The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.06.14
"What I am really concerned about is what art is supposed to be - and can become." Bruce Nauman
••• The Mad Gallery •••
Photo (above) by featured artist Toby Oggenfuss. To see more Mad works from Toby, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we shook awake a sleeping beauty to extend our take of a short eternity; we weren't resistant with war, door, corridor, floor persistent; we braved an Uzi stampede, would an ugly corpse impede; we breathed in air of colored vapor to find forever in a scrap of paper; we conspired to couple a crass contrarian with a latently luscious, lithe librarian; we walked the rope 'tween fire and hope, a hypnotized-by-coal-black-eyes dope; we swirled up all on a cloudy brink, the sky, embarrassed, turned to pink. So winds the whirl of a week in the Swirl! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Smoking Sky
The sky had been smoking
Thick cigar puffs
Clouded smoke charcoal grey
The sky was dirty
And angels came, coughing
Not in clouds but in
Stretchy satin strings
A woolly yarn mop
Flowing hair and wings afloat
To clean this dirty sky
To sop the smelly smoke
The clouds, darker and darker
The further in
A layer of strawberry spread
Resting upon the dusty earth
Sweet light cream, a shroud over bitter coffee's dark
And embarrassed for the sky
Caught in this filthy act
Unwilling to confess
The horizon turns away his face
Covering in his curtained veil
And blushes
Pink
- Heather M. Browne
(1 poem added 12.06.14)
editor’s note: Celestial shenanigans exposed through this poet's eye. I'm blushing, too. - mh
The day my house burnt to ash
1
I saw winter
outside in
the soot strewn
upwind
a poleax
between
bone dead
fingers and
moth-eaten
moccasins on
her feet
The eve after
winter was
a blue
chair
abandoned in
a white forest
tilted
on its
peg-less side
with a
smile
like a sinking
ship
She was a
child
who
lights a match
and
swallows it
for the
thrill
2
The yellow lime
of her tongue
flows like a
bee wrapped
Limbs like
tines
toothpick
the ground
like a
hypothermic
funambulist
on the
final
stretch
The day
before
my house
burnt to
ash
I saw
winter
inside
warming
her purple
heart
by the hearth
The heat
igniting
the black
coal of her
eyes
- Ali Sohail
(added 12.04.14)
editor’s note: Winter comes, precocious child, to freeze like fire; leaves us seeking shelter in poetry. - mh
drama queen
i’m high
i’m in the library
i’m getting dirty looks
i’m giving dirty looks
back
i’m slouched in my chair
i’m slightly aroused
i’m thinking of the pill
in my pocket
i’m thinking how warm
it’ll make me feel
i’m thinking about leaving
going to get a soda
or feeling the librarian’s thigh
i’m nervously bouncing my legs
i’m far and away the smartest person
in this building
i’m going to ask for more time on the computer
i’m back
i’m too shy to even look at the librarian
i’m obsessed with her face her behind
the tattoos on her arm
the porno fantasy of sassy and sweet
geek in the office
freak the bedroom
i’m terrified of dying
i’m alone in life
i’m falling apart
i’m less durable than other poets
i’m more likely to melt than others
i’m a shallow puddle
when all is said
and done
i’m not going to be missed
i’m here and queer
i’m positive about my pessimism
under an existential elephant
i’m contrasting the aluminum railings
with the bark of a white maple
i’m down with the dirt that begins
whispering to my feet
i’m thinking about moving to japan
i’m stupid because i don’t have the money
it’s a pipedream
i’m thinking of my mother, dead,
my father, dead
my own crossing the road
the other side
i’m not feeling so high anymore
- Stephen Okawa
(added 12.04.14)
editor’s note: Continuing education; libraries are a haven for those who hunger for learning... and librarians. - mh
IN ANOTHER DIMENSION, WE ARE MAKING LOVE
What color is dreaming? you ask.
I answer in the language of fleur-de-lis,
paisley and plaid. Then, what is the sound of death?
you ask, so I draw you a picture of dreaming.
What is left to know but that I’m re-writing the formula
for the air between us? Part nitrogen, part oxygen, the rest trace gasses
of love. Like you, I believe most in what
I cannot see or hear. Anger: a wounded steam
rising from the cauldron of your throat.
Alchemy: the steam dissipates, and you reach
across the table for my hand. So—
I note that it was already storming
before we arrived here, though my only proof
is an exhausted cloud passed out in the courtyard
and a thunderbolt curled up beside it.
I point out that in another dimension
this restaurant is a bedroom
in which we are making love. Don’t
try to understand.
Just paint the air human,
take off your clothes,
hand back your coat of arms.
What you mistook for a person
is really a country
with a dark and sacred history
and no scholars to explain away the confusion.
Just burn the archives down.
Everything we have to know
we learned from a picture of dreaming.
Everything we need to remember
can fit on a scrap of paper
smaller than your hand.
- Melissa Studdard
(added 12.03.14)
editor’s note: For a poet, this smallest scrap of paper holds a universe of words. "Don't try to understand." Yes! - mh
Noise
A flea on a red hot chile pepper,
ginger on the cream,
ringo on the beatle,
sting on a cop,
a prince, the king,
the slash, the edge,
madonna, a lady,
jimi, the boss,
the kiss, the godfather,
queen, rage against a machine
Hunting hummingbirds with an Uzi,
trying to sleep in a buffalo stampede,
dozing on the tracks before a Santa Fe chief,
it’s too late to leave a good looking corpse.
- Catfish McDaris
(added 12.02.14)
editor’s note: In the midst of the noise, a still soft voice. Will we hear it before we go? - mh
[The thunderclaps of chariot cavalries]
The thunderclaps of chariot cavalries
Routed in the Peloponnesian war persist.
The knocks made by wind hurling rocks
On a citadel's massive door persist.
The screeches of wraiths reverberating
Within a torch-lit corridor persist.
Voices whispering in the churning
Dust on a castle's floor persist.
Prisms emitted from crystals lodged
In shards of cobalt ore persist.
The muffled chants of phantasms
Traversing an icy moor persist.
The howls of skulls formed of smoke
From Mauna Loa's volcanic core persist.
Winds roaring in the tombs of gladiators
Massacred in the Cimbrian war persist.
The echoes of Circe raving
On a desolate shore persist.
- Steffen Horstmann
(added 12.01.14)
editor’s note: Poets cannot cease and desist when damn near everything persists. - mh
The Daily Globe
The words rise. Like angels in heaven, sent
to make communion with the neighbors.
In twos. In cherubic threes. In choral fourths.
Sweetheart. Have you been well?
I push aside our summer sheets, hoping
to flash sufficient light and dark to catch the intentions
at dawn. Our house no less a parlor than a church
of living bones. The sunlight is pitched funeral dust
spreading peace on earth. I am called by others
living namelessly nearby. To spend my short eternity
imagining addresses. The globe. Every morn it spins
showing any blinkered eye its favorite colors
like a summoning forth.
Today the countries may reveal faces: their hells
blurring with paradises, land, ocean,
Sweden’s wealth and China’s poor genuflected. The situation
of a world in crisis while limbs lurch
playing at bed sheets and snores and mirrors; let’s touch –
kicking at our sore spots. The words rise; lovers
remake the news. Are you lovely enough to wake? Sleeping beauty.
- Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
(added 11.30.14)
editor’s note: Every spin o' the globe awakens us; beauty sees beauty. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Then have a butcher's at the latest addition to our short stories library, "London, Here I Come" by Troy Johnson.
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week story: "Every day is the result of the Tower of Babel. Every day we speak, hope to be understood, but only enter human ears that lose everything but the most basic of swear words in translation. That’s why we all love when we see an ancient cocks carved in the rubble of Pompeii. We know someone spoke and we understood. Across the sands of time, we love what the dead loved."
It really is the dog’s bollocks! Here's a wee bit of a nip to whet your reading whistle:
I had been accepted to Oxford University after writing and winning an essay contest entitled, America and Britain-brother countries. In my essay I had wrote how America had gained its independence, yet there was still a connection between the two countries. We are sometimes brother countries. The university would pay my flight, room, board and tuition. I had never visited England, but I was as excited as one could be. I knew Bill Clinton and several others Americans had attended Oxford. Before I left my friends told me not to act American.
“What?” I asked. “Act American?”
They told me that whenever Americans visited other countries, they could be spotted right off the bat. “How is that?”
“Because Americans are always talking loud and walking fast. And they are a bit cocky.”
“No, those are New Yorkers, not people from Georgia,” I said and chuckled.
I packed my things and I was ready for England. I bought a lot of rain gear because I knew from friends it rained a lot just like it did in Seattle, Portland and most of the northwest.
So, after saying goodbye to family and friends, my girlfriend Shelia took me to the airport…
We're not bein' one bit cheeky when we say get the rest of your read on here!
••• Open Mic •••
t'was a night of nativity madness as featured poet Paul Koniecki & the cast from Contre-Culture took our stage and proceeded to shine some divine poetic and musical holiness upon all that were there to witness this beatific show!
Thanks to ALL the wonderful poets and musicians who shared their words, their verses and their fine light with us. It truly was a fine night to be alive and in our Mad Swirl world. Here is the line-up of who was who…
(photos courtesy of Dan "the man!" Rodriguez available on our flickr page)
Feature:
Paul Koniecki
Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Mad Cast:
Chris Zimmerly
Roderick Richardson
David Crandell
Victory
Tony Hernandez
Yesterday's News
Merlin the Magical One
Konnichiwa Zach
Christopher Soden
Bear the Poet
Paul
John Kelly & Steffan Prigmore
Kevin
Chris Delaney
Nero
Bo Bowles
HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris Curiel & 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, who has given 121 reasons to give him all the mad props and love that we do!
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.
In case you missed this Mad action, view the whole show here, via our mad USTREAM channel!
P.S. Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of January (aka 01.07.15) at 8:00 sharp, when we will swirl it up madly in the LIVE way that we do every month now for OVER 10 years! This month we kick off our 2015 season with Louisiana poet, Rob Dyer!
•••••••
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...
Becomin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we shook awake a sleeping beauty to extend our take of a short eternity; we weren't resistant with war, door, corridor, floor persistent; we braved an Uzi stampede, would an ugly corpse impede; we breathed in air of colored vapor to find forever in a scrap of paper; we conspired to couple a crass contrarian with a latently luscious, lithe librarian; we walked the rope 'tween fire and hope, a hypnotized-by-coal-black-eyes dope; we swirled up all on a cloudy brink, the sky, embarrassed, turned to pink. So winds the whirl of a week in the Swirl! ~ MH Clay
Just in case you missed it, here's a taste...
Smoking Sky
The sky had been smoking
Thick cigar puffs
Clouded smoke charcoal grey
The sky was dirty
And angels came, coughing
Not in clouds but in
Stretchy satin strings
A woolly yarn mop
Flowing hair and wings afloat
To clean this dirty sky
To sop the smelly smoke
The clouds, darker and darker
The further in
A layer of strawberry spread
Resting upon the dusty earth
Sweet light cream, a shroud over bitter coffee's dark
And embarrassed for the sky
Caught in this filthy act
Unwilling to confess
The horizon turns away his face
Covering in his curtained veil
And blushes
Pink
- Heather M. Browne
(1 poem added 12.06.14)
editor’s note: Celestial shenanigans exposed through this poet's eye. I'm blushing, too. - mh
The day my house burnt to ash
1
I saw winter
outside in
the soot strewn
upwind
a poleax
between
bone dead
fingers and
moth-eaten
moccasins on
her feet
The eve after
winter was
a blue
chair
abandoned in
a white forest
tilted
on its
peg-less side
with a
smile
like a sinking
ship
She was a
child
who
lights a match
and
swallows it
for the
thrill
2
The yellow lime
of her tongue
flows like a
bee wrapped
Limbs like
tines
toothpick
the ground
like a
hypothermic
funambulist
on the
final
stretch
The day
before
my house
burnt to
ash
I saw
winter
inside
warming
her purple
heart
by the hearth
The heat
igniting
the black
coal of her
eyes
- Ali Sohail
(added 12.04.14)
editor’s note: Winter comes, precocious child, to freeze like fire; leaves us seeking shelter in poetry. - mh
drama queen
i’m high
i’m in the library
i’m getting dirty looks
i’m giving dirty looks
back
i’m slouched in my chair
i’m slightly aroused
i’m thinking of the pill
in my pocket
i’m thinking how warm
it’ll make me feel
i’m thinking about leaving
going to get a soda
or feeling the librarian’s thigh
i’m nervously bouncing my legs
i’m far and away the smartest person
in this building
i’m going to ask for more time on the computer
i’m back
i’m too shy to even look at the librarian
i’m obsessed with her face her behind
the tattoos on her arm
the porno fantasy of sassy and sweet
geek in the office
freak the bedroom
i’m terrified of dying
i’m alone in life
i’m falling apart
i’m less durable than other poets
i’m more likely to melt than others
i’m a shallow puddle
when all is said
and done
i’m not going to be missed
i’m here and queer
i’m positive about my pessimism
under an existential elephant
i’m contrasting the aluminum railings
with the bark of a white maple
i’m down with the dirt that begins
whispering to my feet
i’m thinking about moving to japan
i’m stupid because i don’t have the money
it’s a pipedream
i’m thinking of my mother, dead,
my father, dead
my own crossing the road
the other side
i’m not feeling so high anymore
- Stephen Okawa
(added 12.04.14)
editor’s note: Continuing education; libraries are a haven for those who hunger for learning... and librarians. - mh
IN ANOTHER DIMENSION, WE ARE MAKING LOVE
What color is dreaming? you ask.
I answer in the language of fleur-de-lis,
paisley and plaid. Then, what is the sound of death?
you ask, so I draw you a picture of dreaming.
What is left to know but that I’m re-writing the formula
for the air between us? Part nitrogen, part oxygen, the rest trace gasses
of love. Like you, I believe most in what
I cannot see or hear. Anger: a wounded steam
rising from the cauldron of your throat.
Alchemy: the steam dissipates, and you reach
across the table for my hand. So—
I note that it was already storming
before we arrived here, though my only proof
is an exhausted cloud passed out in the courtyard
and a thunderbolt curled up beside it.
I point out that in another dimension
this restaurant is a bedroom
in which we are making love. Don’t
try to understand.
Just paint the air human,
take off your clothes,
hand back your coat of arms.
What you mistook for a person
is really a country
with a dark and sacred history
and no scholars to explain away the confusion.
Just burn the archives down.
Everything we have to know
we learned from a picture of dreaming.
Everything we need to remember
can fit on a scrap of paper
smaller than your hand.
- Melissa Studdard
(added 12.03.14)
editor’s note: For a poet, this smallest scrap of paper holds a universe of words. "Don't try to understand." Yes! - mh
Noise
A flea on a red hot chile pepper,
ginger on the cream,
ringo on the beatle,
sting on a cop,
a prince, the king,
the slash, the edge,
madonna, a lady,
jimi, the boss,
the kiss, the godfather,
queen, rage against a machine
Hunting hummingbirds with an Uzi,
trying to sleep in a buffalo stampede,
dozing on the tracks before a Santa Fe chief,
it’s too late to leave a good looking corpse.
- Catfish McDaris
(added 12.02.14)
editor’s note: In the midst of the noise, a still soft voice. Will we hear it before we go? - mh
[The thunderclaps of chariot cavalries]
The thunderclaps of chariot cavalries
Routed in the Peloponnesian war persist.
The knocks made by wind hurling rocks
On a citadel's massive door persist.
The screeches of wraiths reverberating
Within a torch-lit corridor persist.
Voices whispering in the churning
Dust on a castle's floor persist.
Prisms emitted from crystals lodged
In shards of cobalt ore persist.
The muffled chants of phantasms
Traversing an icy moor persist.
The howls of skulls formed of smoke
From Mauna Loa's volcanic core persist.
Winds roaring in the tombs of gladiators
Massacred in the Cimbrian war persist.
The echoes of Circe raving
On a desolate shore persist.
- Steffen Horstmann
(added 12.01.14)
editor’s note: Poets cannot cease and desist when damn near everything persists. - mh
The Daily Globe
The words rise. Like angels in heaven, sent
to make communion with the neighbors.
In twos. In cherubic threes. In choral fourths.
Sweetheart. Have you been well?
I push aside our summer sheets, hoping
to flash sufficient light and dark to catch the intentions
at dawn. Our house no less a parlor than a church
of living bones. The sunlight is pitched funeral dust
spreading peace on earth. I am called by others
living namelessly nearby. To spend my short eternity
imagining addresses. The globe. Every morn it spins
showing any blinkered eye its favorite colors
like a summoning forth.
Today the countries may reveal faces: their hells
blurring with paradises, land, ocean,
Sweden’s wealth and China’s poor genuflected. The situation
of a world in crisis while limbs lurch
playing at bed sheets and snores and mirrors; let’s touch –
kicking at our sore spots. The words rise; lovers
remake the news. Are you lovely enough to wake? Sleeping beauty.
- Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
(added 11.30.14)
editor’s note: Every spin o' the globe awakens us; beauty sees beauty. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Then have a butcher's at the latest addition to our short stories library, "London, Here I Come" by Troy Johnson.
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week story: "Every day is the result of the Tower of Babel. Every day we speak, hope to be understood, but only enter human ears that lose everything but the most basic of swear words in translation. That’s why we all love when we see an ancient cocks carved in the rubble of Pompeii. We know someone spoke and we understood. Across the sands of time, we love what the dead loved."
It really is the dog’s bollocks! Here's a wee bit of a nip to whet your reading whistle:
I had been accepted to Oxford University after writing and winning an essay contest entitled, America and Britain-brother countries. In my essay I had wrote how America had gained its independence, yet there was still a connection between the two countries. We are sometimes brother countries. The university would pay my flight, room, board and tuition. I had never visited England, but I was as excited as one could be. I knew Bill Clinton and several others Americans had attended Oxford. Before I left my friends told me not to act American.
“What?” I asked. “Act American?”
They told me that whenever Americans visited other countries, they could be spotted right off the bat. “How is that?”
“Because Americans are always talking loud and walking fast. And they are a bit cocky.”
“No, those are New Yorkers, not people from Georgia,” I said and chuckled.
I packed my things and I was ready for England. I bought a lot of rain gear because I knew from friends it rained a lot just like it did in Seattle, Portland and most of the northwest.
So, after saying goodbye to family and friends, my girlfriend Shelia took me to the airport…
We're not bein' one bit cheeky when we say get the rest of your read on here!
••• Open Mic •••
t'was a night of nativity madness as featured poet Paul Koniecki & the cast from Contre-Culture took our stage and proceeded to shine some divine poetic and musical holiness upon all that were there to witness this beatific show!
Thanks to ALL the wonderful poets and musicians who shared their words, their verses and their fine light with us. It truly was a fine night to be alive and in our Mad Swirl world. Here is the line-up of who was who…
Feature:
Paul Koniecki
Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Mad Cast:
Chris Zimmerly
Roderick Richardson
David Crandell
Victory
Tony Hernandez
Yesterday's News
Merlin the Magical One
Konnichiwa Zach
Christopher Soden
Bear the Poet
Paul
John Kelly & Steffan Prigmore
Kevin
Chris Delaney
Nero
Bo Bowles
HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris Curiel & 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, who has given 121 reasons to give him all the mad props and love that we do!
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.
In case you missed this Mad action, view the whole show here, via our mad USTREAM channel!
P.S. Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of January (aka 01.07.15) at 8:00 sharp, when we will swirl it up madly in the LIVE way that we do every month now for OVER 10 years! This month we kick off our 2015 season with Louisiana poet, Rob Dyer!
•••••••
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...
Becomin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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