The Best of Mad Swirl : 01.25.14
"The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety." W. Somerset Maugham
••• The Mad Gallery •••
In Transition (above) by featured artist, Fanny Marie Crawford.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we blundered into bravado, blown up by beers; we played with new meaning from spring cleaning; we foundered in fire fly fever, broke free; we simmered in suburban similes; we fueled a flame from higher to find the name of fire; we filled a wind of sails to seek the dream at Model Nails; we grinned and grunted to grapple with goofy love. To be young like that, to live love like that - "Oh, lawd above!" ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
I’m a young lover
I’ll fill up your trashcan with condoms
I’ll be on top or on bottom
I’m more or less a whore
But I can be all yours
For one lump sum
I can hump you
Anytime you want
But you have to listen
When I explain the world
In extended metaphors
And you’re not allowed
To make it weird
When I sing loudly
In the car
If you tell me it’s all right
When growing up
Keeps me awake at night
Then tomorrow we can
Start our own sunrise
And grow between
Each moon
until we die
Or bloom
- Jake Grieco
(1 poem 01.25.14)
editor's note: Fragile fledgling flowers, be not bereft, but betrothed. Bloom! Yes! Bloom! (We welcome Jake to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. He has more madness on his new page - check it out.) - mh
At Model Nails
In early morning light,
large black eyes stare
from his shower-fogged mirror.
He compares his profile
with worn photo of his father.
Once, his mother stitched it to a secret
panel in a sleeve of her silk tunic
to hide her lover’s face from Viet Cong.
His mind wanders back
to days of childhood.
Cruel taunts prattle
from Vietnamese tongues,
chattered whispers return,
full volume.
“You children without fathers
are like homes without roofs.”
Fucking Amerasian dirt.
Ugly bastard left-over! Child of dust!
Who’s your Daddy?
At Model Nails, he scrubs
dead skin from feet, massages
lavender in cracked soles,
trims toenails, hundreds of phalanges.
More than two decades he worked,
stooped over, bending, twisting
from a little red three-peg stool.
He greets customers
with white toothy smiles,
massages legs in habitual
up and down rhythm, hums
an ancient song his mother sang
while she washed clothes
on muddy banks of The Mekong.
If she were here, he’d paint stars
and stripes on her nails, fireworks
or perhaps a blood-red flag
with a sinking yellow star…
- Sharon Frye
(added 01.24.14)
editor's note: Come to escape a nightmare; hoping to grab the dream - we don't notice. "A natural finish please and I'd like a glass of white." - mh
Inside the Fire
To be in the center of a flame
Blue crystalline droplet
Wrapped in yellow orange tongues
Warmed until just before boiling point
Fires rage inside the wild courageous hearts
That I hold in my hand
Feeling the power of the beasts
Solar flares erupt from inside
Singeing my eyelashes
Kneeling though I am unafraid
Of looking the sun in the eye
I will be your arsonist
The globe surrounded by orange waves
Together we become lava
Seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk
Like a boiling flood
Over hot coals
To be inside the fire
To reflect the fire inside me
And know it by name
- Lilly Penhall
(1 poem added 01.23.14)
editor's note: If you would be my arsonist, then I would be your fuel; spilled, sputtered and spent. (Welcome back this Contributing Poet. We've missed you, lovely Lilly!) - mh
The Prayer
Grant me the steady hand
to twist my door knob at two in the morning;
give me the words to
pray that it’s unlocked.
Drown me in being twenty;
let me swim through the smoke painted
air and feel
dangerous and unforgettable in the suburbs.
Give my memories away to the wind:
remind me of sitting on the carpet
while my friends talk about their
scraped knee third grade portraits,
and not of heart break
or the town too small to contain me.
Overflow me into a shallow basin
so that I can walk on water,
and still feel hellish.
- Taylor Gall
(1 poem added 01.22.14)
editor's note: The Temptation, lived by a suburban savior, establishing an open link. Amen! (Let's welcome Taylor to our Mad mosh of Contributing Poets with this one - read more poems on her new page.) - mh
Through the Holes
I caught you in the air
like a lightning bug you glowed
between my hands my feet
left the ground we tumbled
and twirled flickering pheromones
in crackling air
our effervescence could not
be harnessed could not be saved
in a glass jar with a lid you escaped
through the holes and became
swallowed in the night
- Charlotte Hamrick
(1 poem added 01.21.14)
editor's note: Let your fire fly; laugh in the escaping light. - mh
Bon Ami for the Mind
Tonight the house is so clean,
I feel like taking LSD.
Cleaning the house was part
of the preparation,
like Jesus was coming on donkey back
and you had to dust the palm fronds.
You knew everything was going to be
fresh and dewy like dawn in Disneyland
and you didn’t want to be caught squandered.
Christmas lights scrunching in the rictus grin,
early onset of blue light deep in the brain,
that characteristic flood of saliva
back of the throat like the Pineapple Express
melting inhibitions and restrictions on the seen and
making every pore a crater, every hair a telephone pole.
A dirty trip was a bad trip,
every grit of grime exaggerated
to the Chinese drip drip of a mind tied
to a prison plank and howling.
Your whole brain squeaked when the chemicals kicked in
and the walls melted in the pizza oven
of full psychic disclosure,
you wanted to be ready for revelations
on the level of your skin turning into stampeding horses.
It was a way of settling the dust,
decanting the wine from the lees,
preventing the bitter taste of physical existence
from choking your chakras, mangling the astral plane.
LSD was the mind’s cleanser,
the drug that made you want to vacuum the rug
and scrub the tub. What a waste:
a spotless house, and no brain left to wash.
- David Thornbrugh
(added 01.20.14)
editor's note: Cleanliness is next to godliness; or at least next to household goods in the supermarket aisle. LSD is for young and full-brained folks; makes us elderly, thin-brained coots a little tired. - mh
Frightened Into Bravery
“Oh my God, we’ve never seen
anything like it, have we?
The way you jumped over that
table, skidded under the next two
and rose swinging a chair around you.
You were like lightning, I swear
at one point you practically ran
up a wall, an actual wall! seriously.
The massive guy dropped, man
just like a sack of potatoes.
And those plant pots, Jesus Christ
what made you think of those?
They were flying around everywhere.
It took 10 officers to restrain you
and carry you out, upside down.
It was the craziest thing
that any of us has ever seen
you are the talk of the place, a legend.
What set you off man, tell us
come on, we’re dying to know?”
“Well, I was just frightened, you know!”
- Paul Tristram
(1 poem added 01.19.14)
editor's note: Whiskey and adrenaline; bad news. Casual pub crawlers beware the frightened philanderer; best walk on. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, “Editor” by Rose Aiello Morales: "We are gods of all types of odd little worlds. Most importantly, we are gods of our own little odd worlds. Or so we like to imagine, anyway, and it’s a theology that we will all gladly set ourselves on fire for." Here's a taste to tempt you...
I am not a morning person.
That being said, most weekdays I am up at five o'clock to make Alex breakfast. Somehow, the eggs are not broken, the scramble is light and fluffy, the bread is perfectly toasted, the myriad of pills Alex takes are all laid out in the right dosage. I lay the food and accouterments on the table, kiss my husband goodnight, and then go back to bed. The last half hour was obviously a dream.
I actually awaken at 9:00 am, a civilized hour for a civilized person. I shoo out the lucky kitty who gets to share my bed, make coffee, toast a bagel, and bring it to the computer to consume while I write.
Fog rolls in, fog rolls out. I check the pleas from friends to read their work, go to YouTube to watch some videos, chew my fingernails because there are no pencil erasers. My mind drifts, I am somewhere (where?) I've never seen before.
There are books everywhere, burying me until only my eyes show. I scan the titles, none of them are mine. Pages start to turn with the sound a card taped onto a bicycle wheel: flip flip flip flip flip. They become helicopter rotors and I duck my head continuously, barely escaping the whirling blades. The turning dredges up wind which becomes visible, a god-like cloud, long white beard, finger pointing....
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...
Unifyin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
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 blundered into bravado, blown up by beers; we played with new meaning from spring cleaning; we foundered in fire fly fever, broke free; we simmered in suburban similes; we fueled a flame from higher to find the name of fire; we filled a wind of sails to seek the dream at Model Nails; we grinned and grunted to grapple with goofy love. To be young like that, to live love like that - "Oh, lawd above!" ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
I’m a young lover
I’ll fill up your trashcan with condoms
I’ll be on top or on bottom
I’m more or less a whore
But I can be all yours
For one lump sum
I can hump you
Anytime you want
But you have to listen
When I explain the world
In extended metaphors
And you’re not allowed
To make it weird
When I sing loudly
In the car
If you tell me it’s all right
When growing up
Keeps me awake at night
Then tomorrow we can
Start our own sunrise
And grow between
Each moon
until we die
Or bloom
- Jake Grieco
(1 poem 01.25.14)
editor's note: Fragile fledgling flowers, be not bereft, but betrothed. Bloom! Yes! Bloom! (We welcome Jake to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. He has more madness on his new page - check it out.) - mh
At Model Nails
In early morning light,
large black eyes stare
from his shower-fogged mirror.
He compares his profile
with worn photo of his father.
Once, his mother stitched it to a secret
panel in a sleeve of her silk tunic
to hide her lover’s face from Viet Cong.
His mind wanders back
to days of childhood.
Cruel taunts prattle
from Vietnamese tongues,
chattered whispers return,
full volume.
“You children without fathers
are like homes without roofs.”
Fucking Amerasian dirt.
Ugly bastard left-over! Child of dust!
Who’s your Daddy?
At Model Nails, he scrubs
dead skin from feet, massages
lavender in cracked soles,
trims toenails, hundreds of phalanges.
More than two decades he worked,
stooped over, bending, twisting
from a little red three-peg stool.
He greets customers
with white toothy smiles,
massages legs in habitual
up and down rhythm, hums
an ancient song his mother sang
while she washed clothes
on muddy banks of The Mekong.
If she were here, he’d paint stars
and stripes on her nails, fireworks
or perhaps a blood-red flag
with a sinking yellow star…
- Sharon Frye
(added 01.24.14)
editor's note: Come to escape a nightmare; hoping to grab the dream - we don't notice. "A natural finish please and I'd like a glass of white." - mh
Inside the Fire
To be in the center of a flame
Blue crystalline droplet
Wrapped in yellow orange tongues
Warmed until just before boiling point
Fires rage inside the wild courageous hearts
That I hold in my hand
Feeling the power of the beasts
Solar flares erupt from inside
Singeing my eyelashes
Kneeling though I am unafraid
Of looking the sun in the eye
I will be your arsonist
The globe surrounded by orange waves
Together we become lava
Seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk
Like a boiling flood
Over hot coals
To be inside the fire
To reflect the fire inside me
And know it by name
- Lilly Penhall
(1 poem added 01.23.14)
editor's note: If you would be my arsonist, then I would be your fuel; spilled, sputtered and spent. (Welcome back this Contributing Poet. We've missed you, lovely Lilly!) - mh
The Prayer
Grant me the steady hand
to twist my door knob at two in the morning;
give me the words to
pray that it’s unlocked.
Drown me in being twenty;
let me swim through the smoke painted
air and feel
dangerous and unforgettable in the suburbs.
Give my memories away to the wind:
remind me of sitting on the carpet
while my friends talk about their
scraped knee third grade portraits,
and not of heart break
or the town too small to contain me.
Overflow me into a shallow basin
so that I can walk on water,
and still feel hellish.
- Taylor Gall
(1 poem added 01.22.14)
editor's note: The Temptation, lived by a suburban savior, establishing an open link. Amen! (Let's welcome Taylor to our Mad mosh of Contributing Poets with this one - read more poems on her new page.) - mh
Through the Holes
I caught you in the air
like a lightning bug you glowed
between my hands my feet
left the ground we tumbled
and twirled flickering pheromones
in crackling air
our effervescence could not
be harnessed could not be saved
in a glass jar with a lid you escaped
through the holes and became
swallowed in the night
- Charlotte Hamrick
(1 poem added 01.21.14)
editor's note: Let your fire fly; laugh in the escaping light. - mh
Bon Ami for the Mind
Tonight the house is so clean,
I feel like taking LSD.
Cleaning the house was part
of the preparation,
like Jesus was coming on donkey back
and you had to dust the palm fronds.
You knew everything was going to be
fresh and dewy like dawn in Disneyland
and you didn’t want to be caught squandered.
Christmas lights scrunching in the rictus grin,
early onset of blue light deep in the brain,
that characteristic flood of saliva
back of the throat like the Pineapple Express
melting inhibitions and restrictions on the seen and
making every pore a crater, every hair a telephone pole.
A dirty trip was a bad trip,
every grit of grime exaggerated
to the Chinese drip drip of a mind tied
to a prison plank and howling.
Your whole brain squeaked when the chemicals kicked in
and the walls melted in the pizza oven
of full psychic disclosure,
you wanted to be ready for revelations
on the level of your skin turning into stampeding horses.
It was a way of settling the dust,
decanting the wine from the lees,
preventing the bitter taste of physical existence
from choking your chakras, mangling the astral plane.
LSD was the mind’s cleanser,
the drug that made you want to vacuum the rug
and scrub the tub. What a waste:
a spotless house, and no brain left to wash.
- David Thornbrugh
(added 01.20.14)
editor's note: Cleanliness is next to godliness; or at least next to household goods in the supermarket aisle. LSD is for young and full-brained folks; makes us elderly, thin-brained coots a little tired. - mh
Frightened Into Bravery
“Oh my God, we’ve never seen
anything like it, have we?
The way you jumped over that
table, skidded under the next two
and rose swinging a chair around you.
You were like lightning, I swear
at one point you practically ran
up a wall, an actual wall! seriously.
The massive guy dropped, man
just like a sack of potatoes.
And those plant pots, Jesus Christ
what made you think of those?
They were flying around everywhere.
It took 10 officers to restrain you
and carry you out, upside down.
It was the craziest thing
that any of us has ever seen
you are the talk of the place, a legend.
What set you off man, tell us
come on, we’re dying to know?”
“Well, I was just frightened, you know!”
- Paul Tristram
(1 poem added 01.19.14)
editor's note: Whiskey and adrenaline; bad news. Casual pub crawlers beware the frightened philanderer; best walk on. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, “Editor” by Rose Aiello Morales: "We are gods of all types of odd little worlds. Most importantly, we are gods of our own little odd worlds. Or so we like to imagine, anyway, and it’s a theology that we will all gladly set ourselves on fire for." Here's a taste to tempt you...
I am not a morning person.
That being said, most weekdays I am up at five o'clock to make Alex breakfast. Somehow, the eggs are not broken, the scramble is light and fluffy, the bread is perfectly toasted, the myriad of pills Alex takes are all laid out in the right dosage. I lay the food and accouterments on the table, kiss my husband goodnight, and then go back to bed. The last half hour was obviously a dream.
I actually awaken at 9:00 am, a civilized hour for a civilized person. I shoo out the lucky kitty who gets to share my bed, make coffee, toast a bagel, and bring it to the computer to consume while I write.
Fog rolls in, fog rolls out. I check the pleas from friends to read their work, go to YouTube to watch some videos, chew my fingernails because there are no pencil erasers. My mind drifts, I am somewhere (where?) I've never seen before.
There are books everywhere, burying me until only my eyes show. I scan the titles, none of them are mine. Pages start to turn with the sound a card taped onto a bicycle wheel: flip flip flip flip flip. They become helicopter rotors and I duck my head continuously, barely escaping the whirling blades. The turning dredges up wind which becomes visible, a god-like cloud, long white beard, finger pointing....
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...
Unifyin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
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