The Best of Mad Swirl : 08.31.13
"I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward." Seamus Heaney
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Poetry Never Sleeps (above) by this month's featured artist, Tyler Malone.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...we boxed a blue preacher's proclamations, preached from a blue box; we were rankled by a rant on wedded bliss, a misguided misogynist's miss; we piqued our perplexity on a poet's list of strange complexity; we let go a snaked snare, animal husbandry in lawn care; we watched one gaze the gap 'tween here an' there, so close to crossing, so far to stare; we heard a soldier put words to an unspoken burden; we, lastly, sought serenity in being uncertain. We carry these weights, heavy as we make them. Reduce them to words, let the breeze take them. ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
LIVE THIS WAY
I find comfort in the not knowing.
I am a lazy detective,
like a fish out of water.
I find comfort in the long evening.
I find no lightning in a bottle,
just the wine inside.
I live this way.
I find the heart too fragile and weak.
It does not soar like eagles.
My gloomy eyes do not shed tears.
They are just serene.
- Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
(1 poem added 08.31.13)
editor's note: I prefer wine to lightning, myself. But, exercise for my weak heart couldn't hurt, could it? - mh
The Soldier’s Load
We talk about the weight of our packs
How many inches here and there
Have been taken off our backs
How much we've abused these bodies
On grueling forced marches,
Down dusty tank trails.
On hours-long patrols
Hauling ruck and rounds and guns
The toll it takes is physical,
A memento to take home
To remind us we were there.
But the weight we do not talk about
Is the weight of our friends
Which we will carry till we die
The guilt, the shame, the grief
We will carry all of them
Every friend, every enemy, every day.
This is the burden of war,
The wounds that never close.
That you never understand
Until the bullet pierces flesh
And your friend who once burst with laughter
Bursts apart in some godforsaken hole
And you will stack that weight
Pile it on the rest
Which you will carry in the hope
That you might stack your weight
On someone else's back
- Ken Brooks
(added 08.30.13)
editor's note: Thanks to those who speak the unspeakable and for any who help to carry their load. - mh
AT NINETY-TWO
Overcast days sip
the palette of youth
until hair and skin
turn into clouds.
His eyes shine inward
now, glimpse past
the curve of hollow nights
to soft drifts
of colors slipping
in and out of sunlight,
memory to slate,
world to shifting world.
Moments pulse
through his veins,
pulling him further
toward the deeper shadows.
The departed ones return
their calla lilies to him,
holding light and time
in their hands.
- Patty Dickson Pieczka
(1 poem added 08.29.13)
editor's note: All's chalked up, board's wiped clean; but, don't move on 'til the lily's passed... (With this poem we welcome Patty to our collaborative congress of Contributing Poets - check out her new page.) - mh
And so I let it go
And so I let it go.
After getting down A Guide To The Snakes Of North Carolina,
After wondering if hour-glasses might belong to a Cotton Mouth,
After seeing the dot on the head, the underbelly, light-green, slashed black,
The bands flattening − maybe an adder?
The orange, harvest-color goes brownish − and I know!
This One’s a Banded Water Snake.
I swing a stick this way and that in the path leading to the branch,
Steer the 850 JD pulling the grooming-mower.
The whirring blades level the beautiful orange mushrooms.
My twig switches most of the spiders out of my face.
I pour my snake out on his back, help him turn over.
A rotten tulip-poplar leaf lifts a roof over his swish.
The baby Banded Water Snake’s gone.
A splotch of yarrow yellows the bank!
I used to kill every snake I saw.
I fed the mules sometimes in the dark − six ears of corn each.
The velvet thought of a King makes my skin crawl!
My father’s eleven-years old.
His grandfather Manly’s being buried in the Old Field Cemetery.
My father hugs a pine-knot; the long-leaf’s his high seat.
My father is too old to get things wrong; death does not fool around.
The earth receives you and me.
We are earth-worms − the deeper the dig the higher the mound.
Cow Mire brims with sun-spots.
Deep ravines score Beaver Dam.
September breaks webs more easily than August when the spiders fatten their weaving
And the tractor pushes the meshes.
- Shelby Stephenson
(added 08.28.13)
editor's note: The circle of life, played out on a new-mowed lawn! - mh
Pointless: Items 5 Through S
Paper’s for lists
Laptop’s for words
Predawn can change
it’s either waking up
involuntarily
or going down
sometimes forgetting
and often as it is
with language
there’s a pipe around
banging
Television’s for hearing
things like
“He didn’t tell us not to be jelly eaters
did he, Rexella”
Radio’s for drowning
out putting passengers
away
“Sick tree, rotten fruit”
that just in
from Rexella
Word Perfect’s for assaulting readers
perfect words are for unsold magazines
but
when
sleep is shoved
into a small tube
lit and fingers move
you
...get this
wish you were
reading a list
- Steven Minchin
(2 poems added 08.27.13)
editor's note: You can check it 'til striped as a list can lean; add-ons are encouraged. (In fact, there's an add-on awaiting on Steven's page - check it out.) - mh
Ra’s instructions with the missus
1. force her to pleasure you
2. then act really sweet
3. make her come
4. promise her a carriage ride
5. call her princess
6. now the slut’s all yours
7. defile at will
8. tear her into pieces
9. throw ticker tape parade for yourself with her pieces of soul
- Ra! Gabriel (the alter-ego of Ralph-Michael Chiaia)
(1 poem added 08.26.13)
editor's note: No better quote from a loser who gloats over conquests with no concern for consequences. - mh
Soap Box Blues
Standing atop a soap box,
On the corner of Lemmon Ave,
Preaching Hemingway and Asimov.
Explaining the science of War,
To lost soldiers running a course
Of hypocrisy across their impressionable Children,
I’m standing up to violence,
Armed with the weapons of Love.
Leaving enemies dumbfounded
In the glory of a faithful man’s god.
Hugging the poor for closure,
The wars in the streets
Aren’t caused by the white man,
But perpetuated by the fear of the false power
Behind the white man,
But white men like black men
Just want a chance at a little foreign foreplay,
And I’d fuck both from my soap box,
All four because were all merely
Floating particles held together
By Mr. Higgs’ Boson,
So remain calm,
Life will go on,
Preaching from a soap box.
- R.A. Hernandez
(1 poem added 08.25.13)
editor's note: Preacher's prerogative, wicked war and black/white tensions, all boiled down to atom angst. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Of course you do! Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, "Bathwater" by Teresa Megahan: "Whenever you drift between the dead oceans of regret and remorse with no bean in sight, just close your eyes and sink until your nose hovers over the bubbles on the surface, and know that the past washes off no matter how quickly it's painted on." Here's a taste to tempt you...
(photo by Tyler Malone)
It takes a certain person, personality, or constitution to hold onto something someone said twenty years earlier, or perhaps, a certain personal poignancy of the thing said. The jibing question "So, do you wash your face in the same water you sit in?" owned a certain resilience, not out of profundity, but out of the embarrassment that rushed up in a twelve-year-old child, knotted her stomach, burned the back of her throat. / The ugly kid that spit this question couldn't know how deeply it would strike his victim. In fact, he couldn't possibly anticipate that it was the one thing of him that would remain thirteen years after he committed suicide...
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on here!
••• Open Mic •••
Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.04.13) at 8:00 sharp when we will swirl it up madly in the live way that we do every month. Get to the Lounge early, dig upon the musical musings of Swirve and this month's feature, poet Suza Hepkat! And stick around after our feature set to get your madness on one of the 17 spots on our list... first come, first on the list! Which means... get there early!
Come one, come all! Mad poets, musicians, actors, singers, circus freaks and Elvis impersonators... come-n-strut-yo-stuff. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to celebrate. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl.
Got questions? Visit www.MadSwirl.com for more details.
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING SOON:
October: Rafael Andrade Garza
November: Cheyenne Gallion
December: Chris Zimmerly
•••••••
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...
Unexpectin'
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...we boxed a blue preacher's proclamations, preached from a blue box; we were rankled by a rant on wedded bliss, a misguided misogynist's miss; we piqued our perplexity on a poet's list of strange complexity; we let go a snaked snare, animal husbandry in lawn care; we watched one gaze the gap 'tween here an' there, so close to crossing, so far to stare; we heard a soldier put words to an unspoken burden; we, lastly, sought serenity in being uncertain. We carry these weights, heavy as we make them. Reduce them to words, let the breeze take them. ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
LIVE THIS WAY
I find comfort in the not knowing.
I am a lazy detective,
like a fish out of water.
I find comfort in the long evening.
I find no lightning in a bottle,
just the wine inside.
I live this way.
I find the heart too fragile and weak.
It does not soar like eagles.
My gloomy eyes do not shed tears.
They are just serene.
- Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
(1 poem added 08.31.13)
editor's note: I prefer wine to lightning, myself. But, exercise for my weak heart couldn't hurt, could it? - mh
The Soldier’s Load
We talk about the weight of our packs
How many inches here and there
Have been taken off our backs
How much we've abused these bodies
On grueling forced marches,
Down dusty tank trails.
On hours-long patrols
Hauling ruck and rounds and guns
The toll it takes is physical,
A memento to take home
To remind us we were there.
But the weight we do not talk about
Is the weight of our friends
Which we will carry till we die
The guilt, the shame, the grief
We will carry all of them
Every friend, every enemy, every day.
This is the burden of war,
The wounds that never close.
That you never understand
Until the bullet pierces flesh
And your friend who once burst with laughter
Bursts apart in some godforsaken hole
And you will stack that weight
Pile it on the rest
Which you will carry in the hope
That you might stack your weight
On someone else's back
- Ken Brooks
(added 08.30.13)
editor's note: Thanks to those who speak the unspeakable and for any who help to carry their load. - mh
AT NINETY-TWO
Overcast days sip
the palette of youth
until hair and skin
turn into clouds.
His eyes shine inward
now, glimpse past
the curve of hollow nights
to soft drifts
of colors slipping
in and out of sunlight,
memory to slate,
world to shifting world.
Moments pulse
through his veins,
pulling him further
toward the deeper shadows.
The departed ones return
their calla lilies to him,
holding light and time
in their hands.
- Patty Dickson Pieczka
(1 poem added 08.29.13)
editor's note: All's chalked up, board's wiped clean; but, don't move on 'til the lily's passed... (With this poem we welcome Patty to our collaborative congress of Contributing Poets - check out her new page.) - mh
And so I let it go
And so I let it go.
After getting down A Guide To The Snakes Of North Carolina,
After wondering if hour-glasses might belong to a Cotton Mouth,
After seeing the dot on the head, the underbelly, light-green, slashed black,
The bands flattening − maybe an adder?
The orange, harvest-color goes brownish − and I know!
This One’s a Banded Water Snake.
I swing a stick this way and that in the path leading to the branch,
Steer the 850 JD pulling the grooming-mower.
The whirring blades level the beautiful orange mushrooms.
My twig switches most of the spiders out of my face.
I pour my snake out on his back, help him turn over.
A rotten tulip-poplar leaf lifts a roof over his swish.
The baby Banded Water Snake’s gone.
A splotch of yarrow yellows the bank!
I used to kill every snake I saw.
I fed the mules sometimes in the dark − six ears of corn each.
The velvet thought of a King makes my skin crawl!
My father’s eleven-years old.
His grandfather Manly’s being buried in the Old Field Cemetery.
My father hugs a pine-knot; the long-leaf’s his high seat.
My father is too old to get things wrong; death does not fool around.
The earth receives you and me.
We are earth-worms − the deeper the dig the higher the mound.
Cow Mire brims with sun-spots.
Deep ravines score Beaver Dam.
September breaks webs more easily than August when the spiders fatten their weaving
And the tractor pushes the meshes.
- Shelby Stephenson
(added 08.28.13)
editor's note: The circle of life, played out on a new-mowed lawn! - mh
Pointless: Items 5 Through S
Paper’s for lists
Laptop’s for words
Predawn can change
it’s either waking up
involuntarily
or going down
sometimes forgetting
and often as it is
with language
there’s a pipe around
banging
Television’s for hearing
things like
“He didn’t tell us not to be jelly eaters
did he, Rexella”
Radio’s for drowning
out putting passengers
away
“Sick tree, rotten fruit”
that just in
from Rexella
Word Perfect’s for assaulting readers
perfect words are for unsold magazines
but
when
sleep is shoved
into a small tube
lit and fingers move
you
...get this
wish you were
reading a list
- Steven Minchin
(2 poems added 08.27.13)
editor's note: You can check it 'til striped as a list can lean; add-ons are encouraged. (In fact, there's an add-on awaiting on Steven's page - check it out.) - mh
Ra’s instructions with the missus
1. force her to pleasure you
2. then act really sweet
3. make her come
4. promise her a carriage ride
5. call her princess
6. now the slut’s all yours
7. defile at will
8. tear her into pieces
9. throw ticker tape parade for yourself with her pieces of soul
- Ra! Gabriel (the alter-ego of Ralph-Michael Chiaia)
(1 poem added 08.26.13)
editor's note: No better quote from a loser who gloats over conquests with no concern for consequences. - mh
Soap Box Blues
Standing atop a soap box,
On the corner of Lemmon Ave,
Preaching Hemingway and Asimov.
Explaining the science of War,
To lost soldiers running a course
Of hypocrisy across their impressionable Children,
I’m standing up to violence,
Armed with the weapons of Love.
Leaving enemies dumbfounded
In the glory of a faithful man’s god.
Hugging the poor for closure,
The wars in the streets
Aren’t caused by the white man,
But perpetuated by the fear of the false power
Behind the white man,
But white men like black men
Just want a chance at a little foreign foreplay,
And I’d fuck both from my soap box,
All four because were all merely
Floating particles held together
By Mr. Higgs’ Boson,
So remain calm,
Life will go on,
Preaching from a soap box.
- R.A. Hernandez
(1 poem added 08.25.13)
editor's note: Preacher's prerogative, wicked war and black/white tensions, all boiled down to atom angst. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Of course you do! Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, "Bathwater" by Teresa Megahan: "Whenever you drift between the dead oceans of regret and remorse with no bean in sight, just close your eyes and sink until your nose hovers over the bubbles on the surface, and know that the past washes off no matter how quickly it's painted on." Here's a taste to tempt you...
It takes a certain person, personality, or constitution to hold onto something someone said twenty years earlier, or perhaps, a certain personal poignancy of the thing said. The jibing question "So, do you wash your face in the same water you sit in?" owned a certain resilience, not out of profundity, but out of the embarrassment that rushed up in a twelve-year-old child, knotted her stomach, burned the back of her throat. / The ugly kid that spit this question couldn't know how deeply it would strike his victim. In fact, he couldn't possibly anticipate that it was the one thing of him that would remain thirteen years after he committed suicide...
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on here!
••• Open Mic •••
Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.04.13) at 8:00 sharp when we will swirl it up madly in the live way that we do every month. Get to the Lounge early, dig upon the musical musings of Swirve and this month's feature, poet Suza Hepkat! And stick around after our feature set to get your madness on one of the 17 spots on our list... first come, first on the list! Which means... get there early!
Come one, come all! Mad poets, musicians, actors, singers, circus freaks and Elvis impersonators... come-n-strut-yo-stuff. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to celebrate. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl.
Got questions? Visit www.MadSwirl.com for more details.
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING SOON:
October: Rafael Andrade Garza
November: Cheyenne Gallion
December: Chris Zimmerly
•••••••
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...
Unexpectin'
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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