The Best of Mad Swirl : 01.04.14
"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die." Isaac Asimov
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Dream City (above) by artist, Adam Yeater.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we saw how life, like love, comes on then passes, when one takes off rose-colored glasses; we bore the bunk of monks and punks, bobbing in Babylonia; we saw future joys and passed woes confounded by how the time goes; we wrought worlds of words to wield on pages; we pondered where might friendship be, in dark of night or shade of tree; we mourned the sudden flare of moths near flame; we scrutinized truth, before and after, succumbed instead to Buddha's laughter. A New Year! With new ears, we listen to see what we'll hear... ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Laughing Buddha
The Buddha doesn’t just
Smile but
Laughs
He is not hot
But cool
He is not X
But Z
He is not thin
But fat
Fat in:
Not physical but emotional
Non-academic
Not so religious
Sense/enlightening perception
Does not belong to A
But to B
Switch your mind
Either you hear this
Or you will never hear just that
- Santosh Kalwar
(1 poem added 01.04.14)
editor's note: The Buddha comes to Aristotle's Square of Opposition and mixes it up, adds sides, removes walls, injects laughter... - mh
To A Crush
Who in their right mind would ever want to date in summer, when it seems at night the fattest moth comes to lick its elective candles? The time is much better spent singing unanswerable doggerels under catalpa leaves which move more sweetly than any pied feminin under tout l'eclairage naturel, in the destined firmament, which shakes off any notion for high hopes with phosphorescent trails, streaming across a large majority of our dazzled irises.
I cannot doubt there is any glee to O' Hara's ode to Mayakovsky but there is a nonsense in the air tramming along a halo which is in residence over your blank state.
How shall we perspire in our depths of being? In the rhythmic sheaths which is an interlude of youth, rage and Elderly Summit. Or over this multilateral picnic, a thousand ants to desire our scant privy? In either case it howls Innuendo at my haunted moon, changing the surf in a different rhythmic land.
you may be wise
but can we leave it
to the jesters
I am soft
I melt and become
hard quite easily
The softer puppets
may only be scarred
by the hands who animate them.
- Joseph Elenbaas
(1 poem added 01.03.14)
editor's note: So complicated, a summer love! Better, a winter love; smoldering desire with no competition. - mh
That Night
That night, I have known this great paradise
I saw the darkness of the world in the absence of all light
Silence was a moon, near my eye.
Seeing my eyes got dropped in shame
Old, ancient-sky gazed through the poisonous air
And young Himalayan Mountains had a good laugh.
I heard a man's best friend is a great tree,
But at the need, I wonder where he be?
Inside this hollow world.
- Tenzing Sherpa
(added 01.02.14)
editor's note: A moment of insight; true friends are hard to find in a dark hollow world. - mh
equinox
we made the universe
we strung together worlds typeset in cursive
we connected continents with letterhead
we clattered keys on boards and reset
our processors at the dawn of each new thought
we made the universe
we skated
passed pages
chased conclusions
reached ends we
turned to beginnings
we made the universe
- Melani Grace Tiongson
(added 01.01.14)
editor's note: Little godlets, we! Struttin' our stuff 'tween Caps Lock and ctrl-alt-delete. - mh
TIME GOES
I saw a little girl the other day
that looked like the spawn of a boy
I used to date and I know that sounds weird
so to make myself clear
it's when it really hit me
that time goes.
and the reality is
I might soon see a child that looks like him
cus it's his
and that scares me shitless cus
regardless of my preparedness
time goes.
I used to be convinced I was the only one
that grows or at least that I was
the only one allowed to
but ignoring the days
of the calendars
change
doesn't stop time
or life
from going with or without you.
2013 was the biggest year I'd known without knowing
the year I was meant to figure out where I was going
but the pages of my calendar never changed
cus I swore I was so much closer to freedom
than any number on a day
or a clock
could say
so what 2013 held never occurred to me the way
fourteen is now and it's so ridiculous how I wanted time to fly by
to now pray it slow down,
and time is just a concept,
ever-elusive in its name
so why do I feel trapped in its ticking
move just right with the hands
versus go fucking insane,
but time goes.
and I'm not the only one that knows
that a year can change a lot whether it pass
fast or slow, so 2014 will be for me
to watch the time shrink and grow
and it won't be long till I see kids that look like
people I know
that the people I know will call
"daughter" - and I, someday - my own will say:
"mommy,
what time is it?"
- Madelyn Olson
(added 12.31.13)
editor's note: An explicit picture from our Visual Arts Editor, Madelyn; can´t look back without looking forward, without looking closely (don´t blink, it passes quickly). The last o´the year for auld lang syne. - mh
Narcotica
I am a cherub
in post-punk regalia,
I wear a neo-Edwardian poet suit
with nuts and bolts for a tie.
My lace mantilla,
a velvet burned-out curtain,
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
I begin to say.
I’m laid like a piano
on my bed,
one key stretched after another—
black, white, black, white, black—
sharp on tacks, flat back,
I’d like to be played today.
A Rachmaninoff please,
my eyelashes are heavy
from sifting out the breeze
that mills about like dragon bees—
the Rachmaninoff, please.
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
today there is no pain.
Take me for a walk before I swim—
my brain is soaking with the dishes
and old New York.
Cy Twombly’s done my portrait
in an intra-dimensional calligraphy.
Does art look and feel the same
on the other side?
Sister Faithfull,
Sister Smith,
are we to shave our heads?
Will you catch my cherub ringlets
falling down my back?
Patti, I will keep your braids
hidden in my drawer,
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
turn your wheel that turns the world.
I am your apprentice,
shaking at my little wheel—
it turns the pages of my story,
spins them evenly like wool—
soft in the telling,
swift in the pull.
Hello God, do you believe in me?
Blink once for yes,
two for no,
I’ve only got my words to give.
They come out like confetti
falling.
I search in footprints,
earthen beds where shadows sleep,
and pray my prayers
in your many marking books—
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
is all I know to say.
For we are monks and lonely punks
set in lazy chains,
singing of our fuzzy plight
in Babel-oh-knee-uh.
- Ariel Jastromb
(added 12.30.13)
editor's note: Stranger; meet self, meet outcast, miscreant sibling of your soul. Identify! - mh
I Grew Up In California
Rosy pictures of yesterday
I realize
Were not so rosy, then
My whole body breathes you
But how am I to see you
In the wake of other men
So long a time
Looking at lights and sky
Somewhere along the way
Was a good time to die
But I cannot say
Exactly when...
- Ralph Freda
(1 poem added 12.29.13)
editor's note: You learn what it is to be alive the moment you realize you're dead. - 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, "Separation" by Mike Fiorito: "We all know the great divorce. All know the pain of King Solomon dicing off what means the most to us: our other half. Somehow, though, we go on living, only incomplete." Here's a taste to tempt you...
“Why did we separate?” my son Theo asks. He’s seven years old.
“We're not separated now, right? I'm with you tonight,” I say. “’Today is Monday and l will see you Wednesday, and Friday too.”
We’re drawing; we always talk when we draw. I can never get him to talk if I just ask him questions directly. I bought us each a drawing pad. I want him to do his own drawings. He often looks at my drawing and wants to draw in my book. But then I start drawing in his pad. If he likes what I’ve done, he’ll take over and make his own drawing. Beginning is hard.
“Where's your father?” he asks.
“My father died,” I tell him.
“Where'd he go?”
“I don’t know.”
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on here!
••• Open Mic •••
Join Mad Swirl this 2nd Wednesday of January (aka 01.08.14), 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, Cj Critt! And stick around to get yourself a spot 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 in February James “Bear” Rodehaver!
•••••••
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...
Breathin’
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we saw how life, like love, comes on then passes, when one takes off rose-colored glasses; we bore the bunk of monks and punks, bobbing in Babylonia; we saw future joys and passed woes confounded by how the time goes; we wrought worlds of words to wield on pages; we pondered where might friendship be, in dark of night or shade of tree; we mourned the sudden flare of moths near flame; we scrutinized truth, before and after, succumbed instead to Buddha's laughter. A New Year! With new ears, we listen to see what we'll hear... ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Laughing Buddha
The Buddha doesn’t just
Smile but
Laughs
He is not hot
But cool
He is not X
But Z
He is not thin
But fat
Fat in:
Not physical but emotional
Non-academic
Not so religious
Sense/enlightening perception
Does not belong to A
But to B
Switch your mind
Either you hear this
Or you will never hear just that
- Santosh Kalwar
(1 poem added 01.04.14)
editor's note: The Buddha comes to Aristotle's Square of Opposition and mixes it up, adds sides, removes walls, injects laughter... - mh
To A Crush
Who in their right mind would ever want to date in summer, when it seems at night the fattest moth comes to lick its elective candles? The time is much better spent singing unanswerable doggerels under catalpa leaves which move more sweetly than any pied feminin under tout l'eclairage naturel, in the destined firmament, which shakes off any notion for high hopes with phosphorescent trails, streaming across a large majority of our dazzled irises.
I cannot doubt there is any glee to O' Hara's ode to Mayakovsky but there is a nonsense in the air tramming along a halo which is in residence over your blank state.
How shall we perspire in our depths of being? In the rhythmic sheaths which is an interlude of youth, rage and Elderly Summit. Or over this multilateral picnic, a thousand ants to desire our scant privy? In either case it howls Innuendo at my haunted moon, changing the surf in a different rhythmic land.
you may be wise
but can we leave it
to the jesters
I am soft
I melt and become
hard quite easily
The softer puppets
may only be scarred
by the hands who animate them.
- Joseph Elenbaas
(1 poem added 01.03.14)
editor's note: So complicated, a summer love! Better, a winter love; smoldering desire with no competition. - mh
That Night
That night, I have known this great paradise
I saw the darkness of the world in the absence of all light
Silence was a moon, near my eye.
Seeing my eyes got dropped in shame
Old, ancient-sky gazed through the poisonous air
And young Himalayan Mountains had a good laugh.
I heard a man's best friend is a great tree,
But at the need, I wonder where he be?
Inside this hollow world.
- Tenzing Sherpa
(added 01.02.14)
editor's note: A moment of insight; true friends are hard to find in a dark hollow world. - mh
equinox
we made the universe
we strung together worlds typeset in cursive
we connected continents with letterhead
we clattered keys on boards and reset
our processors at the dawn of each new thought
we made the universe
we skated
passed pages
chased conclusions
reached ends we
turned to beginnings
we made the universe
- Melani Grace Tiongson
(added 01.01.14)
editor's note: Little godlets, we! Struttin' our stuff 'tween Caps Lock and ctrl-alt-delete. - mh
TIME GOES
I saw a little girl the other day
that looked like the spawn of a boy
I used to date and I know that sounds weird
so to make myself clear
it's when it really hit me
that time goes.
and the reality is
I might soon see a child that looks like him
cus it's his
and that scares me shitless cus
regardless of my preparedness
time goes.
I used to be convinced I was the only one
that grows or at least that I was
the only one allowed to
but ignoring the days
of the calendars
change
doesn't stop time
or life
from going with or without you.
2013 was the biggest year I'd known without knowing
the year I was meant to figure out where I was going
but the pages of my calendar never changed
cus I swore I was so much closer to freedom
than any number on a day
or a clock
could say
so what 2013 held never occurred to me the way
fourteen is now and it's so ridiculous how I wanted time to fly by
to now pray it slow down,
and time is just a concept,
ever-elusive in its name
so why do I feel trapped in its ticking
move just right with the hands
versus go fucking insane,
but time goes.
and I'm not the only one that knows
that a year can change a lot whether it pass
fast or slow, so 2014 will be for me
to watch the time shrink and grow
and it won't be long till I see kids that look like
people I know
that the people I know will call
"daughter" - and I, someday - my own will say:
"mommy,
what time is it?"
- Madelyn Olson
(added 12.31.13)
editor's note: An explicit picture from our Visual Arts Editor, Madelyn; can´t look back without looking forward, without looking closely (don´t blink, it passes quickly). The last o´the year for auld lang syne. - mh
Narcotica
I am a cherub
in post-punk regalia,
I wear a neo-Edwardian poet suit
with nuts and bolts for a tie.
My lace mantilla,
a velvet burned-out curtain,
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
I begin to say.
I’m laid like a piano
on my bed,
one key stretched after another—
black, white, black, white, black—
sharp on tacks, flat back,
I’d like to be played today.
A Rachmaninoff please,
my eyelashes are heavy
from sifting out the breeze
that mills about like dragon bees—
the Rachmaninoff, please.
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
today there is no pain.
Take me for a walk before I swim—
my brain is soaking with the dishes
and old New York.
Cy Twombly’s done my portrait
in an intra-dimensional calligraphy.
Does art look and feel the same
on the other side?
Sister Faithfull,
Sister Smith,
are we to shave our heads?
Will you catch my cherub ringlets
falling down my back?
Patti, I will keep your braids
hidden in my drawer,
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
turn your wheel that turns the world.
I am your apprentice,
shaking at my little wheel—
it turns the pages of my story,
spins them evenly like wool—
soft in the telling,
swift in the pull.
Hello God, do you believe in me?
Blink once for yes,
two for no,
I’ve only got my words to give.
They come out like confetti
falling.
I search in footprints,
earthen beds where shadows sleep,
and pray my prayers
in your many marking books—
Babel, Babel, Babel, Babel,
is all I know to say.
For we are monks and lonely punks
set in lazy chains,
singing of our fuzzy plight
in Babel-oh-knee-uh.
- Ariel Jastromb
(added 12.30.13)
editor's note: Stranger; meet self, meet outcast, miscreant sibling of your soul. Identify! - mh
I Grew Up In California
Rosy pictures of yesterday
I realize
Were not so rosy, then
My whole body breathes you
But how am I to see you
In the wake of other men
So long a time
Looking at lights and sky
Somewhere along the way
Was a good time to die
But I cannot say
Exactly when...
- Ralph Freda
(1 poem added 12.29.13)
editor's note: You learn what it is to be alive the moment you realize you're dead. - 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, "Separation" by Mike Fiorito: "We all know the great divorce. All know the pain of King Solomon dicing off what means the most to us: our other half. Somehow, though, we go on living, only incomplete." Here's a taste to tempt you...
“Why did we separate?” my son Theo asks. He’s seven years old.
“We're not separated now, right? I'm with you tonight,” I say. “’Today is Monday and l will see you Wednesday, and Friday too.”
We’re drawing; we always talk when we draw. I can never get him to talk if I just ask him questions directly. I bought us each a drawing pad. I want him to do his own drawings. He often looks at my drawing and wants to draw in my book. But then I start drawing in his pad. If he likes what I’ve done, he’ll take over and make his own drawing. Beginning is hard.
“Where's your father?” he asks.
“My father died,” I tell him.
“Where'd he go?”
“I don’t know.”
You wanna keep readin'? Of course you wanna! Get the rest of your wanna on here!
••• Open Mic •••
Join Mad Swirl this 2nd Wednesday of January (aka 01.08.14), 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, Cj Critt! And stick around to get yourself a spot 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 in February James “Bear” Rodehaver!
•••••••
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...
Breathin’
Johnny O
Editor-in-chief
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
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