard pounding in my chest
convinced me that I should listen more,
aids only amplify.
- Sy Roth
(1 poem added 08.15.13)
editor's note: Amplification does not guarantee comprehension. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh! - mh
Flambe
when cities burn so do people’s hearts
with anger and unrest and love
for something or other
usually not the city in question
but that isn’t the question
the question is
where do they all keep
the bandanas
the motor oil
the lighter fluid
when the world isn’t watching
and the city is extinguished
where do they all keep
the anger
the unrest
the love
before it all comes
flooding the avenues
breaking the civility dam
they keep all these things
locked away safe
behind doors and windows
behind bones and skin
until we all forget
what fire looks like
- Jamie Lynn Page
(added 08.14.13)
editor's note: Where, indeed? Would love to open that door, let all the angst spill out, pour on the lighter fluid... And never forget. - mh
Fossilized Remains of the Day
The death of childhood robbed you of memories.
I told you your money's no good in here.
I laughed as you tried to frame the sky
With aluminum pipe,
Then found you naked with the fan running.
Everything we owned was stapled to the sun.
Oh holy one, I see your soul strung up like a piñata from the orange tree.
Why did you lock me out of paradise and swim laps in her bed?
I wanted your dick on a stake.
I wanted you to marry Lorena Bobbit.
When you escaped
They celebrated your second coming.
The next day you washed our clothes in Jack, hanging them to dry
in the blue-violet-purple nuclear fallout.
Did the scars on my face give you direction?
Your dark eyes mask the jagged shards of self.
When you are parched, dry and rotting, there will be no water left
in the well of salvation.
They will bury your fossilized remains
Next to a yucca tree in the desert.
- Sheree La Puma-Watson
(1 poem added 08.13.13)
editor's note: From welcome advent to sinner's good-riddance; when a god goes, we are jilted lovers, after all. - mh
From Below I Call
To write a few lines not to be forgotten,
oblivion comes first with fruit and bread.
The corridors of the sanatorium has blue
tiles reminding me of the fluff of an auk.
Mosaist Mozart mortadelle Morte d'Arthur
These walls of uncertainties, doubtful
moments. Sometimes they crash onto
my bed, my head full of visions, these
dreams taking me far away from here.
Epicurean Aesop eiderdown Evelyn
No I won't bite my finger nails and I
certainly won't gnaw the stale bread I
baked earlier that year. That's when I
left your shores and our lives set apart.
Receptionist Rilke rosemary Ruy Blas
They said let's swim in these troubled
waters where sharks dwell and swirl,
let's have anxiety cured by its most
paramount implications, let's go free.
Cartographer Cervantes clay Cinderella
Freedom stinks sometimes. They have
already seen that form of power in their
lives and they cannot take it from me as
all they want to do is grow fat in the end.
Yogi Yuri G. yarn Yseult
- Walter Ruhlmann
(1 poem added 08.12.13)
editor's note: Randomly reformed sonnet set spinning w/ interspersions; Unforgettable Uruguay uvula Urquhart. (Absolute delight!) - mh
Street
Streets like this should have
High curbs and storm drains
And some cars pulled over
And parked, with streetlights
Properly placed at intervals,
Just far enough apart for you
To aim for at night, small arrivals
Pacing, spacing your walk home.
There should be elm trees lining
The way, substantial things,
Something your ancestors might
Have planted, with deep roots
Reaching into the place they made.
There should be rain still dripping
From the trees after a storm, and
You should be walking home down
This street. Then all you would hear
Are familiar sounds you love –
The slight rain, a little breeze, and
The quiet sound of your footsteps.
- J.K. Durick
(added 08.11.13)
editor's note: Hopscotch light puddles to the sound of welcome. Yes! Every street like this! - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need is a read? Need a read? This week's featured short story, "Rape of the South" by Johnna A. Ammerman, is not a light & bright story. There's a whole lot of weight in its' 443 words. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story: "Women should never have to rise again. They shouldn’t have to arrange the dirt on their faces to look like makeup. They shouldn’t have to speak up, cause a scene, just so the vile and perverse persons other people love to worship can have every excuse to tell a teary eyed woman, alive but suffocating, “Excuse me, missy, you’re causing quite a scene, people are trying to sleep" Here's a warm-up...
I suppose I am a little boy now? How in the world did this sex change occur? When I wasn’t looking. Oh, I suppose like a manikin. / I will never forget those goddamned Southern Baptists blaming me for having been raped and then condemning me, shunning me, throwing me literally out of the band. I do not forget. I will never forget. / Surely I drank too much that night at the Kappa Alpha fraternity rush party, but I never planned on being roofied and thown back-down on a pool table during a party so crowded, so confusing, and so drug-oriented, I didn’t know up from down. Now did I? / Those little Civil War re-enactors. What in the world is wrong with their dumb world? They force their pledges to wear Confederate army uniforms and march around campus. A friend of mine leaned out of dorm 14 and shot the bird at the little bastards...
You know you wanna read more. Where? Here!
•••••••
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 mad conversations going on in Mad Swirl's World? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...
Doin' It & Sayin' It',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
digital illustration by Johnny O
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...we walked wonderfully on the street where we (want to) live; we spun a strange sonnet with a fruited start and a fat end; we died a death dry and spited, should have tried her love requited; we multiplied mob ire in the frame of forgotten fire; we turned it down to turn it up; we unwrapped and acquiesced to the joy of being a chair; we embraced the biz of metaphor, no other trade worth working for. It's a glad disease. The only cure; read and write as much as you please. ~ mh
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Poet Business
The way tree limbs look
like arms and legs,
how they join
at shoulders and hips
and crotches,
the way pink dawn
fills the negative space
between naked limbs
after a night of unrequited
whiskey,
the shapes
of flowers and pine cones,
bird beaks and speckled eggs,
warm sun on freckled legs,
love and bread and
sex and death and
how standing in the middle of a river
can be mistaken for a metaphor,
the way a kiss
can be anything else
but is always
a kiss.
- Ray Sharp
(2 poems added 08.17.13)
editor's note: A lucrative business; lacking lucre (filthy stuff), rich in reflective returns (can't get enough). (We welcome Ray to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this poem and one more on his new page, The Days. Check it out.) - mh
wrap your roll me around
dear friend, wrap your throat around my hands and let me have you
no, no that doesn't sit right no, friend, that doesn't sit right at all
dear friend, wrap yourself like a present on our second birthday and all we love is the paper, all we love is the act, but it is fast and it is quick and we care not for the gift itself but for the paper
give us back that paper let us be so loud with it let us rip it into tiny pieces so you have a mess to clean up but you will watch us, you will watch us and your cheeks will raise with us because all we want is the paper and the tearing and the mess
we are exploring, let us
yes friend, dear friend, this is starting to sit right
wrap your 1969 chevelle around that street light and we can relate our bodies to that sense of forced destruction
we always did prefer deloreans
no friend, i am not comparing you to a write-off, i am comparing you to the attraction in the collision
yes friend, wrap your tobacco in that paper we once fell for and roll me along with your tongue when you seal it
yes friend, that sits right
wrap your roll me around your wrap around me your roll
no, no friend that doesn't sit right
wrap your let me roll you over around your wrap me up
no, dear friend that doesn't sit right
wrap your let me roll you over on a monday morning
wrap your let me sit right
wrap your let me sit right here
friend, i should've told you
it sits right when my thighs do the wrapping
- Annie Winder
(added 08.16.13)
editor's note: Happy to be chair. Yes! This'n sits right w' me. - mh
Heard
convinced that I needed the aids
I took my hearing out this morning,
listened as my bicycle took me round the blocks.
brain processed the morning
without impediments.
heard the wind puffing against my ears
freedom songs.
heard some birds tittering in the distance,
soft melodies of their freedom.
heard my knees creaking to the accompaniment
of my squeaky seat.
heard this poem planted there
to traipse among the falling cherry buds
wailing konnichiwa tunes.
my heart heard pounding in my chest
convinced me that I should listen more,
aids only amplify.
- Sy Roth
(1 poem added 08.15.13)
editor's note: Amplification does not guarantee comprehension. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh! - mh
Flambe
when cities burn so do people’s hearts
with anger and unrest and love
for something or other
usually not the city in question
but that isn’t the question
the question is
where do they all keep
the bandanas
the motor oil
the lighter fluid
when the world isn’t watching
and the city is extinguished
where do they all keep
the anger
the unrest
the love
before it all comes
flooding the avenues
breaking the civility dam
they keep all these things
locked away safe
behind doors and windows
behind bones and skin
until we all forget
what fire looks like
- Jamie Lynn Page
(added 08.14.13)
editor's note: Where, indeed? Would love to open that door, let all the angst spill out, pour on the lighter fluid... And never forget. - mh
Fossilized Remains of the Day
The death of childhood robbed you of memories.
I told you your money's no good in here.
I laughed as you tried to frame the sky
With aluminum pipe,
Then found you naked with the fan running.
Everything we owned was stapled to the sun.
Oh holy one, I see your soul strung up like a piñata from the orange tree.
Why did you lock me out of paradise and swim laps in her bed?
I wanted your dick on a stake.
I wanted you to marry Lorena Bobbit.
When you escaped
They celebrated your second coming.
The next day you washed our clothes in Jack, hanging them to dry
in the blue-violet-purple nuclear fallout.
Did the scars on my face give you direction?
Your dark eyes mask the jagged shards of self.
When you are parched, dry and rotting, there will be no water left
in the well of salvation.
They will bury your fossilized remains
Next to a yucca tree in the desert.
- Sheree La Puma-Watson
(1 poem added 08.13.13)
editor's note: From welcome advent to sinner's good-riddance; when a god goes, we are jilted lovers, after all. - mh
From Below I Call
To write a few lines not to be forgotten,
oblivion comes first with fruit and bread.
The corridors of the sanatorium has blue
tiles reminding me of the fluff of an auk.
Mosaist Mozart mortadelle Morte d'Arthur
These walls of uncertainties, doubtful
moments. Sometimes they crash onto
my bed, my head full of visions, these
dreams taking me far away from here.
Epicurean Aesop eiderdown Evelyn
No I won't bite my finger nails and I
certainly won't gnaw the stale bread I
baked earlier that year. That's when I
left your shores and our lives set apart.
Receptionist Rilke rosemary Ruy Blas
They said let's swim in these troubled
waters where sharks dwell and swirl,
let's have anxiety cured by its most
paramount implications, let's go free.
Cartographer Cervantes clay Cinderella
Freedom stinks sometimes. They have
already seen that form of power in their
lives and they cannot take it from me as
all they want to do is grow fat in the end.
Yogi Yuri G. yarn Yseult
- Walter Ruhlmann
(1 poem added 08.12.13)
editor's note: Randomly reformed sonnet set spinning w/ interspersions; Unforgettable Uruguay uvula Urquhart. (Absolute delight!) - mh
Street
Streets like this should have
High curbs and storm drains
And some cars pulled over
And parked, with streetlights
Properly placed at intervals,
Just far enough apart for you
To aim for at night, small arrivals
Pacing, spacing your walk home.
There should be elm trees lining
The way, substantial things,
Something your ancestors might
Have planted, with deep roots
Reaching into the place they made.
There should be rain still dripping
From the trees after a storm, and
You should be walking home down
This street. Then all you would hear
Are familiar sounds you love –
The slight rain, a little breeze, and
The quiet sound of your footsteps.
- J.K. Durick
(added 08.11.13)
editor's note: Hopscotch light puddles to the sound of welcome. Yes! Every street like this! - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need is a read? Need a read? This week's featured short story, "Rape of the South" by Johnna A. Ammerman, is not a light & bright story. There's a whole lot of weight in its' 443 words. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story: "Women should never have to rise again. They shouldn’t have to arrange the dirt on their faces to look like makeup. They shouldn’t have to speak up, cause a scene, just so the vile and perverse persons other people love to worship can have every excuse to tell a teary eyed woman, alive but suffocating, “Excuse me, missy, you’re causing quite a scene, people are trying to sleep" Here's a warm-up...
I suppose I am a little boy now? How in the world did this sex change occur? When I wasn’t looking. Oh, I suppose like a manikin. / I will never forget those goddamned Southern Baptists blaming me for having been raped and then condemning me, shunning me, throwing me literally out of the band. I do not forget. I will never forget. / Surely I drank too much that night at the Kappa Alpha fraternity rush party, but I never planned on being roofied and thown back-down on a pool table during a party so crowded, so confusing, and so drug-oriented, I didn’t know up from down. Now did I? / Those little Civil War re-enactors. What in the world is wrong with their dumb world? They force their pledges to wear Confederate army uniforms and march around campus. A friend of mine leaned out of dorm 14 and shot the bird at the little bastards...
You know you wanna read more. Where? Here!
•••••••
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 mad conversations going on in Mad Swirl's World? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...
Doin' It & Sayin' It',
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
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