The Best of Mad Swirl : 10.11.14
"Artistically I am still a child with a whole life ahead of me to discover and create." Alberto Giacometti
••• The Mad Gallery •••
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Photo (above) by featured artist Rosie Lindsey. To see more Mad works from Rosie, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we digitized a dog race, tongue hung out from dog face; we renewed our sense of place; we dealt a double cure, got double jilted; we were devoid of dreams, trying to dissect the doer from the deed; we ripped ourselves raw 'til we wrote red; we slipped it in the slot to dwindle what we've got; we wound up with a wino's wandering mind in the night. Pop another, pour long, drink deeply. Write your story, take forever to tell it. ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Dregs
Spread out Syrah noir wide, slide up
wine glass side, stick in patterns
to the edge, like leftover phrases, words
lining the darkened bottom
of a writing drawer. Try to read
some kind of future in the tailings,
see a story finally written,
were there light enough, or life,
or snowy woods, or hawks
finding wind to soar and dive.
Well, maybe one more glass,
no past, no looking back,
a bottle, two, alone, black sky,
hope the only ending, no you.
- Timothy Pilgrim
(2 poems added 10.11.14)
editor’s note: Vivisect vintage from vine; vie for existence or drain to the dregs. (More madness from Timothy, a silent move, on his page - watch it now.) - mh
Being a bum for 2 hours beside the ATM booth
Old scriptures dog-eared in the register of infrared
news dailies, the chipped SIM cards of this street’s history
become the wings of the citizens’ fast-abiding method
to whatever is psychologically fit bulimic of cash and class:
I remain blinkered yet inspired of the bubble gum sticking out
a taste of this and that. Hip as tradition strays on slippered,
coal-skinned memory, a visionary glued
on the accrued philosophy of Marty’s Hamburger, a bystander
becalmed by postmodern hair fashion like Son Goku
by way of super faith. Being a bum for 2 hours
beside the ATM booth, I start to cave in over the secrecy
of life entered instantly into a card hole, this mouth-contoured
abysmal slit, what’s in there? People queued up,
patience steeplechased, as if for quick pleasure, as if
recharging a tired body or a ravaged soul, as if
inside you will meet the Devil painting his nails
Mexican pink with the struggle of a toothless trident,
or maybe encounter Mr. ATM himself doing you
a favor to steal a line from a song that says,
“What if God was one of us?” Chewing bubble gum
under the sun, smitten by the rasp and rattle of holy
heat, is sweet, and this so true madam. For I’m
a bum, yes sir, I’m a bum.
- Lawdenmarc Decamora
(added 10.10.14)
editor’s note: The worth of modern human existence summed up by the insertion of a square peg into a black hole. - mh
Break The Silence, Break The Skin
Ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive…
Badlands/ Bruce Springsteen
It’s my call
whether to plunge the ragged nail
down through the supple skin
like a fist through a pane
of glass, lick the delirious rush
of red from my fingers
like honey from a hand
rammed deep in a hive
or shiver in silence,
say it’s a zen thing to cure
without curing, heal
minus healing,
shudder the loosened skin
like a cat drowning in a sack
snug as bones sliding out of joints,
or bullets circumnavigating barrels
no pain without gain:
but what if the pain
is the gain, if this is the only way
I can possess these bones
the way the sun owns fire
the way the job owns the mouth,
but never the skin
never the blood;
I can write the rush
in sharp red ink, paint myself red
head to tail, shiver and scream,
pain/gain
freedom’s whore
chained at last.
- Ian Mullins
(2 poems added 10.09.14)
editor’s note: Another fine spin on, or rather, red flow to the writer's curse. Well done, and well come! (We welcome Ian to our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission - plus another, newly posted to his new page. Check'em out!) - mh
JANUS
On a seething summer night, I sometimes look out my bedroom window and stare at the dark sky.
The emptiness, a void that swallows me, cuts me in half, and I face the swirling future that merges with the broken now, and with a slight turn of my head, I see the monstrous past that melted long ago in the unforgiving heat.
My skull, anointed with existential conundrums, swings back and forth like Poe’s pendulum above the ominous pit and soon, Janus appears, a phantom boy from far away.
“I remember you,” I mutter to the chimerical young man, a flimsy, diaphanous blur I barely recognize.
But I smell his sin, the foul, ferocious odor of boiled flesh, crushed bones, and gushing blood.
His ghostly voice is still soft and silky, and as sweet as Mother’s homemade apple pie with a swirl of whipped cream.
“Mother hasn’t come to see me,” he whispers interminably, oblivious of his angel dust saturated past and a cornucopia of overflowing psychosis.
His melodious voice is as velvety as the psithurism of the leaves.
He sits inside a cell in Bellevue and can’t recall how he hurled boiling water in Mother’s face, battered her head with a killer bat, and flung her out the window.
He waits for Mother in his eternal room of oblivion, while I hold the horrific memories, on a seething summer night like this, when I stare at the dark sky, and taste the toxic emptiness, and plummet into the void.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 10.08.14)
editor’s note: An old end, this night's beginning; no sleep for those who remember. - mh
Split Personalities
I think
she must
be having
dreams
that
are split
into two
different
points
of view
for her
sake I
hope that
is all
more
would be
hellacious
to deal with
I fear though
she thinks
both are
the same
and she has
no authority
to choose
the better
of the two.
I love them
both or many
but
they really
are a goddamn
pain to deal
with.
And after
the inferior
has been subdued
my role
is hardly
ever remembered
so they go off
healed
and love and fuck
somebody else.
- D. Russel Micnhimer
(added 10.07.14)
editor’s note: No stock for Doc. Heal'em up and send'em off; return to an empty bed. - mh
I am now at a place
I am now at a place
I once was...
A long time ago,
and a couple of lifetimes ago...
Now I allow the beautiful
far-out songs
to roll in like the waves
... ending in eternity
Each one irreplaceable
washing over me…
ending in eternity
- Ralph Freda
(1 poem added 10.06.14)
editor’s note: Learning to surf... - mh
Testing Lucky
Before first paw hits track, anonymous
controller’s hand hits the switch.
Lucky flies around the track. Ears back,
he is a filthy streak of mechanics and fur.
In this moment of unchased bliss, he is free.
As he rounds turn after turn, I watch and wonder if
he envisions a digital field, a makeshift meadow
full of daisies and butterflies scattering
beneath paws that have never actually touched
the ground.
- A.J. Huffman
(1 poem added 10.05.14)
editor’s note: Race and repeat until he gets the win. Loop it, Lucky! – mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Check out the latest addition to our short stories library, "Hoot" by Ron Riekki. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week story: "You're never alone: you can always drive with Jesus. Beware, though: Satan will always be your motor."
Here's a bit to get you goin':
Shirtless and covered in blood, I walked into the Hooters.
John Donne said, God is an angel in an angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.
God is a bloody, shirtless man in a Hooters in a bloody, shirtless man in a Hooters.
I’d fallen on glass. I was drunk. My sister worked there. I needed a ride to the hospital.
They said, Dumb-ass, wait outside.
I waited outside, bleeding.
I didn’t know she wasn’t working. It was her day off.
I went to the front window, smeared blood on my face, just to make the point. I kept standing there, staring in. I’m sure a customer complained, because the manager came out and told me to go away.
I said I needed a ride.
Layla came out.
She’s every ethnicity on the globe. She comes from every country…
Get the rest of your read on right 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...
Intoxicated,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Photo (above) by featured artist Rosie Lindsey. To see more Mad works from Rosie, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we digitized a dog race, tongue hung out from dog face; we renewed our sense of place; we dealt a double cure, got double jilted; we were devoid of dreams, trying to dissect the doer from the deed; we ripped ourselves raw 'til we wrote red; we slipped it in the slot to dwindle what we've got; we wound up with a wino's wandering mind in the night. Pop another, pour long, drink deeply. Write your story, take forever to tell it. ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Dregs
Spread out Syrah noir wide, slide up
wine glass side, stick in patterns
to the edge, like leftover phrases, words
lining the darkened bottom
of a writing drawer. Try to read
some kind of future in the tailings,
see a story finally written,
were there light enough, or life,
or snowy woods, or hawks
finding wind to soar and dive.
Well, maybe one more glass,
no past, no looking back,
a bottle, two, alone, black sky,
hope the only ending, no you.
- Timothy Pilgrim
(2 poems added 10.11.14)
editor’s note: Vivisect vintage from vine; vie for existence or drain to the dregs. (More madness from Timothy, a silent move, on his page - watch it now.) - mh
Being a bum for 2 hours beside the ATM booth
Old scriptures dog-eared in the register of infrared
news dailies, the chipped SIM cards of this street’s history
become the wings of the citizens’ fast-abiding method
to whatever is psychologically fit bulimic of cash and class:
I remain blinkered yet inspired of the bubble gum sticking out
a taste of this and that. Hip as tradition strays on slippered,
coal-skinned memory, a visionary glued
on the accrued philosophy of Marty’s Hamburger, a bystander
becalmed by postmodern hair fashion like Son Goku
by way of super faith. Being a bum for 2 hours
beside the ATM booth, I start to cave in over the secrecy
of life entered instantly into a card hole, this mouth-contoured
abysmal slit, what’s in there? People queued up,
patience steeplechased, as if for quick pleasure, as if
recharging a tired body or a ravaged soul, as if
inside you will meet the Devil painting his nails
Mexican pink with the struggle of a toothless trident,
or maybe encounter Mr. ATM himself doing you
a favor to steal a line from a song that says,
“What if God was one of us?” Chewing bubble gum
under the sun, smitten by the rasp and rattle of holy
heat, is sweet, and this so true madam. For I’m
a bum, yes sir, I’m a bum.
- Lawdenmarc Decamora
(added 10.10.14)
editor’s note: The worth of modern human existence summed up by the insertion of a square peg into a black hole. - mh
Break The Silence, Break The Skin
Ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive…
Badlands/ Bruce Springsteen
It’s my call
whether to plunge the ragged nail
down through the supple skin
like a fist through a pane
of glass, lick the delirious rush
of red from my fingers
like honey from a hand
rammed deep in a hive
or shiver in silence,
say it’s a zen thing to cure
without curing, heal
minus healing,
shudder the loosened skin
like a cat drowning in a sack
snug as bones sliding out of joints,
or bullets circumnavigating barrels
no pain without gain:
but what if the pain
is the gain, if this is the only way
I can possess these bones
the way the sun owns fire
the way the job owns the mouth,
but never the skin
never the blood;
I can write the rush
in sharp red ink, paint myself red
head to tail, shiver and scream,
pain/gain
freedom’s whore
chained at last.
- Ian Mullins
(2 poems added 10.09.14)
editor’s note: Another fine spin on, or rather, red flow to the writer's curse. Well done, and well come! (We welcome Ian to our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission - plus another, newly posted to his new page. Check'em out!) - mh
JANUS
On a seething summer night, I sometimes look out my bedroom window and stare at the dark sky.
The emptiness, a void that swallows me, cuts me in half, and I face the swirling future that merges with the broken now, and with a slight turn of my head, I see the monstrous past that melted long ago in the unforgiving heat.
My skull, anointed with existential conundrums, swings back and forth like Poe’s pendulum above the ominous pit and soon, Janus appears, a phantom boy from far away.
“I remember you,” I mutter to the chimerical young man, a flimsy, diaphanous blur I barely recognize.
But I smell his sin, the foul, ferocious odor of boiled flesh, crushed bones, and gushing blood.
His ghostly voice is still soft and silky, and as sweet as Mother’s homemade apple pie with a swirl of whipped cream.
“Mother hasn’t come to see me,” he whispers interminably, oblivious of his angel dust saturated past and a cornucopia of overflowing psychosis.
His melodious voice is as velvety as the psithurism of the leaves.
He sits inside a cell in Bellevue and can’t recall how he hurled boiling water in Mother’s face, battered her head with a killer bat, and flung her out the window.
He waits for Mother in his eternal room of oblivion, while I hold the horrific memories, on a seething summer night like this, when I stare at the dark sky, and taste the toxic emptiness, and plummet into the void.
- Mel Waldman
(1 poem added 10.08.14)
editor’s note: An old end, this night's beginning; no sleep for those who remember. - mh
Split Personalities
I think
she must
be having
dreams
that
are split
into two
different
points
of view
for her
sake I
hope that
is all
more
would be
hellacious
to deal with
I fear though
she thinks
both are
the same
and she has
no authority
to choose
the better
of the two.
I love them
both or many
but
they really
are a goddamn
pain to deal
with.
And after
the inferior
has been subdued
my role
is hardly
ever remembered
so they go off
healed
and love and fuck
somebody else.
- D. Russel Micnhimer
(added 10.07.14)
editor’s note: No stock for Doc. Heal'em up and send'em off; return to an empty bed. - mh
I am now at a place
I am now at a place
I once was...
A long time ago,
and a couple of lifetimes ago...
Now I allow the beautiful
far-out songs
to roll in like the waves
... ending in eternity
Each one irreplaceable
washing over me…
ending in eternity
- Ralph Freda
(1 poem added 10.06.14)
editor’s note: Learning to surf... - mh
Testing Lucky
Before first paw hits track, anonymous
controller’s hand hits the switch.
Lucky flies around the track. Ears back,
he is a filthy streak of mechanics and fur.
In this moment of unchased bliss, he is free.
As he rounds turn after turn, I watch and wonder if
he envisions a digital field, a makeshift meadow
full of daisies and butterflies scattering
beneath paws that have never actually touched
the ground.
- A.J. Huffman
(1 poem added 10.05.14)
editor’s note: Race and repeat until he gets the win. Loop it, Lucky! – mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need a read? Check out the latest addition to our short stories library, "Hoot" by Ron Riekki. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week story: "You're never alone: you can always drive with Jesus. Beware, though: Satan will always be your motor."
Here's a bit to get you goin':
Shirtless and covered in blood, I walked into the Hooters.
John Donne said, God is an angel in an angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.
God is a bloody, shirtless man in a Hooters in a bloody, shirtless man in a Hooters.
I’d fallen on glass. I was drunk. My sister worked there. I needed a ride to the hospital.
They said, Dumb-ass, wait outside.
I waited outside, bleeding.
I didn’t know she wasn’t working. It was her day off.
I went to the front window, smeared blood on my face, just to make the point. I kept standing there, staring in. I’m sure a customer complained, because the manager came out and told me to go away.
I said I needed a ride.
Layla came out.
She’s every ethnicity on the globe. She comes from every country…
Get the rest of your read on right 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...
Intoxicated,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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