The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.01.14
"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?" Langston Hughes
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Deep Blue Sea (above) by featured artist, Fanny Marie Crawford.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we vaunted the vision of a vivacious vamp; we watched a word fixer wield words as elixir; we saw a conscious stream play see-saw with a dream; we likened lost love to the ache of moonshine and the appetites of mosquitoes; we morphed a sartorial scattering into missile-fruit and museum piece; we looked at life as a waiting room set, we live to die (but "not just yet"); we crossed legs, let travel begin, jumped the cosmos, "up through at in"...all in a week's work. Wonderful! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Part 1: Sun & the Maya
Up & up & up & the sun
sang timbale licks
our one sun, our star, long
before the timbale was invented
before the licks & chops
were translated into K’iche’
& this is obvious on this path here
around the back of the step-pyramid.
Ants rush up-down
their expressways--half carrying leaves
half going to the tree to cut.
I walk the blue-red clay-ground
to three stunning pyramids, tucked into
the toes of a Ceiba tree’s massive feet
three ant-mountains with fire red ants
swarming around their proud structures
precisely built with what archaeologists
would say is limited technology:
a society without the wheel or metal tools
built behemoth mountains
which rival that of any skyscraper:
these ants leave the leaves to ferment
inside, to drink later.
I see behind the Ceiba tree’s muscular leg
behind the striations of the bark:
another behemoth:
the blood-red Mayan Temple of Masks
where carved Mayan men
kings, seers, shamans, daykeepers
are said to have been
able to cross the galaxy
by crossing their legs.
I sit & cross my legs.
I do not yet travel--
though i will!--
but find myself staring at ants
who march robotically
controlled by an unknown light
in the universe
to a cross-legged human observing
up through at in onto the canopy
a vine sunbathes on top
below the tree it has
wrestled into submission
withers and dies
a dead heavy leaf
falls.
Like this, it has begun.
- Ralph-Michael Chiaia
(1 poem added 02.01.14)
editor's note: An auspicious inaugural inspired by observations of ant-ics. (This is an excerpt from Ralph-Michael's "Glyphic: A Novella in Verse" - here is a cool review for your perusal with links to where you can get a copy of the complete work. Check it out!) - mh
THE WAITING GAME
The sun shines through winter trees
And songs are sung beneath the crescent moon.
Children and animals complete the painting
But do not touch it,
Well, not just yet.
Shadows cast by falling leaves soon pass
And a failing year will sweep them away,
As the softness of autumn melts into the earth.
But leave it for a while, do not feel it,
Well, not just yet.
Let your life run its course, plan those small steps,
Watch all those smiles, listen to the laughter,
See the orange glow of the day dissolve into the sea,
But do not bathe your soul,
Well, not just yet.
Capture the memories of the past,
Hold onto the present as the future claims your thoughts,
As your friends reach out to you.
Clutch their outstretched hands or are you thinking,
Well, not just yet?
- Derrick Gaskin
(2 poems added 01.31.14)
editor's note: That's exactly what I'm thinking! (Another one from Derrick on his page - check it out!) - mh
Cornucopia
When a hot bit of my wardrobe comes back from the laundry
and, through my own inevitable clumsiness, it falls upon the floor like a lax-backed
angel, allowing
explosions of a dozen different pants, boxers, and shirts,
(hanging them up in the bathroom while I shower will not remove their wrinkles, I just
know it!)
it is a cornucopia spread from my cracked plastic basket onto the oriental rug, which
is a similar
outpouring from a fertile culture (or at least a cheap facsimile of one).
Clothes are fruits! socks are ears of corn! And the gourds, squash and leafy fronds
roll out insouciantly onto the mat
where I had planned to meditate before going to bed. I think instead of a faceless stone-
relief king
holding a cornucopia, still firing missile-fruit into the eyes of those
squinting so hard that tourism becomes an opportunity to practice Zen.
But what are my socks doing in the Louvre anyway, rolling down its tableaux-haunted
hallways like a skee-ball with no hole to call its home?
- Tobias Griffin
(added 01.30.14)
editor's note: Found in a dumpster behind the museum (or was it the Burger King?). Yum, pass the salt! - mh
Sweetheart of the Hickory Bark
After Gram Parsons
Climbing the crotch of old shagbarks
as the memories of you rubbed raw
the Carolina winds of a troubled first kiss
pretending to be a far heart,
aching from the aftermath
of moonshine as it
feels better each time
the yellow catkins fall lonesome.
Tongueless hunger crawls out
from those days like a mourning fog
sunk into the greatness of
being eaten by this year's
mosquitoes around the cooking fire.
- Zach Fishel
(2 poems added 01.29.14)
editor's note: Mountain man mourns last year's love with moonshine and mosquitoes. (Nice to hear back from our friend and Contributing Poet, Zach (Mountain Man) Fishel. Read another new'n on his page - how to pace one's self on a two dollar budget.) - mh
Stream #30
on the wings of arrows earth shattering slow motion exorcism of everyone occurs as often as every motion of every person these are the equations of the heart propelling us vulnerable through existence yet bonded to the divine within which it has evolved to the point where we modern man are clothed in hiding from the mysticism of the very question which we so savor and the balances tip but the scale stays even just like bargaining for a dream
- Patrick Longe
(added 01.28.14)
editor's note: Take a deep breath, hold it... Now, punctuate this run-on rant to satisfy your ninth grade English teacher's grammatical gremlins before you take another; while keeping that balance even. - mh
Dweller of the cloud
Pain escapes
In tears his ink
So light he treads
On air.
World he sees
Never exists, though
Same earth he lives
With celestial integrity
Light wave he travels - imagination
Abnormal he acts, wings never seen
Still so high but,
Attached to the ground:
His imbued humanity.
What enigma
You carry, Oh! Poet
Cloud is a home you live
Mysterious droplets
Of life you collect
Elixir.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(1 poem added 01.27.14)
editor's note: This is no 21st Century techno-medicine show snake oil, guaranteed to cure what ails you through keeping you perpetually plugged-in. This is the pure stuff; drink this and be ruined for anything else. - mh
Vivid
My life is not prepared
for this uncertainty.
I am torn between
a veiled image of reality
and a dazzling
clear vision of him
spangling my heart.
I clasp him close to me,
searching for
a hint of our future,
I call for help in my thought,
but I have no answer.
Our lips meet
for how long,
I do not know.
I am led from lip
to undiscovered places,
through a sense of touch
to see beyond;
to something nebulous,
to something we crave,
to something exquisite
and uplifting-
beyond the hills,
the skies,
the seas.
I want to hold that kiss,
so nothing around us
can change.
- Amy Barry
(1 poem added 01.26.14)
editor's note: A sweet siren in search of sutra; it's a cosmic kiss. - 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, “Silver, Black, and Red” by Chimera Loe: "Tuning in is more than what’s planned and arranged and scheduled; tuning in is hearing what you don’t plan on catching: something whispering, something as light Boss Ross’ paint strokes, something that lets you know that you could have something called a soul. If not, just change the channel, you’ll find something pretty to stare at until permanent blackness." Here's a taste to tempt you...
His eyes were clouded with something. It was only on closer inspection that she realized, feeling a pang of something unidentifiable in her chest, that it was tears. His hands were shaking, but he still held the brush with undeniable skill. He dipped it slowly in the paint and brought the blood red tip to the canvas. She watched as the tragic ragged line created by the strokes curved and bent, seemingly haphazard but in reality infinitely precise. It was the inevitable result of a terrible skill, more than once he had deemed it a “curse.” She could never be sure if he meant that the art itself was a curse or if the truth of the curse lay in the way it had betrayed him—leaving him full of the cosmos and everything, pregnant with ideas, but standing across from the blank canvas feeling his wrist slacken and fall limp, useless at his side...
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 February (aka 02.05.14), 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, Bear the Poet! 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 Mad Swirl’s Open Mic page for more details.
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING in March, Phil Brewer & Friends
•••••••
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...
Explodin’,
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 vaunted the vision of a vivacious vamp; we watched a word fixer wield words as elixir; we saw a conscious stream play see-saw with a dream; we likened lost love to the ache of moonshine and the appetites of mosquitoes; we morphed a sartorial scattering into missile-fruit and museum piece; we looked at life as a waiting room set, we live to die (but "not just yet"); we crossed legs, let travel begin, jumped the cosmos, "up through at in"...all in a week's work. Wonderful! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Part 1: Sun & the Maya
Up & up & up & the sun
sang timbale licks
our one sun, our star, long
before the timbale was invented
before the licks & chops
were translated into K’iche’
& this is obvious on this path here
around the back of the step-pyramid.
Ants rush up-down
their expressways--half carrying leaves
half going to the tree to cut.
I walk the blue-red clay-ground
to three stunning pyramids, tucked into
the toes of a Ceiba tree’s massive feet
three ant-mountains with fire red ants
swarming around their proud structures
precisely built with what archaeologists
would say is limited technology:
a society without the wheel or metal tools
built behemoth mountains
which rival that of any skyscraper:
these ants leave the leaves to ferment
inside, to drink later.
I see behind the Ceiba tree’s muscular leg
behind the striations of the bark:
another behemoth:
the blood-red Mayan Temple of Masks
where carved Mayan men
kings, seers, shamans, daykeepers
are said to have been
able to cross the galaxy
by crossing their legs.
I sit & cross my legs.
I do not yet travel--
though i will!--
but find myself staring at ants
who march robotically
controlled by an unknown light
in the universe
to a cross-legged human observing
up through at in onto the canopy
a vine sunbathes on top
below the tree it has
wrestled into submission
withers and dies
a dead heavy leaf
falls.
Like this, it has begun.
- Ralph-Michael Chiaia
(1 poem added 02.01.14)
editor's note: An auspicious inaugural inspired by observations of ant-ics. (This is an excerpt from Ralph-Michael's "Glyphic: A Novella in Verse" - here is a cool review for your perusal with links to where you can get a copy of the complete work. Check it out!) - mh
THE WAITING GAME
The sun shines through winter trees
And songs are sung beneath the crescent moon.
Children and animals complete the painting
But do not touch it,
Well, not just yet.
Shadows cast by falling leaves soon pass
And a failing year will sweep them away,
As the softness of autumn melts into the earth.
But leave it for a while, do not feel it,
Well, not just yet.
Let your life run its course, plan those small steps,
Watch all those smiles, listen to the laughter,
See the orange glow of the day dissolve into the sea,
But do not bathe your soul,
Well, not just yet.
Capture the memories of the past,
Hold onto the present as the future claims your thoughts,
As your friends reach out to you.
Clutch their outstretched hands or are you thinking,
Well, not just yet?
- Derrick Gaskin
(2 poems added 01.31.14)
editor's note: That's exactly what I'm thinking! (Another one from Derrick on his page - check it out!) - mh
Cornucopia
When a hot bit of my wardrobe comes back from the laundry
and, through my own inevitable clumsiness, it falls upon the floor like a lax-backed
angel, allowing
explosions of a dozen different pants, boxers, and shirts,
(hanging them up in the bathroom while I shower will not remove their wrinkles, I just
know it!)
it is a cornucopia spread from my cracked plastic basket onto the oriental rug, which
is a similar
outpouring from a fertile culture (or at least a cheap facsimile of one).
Clothes are fruits! socks are ears of corn! And the gourds, squash and leafy fronds
roll out insouciantly onto the mat
where I had planned to meditate before going to bed. I think instead of a faceless stone-
relief king
holding a cornucopia, still firing missile-fruit into the eyes of those
squinting so hard that tourism becomes an opportunity to practice Zen.
But what are my socks doing in the Louvre anyway, rolling down its tableaux-haunted
hallways like a skee-ball with no hole to call its home?
- Tobias Griffin
(added 01.30.14)
editor's note: Found in a dumpster behind the museum (or was it the Burger King?). Yum, pass the salt! - mh
Sweetheart of the Hickory Bark
After Gram Parsons
Climbing the crotch of old shagbarks
as the memories of you rubbed raw
the Carolina winds of a troubled first kiss
pretending to be a far heart,
aching from the aftermath
of moonshine as it
feels better each time
the yellow catkins fall lonesome.
Tongueless hunger crawls out
from those days like a mourning fog
sunk into the greatness of
being eaten by this year's
mosquitoes around the cooking fire.
- Zach Fishel
(2 poems added 01.29.14)
editor's note: Mountain man mourns last year's love with moonshine and mosquitoes. (Nice to hear back from our friend and Contributing Poet, Zach (Mountain Man) Fishel. Read another new'n on his page - how to pace one's self on a two dollar budget.) - mh
Stream #30
on the wings of arrows earth shattering slow motion exorcism of everyone occurs as often as every motion of every person these are the equations of the heart propelling us vulnerable through existence yet bonded to the divine within which it has evolved to the point where we modern man are clothed in hiding from the mysticism of the very question which we so savor and the balances tip but the scale stays even just like bargaining for a dream
- Patrick Longe
(added 01.28.14)
editor's note: Take a deep breath, hold it... Now, punctuate this run-on rant to satisfy your ninth grade English teacher's grammatical gremlins before you take another; while keeping that balance even. - mh
Dweller of the cloud
Pain escapes
In tears his ink
So light he treads
On air.
World he sees
Never exists, though
Same earth he lives
With celestial integrity
Light wave he travels - imagination
Abnormal he acts, wings never seen
Still so high but,
Attached to the ground:
His imbued humanity.
What enigma
You carry, Oh! Poet
Cloud is a home you live
Mysterious droplets
Of life you collect
Elixir.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(1 poem added 01.27.14)
editor's note: This is no 21st Century techno-medicine show snake oil, guaranteed to cure what ails you through keeping you perpetually plugged-in. This is the pure stuff; drink this and be ruined for anything else. - mh
Vivid
My life is not prepared
for this uncertainty.
I am torn between
a veiled image of reality
and a dazzling
clear vision of him
spangling my heart.
I clasp him close to me,
searching for
a hint of our future,
I call for help in my thought,
but I have no answer.
Our lips meet
for how long,
I do not know.
I am led from lip
to undiscovered places,
through a sense of touch
to see beyond;
to something nebulous,
to something we crave,
to something exquisite
and uplifting-
beyond the hills,
the skies,
the seas.
I want to hold that kiss,
so nothing around us
can change.
- Amy Barry
(1 poem added 01.26.14)
editor's note: A sweet siren in search of sutra; it's a cosmic kiss. - 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, “Silver, Black, and Red” by Chimera Loe: "Tuning in is more than what’s planned and arranged and scheduled; tuning in is hearing what you don’t plan on catching: something whispering, something as light Boss Ross’ paint strokes, something that lets you know that you could have something called a soul. If not, just change the channel, you’ll find something pretty to stare at until permanent blackness." Here's a taste to tempt you...
His eyes were clouded with something. It was only on closer inspection that she realized, feeling a pang of something unidentifiable in her chest, that it was tears. His hands were shaking, but he still held the brush with undeniable skill. He dipped it slowly in the paint and brought the blood red tip to the canvas. She watched as the tragic ragged line created by the strokes curved and bent, seemingly haphazard but in reality infinitely precise. It was the inevitable result of a terrible skill, more than once he had deemed it a “curse.” She could never be sure if he meant that the art itself was a curse or if the truth of the curse lay in the way it had betrayed him—leaving him full of the cosmos and everything, pregnant with ideas, but standing across from the blank canvas feeling his wrist slacken and fall limp, useless at his side...
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 February (aka 02.05.14), 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, Bear the Poet! 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 Mad Swirl’s Open Mic page for more details.
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING in March, Phil Brewer & Friends
•••••••
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...
Explodin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
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