The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.14.15
“Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.” George Jean Nathan
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“The Cat's Meow” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more Mad works from William, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were given the threads, but not the seat, excluded from a meaty meal; we entered a portal from cold calamity, free to walk in a warm new sanity; we saw her sell her jewel so she could shine like the star she was; we played a peeved poet, exposing his muse, with pencil to paper to pound out his blues; we told a tale wherein storyteller was story told; we pitched the ultimate immortalizer, purveyed in personalized fertilizer; we settled into our comfortable cave, then crawled out from, couldn't stay. Settle in or settle never; sit, walk, shine, pound, tattle, till, spelunk-spelunk. ~ MH Clay
PLATO’S CAVE
Notice we no longer use chains and
Of course the rooms are filled with shadows
While laser lights and virtual programs prove
More cost effective than fire yet the cardboard
Cut-outs and the curtains have remained the same
As well as those old lies that trees are real
That the way out really goes somewhere
That math leads more than just in circles
And that the Wizard himself behind the curtains
Keeps the whole domino world from collapsing
And each year more and more come to believe it
As only a few poets and down-and-outers dare climb
The arduous way out as most prefer
To sit and talk about food and sports.
- Clinton Van Inman
(1 poem added 02.14.15)
editor's note: Such expert cave dwellers we have become. Why crawl out, when we have central heat and surround sound? - mh
Tip for Achieving Immortality
You know it damn too well: You can never
Hope to maintain your posthumous metaphor
Behind your very best poem, nor can you
Expect your capitalized name to remain
Permanently visible on the hardest tombstone
But you could tell your family to convert your
Entire being (together with all the words you
Have chosen for poetry) into fertilizer, spreading it
Around the metasequonia you have planted deep
In this foreign soil, where you can supply
Enough nutrition to a leaf or a twig, through
Which you can take some oxygen from the air
And even hold a dewdrop on a summer morning
Watching another, and just another civilization
Unfolding itself beyond this immortal tree
- Changming Yuan
(1 poem added 02.13.15)
editor's note: The ultimate monument; memorial mulch. - mh
Wanderlust - III
The warning came early so the book
was placed on hold. Not only that, but
she heard said that a hundred pages in
from there life would skin itself raw
and bloody and numb. It would come
hundredfold, where the crossing could
not be uncrossed, where the sobbing
could not be controlled, where the
story adapts to the reader’s reactions
to spirits of words, potions of words,
persuasions and predestined words.
The story is more than it was before.
It consumed her as a meal of anger,
wonder, savagery, bridled and broken,
bloody, raw; it and she were changed,
not because innocence is wordless, or
worthless, but because innocence has
far less words than a wanderlust has
places to be. Why would a girl chase
that crossing, knowing she’ll break?
So she can save the white wolf.
- Beth DeSeelhorst
(2 poems added 02.12.15)
editor's note: Here is where story writes the writer; readers beware. (Read another mad missive on Beth's page; a prequel to this one - check it out.) - mh
walt disney world
she does not want to know the dark side
she wants to know if the green napkins are
the right color green for the catered affair
if the band will play the bride
and groom’s special song
if the cute little candy bar wrapper
which had been especially designed for this occasion
by a very hip paper products company
will have very cute pictures of the bride and groom.
there is no room, no space for the blues.
she has done what scientists
buddhists
psychologists
philosophers, eccentrics
have not been able to do –
squeeze out the dark side
ennui
spelled e-n-n-u-i
pronounced ON-WE.
french
every major 20th century american writer
addressed it.
hemmingway in the 20’s
kerouac in the 50’s
bukowski in the 80’s
dissatisfaction with the conditions.
even when the material things are okay,
something’s always peeving us.
yes,
something isn’t right
not just right.
even this little wedding as it is.
i keep thinking of my writers
and their stories
about episodes of their lives.
sitting at a small desk, taking a pen pencil paper
typewriting instrument
and getting the feeling on the page
sharp
hard
clear
really etch it
so you know it hurt.
none backed down.
they stayed in rooms and cried;
their words
played blues as well as anybody ever did.
- Carl Kavadlo
(1 poem added 02.11.15)
editor's note: Fantasyland polished greens and blues, pressed to paper; expressing a bruise. Too honest for what Walt had in mind... - mh
Crossroads (Knotty Neck)
She gets impatient
so quickly,
even though
I've told her
things worth
cultivating
take time to grow.
That she's always unsure
is all she really knows.
God had already
given her a sick
set of six strings,
so she sold her
steel body to the devil,
to do what he will with it.
Now they
resonate
together,
one howlin' wolf,
all through the night.
Haughty,
naughty
necked
girl,
Why would I
write you a jewel,
or a star,
when you already
are one?
- Shashank Virkud
(added 02.10.15)
editor's note: Robert Johnson revisited; gender bent with a naughty neck. - mh
New Directions
Your life's story
takes place in mazes.
You wander them,
no guiding map
and signs in unknown
languages
that no one translates.
Your invisible disease
Gives you leper status,
people don't dare talk to
you,
fearing it might be catching.
They have a disease
common to humanity.
Its symptoms are:
Hardness of heart,
Deliberate blindness,
Ear stoppage,
and mind closing.
Their hallucinations
see you as demonic
and whisk you away
to padded cells.
Travel down another path,
see a forever light shining
where all human doors,
windows
and alleys never close.
This maze's door
opens to New Directions
where similar souls
have traveled mazes before.
Enter this new portal
and step into the room
where these souls
unite as one
helping one another
to travel into new places of sanity
- Linda Barrett
(added 02.09.15)
editor's note: An a-maze-ing journey from oppression to free expression. - mh
Racial Colors
…they came at the door rushing
in tens
groped
held
tied me
tight
poured cold colors
yellow
violet
green
pink
sprinkled murky water
bottled from common tap
they
cheered
laughed and yelled
united colors of India
come evening
they gathered all
except me
for a meaty meal
i asked
why am i not on the list
you are an outsider of other caste here
in came the answer
i said
you said
united colors of India
this noon
aha
that was just for fun
and
you were a point of that
remember
in spite of colors
we still are divided
you jerk
they yelled in chorus
and i died
a racial death
- Aniruddha Sastikar
(1 poem added 02.08.15)
editor's note: A sick, insidious system; turns all colors gray, all hearts cold. (We welcome Aniruddha to our Contributing Poets with this submission.Read more of his madness on his new page - check it out!) - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Howsabout two? Our short story queue is still bursting at the seams. Yes, blessed we be that these fine writers are sharing their word wares with us! So, on that note…
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week short-short, "The Love Letter is Dead” by Jeff Winke: "From all the times I type 'I love you' into my phone, you'd think that's what I love: the machine that lives in my pocket. No! What I love is wrapped in magnificent flesh, has a body crafted by beautiful bones and a brain that too many poets pretend they have. No computer needs to know what I want to do when we're alone."
Here's a few lines from "The Love Letter is Dead" to get your heart beating excitedly:
The love letter is dead.
Love letters are not being written anymore. They’re not being lovingly folded, placed in an envelope, and sealed with a kiss. They are not being sent, read, and cherished.
There is no reason to anxiously wait for the mail carrier; no need for a length of satin ribbon, fat rubber band, or corded twine. Why? There is no stack of personal handwritten or typed letters, notes, or greeting cards to save. They no longer exist; they have become memories.
It feels wrong, incredibly wrong, to not see romance enhanced through love letters mailed or surreptitiously delivered in the middle of the night to a beloved’s mailbox or front door. After all, there is nothing better than receiving a handwritten letter filled with love and lust and to hold it in your hands knowing that the same paper was held by your lover. The personal connection is completed through the passion of writing, whether thoughtful, clumsy, or eloquent, it is pure and sincere and intended only for you. The intimacy is enhanced by the smell of the paper, the imperfections of the penmanship, realizing that some words were written with the pen pressing harder than others, seeing smeared ink where tears may have fallen, the evidence of false starts and hesitations while words were carefully chosen and thoughts crafted into prose. The letter is as imperfect as love...
•••
And here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the second pick-of-the-week tale, "A Crumb for the Freudians (See the Little Noses Twitch)” by Kay Kinghammer: "Venom on the page means poison in the brain. That's not the problem, though. The problem is if you drink it. It'll look like water but taste like blood, and you'll love it. You'll love it so much that you forgot where it wall started: with words on a page."
Here's a few tasty crumbs to whet your reading appetite::
photo by Tyler Malone
When I was in the seventh grade, I wrote a terrific and revealing story. I gave it to my English teacher to read. She lost it. Because I was proud of the story, I rewrote it several times trying to get it back. Each of the versions varied slightly, but the basics never altered.
I was young and beautiful. I was kidnapped by six evil but handsome bank robbers who carried me off to a cave in the woods and raped me every day for six months. I was terribly depressed. My life was ruined. I was no longer pure. Nobody would ever want to marry me.
This cave in the woods was very comfortably furnished, more like a cabin than a cave. It had beds with mattresses, a stove, a radio, and rooms with doors. My bank robbers weren’t voyeurs. I was just another convenience in the cave. One day, after several months, I learned from the radio that my entire family had been killed in a car wreck. I was freed of all ties, all obligations. I was also very sad. My bank robbers had no respect for my grief. Life went on as usual in the cave...
•••••••
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...
Bein’ Rationally Irrational,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“The Cat's Meow” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more Mad works from William, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were given the threads, but not the seat, excluded from a meaty meal; we entered a portal from cold calamity, free to walk in a warm new sanity; we saw her sell her jewel so she could shine like the star she was; we played a peeved poet, exposing his muse, with pencil to paper to pound out his blues; we told a tale wherein storyteller was story told; we pitched the ultimate immortalizer, purveyed in personalized fertilizer; we settled into our comfortable cave, then crawled out from, couldn't stay. Settle in or settle never; sit, walk, shine, pound, tattle, till, spelunk-spelunk. ~ MH Clay
PLATO’S CAVE
Notice we no longer use chains and
Of course the rooms are filled with shadows
While laser lights and virtual programs prove
More cost effective than fire yet the cardboard
Cut-outs and the curtains have remained the same
As well as those old lies that trees are real
That the way out really goes somewhere
That math leads more than just in circles
And that the Wizard himself behind the curtains
Keeps the whole domino world from collapsing
And each year more and more come to believe it
As only a few poets and down-and-outers dare climb
The arduous way out as most prefer
To sit and talk about food and sports.
- Clinton Van Inman
(1 poem added 02.14.15)
editor's note: Such expert cave dwellers we have become. Why crawl out, when we have central heat and surround sound? - mh
Tip for Achieving Immortality
You know it damn too well: You can never
Hope to maintain your posthumous metaphor
Behind your very best poem, nor can you
Expect your capitalized name to remain
Permanently visible on the hardest tombstone
But you could tell your family to convert your
Entire being (together with all the words you
Have chosen for poetry) into fertilizer, spreading it
Around the metasequonia you have planted deep
In this foreign soil, where you can supply
Enough nutrition to a leaf or a twig, through
Which you can take some oxygen from the air
And even hold a dewdrop on a summer morning
Watching another, and just another civilization
Unfolding itself beyond this immortal tree
- Changming Yuan
(1 poem added 02.13.15)
editor's note: The ultimate monument; memorial mulch. - mh
Wanderlust - III
The warning came early so the book
was placed on hold. Not only that, but
she heard said that a hundred pages in
from there life would skin itself raw
and bloody and numb. It would come
hundredfold, where the crossing could
not be uncrossed, where the sobbing
could not be controlled, where the
story adapts to the reader’s reactions
to spirits of words, potions of words,
persuasions and predestined words.
The story is more than it was before.
It consumed her as a meal of anger,
wonder, savagery, bridled and broken,
bloody, raw; it and she were changed,
not because innocence is wordless, or
worthless, but because innocence has
far less words than a wanderlust has
places to be. Why would a girl chase
that crossing, knowing she’ll break?
So she can save the white wolf.
- Beth DeSeelhorst
(2 poems added 02.12.15)
editor's note: Here is where story writes the writer; readers beware. (Read another mad missive on Beth's page; a prequel to this one - check it out.) - mh
walt disney world
she does not want to know the dark side
she wants to know if the green napkins are
the right color green for the catered affair
if the band will play the bride
and groom’s special song
if the cute little candy bar wrapper
which had been especially designed for this occasion
by a very hip paper products company
will have very cute pictures of the bride and groom.
there is no room, no space for the blues.
she has done what scientists
buddhists
psychologists
philosophers, eccentrics
have not been able to do –
squeeze out the dark side
ennui
spelled e-n-n-u-i
pronounced ON-WE.
french
every major 20th century american writer
addressed it.
hemmingway in the 20’s
kerouac in the 50’s
bukowski in the 80’s
dissatisfaction with the conditions.
even when the material things are okay,
something’s always peeving us.
yes,
something isn’t right
not just right.
even this little wedding as it is.
i keep thinking of my writers
and their stories
about episodes of their lives.
sitting at a small desk, taking a pen pencil paper
typewriting instrument
and getting the feeling on the page
sharp
hard
clear
really etch it
so you know it hurt.
none backed down.
they stayed in rooms and cried;
their words
played blues as well as anybody ever did.
- Carl Kavadlo
(1 poem added 02.11.15)
editor's note: Fantasyland polished greens and blues, pressed to paper; expressing a bruise. Too honest for what Walt had in mind... - mh
Crossroads (Knotty Neck)
She gets impatient
so quickly,
even though
I've told her
things worth
cultivating
take time to grow.
That she's always unsure
is all she really knows.
God had already
given her a sick
set of six strings,
so she sold her
steel body to the devil,
to do what he will with it.
Now they
resonate
together,
one howlin' wolf,
all through the night.
Haughty,
naughty
necked
girl,
Why would I
write you a jewel,
or a star,
when you already
are one?
- Shashank Virkud
(added 02.10.15)
editor's note: Robert Johnson revisited; gender bent with a naughty neck. - mh
New Directions
Your life's story
takes place in mazes.
You wander them,
no guiding map
and signs in unknown
languages
that no one translates.
Your invisible disease
Gives you leper status,
people don't dare talk to
you,
fearing it might be catching.
They have a disease
common to humanity.
Its symptoms are:
Hardness of heart,
Deliberate blindness,
Ear stoppage,
and mind closing.
Their hallucinations
see you as demonic
and whisk you away
to padded cells.
Travel down another path,
see a forever light shining
where all human doors,
windows
and alleys never close.
This maze's door
opens to New Directions
where similar souls
have traveled mazes before.
Enter this new portal
and step into the room
where these souls
unite as one
helping one another
to travel into new places of sanity
- Linda Barrett
(added 02.09.15)
editor's note: An a-maze-ing journey from oppression to free expression. - mh
Racial Colors
…they came at the door rushing
in tens
groped
held
tied me
tight
poured cold colors
yellow
violet
green
pink
sprinkled murky water
bottled from common tap
they
cheered
laughed and yelled
united colors of India
come evening
they gathered all
except me
for a meaty meal
i asked
why am i not on the list
you are an outsider of other caste here
in came the answer
i said
you said
united colors of India
this noon
aha
that was just for fun
and
you were a point of that
remember
in spite of colors
we still are divided
you jerk
they yelled in chorus
and i died
a racial death
- Aniruddha Sastikar
(1 poem added 02.08.15)
editor's note: A sick, insidious system; turns all colors gray, all hearts cold. (We welcome Aniruddha to our Contributing Poets with this submission.Read more of his madness on his new page - check it out!) - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Howsabout two? Our short story queue is still bursting at the seams. Yes, blessed we be that these fine writers are sharing their word wares with us! So, on that note…
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week short-short, "The Love Letter is Dead” by Jeff Winke: "From all the times I type 'I love you' into my phone, you'd think that's what I love: the machine that lives in my pocket. No! What I love is wrapped in magnificent flesh, has a body crafted by beautiful bones and a brain that too many poets pretend they have. No computer needs to know what I want to do when we're alone."
Here's a few lines from "The Love Letter is Dead" to get your heart beating excitedly:
The love letter is dead.
Love letters are not being written anymore. They’re not being lovingly folded, placed in an envelope, and sealed with a kiss. They are not being sent, read, and cherished.
There is no reason to anxiously wait for the mail carrier; no need for a length of satin ribbon, fat rubber band, or corded twine. Why? There is no stack of personal handwritten or typed letters, notes, or greeting cards to save. They no longer exist; they have become memories.
It feels wrong, incredibly wrong, to not see romance enhanced through love letters mailed or surreptitiously delivered in the middle of the night to a beloved’s mailbox or front door. After all, there is nothing better than receiving a handwritten letter filled with love and lust and to hold it in your hands knowing that the same paper was held by your lover. The personal connection is completed through the passion of writing, whether thoughtful, clumsy, or eloquent, it is pure and sincere and intended only for you. The intimacy is enhanced by the smell of the paper, the imperfections of the penmanship, realizing that some words were written with the pen pressing harder than others, seeing smeared ink where tears may have fallen, the evidence of false starts and hesitations while words were carefully chosen and thoughts crafted into prose. The letter is as imperfect as love...
•••
And here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the second pick-of-the-week tale, "A Crumb for the Freudians (See the Little Noses Twitch)” by Kay Kinghammer: "Venom on the page means poison in the brain. That's not the problem, though. The problem is if you drink it. It'll look like water but taste like blood, and you'll love it. You'll love it so much that you forgot where it wall started: with words on a page."
Here's a few tasty crumbs to whet your reading appetite::
When I was in the seventh grade, I wrote a terrific and revealing story. I gave it to my English teacher to read. She lost it. Because I was proud of the story, I rewrote it several times trying to get it back. Each of the versions varied slightly, but the basics never altered.
I was young and beautiful. I was kidnapped by six evil but handsome bank robbers who carried me off to a cave in the woods and raped me every day for six months. I was terribly depressed. My life was ruined. I was no longer pure. Nobody would ever want to marry me.
This cave in the woods was very comfortably furnished, more like a cabin than a cave. It had beds with mattresses, a stove, a radio, and rooms with doors. My bank robbers weren’t voyeurs. I was just another convenience in the cave. One day, after several months, I learned from the radio that my entire family had been killed in a car wreck. I was freed of all ties, all obligations. I was also very sad. My bank robbers had no respect for my grief. Life went on as usual in the cave...
•••••••
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...
Bein’ Rationally Irrational,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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