The Best of Mad Swirl : 10.26.13
"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears." Edgar Allan Poe
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Conversing with Ravens (above) by this month's featured artist, Tyler Malone.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we relinquished repose to resume a rote ritual, the grass must not grow but be greener; we picked apart love as a carnival prize, a ferris wheel folly of lustful lies; we struggled to loudly lengthen our start, when inevitably stifled and short is our end; we mumbled, drunk stumbled with speech so slurred, our fingers unfumbled our loss for words; we contemplated the consequences of a constant quest for a cosmic kiss, ravish and repeat; we viewed visceral vexation in supervised visitation; we learned the price to pay for crime is a long confined, boring time. Hmmm, it's all poetry from prison. Free your minds! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Dull, Dull, Dull
I was in a police cell in Swansea
which I am more than used to.
The walls are usually covered
in all sorts of graffiti
done with pens and cigarette ash
or scraped into the paint.
It is all very familiar
and often quite amusing to read,
helps to pass the hours
and all that.
But this cell was different
it only had 3 words
written in blood
on the back of the cell door
‘Dull, Dull, Dull.’
It really quite shook me up
and I was happier than most times
to get on out of there.
© 2012
- Paul Tristram
(1 poem added 10.26.13)
editor's note: Routine incarceration brings "bored to death" into new perspective; enough to scare a scofflaw straight? - mh
The Enormous Room
mom warns us that
we can't show we
know dad til we
pass the columns
on marble steps
through the scanners
down the giant
copper hallway
marble tile and
varnished oak doors
past vending machines
that sell you water
(there's no fountain)
but there's a cop
at this corner
then at that one
a gaggle stands
at the entrance
to the cavern
dingy gold walls
linoleum
faded eight shades
of grey where dads
with nose rings
coats that haven't
seen a closet
flannel dads with
pocket labels
leaning dads with
unused ankles
bleeding dads with
stories never
told the same way
more than once dads
suited and with
priestly collars
one a mom who
curses all dads
like my mom does
when she thinks we're
not listening.
- Ronald Fischman
(added 10.25.13)
editor's note: Two-sided stories with holes in the middle. One-sided opinions foment fears with both-sided consequences. So sad! - mh
Noon Raga
Murky waters of dying desires
And growing disenchantment
Make unsteady beds
I float on swirling discards
Listening to remembrances
Of unspoken, of unheard
Through shrunken (y)ears
Sip nectar from lotus stems
Cooling off my lips that
Singed when I kissed
White Naga with thousand heads
Molten gold of dreams drip through
Chequered green canopy
Dazzling play of radiance and gloom
Draw crazy patterns on my breast
Some sear into my being
Others just fade away
Like resonance of songs I sang
Or poems I whispered
Into ears awash with apathy
Swathed in silence my feet grow webs
I shake lest they grow roots too
I mean to traverse wastelands
Following whiff of musk
For rituals as old as mountains
Repeated over a thousand times
Each time more fervently
Until I get it right
But like celestial diamond ring
Ecstasy lasts but a moment
Even Gods can’t undo the past
- Nalini Pryadarshni
(added 10.23.13)
editor's note: Cosmic recollections of this magnitude dwarf any star of human love which flashes once and is gone. How did you spend your lunch hour today? - mh
SLICED BY TEXT
I've inspired myself
on a Bloody-Mary-Wednesday night,
and it's all so ad-hock,
I might just
show up
after all.
Who cares if there's club soda
behind the bars?
It's all burning
and unable to escape anyways.
A chance melting is anything
but romantic
when it becomes
sliced by text
in lieu of The
Art of Conversation,
which
exists.
Even over blurred
telephone lines.
- Nicole Kuwik
(1 poem added 10.23.13)
editor's note: Spoken or thumbed, drunk texting is NOT recommended on any Bloody-Mary night. - mh
How does it end?
we know how
it ends
it ends
in silence
in silence
so deep
so far
so still
not measured
not measurable
all the sounds
of this roaring
life
the music
the words
the moans
the groans
the sobs
the sighs
the laughs
the cries
all of it
goes
goes
to the silence.
- Michael Corrigan
(added 10.22.13)
editor's note: Be it end or beginning, quiet is good. I'll take silence over screams; shhhhhh! - mh
Fall Forward Tonight
The leaves fall in September, during the festivals.
They dissipate, reintegrate into vivid little vespers
that bob and levitate on gusts of wind that leave one bristling.
The ferris wheel looked like an electric celestial ferry
to distant dimensions.
Glow stick ghouls, with faces smeared
snow cone red and blue, haunt the parking lot,
purple precipitate the product of their incessant chanting,
pulling fuzz-lined warmth from my marrow.
Under the stadium lights, women tighten their scarves
as tiny seahorses shimmer and dance on their jewel studded breath,
retreating as they giggle like immortal birds fallen from the nest.
Love is paper mache, a pop culture artifact;
a stuffed bear that seems to have lost its ability
to come to life after one loses their virginity.
It has long legs and keen ears.
It's very fast and would be quite handsome as well
if it wasn't so damned helpless.
It has been bred into the fibers of contact,
the filter we set on lust, the way recycled cans
make castles on lily pads and dead skin makes dust.
We are swirling around in its whirlpool,
if it wasn't drowning us we would be dead by now,
same goes for the mad, mangy men
who will count their teeth with their dimes
and pick at their scabs, finger their sores,
the retired professor who was too clever
to have ever been faithful,
the mockingbird that sings on my windowsill
every morning in French,
the mailwomen and the dogs who bark at them in Quebec.
An obsessive complex affords one
the privilege of straightening the line,
counting in time and putting the rabbit en route.
If it is the case that detachment follows
from distance
then I am one cactus length away
(average, or medium sized cactus of course)
from destroying the moon's mezzanine,
housing all of the dreams behind ethereal,
Egyptian colored crystal that a pagan god stole
from a black hole,
never intended for you or me.
- Shashank Virkud
(added 10.21.13)
editor's note: We drown in love as the moon watches; our dreams are spectator sport for the gods. - mh
Lawn
I have laid siege to this lot, seems like my whole life,
perhaps longer; in this forever war, forever have I waged
the good fight against nature, against the inevitable,
Sisyphus pushing a Toro, mowing the green down as it
grows up behind me, its counter attack, its ironic violence
against this aggressor. I feel it in my back, in my right knee
I hear it stretch and grow bolder. I hear it these nights
Plotting, planning its recovery, certain of its final victory.
But, I arm myself, buy fuel, sharpen my blade, check the oil,
work out designs, choreograph the battle, line on line,
precisely measure pace and timing, step boldly out, again.
- J.K. Durick
(added 10.20.13)
editor's note: For the scions of suburban mythology, this side o' the fence should be shortly shorn, shiny and green, green, green. - 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, "Rendezvous with Dr. Spirit" by Mel Waldman: "We all want to get better, be better, and be beautiful. But maybe what more of us need it to let go, because maybe for the first time what’s inside of us will be able to speak for us." Here's a taste to tempt you...
(“Medicine Man II” © Daniel Joshua Goldstein)
I’m dying. I need emergency surgery. But I can’t leave my blood-red studio apartment, an antediluvian basement in a 2-family house on Thanatos Street, Brooklyn, New York. I’m too ill. In the past few weeks, I’ve called 911 a couple times, and when EMS arrived, they took me to the ER. On these occasions, the doctors admitted me for a few days. But always, they sent me home to die. My illness is incurable.
Only one man can help me. His name is Dr. Spirit. He lives in some esoteric and unknowable place in South America. I can’t get there, wherever it is.
He heals the sick via psychosurgery. While in a deep trance, Dr. Spirit performs a mental surgery without physically touching the patient’s body. Yet although he has allegedly cured thousands of people, he denies healing anyone. He confesses, “The angels enter my mind and body and perform these miracles. I am merely their instrument.”
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...
Tearin' Up
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Conversing with Ravens (above) by this month's featured artist, Tyler Malone.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we relinquished repose to resume a rote ritual, the grass must not grow but be greener; we picked apart love as a carnival prize, a ferris wheel folly of lustful lies; we struggled to loudly lengthen our start, when inevitably stifled and short is our end; we mumbled, drunk stumbled with speech so slurred, our fingers unfumbled our loss for words; we contemplated the consequences of a constant quest for a cosmic kiss, ravish and repeat; we viewed visceral vexation in supervised visitation; we learned the price to pay for crime is a long confined, boring time. Hmmm, it's all poetry from prison. Free your minds! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Dull, Dull, Dull
I was in a police cell in Swansea
which I am more than used to.
The walls are usually covered
in all sorts of graffiti
done with pens and cigarette ash
or scraped into the paint.
It is all very familiar
and often quite amusing to read,
helps to pass the hours
and all that.
But this cell was different
it only had 3 words
written in blood
on the back of the cell door
‘Dull, Dull, Dull.’
It really quite shook me up
and I was happier than most times
to get on out of there.
© 2012
- Paul Tristram
(1 poem added 10.26.13)
editor's note: Routine incarceration brings "bored to death" into new perspective; enough to scare a scofflaw straight? - mh
The Enormous Room
mom warns us that
we can't show we
know dad til we
pass the columns
on marble steps
through the scanners
down the giant
copper hallway
marble tile and
varnished oak doors
past vending machines
that sell you water
(there's no fountain)
but there's a cop
at this corner
then at that one
a gaggle stands
at the entrance
to the cavern
dingy gold walls
linoleum
faded eight shades
of grey where dads
with nose rings
coats that haven't
seen a closet
flannel dads with
pocket labels
leaning dads with
unused ankles
bleeding dads with
stories never
told the same way
more than once dads
suited and with
priestly collars
one a mom who
curses all dads
like my mom does
when she thinks we're
not listening.
- Ronald Fischman
(added 10.25.13)
editor's note: Two-sided stories with holes in the middle. One-sided opinions foment fears with both-sided consequences. So sad! - mh
Noon Raga
Murky waters of dying desires
And growing disenchantment
Make unsteady beds
I float on swirling discards
Listening to remembrances
Of unspoken, of unheard
Through shrunken (y)ears
Sip nectar from lotus stems
Cooling off my lips that
Singed when I kissed
White Naga with thousand heads
Molten gold of dreams drip through
Chequered green canopy
Dazzling play of radiance and gloom
Draw crazy patterns on my breast
Some sear into my being
Others just fade away
Like resonance of songs I sang
Or poems I whispered
Into ears awash with apathy
Swathed in silence my feet grow webs
I shake lest they grow roots too
I mean to traverse wastelands
Following whiff of musk
For rituals as old as mountains
Repeated over a thousand times
Each time more fervently
Until I get it right
But like celestial diamond ring
Ecstasy lasts but a moment
Even Gods can’t undo the past
- Nalini Pryadarshni
(added 10.23.13)
editor's note: Cosmic recollections of this magnitude dwarf any star of human love which flashes once and is gone. How did you spend your lunch hour today? - mh
SLICED BY TEXT
I've inspired myself
on a Bloody-Mary-Wednesday night,
and it's all so ad-hock,
I might just
show up
after all.
Who cares if there's club soda
behind the bars?
It's all burning
and unable to escape anyways.
A chance melting is anything
but romantic
when it becomes
sliced by text
in lieu of The
Art of Conversation,
which
exists.
Even over blurred
telephone lines.
- Nicole Kuwik
(1 poem added 10.23.13)
editor's note: Spoken or thumbed, drunk texting is NOT recommended on any Bloody-Mary night. - mh
How does it end?
we know how
it ends
it ends
in silence
in silence
so deep
so far
so still
not measured
not measurable
all the sounds
of this roaring
life
the music
the words
the moans
the groans
the sobs
the sighs
the laughs
the cries
all of it
goes
goes
to the silence.
- Michael Corrigan
(added 10.22.13)
editor's note: Be it end or beginning, quiet is good. I'll take silence over screams; shhhhhh! - mh
Fall Forward Tonight
The leaves fall in September, during the festivals.
They dissipate, reintegrate into vivid little vespers
that bob and levitate on gusts of wind that leave one bristling.
The ferris wheel looked like an electric celestial ferry
to distant dimensions.
Glow stick ghouls, with faces smeared
snow cone red and blue, haunt the parking lot,
purple precipitate the product of their incessant chanting,
pulling fuzz-lined warmth from my marrow.
Under the stadium lights, women tighten their scarves
as tiny seahorses shimmer and dance on their jewel studded breath,
retreating as they giggle like immortal birds fallen from the nest.
Love is paper mache, a pop culture artifact;
a stuffed bear that seems to have lost its ability
to come to life after one loses their virginity.
It has long legs and keen ears.
It's very fast and would be quite handsome as well
if it wasn't so damned helpless.
It has been bred into the fibers of contact,
the filter we set on lust, the way recycled cans
make castles on lily pads and dead skin makes dust.
We are swirling around in its whirlpool,
if it wasn't drowning us we would be dead by now,
same goes for the mad, mangy men
who will count their teeth with their dimes
and pick at their scabs, finger their sores,
the retired professor who was too clever
to have ever been faithful,
the mockingbird that sings on my windowsill
every morning in French,
the mailwomen and the dogs who bark at them in Quebec.
An obsessive complex affords one
the privilege of straightening the line,
counting in time and putting the rabbit en route.
If it is the case that detachment follows
from distance
then I am one cactus length away
(average, or medium sized cactus of course)
from destroying the moon's mezzanine,
housing all of the dreams behind ethereal,
Egyptian colored crystal that a pagan god stole
from a black hole,
never intended for you or me.
- Shashank Virkud
(added 10.21.13)
editor's note: We drown in love as the moon watches; our dreams are spectator sport for the gods. - mh
Lawn
I have laid siege to this lot, seems like my whole life,
perhaps longer; in this forever war, forever have I waged
the good fight against nature, against the inevitable,
Sisyphus pushing a Toro, mowing the green down as it
grows up behind me, its counter attack, its ironic violence
against this aggressor. I feel it in my back, in my right knee
I hear it stretch and grow bolder. I hear it these nights
Plotting, planning its recovery, certain of its final victory.
But, I arm myself, buy fuel, sharpen my blade, check the oil,
work out designs, choreograph the battle, line on line,
precisely measure pace and timing, step boldly out, again.
- J.K. Durick
(added 10.20.13)
editor's note: For the scions of suburban mythology, this side o' the fence should be shortly shorn, shiny and green, green, green. - 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, "Rendezvous with Dr. Spirit" by Mel Waldman: "We all want to get better, be better, and be beautiful. But maybe what more of us need it to let go, because maybe for the first time what’s inside of us will be able to speak for us." Here's a taste to tempt you...
(“Medicine Man II” © Daniel Joshua Goldstein)
I’m dying. I need emergency surgery. But I can’t leave my blood-red studio apartment, an antediluvian basement in a 2-family house on Thanatos Street, Brooklyn, New York. I’m too ill. In the past few weeks, I’ve called 911 a couple times, and when EMS arrived, they took me to the ER. On these occasions, the doctors admitted me for a few days. But always, they sent me home to die. My illness is incurable.
Only one man can help me. His name is Dr. Spirit. He lives in some esoteric and unknowable place in South America. I can’t get there, wherever it is.
He heals the sick via psychosurgery. While in a deep trance, Dr. Spirit performs a mental surgery without physically touching the patient’s body. Yet although he has allegedly cured thousands of people, he denies healing anyone. He confesses, “The angels enter my mind and body and perform these miracles. I am merely their instrument.”
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...
Tearin' Up
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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