The Best of Mad Swirl : 06.07.14
”Space is the breath of art.” Frank Lloyd Wright
••• The Mad Gallery •••
i just wanna be a normal teenager (above) by featured artist Madelyn Olson. To see more Mad works from Madelyn and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.)
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were sullied by the slow-rot of a foul foundation; we assembled wares, worked for fare, while keeping the balls in the air; we skipped the call, the job and the girl, went straight to the bottle, the pen, and the future yet to be; we sang in the seminal sensation come to being through our conversation; we wandered with royalty in a wino's revelry; we plucked string, heard branch, sheltered in shadow, willow wept, tears stanched; we silenced strains of life-babble, braced for the worst, inescapable oblivion from a father's curse. We can speak out, read in, think thoughts, be god, never die - we can! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
MY FATHER’S CURSE
The music of the soul is gone.
I do not sleep at night for I recall my father’s curse, and wonder if it’s buried in my genes, ensconced in DNA on a chromosome of doom, the invisible microcosm of my wounded brain, coming into being and emerging from the bestial womb of fate.
The music of the soul is gone.
I do not sleep at night, for I remember my father’s deaths, and wonder if I share his destiny. He died twice, and his first death took him to a desolate place-a terrible landscape, and then the island of oblivion, the final resting place of his dissolving past.
The music of the soul is gone.
I can’t forget what happened to him-to us. I watched him disappear; his dark brown eyes stared blankly into space, and I mourned for him. He was gone; his old familiar face a ghostly visage in a vacant universe, devoid of self and ancient memories.
At night, I no longer hear the music of the soul, only the thumping and pounding of my heart. I fear my father’s curse. I fear oblivion.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 06.07.14)
editor's note: We can't shake it. Yet, still we seek a wizard with perfect power. - mh
Willow
Vacant peer
Uncertain eye
Ingenious shelter
Sad tune it passes
Billowing
The air.
Wind
Looses free its hand
Over the strings
A harp is played
Tender song of
Weeping willow.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(1 poem added 06.06.14)
editor's note: Nature's music; the best to soothe the breast, sweet tears relieve, then rest. - mh
Consideration
Shivering in some wet hole
I dug to blanket me from muggy
starless nightfall, I dreamed. I had
Technicolor: Princess Diana Spencer
hung like a silken shadow, there
at the Mission’s rusty gate. Me?
Sipping the sack, Diamond Red,
driblets trickling down my sweaty neck,
I saw Alabama urgently mouthing, “We
better leave off, man. Her Majesty
is here….” The moon
unlaces itself from cloud-cover, free
of limousine constellation cages: Di,
and seven MI-6, all blanching like white
roses. “He!" said the chaplain,
he’s the one!” Rumpling powder,
mascara, celestial beauty, her face,
tremors in her almond branch
wrists: “We have found him at last!”
Who? I asked. Who you talkin’ ‘bout?
Limpid, that voice: “Lost Plantagenet,
true king of Britain!” gutteral not limpid:
Huh?
Di is dead, in the dream I thought. “This.
Nice for the homeless,” beatific, powdery
countenance. “Sure!” I said, “as long as
you don’t know
them abandoned church buses there is
poor men’s whorehouses….” Alabama’s chin
burbled wine. Made me laugh myself
awake, awake, dammit
awake in a muddy hole in a vacant lot.
- Addie Soaraki
(added 06.05.14)
editor's note: Eyes closed, head back to pillow; resume the dream, resume... - mh
conversations
Between things that never
existed, inside nightmares
that last lifetimes but never
come into being, among sensations
that remain nameless, and intuitions
that never take to words,
deep in the heart of a planet,
or a pebble—
there is a conversation.
Before the wind obtained
a body to breathe on, before the heart
of the human body
put on my clothes,
before the alarm clock went off,
there was a conversation
not whittled into words.
Before the evolution of the tongue
(following the evolution of the saxophone).
Here I stand on a round ball with my heart raining—
sunshine spilling out of my chest
from a center that I cannot touch.
(but unbroken from the source).
Inside I place the tablet
of your parents
and grandparents
and their parents,
tracing all the way back
to the original explosion—
the simple proof.
The heart which formed
the endless ocean
of the urge to exist.
(without which nothing would exist)
That
was willing to become known
for this:
conversations with the source that sent you—
conversations
with yourself.
- Chris Hamilton
(1 poem added 06.04.14)
editor's note: Did you say something? Or, did I just think it? (We welcome Chris back to the ranks of our crazy Contributing Poets with this poem. Don't stay away so long, Chris! We need your special stir in the Swirl.) - mh
tomorrow
its nice
not having a
cell phone
or a laptop
or
or a job
for now
no vibration
against my balls
and digging around
the pockets
no wasted time
or games
and girls I'll
never meet
no burnt up
time
chasing a buck
I get to feel
like I'm in the age
I'd rather be in
going without
listen to the radio
write
get
piss drunk
and plot
how I'll be able
to enjoy
a different tomorrow
- Corbin Mitchell
(added 06.03.14)
editor's note: If they're gonna be the best plans, you gotta lay'em. Is that a mouse in your pocket? - mh
Fun Nor Fair
Scorn’s a contrivance that ticks.
“With an hour of free time,
Three balls and these instructions”
The skittle-alley’s polonaise is sheeny as varnish
On bubblecars going crewless.
“Juggling has been touted
As a great stress reliever”
Air-pocket pay-scales would debt me an hour,
Rundling supplied by gears, bobbing,
The bus home – just…
“Throw a ball
In a gentle arc”
*Celebrating 50 Years In Recruitment
Job Title: Assembly Operatives
Details: Assembly Experience Is Essential,
Preferably Within The Automotive Industry.
Pay Rate: £6.68 Per Hour.
QUOTES: Juggling Poet
- Christopher Barnes
(added 06.02.14)
editor's note: Develop those skills. Perfect your craft. Get ahead or fall behind... - mh
Gestapo glaciers
Like climate change,
they did not come quickly
but were relentless and ruthless,
nonetheless -- with their share
of disbelievers, along with those
who saw beauty in the way
they inched over lives with ice.
- Timothy Pilgrim
(1 poem added 06.01.14)
editor's note: Such artistic expression, if not stopped, slowly stifles all other. Some rights are just wrong! - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Of course you do! These 669 words will be better for your brain than the 500 channels of crap on cable TV, right? Right! Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, "Cable TV Commitment Phobia” by Diane Malk… "The apex of humankind: all the channels that you would ever want to stare at, knowing that all that time spent looking into the colorful HD void, nothing looks back at you." Here's a preview for you…
I hung up the phone, mentally exhausted from the battle that had just ensued. I had just survived something worse than negotiating with a used car salesman. Talking to my cable TV provider.
After receiving the flyer advertising the new-to-me feature of On Demand, touting thousands of movies and channels at no extra cost, my interest was piqued. Weary of flipping through the 500-plus channels we already receive and rarely finding anything suitable for my viewing pleasure, it was only logical that I still craved more channel options. (I know what you’re thinking and I really do have a life.)
The woman who answered my call confirmed, that yes, I did qualify for the free receiver upgrade. So far, so good. She spoke with a decidedly Southern accent and when she talked slowly I had no problem understanding her. But, as the conversation progressed, it became more difficult...
How will it end? Will our writer end up getting On Demand? Tune your brain receivers here to find out!...
••• Open Mic •••
As we sit back and reminisce about this past 1st Wednesday all we can think is… what a night it was! Thanks to all who came out to support the cause at our FUNraiser McMad O'Swirl! We are always honored to hold a space for our fellow Mad ones.
Thanks to all who donated their hard-earned monies to our cause. We made just under $300 by selling our Mad merch. Stickers and posters and t-shirts were being sold at a frantic pace! If you didn't get the chance to get you some, let us know! We got us a healthy stock.
Thanks to ALL the wonderful poets and musicians who shared their words, their verses and their fine light with us. t'was a fine night to be alive and in our Mad Swirl world. In case you missed this Mad action, here is the line-up of who was who…
(all photos courtesy of Dan "the man!" Rodriguez)
Click here to view 'em all!
Feature:
Johnny Olson
MH Clay
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
Gayle Reaves
Paul Koniecki
Vic Victory
Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Mad Cast:
Cj Critt
BA
Desmene Statum
Merlin the Magical One
Carlos Salas
Jay Holland
Kerseymere
Bear the Poet
HUGE thanks to Swirve’s Chris Curiel and Gerard Bendiks for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!
And as always, big THANKS to the patron saint of the loco local mad ones, Kevin, owner of Absinthe Lounge.
And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin' mic.
We look forward to all the m-adventures to come! Stay tuned...
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING SOON:
July: The Curiel's
August: Justin Booth
September: R.A. Hernandez
October: Kerseymere
November: Karen X
December: Paul Koniecki
•••••••
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
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 were sullied by the slow-rot of a foul foundation; we assembled wares, worked for fare, while keeping the balls in the air; we skipped the call, the job and the girl, went straight to the bottle, the pen, and the future yet to be; we sang in the seminal sensation come to being through our conversation; we wandered with royalty in a wino's revelry; we plucked string, heard branch, sheltered in shadow, willow wept, tears stanched; we silenced strains of life-babble, braced for the worst, inescapable oblivion from a father's curse. We can speak out, read in, think thoughts, be god, never die - we can! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
MY FATHER’S CURSE
The music of the soul is gone.
I do not sleep at night for I recall my father’s curse, and wonder if it’s buried in my genes, ensconced in DNA on a chromosome of doom, the invisible microcosm of my wounded brain, coming into being and emerging from the bestial womb of fate.
The music of the soul is gone.
I do not sleep at night, for I remember my father’s deaths, and wonder if I share his destiny. He died twice, and his first death took him to a desolate place-a terrible landscape, and then the island of oblivion, the final resting place of his dissolving past.
The music of the soul is gone.
I can’t forget what happened to him-to us. I watched him disappear; his dark brown eyes stared blankly into space, and I mourned for him. He was gone; his old familiar face a ghostly visage in a vacant universe, devoid of self and ancient memories.
At night, I no longer hear the music of the soul, only the thumping and pounding of my heart. I fear my father’s curse. I fear oblivion.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 06.07.14)
editor's note: We can't shake it. Yet, still we seek a wizard with perfect power. - mh
Willow
Vacant peer
Uncertain eye
Ingenious shelter
Sad tune it passes
Billowing
The air.
Wind
Looses free its hand
Over the strings
A harp is played
Tender song of
Weeping willow.
- Hem Raj Bastola
(1 poem added 06.06.14)
editor's note: Nature's music; the best to soothe the breast, sweet tears relieve, then rest. - mh
Consideration
Shivering in some wet hole
I dug to blanket me from muggy
starless nightfall, I dreamed. I had
Technicolor: Princess Diana Spencer
hung like a silken shadow, there
at the Mission’s rusty gate. Me?
Sipping the sack, Diamond Red,
driblets trickling down my sweaty neck,
I saw Alabama urgently mouthing, “We
better leave off, man. Her Majesty
is here….” The moon
unlaces itself from cloud-cover, free
of limousine constellation cages: Di,
and seven MI-6, all blanching like white
roses. “He!" said the chaplain,
he’s the one!” Rumpling powder,
mascara, celestial beauty, her face,
tremors in her almond branch
wrists: “We have found him at last!”
Who? I asked. Who you talkin’ ‘bout?
Limpid, that voice: “Lost Plantagenet,
true king of Britain!” gutteral not limpid:
Huh?
Di is dead, in the dream I thought. “This.
Nice for the homeless,” beatific, powdery
countenance. “Sure!” I said, “as long as
you don’t know
them abandoned church buses there is
poor men’s whorehouses….” Alabama’s chin
burbled wine. Made me laugh myself
awake, awake, dammit
awake in a muddy hole in a vacant lot.
- Addie Soaraki
(added 06.05.14)
editor's note: Eyes closed, head back to pillow; resume the dream, resume... - mh
conversations
Between things that never
existed, inside nightmares
that last lifetimes but never
come into being, among sensations
that remain nameless, and intuitions
that never take to words,
deep in the heart of a planet,
or a pebble—
there is a conversation.
Before the wind obtained
a body to breathe on, before the heart
of the human body
put on my clothes,
before the alarm clock went off,
there was a conversation
not whittled into words.
Before the evolution of the tongue
(following the evolution of the saxophone).
Here I stand on a round ball with my heart raining—
sunshine spilling out of my chest
from a center that I cannot touch.
(but unbroken from the source).
Inside I place the tablet
of your parents
and grandparents
and their parents,
tracing all the way back
to the original explosion—
the simple proof.
The heart which formed
the endless ocean
of the urge to exist.
(without which nothing would exist)
That
was willing to become known
for this:
conversations with the source that sent you—
conversations
with yourself.
- Chris Hamilton
(1 poem added 06.04.14)
editor's note: Did you say something? Or, did I just think it? (We welcome Chris back to the ranks of our crazy Contributing Poets with this poem. Don't stay away so long, Chris! We need your special stir in the Swirl.) - mh
tomorrow
its nice
not having a
cell phone
or a laptop
or
or a job
for now
no vibration
against my balls
and digging around
the pockets
no wasted time
or games
and girls I'll
never meet
no burnt up
time
chasing a buck
I get to feel
like I'm in the age
I'd rather be in
going without
listen to the radio
write
get
piss drunk
and plot
how I'll be able
to enjoy
a different tomorrow
- Corbin Mitchell
(added 06.03.14)
editor's note: If they're gonna be the best plans, you gotta lay'em. Is that a mouse in your pocket? - mh
Fun Nor Fair
Scorn’s a contrivance that ticks.
“With an hour of free time,
Three balls and these instructions”
The skittle-alley’s polonaise is sheeny as varnish
On bubblecars going crewless.
“Juggling has been touted
As a great stress reliever”
Air-pocket pay-scales would debt me an hour,
Rundling supplied by gears, bobbing,
The bus home – just…
“Throw a ball
In a gentle arc”
*Celebrating 50 Years In Recruitment
Job Title: Assembly Operatives
Details: Assembly Experience Is Essential,
Preferably Within The Automotive Industry.
Pay Rate: £6.68 Per Hour.
QUOTES: Juggling Poet
- Christopher Barnes
(added 06.02.14)
editor's note: Develop those skills. Perfect your craft. Get ahead or fall behind... - mh
Gestapo glaciers
Like climate change,
they did not come quickly
but were relentless and ruthless,
nonetheless -- with their share
of disbelievers, along with those
who saw beauty in the way
they inched over lives with ice.
- Timothy Pilgrim
(1 poem added 06.01.14)
editor's note: Such artistic expression, if not stopped, slowly stifles all other. Some rights are just wrong! - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Of course you do! These 669 words will be better for your brain than the 500 channels of crap on cable TV, right? Right! Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week short story, "Cable TV Commitment Phobia” by Diane Malk… "The apex of humankind: all the channels that you would ever want to stare at, knowing that all that time spent looking into the colorful HD void, nothing looks back at you." Here's a preview for you…
I hung up the phone, mentally exhausted from the battle that had just ensued. I had just survived something worse than negotiating with a used car salesman. Talking to my cable TV provider.
After receiving the flyer advertising the new-to-me feature of On Demand, touting thousands of movies and channels at no extra cost, my interest was piqued. Weary of flipping through the 500-plus channels we already receive and rarely finding anything suitable for my viewing pleasure, it was only logical that I still craved more channel options. (I know what you’re thinking and I really do have a life.)
The woman who answered my call confirmed, that yes, I did qualify for the free receiver upgrade. So far, so good. She spoke with a decidedly Southern accent and when she talked slowly I had no problem understanding her. But, as the conversation progressed, it became more difficult...
How will it end? Will our writer end up getting On Demand? Tune your brain receivers here to find out!...
••• Open Mic •••
As we sit back and reminisce about this past 1st Wednesday all we can think is… what a night it was! Thanks to all who came out to support the cause at our FUNraiser McMad O'Swirl! We are always honored to hold a space for our fellow Mad ones.
Thanks to all who donated their hard-earned monies to our cause. We made just under $300 by selling our Mad merch. Stickers and posters and t-shirts were being sold at a frantic pace! If you didn't get the chance to get you some, let us know! We got us a healthy stock.
Thanks to ALL the wonderful poets and musicians who shared their words, their verses and their fine light with us. t'was a fine night to be alive and in our Mad Swirl world. In case you missed this Mad action, here is the line-up of who was who…
Click here to view 'em all!
Feature:
Johnny Olson
MH Clay
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
Gayle Reaves
Paul Koniecki
Vic Victory
Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Mad Cast:
Cj Critt
BA
Desmene Statum
Merlin the Magical One
Carlos Salas
Jay Holland
Kerseymere
Bear the Poet
HUGE thanks to Swirve’s Chris Curiel and Gerard Bendiks for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!
And as always, big THANKS to the patron saint of the loco local mad ones, Kevin, owner of Absinthe Lounge.
And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin' mic.
We look forward to all the m-adventures to come! Stay tuned...
AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin' madness. COMING SOON:
July: The Curiel's
August: Justin Booth
September: R.A. Hernandez
October: Kerseymere
November: Karen X
December: Paul Koniecki
•••••••
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
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
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