The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.14.13
"I hope that my story, I hope that my life is an encouragement for people..." Iyanla Vanzant
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Homeland (above) by this month's featured artist, Tyler Malone.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we pondered past in future's measure, our present fast a poet's pleasure; we saw a tough maiden, getting the shaft, her beauty was made in struggle craft; we clapped hands, scattered fish, flashed coins (made a wish); we placed a passel of poets in a bar, waxing and waning, not wandering far; we strengthened anticipatory powers ahead of innumerable flowers; we gained some understanding for taking-it-in-hand-ing; we stood at the brink of a story undone, two characters starting again at page one. Just like every day; take out a clean sheet of paper, sharpen your pencils (or uncap your pens) and begin... ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Spring in Oregon
We lived on paper
in the abstract idyl
of a lonely writer
in a small apartment
inside the District of Columbia.
We lived in an old Victorian.
He’d wake us up with the tapping
of his fingers on the keyboard
and I’d stutter a bunch
as he back spaced-deleted
something I think I wanted to say.
I was always glad he lined our street with Alders.
My lover was incredible
in all manners of incredibleness
and I’d show you pictures of her body
but there are no pictures
that the lonely guy added to his manuscript.
Our dishes were hand crafted ceramics.
Each sadness seemed to work itself out,
sometimes in oblique manners,
and ended up with a lot of kissing and hugging
and great sex soaring high into the atmosphere
on the visceral emotions
spawned by whatever disaster
was cured by a miracle.
It seemed like we were our own church.
One day I woke on my own without the tapping,
without a thought in my head
and I blinked a lot while looking around at everything
that now had a crow motif
including a tattoo on my left shoulder
I don’t remember getting.
My lover woke when my hand brushed her back
and she said after a moment’s thought
We could go back to page one
if you feel uncomfortable.
- Kenneth P. Gurney
(1 poem added 09.14.13)
editor's note: Page one is so full of possibilities, no matter how you remember it. - mh
“Gotta Hand It To You, Prof”
Russell thinks there is no neurological difference
Between complete sexual satisfaction
With a beautiful woman
And masturbating while thinking of her,
Or even wet dreaming about her before dawn.
Russell is a sophomore and he is wrong.
I tell him he will soon realize,
Right in the middle of his beautiful dream
And/or his jerking right hand,
That both are just that.
- Hal J. Daniel III
(1 poem added 09.13.13)
editor's note: Yeah! And one o' them will make you go blind (unless you eat cornflakes), so pay attention... - mh
just you wait
things appear
dead all around
but for every dry stick
& headless stem
& bloodless root
there will be
innumerable flowers
arriving--
just you wait
& yr only desire
will be to lie
down among them
- Rob Plath
(added 09.12.13)
editor's note: So much better to recline in resplendence than to dally among the dead. YES! We're waiting... (Thanks to Contributing Poet alumnus, Rob Plath, for coming back around with a fresh stir for the Swirl.) - mh
Wednesday
Charlie’s here, talking about his story,
about how “life’s an endless pit of chaotic bullshit,
but every now and then it all makes sense,
like there’s some kind of cosmic order,
and that’s what makes life worth living, you know?”
and Simon’s telling him, “it’s a substantial idea,
but it’s already been done, man. It’s already been done.”
It’s Wednesday so Joe and Lillian are here,
playing the same songs,
she’s high on his guitar and he’s drunk on her voice,
and soon their composition will be careless and sloppy
and they’ll leave as lovers and whoever is scheduled next,
probably me, will be too plastered to perform,
so the juke box will play Tom Waits.
And there’s Alice, sitting by the piano again,
that instrument she pretends to know how to play,
wearing red high heels and matching lipstick,
disguising her writer’s block
and making herself available enough
for another cheap story that will probably be published
the same day she writes it.
Michael’s on the patio with his legs crossed,
rolling his own cigarettes,
wearing that goddamn hat again
like he’s some kind of fucking Hemingway
in a French café.
And Esmeralda’s pouring my drinks
and I must say she’s damn good at her “transient position”
and my disowned intemperance will miss her
if she ever does make it to New York.
Thank you, God. Here comes Olivia,
being the ridiculously beautiful woman she is,
dressed for a fucking Gatsby party,
ignoring Michael,
asking Charlie how his story is coming along,
speaking Spanish to Esmeralda,
pretending that she’s got somewhere better to go next.
Jake and Allen stumble in behind her,
being assholes as usual.
They’ve read so much existential
and absurdist bullshit lately
that now they’re convinced nothing matters,
not even the fact that they’re fucking assholes.
Jesus Christ, look at all these fucking assholes,
all these goddamn beautiful fools.
With their talents and critiques
and theories and philosophies
and hang-ups and bullshit.
And I have to witness all of it.
But really, I mean, really? Who am I to judge?
I’m just some bastard,
drunker than the rest of these bastards,
sitting at the bar and scribbling about their lives
on damp, used napkins.
And in reality,
now that I’m swaying on my bar stool,
feeling all warm inside,
and in such a state to choose my own reality,
we’re no different from one another.
We’re just a bunch of worried, hopeless,
“starving,” artists and writers
and musicians and fucking assholes
that come to this wine bar
for the exact same goddamn reason:
it’s Wednesday.
- Heather Minette
(added 09.11.13)
editor's note: Not far from a Mad Swirl Open Mic every first-Wednesday of the month; goddamn beautiful fools. Oh...an' that's MR. Fucking Asshole, to you ;) - mh
Lake Merritt
(an urban puddle)
It's clear enough to see the mussels and seaweed
but there are unnatural hues
a plume of paint that flowed through the sewer
a cream froth
Still, there are fish
spritely 1000s of them
I clap my hands
and they scatter
as pigeons pluck the crumbs
from the beards of homeless drunks
sweating out liquor in the afternoon sun
I clap my hand and the silver fins
shower like coins.
- Jon Bennett
(added 09.10.13)
editor's note: In the midst of our urban effluvia, actions applause-worthy. We are actor and audience; the fish, the drunks and the pigeons, our props. - mh
Fists and Whispers
On top of a mountain in the pouring rain
I wanted to make love to him
Like everyone else had been just practice
But he
Was the boss man
And we
Were not allowed
Corporation surrounded by co-worker witnesses
We could not be
Together, so upon
Mounting frustration
And mutual instigation
We made contact
In muted blows
Like scratching an itch
Until it hurts
We wrestled on the ground
Until he made me eat dirt
But it was afterwards,
Standing at the sump hole
Reinventing the reason for toothpaste
I imprinted my tenacity
On his victory
Sending a message in a bottle
Through the ocean of his mind
To a more recent version of me
Like he unfolded a picture of that girl
He loved for a stolen moment in time
She was struggle crafted
Beautiful
In a way that took a minute to sink in
Rough around the edges
Somewhere between knocked down
And stood up again
Even as the underdog
She used to throwdown
Like losing was never a possibility
But I had forgotten that fight
I had forgotten that night
I had forgotten that version of she
Until he reminded me
What I said to him
While brushing the dirt from my teeth
Being good at fighting
Is not just about powerful blows
It’s the ability
To take a beating and get back up again, see
I ain’t been scrappin' so much lately
And divorced from the physicality
It’s hard for me to understand bravery
In trying to tame tender
In showing up every day
Like painting pillows on the forest floor
To make less painful the timber
Holding hands with an unraveling tree
And it’s hard for me to understand the validity
Of invisible shrapnel scars
That come from holding things as they fall apart
This aching heart
Is struggling to see
That I am still tough
Because I can’t back up from this beating
Until I can understand
That what I did was enough
- Kristina Byrne
(added 09.09.13)
editor's note: Takin' it on the chin is tough. It's hard to beat in love of self... - mh
Silence
I sit here tracing these words across this screen
Looking for other possibilities
That can slide beyond the measures of reason
These days my day’s measure is spent
Searching possible futures
That leave me stranded here
In this distant present:
Measuring each word written
I sit in a shady place
And pace each line away
Writing a last refuge
A prisoner pacing the yard
Each word a step
In this battle with meaning
Experience will remain
A mixture of loss and gain
I am torn between a head
That reasons
And a heart that knows
I trace borderlines
Weighing possibilities
One past with another
Looking for connections
Still experience remains
Wrapped by silence
I will not let this rocky world
Shatter me
- John Najjar
(1 poem added 09.08.13)
editor's note: These words; all we have to make sense. Write 'til the refuge comes. - 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, Whiskey World Peace by Elvin "mAsKeRaiD" Holderfield: "This is a rebellion we all can believe in. It doesn’t require firearms or ambitions, just your nights and an equal amount of days where you can lay in bed and pontificate to no one but yourself about how soon things will change. Just don’t talk about revolution, because that’s going a little too far." Here's a taste to tempt you...
(photo by Tyler Malone)
It should be required for everyone to get trashed underage, and at least once a month overage. / Nothing quite like talking to random people that you won’t give a shit about the next day. And there’d nothing quite like being best friends with them for 52 minutes. / There’s your world peace! The wells are only $2.00, and we’re all poor as hell. Screw work, but thank God for the bartenders that are working. / Buzzed yet? It’s only 10 PM. / Nothing like people crammed together like some damn factory farm. Nothing like a small, dim lit room with sticky floors. Nothing quite like yelling excessively to people five feet away from you ‘cuz it’s too damn loud. Nothing like getting shoulder bumped by douchebags and apologizing for standing where you are. Nothing quite like brushing up against a girl’s breast, and letting your elbow slowly graze past it. Nothing like standing in a semi-circle with your friends, and staring around aimlessly...
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on 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...
Encouragin'
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 pondered past in future's measure, our present fast a poet's pleasure; we saw a tough maiden, getting the shaft, her beauty was made in struggle craft; we clapped hands, scattered fish, flashed coins (made a wish); we placed a passel of poets in a bar, waxing and waning, not wandering far; we strengthened anticipatory powers ahead of innumerable flowers; we gained some understanding for taking-it-in-hand-ing; we stood at the brink of a story undone, two characters starting again at page one. Just like every day; take out a clean sheet of paper, sharpen your pencils (or uncap your pens) and begin... ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Spring in Oregon
We lived on paper
in the abstract idyl
of a lonely writer
in a small apartment
inside the District of Columbia.
We lived in an old Victorian.
He’d wake us up with the tapping
of his fingers on the keyboard
and I’d stutter a bunch
as he back spaced-deleted
something I think I wanted to say.
I was always glad he lined our street with Alders.
My lover was incredible
in all manners of incredibleness
and I’d show you pictures of her body
but there are no pictures
that the lonely guy added to his manuscript.
Our dishes were hand crafted ceramics.
Each sadness seemed to work itself out,
sometimes in oblique manners,
and ended up with a lot of kissing and hugging
and great sex soaring high into the atmosphere
on the visceral emotions
spawned by whatever disaster
was cured by a miracle.
It seemed like we were our own church.
One day I woke on my own without the tapping,
without a thought in my head
and I blinked a lot while looking around at everything
that now had a crow motif
including a tattoo on my left shoulder
I don’t remember getting.
My lover woke when my hand brushed her back
and she said after a moment’s thought
We could go back to page one
if you feel uncomfortable.
- Kenneth P. Gurney
(1 poem added 09.14.13)
editor's note: Page one is so full of possibilities, no matter how you remember it. - mh
“Gotta Hand It To You, Prof”
Russell thinks there is no neurological difference
Between complete sexual satisfaction
With a beautiful woman
And masturbating while thinking of her,
Or even wet dreaming about her before dawn.
Russell is a sophomore and he is wrong.
I tell him he will soon realize,
Right in the middle of his beautiful dream
And/or his jerking right hand,
That both are just that.
- Hal J. Daniel III
(1 poem added 09.13.13)
editor's note: Yeah! And one o' them will make you go blind (unless you eat cornflakes), so pay attention... - mh
just you wait
things appear
dead all around
but for every dry stick
& headless stem
& bloodless root
there will be
innumerable flowers
arriving--
just you wait
& yr only desire
will be to lie
down among them
- Rob Plath
(added 09.12.13)
editor's note: So much better to recline in resplendence than to dally among the dead. YES! We're waiting... (Thanks to Contributing Poet alumnus, Rob Plath, for coming back around with a fresh stir for the Swirl.) - mh
Wednesday
Charlie’s here, talking about his story,
about how “life’s an endless pit of chaotic bullshit,
but every now and then it all makes sense,
like there’s some kind of cosmic order,
and that’s what makes life worth living, you know?”
and Simon’s telling him, “it’s a substantial idea,
but it’s already been done, man. It’s already been done.”
It’s Wednesday so Joe and Lillian are here,
playing the same songs,
she’s high on his guitar and he’s drunk on her voice,
and soon their composition will be careless and sloppy
and they’ll leave as lovers and whoever is scheduled next,
probably me, will be too plastered to perform,
so the juke box will play Tom Waits.
And there’s Alice, sitting by the piano again,
that instrument she pretends to know how to play,
wearing red high heels and matching lipstick,
disguising her writer’s block
and making herself available enough
for another cheap story that will probably be published
the same day she writes it.
Michael’s on the patio with his legs crossed,
rolling his own cigarettes,
wearing that goddamn hat again
like he’s some kind of fucking Hemingway
in a French café.
And Esmeralda’s pouring my drinks
and I must say she’s damn good at her “transient position”
and my disowned intemperance will miss her
if she ever does make it to New York.
Thank you, God. Here comes Olivia,
being the ridiculously beautiful woman she is,
dressed for a fucking Gatsby party,
ignoring Michael,
asking Charlie how his story is coming along,
speaking Spanish to Esmeralda,
pretending that she’s got somewhere better to go next.
Jake and Allen stumble in behind her,
being assholes as usual.
They’ve read so much existential
and absurdist bullshit lately
that now they’re convinced nothing matters,
not even the fact that they’re fucking assholes.
Jesus Christ, look at all these fucking assholes,
all these goddamn beautiful fools.
With their talents and critiques
and theories and philosophies
and hang-ups and bullshit.
And I have to witness all of it.
But really, I mean, really? Who am I to judge?
I’m just some bastard,
drunker than the rest of these bastards,
sitting at the bar and scribbling about their lives
on damp, used napkins.
And in reality,
now that I’m swaying on my bar stool,
feeling all warm inside,
and in such a state to choose my own reality,
we’re no different from one another.
We’re just a bunch of worried, hopeless,
“starving,” artists and writers
and musicians and fucking assholes
that come to this wine bar
for the exact same goddamn reason:
it’s Wednesday.
- Heather Minette
(added 09.11.13)
editor's note: Not far from a Mad Swirl Open Mic every first-Wednesday of the month; goddamn beautiful fools. Oh...an' that's MR. Fucking Asshole, to you ;) - mh
Lake Merritt
(an urban puddle)
It's clear enough to see the mussels and seaweed
but there are unnatural hues
a plume of paint that flowed through the sewer
a cream froth
Still, there are fish
spritely 1000s of them
I clap my hands
and they scatter
as pigeons pluck the crumbs
from the beards of homeless drunks
sweating out liquor in the afternoon sun
I clap my hand and the silver fins
shower like coins.
- Jon Bennett
(added 09.10.13)
editor's note: In the midst of our urban effluvia, actions applause-worthy. We are actor and audience; the fish, the drunks and the pigeons, our props. - mh
Fists and Whispers
On top of a mountain in the pouring rain
I wanted to make love to him
Like everyone else had been just practice
But he
Was the boss man
And we
Were not allowed
Corporation surrounded by co-worker witnesses
We could not be
Together, so upon
Mounting frustration
And mutual instigation
We made contact
In muted blows
Like scratching an itch
Until it hurts
We wrestled on the ground
Until he made me eat dirt
But it was afterwards,
Standing at the sump hole
Reinventing the reason for toothpaste
I imprinted my tenacity
On his victory
Sending a message in a bottle
Through the ocean of his mind
To a more recent version of me
Like he unfolded a picture of that girl
He loved for a stolen moment in time
She was struggle crafted
Beautiful
In a way that took a minute to sink in
Rough around the edges
Somewhere between knocked down
And stood up again
Even as the underdog
She used to throwdown
Like losing was never a possibility
But I had forgotten that fight
I had forgotten that night
I had forgotten that version of she
Until he reminded me
What I said to him
While brushing the dirt from my teeth
Being good at fighting
Is not just about powerful blows
It’s the ability
To take a beating and get back up again, see
I ain’t been scrappin' so much lately
And divorced from the physicality
It’s hard for me to understand bravery
In trying to tame tender
In showing up every day
Like painting pillows on the forest floor
To make less painful the timber
Holding hands with an unraveling tree
And it’s hard for me to understand the validity
Of invisible shrapnel scars
That come from holding things as they fall apart
This aching heart
Is struggling to see
That I am still tough
Because I can’t back up from this beating
Until I can understand
That what I did was enough
- Kristina Byrne
(added 09.09.13)
editor's note: Takin' it on the chin is tough. It's hard to beat in love of self... - mh
Silence
I sit here tracing these words across this screen
Looking for other possibilities
That can slide beyond the measures of reason
These days my day’s measure is spent
Searching possible futures
That leave me stranded here
In this distant present:
Measuring each word written
I sit in a shady place
And pace each line away
Writing a last refuge
A prisoner pacing the yard
Each word a step
In this battle with meaning
Experience will remain
A mixture of loss and gain
I am torn between a head
That reasons
And a heart that knows
I trace borderlines
Weighing possibilities
One past with another
Looking for connections
Still experience remains
Wrapped by silence
I will not let this rocky world
Shatter me
- John Najjar
(1 poem added 09.08.13)
editor's note: These words; all we have to make sense. Write 'til the refuge comes. - 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, Whiskey World Peace by Elvin "mAsKeRaiD" Holderfield: "This is a rebellion we all can believe in. It doesn’t require firearms or ambitions, just your nights and an equal amount of days where you can lay in bed and pontificate to no one but yourself about how soon things will change. Just don’t talk about revolution, because that’s going a little too far." Here's a taste to tempt you...
It should be required for everyone to get trashed underage, and at least once a month overage. / Nothing quite like talking to random people that you won’t give a shit about the next day. And there’d nothing quite like being best friends with them for 52 minutes. / There’s your world peace! The wells are only $2.00, and we’re all poor as hell. Screw work, but thank God for the bartenders that are working. / Buzzed yet? It’s only 10 PM. / Nothing like people crammed together like some damn factory farm. Nothing like a small, dim lit room with sticky floors. Nothing quite like yelling excessively to people five feet away from you ‘cuz it’s too damn loud. Nothing like getting shoulder bumped by douchebags and apologizing for standing where you are. Nothing quite like brushing up against a girl’s breast, and letting your elbow slowly graze past it. Nothing like standing in a semi-circle with your friends, and staring around aimlessly...
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on 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...
Encouragin'
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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