The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.21.15
“You owe it to all of us all get on with what you're good at.” W. H. Auden
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“The Dance” (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 ciphered the sum of a bicycle bum; we bummed a butt, still smoking from the barrel of the corporation; we primed a pic untainted, pointed pigments unpainted; we shattered shards of mirror, morphed to shiny scales; we were arrested, enthralled in anticipation of a lover's call; we blocked the shock of clock chalked up to time spent; we nabbed nightmare to sink in small weeds and tall belief. What words we wield will be our shield from calamity and condemnation. ~ MH Clay
LONG SHADOWS
Stretched into the night then twisted by the
Sun. In the early hours and at first light
Nightmares dance as one, accepting this life
As flowers fade and petals fall from sight.
Some seeds will live beneath these autumn dreams –
Small weeds are we, some with a tall belief:
To not believe each soul will die alone,
Separated by that eternal thief.
He takes without remorse, his conscience clear,
There is no force, no dragging by the neck,
It’s timed by that quick moment in the womb.
No master dealing cards in this stacked deck:
Each of those rich shadows bestowed at birth
Will be eclipsed by a spin of the Earth.
- Derrick Gaskin
(2 poems added 02.21.15)
editor's note: Stand in the shadow of our tall belief; together forever, if not here, then... (Another one from Del on his page; brief as a butterfly kiss - check it out!) - mh
VERY PLEASANT
The spring sun can be
very pleasant when
there are no hands on
the clock and no job
waiting to be done.
It is so very pleasant
to know there are no hands
on the clock and the job
comes with vacation
time and holiday time.
The spring sun shines on
as I lie in my couch
at home having a
very pleasant dream
about handless clocks.
- Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
(1 poem added 02.20.15)
editor's note: Let's make Big Biz this way; install handless clocks on every wall and a couch by every desk. - mh
Hello
What is it about love
Is it the taste of lips,
Another's lips on ours
Or the feel of bodies
Closely warming?
No, it needs more.
Unknown vibrations
Tense senses
Leading us through
Paths and revelations
Of self and others.
Eyes are special
They transmit,
And body shapes
That please and thrill.
Sorry, must go...
My lover calls.
©2014
- Sheighle Birdthistle
(1 poem added 02.19.15)
editor's note: Kept on speed dial, waiting for that call... - mh
Every Seven Years it Shed it’s Skin
(Pierre Alechinsky, etching)
Every seven years
along with its skin
like an inflated balloon
emptying itself of air
it sheds its past
and the knowledge it had won
through swamps, villages
and gardens of myth
the reason it was created
as a metaphor for sin
Every seven years
it grows more beautiful
spotted, speckled and striped
re-filled with ravenous air
reborn to seduce again
in its conquest of the soul.
- Neil Ellman
(1 poem added 02.18.15)
editor's note: Serpentine seducer or subject of human obsession? Who seeks whom? (See the art which inspired Neil's ekphrasis here. Check it out!) - mh
Nice Toss
One day you are going to
write a story, poem
or paint a picture so
perfectly framed
it should be a crime
and this deep
depiction
of someone
or something
spectacular
or unassuming
will register
with those in
the know
who will promptly
recognize
the energy contained
within the pigment of your
paint or your pointed
imagination
and then you will
penetrate
the consciousness
of the voyeur
connoisseurs
of your genre
but this is only
possible
if and when
you stop
crumpling up
your endangered
endeavors
and throwing them
in the wastebasket
you bought
at Walgreens
- Ivan Jenson
(1 poem added 02.17.15)
editor's note: Yup! Can't know if it's a perfect seven or if it's craps unless you roll them bones. - mh
Voguing with Current Federal Bureaucrats
It avails science writers to try to promote military splendor.
Sucking funding from objectionable parties phases mundanities.
These days, voguing with current federal bureaucrats brings home riches.
In contrast, camping out in theatres’ utility room attracts cockroaches,
Causes pieces of plaster to fuel a need for therapists, warms idiots
Intent on taking over urban pagodas or on spilling users’ viscera in parks.
The worst penury’s easily synthesized by those suit and sunglasses types,
Who yield when declaring all manners of balderdash, slinking toward shadowy
Testimonies, spurred by the likes of cartoon characters, cheap wine, stale cookies.
To sate more than cutpurses, it’s necessary to addend stilted footnotes,
Practice tantra yoga, open one’s palms to starbursts, imbibe bad radiation.
Synthesized electricity’s a tricky matter that constantly acts unpredictably.
Leaning on utility tables, writing copious notes about army experiences,
Promises only to unpack paradigms, not to drive away cats, rats, ravens.
Declining opportunities to leave districts unprotected evokes worse neighbors.
Electing, instead, to smooth incommensurate barbs could bring peace,
Lower tax rates, cause a rise in births around holiday times. Replacing
Spectacles, too, beholdens traitors to piecework, gym exercises, vitamins.
When I grow up, I’ll set sail around corporate illusions, hire pals, eat taffy.
Otherwise plan my day so that martial innovations can readily destroy cities,
After rolling over foreign forces unwilling to pay tributes in gold or fine textiles.
Compliance in settling desert development towns equals insanity except
When payola fountains over various companies’ courtiers, dance halls, clinics.
As such, social drives succeed in raising more than the cost of cookies or sunshades.
- KJ Hannah Greenberg
(1 poem added 02.16.15)
editor's note: Our current state of affairs, deftly described; affairs of state managed by minions of War, Inc. (KJ has a new poetry book you gotta read, "The Little Temple of My Sleeping Bag.") - mh
Free love
I spied the street guy
balancing three huge
Hefty plastic bags
bulged with crushed
plastic bottles and cans
dripping a wet sticky
snail's trail behind him
down the crooked rustic road
precariously balanced
on his parked makeshift bicycle
haunches squatting
in poignant tableau
leans his curved spine
over a small ancient
paint distressed
three door dresser cabinet
a magnificent prize
left on the street in
front of somebody's house
with a 'For Free' sign
taped to the front
tenderly he opens
the lopsided drawer
squinched eyes peer inside
musing head sideways
thoughtful grubby finger
stuck in mouth
as if imagining what
rare cast-off treasures
he would store there
for safekeeping
smack dab in the middle
of old Lemon Avenue
- Sissy Buckles
(1 poem added 02.15.15)
editor's note: With the whole world your bedroom, treasure comes not from possessions, but from places to hide. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Howsabout two?
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week short-short, "The Tickler” by Harley White: "Dark things hide in youth, things that reached out from the shadows to touch us and map out places we hope we go in the future. But childhood isn't the future, though. It's the never-ending bridge of perversion from innocence to experience."
Here's a taste to tickle ya':
Tonight would be special. I would be allowed to stay up an hour past my bedtime. There would be punch and cookies with the grownups. Music and dancing would make the living room and mother’s face look happy.
The sounds of a party were beginning to drift upstairs. My older sister and I combed and fluffed in white pinafores, sat carefully on our pink-topped beds, Now don’t you get dirty! still ringing in our ears.
I followed my sister to the top of the stairs. Here we took up our positions behind the railings, a vantage point that enabled us to see a portion of the living room from above. A table, dressed in white linen, held a glass bowl with red punch and three trays of cookies. Sailors in black and white uniforms perched on the arms of the sofas, strutted over to the punch bowl, then resumed their perches, only to jump up again. Women in shirtwaists sat demurely on the couches, with forced smiles and strained attention, trying to engage the sailors in party conversation. On the wall, a banner had been hung, with the red, white, and blue letters WELCOME and USO. Someone spilled a glass of punch on the carpet. I cringed and wondered what would happen. In deference to the special privileges bestowed on grownups, it was quietly cleaned up. (I would have been called clumsy, maybe spanked, and sent upstairs.)
Mother’s voice, with company patience, sailed out, “Girls, where are you? Come on down…”
•••
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the second pick-of-the-week tale, "A Knock on the Door” by Ruth Z. Deming: "Only a devil would call themselves a god. If that's what you're looking for, though, by all means, let them take you to heaven."
Here's a peek thru the peep hole get you goin’:
photo by Tyler Malone
I was doing my dishes one day and heard a knock on the front door. I leave my door open in the summer and always have a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge. I love the way the lemon wheels float to the top and the glass pitcher gets all frosty.
Imagine my surprise when I turned around and saw a man standing there.
Not just any man, mind you. But one who looked exactly like Jesus from the Bible.
“Christ?” I called, as I walked to the door. “Is that you?”
He smiled that gentle smile of his and pushed a stray hair behind his ear.
"It’s me!” he said. “Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
I was so excited I didn’t know what to do. My mind flashed many thoughts. Was I properly attired to meet Christ, our Lord? Did I have spots on my shirt? Walnuts in my teeth? Did my toenails need trimming?
Barefoot, I opened the door…
••• Local Mad Events •••
On 02.22.2015 the mad cats behind Mad Swirl and the ArtLoveMagic tribe will team up to bring you another Love Swirl Poetry Writing Salon & Workshop as part of ArtLoveMagic’s “Lovin’” February exhibition at the Janette Kennedy Gallery inside Southside On Lamar. We are bringing our organizations together to encourage local writers in their adventures and explorations into the written word of poetry.
Calling all poets, slammers, open mic’rs, first-timers, budding songwriters/lyricists and lovers of the written word... join in on this colloquy of composition! All types of writers, all levels of written skill are welcomed.
For all the pertinent info that you will need, visit the FB event page. We look forward to reading with you!
•••••••
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...
Getting’ On With It,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“The Dance” (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 ciphered the sum of a bicycle bum; we bummed a butt, still smoking from the barrel of the corporation; we primed a pic untainted, pointed pigments unpainted; we shattered shards of mirror, morphed to shiny scales; we were arrested, enthralled in anticipation of a lover's call; we blocked the shock of clock chalked up to time spent; we nabbed nightmare to sink in small weeds and tall belief. What words we wield will be our shield from calamity and condemnation. ~ MH Clay
LONG SHADOWS
Stretched into the night then twisted by the
Sun. In the early hours and at first light
Nightmares dance as one, accepting this life
As flowers fade and petals fall from sight.
Some seeds will live beneath these autumn dreams –
Small weeds are we, some with a tall belief:
To not believe each soul will die alone,
Separated by that eternal thief.
He takes without remorse, his conscience clear,
There is no force, no dragging by the neck,
It’s timed by that quick moment in the womb.
No master dealing cards in this stacked deck:
Each of those rich shadows bestowed at birth
Will be eclipsed by a spin of the Earth.
- Derrick Gaskin
(2 poems added 02.21.15)
editor's note: Stand in the shadow of our tall belief; together forever, if not here, then... (Another one from Del on his page; brief as a butterfly kiss - check it out!) - mh
VERY PLEASANT
The spring sun can be
very pleasant when
there are no hands on
the clock and no job
waiting to be done.
It is so very pleasant
to know there are no hands
on the clock and the job
comes with vacation
time and holiday time.
The spring sun shines on
as I lie in my couch
at home having a
very pleasant dream
about handless clocks.
- Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
(1 poem added 02.20.15)
editor's note: Let's make Big Biz this way; install handless clocks on every wall and a couch by every desk. - mh
Hello
What is it about love
Is it the taste of lips,
Another's lips on ours
Or the feel of bodies
Closely warming?
No, it needs more.
Unknown vibrations
Tense senses
Leading us through
Paths and revelations
Of self and others.
Eyes are special
They transmit,
And body shapes
That please and thrill.
Sorry, must go...
My lover calls.
©2014
- Sheighle Birdthistle
(1 poem added 02.19.15)
editor's note: Kept on speed dial, waiting for that call... - mh
Every Seven Years it Shed it’s Skin
(Pierre Alechinsky, etching)
Every seven years
along with its skin
like an inflated balloon
emptying itself of air
it sheds its past
and the knowledge it had won
through swamps, villages
and gardens of myth
the reason it was created
as a metaphor for sin
Every seven years
it grows more beautiful
spotted, speckled and striped
re-filled with ravenous air
reborn to seduce again
in its conquest of the soul.
- Neil Ellman
(1 poem added 02.18.15)
editor's note: Serpentine seducer or subject of human obsession? Who seeks whom? (See the art which inspired Neil's ekphrasis here. Check it out!) - mh
Nice Toss
One day you are going to
write a story, poem
or paint a picture so
perfectly framed
it should be a crime
and this deep
depiction
of someone
or something
spectacular
or unassuming
will register
with those in
the know
who will promptly
recognize
the energy contained
within the pigment of your
paint or your pointed
imagination
and then you will
penetrate
the consciousness
of the voyeur
connoisseurs
of your genre
but this is only
possible
if and when
you stop
crumpling up
your endangered
endeavors
and throwing them
in the wastebasket
you bought
at Walgreens
- Ivan Jenson
(1 poem added 02.17.15)
editor's note: Yup! Can't know if it's a perfect seven or if it's craps unless you roll them bones. - mh
Voguing with Current Federal Bureaucrats
It avails science writers to try to promote military splendor.
Sucking funding from objectionable parties phases mundanities.
These days, voguing with current federal bureaucrats brings home riches.
In contrast, camping out in theatres’ utility room attracts cockroaches,
Causes pieces of plaster to fuel a need for therapists, warms idiots
Intent on taking over urban pagodas or on spilling users’ viscera in parks.
The worst penury’s easily synthesized by those suit and sunglasses types,
Who yield when declaring all manners of balderdash, slinking toward shadowy
Testimonies, spurred by the likes of cartoon characters, cheap wine, stale cookies.
To sate more than cutpurses, it’s necessary to addend stilted footnotes,
Practice tantra yoga, open one’s palms to starbursts, imbibe bad radiation.
Synthesized electricity’s a tricky matter that constantly acts unpredictably.
Leaning on utility tables, writing copious notes about army experiences,
Promises only to unpack paradigms, not to drive away cats, rats, ravens.
Declining opportunities to leave districts unprotected evokes worse neighbors.
Electing, instead, to smooth incommensurate barbs could bring peace,
Lower tax rates, cause a rise in births around holiday times. Replacing
Spectacles, too, beholdens traitors to piecework, gym exercises, vitamins.
When I grow up, I’ll set sail around corporate illusions, hire pals, eat taffy.
Otherwise plan my day so that martial innovations can readily destroy cities,
After rolling over foreign forces unwilling to pay tributes in gold or fine textiles.
Compliance in settling desert development towns equals insanity except
When payola fountains over various companies’ courtiers, dance halls, clinics.
As such, social drives succeed in raising more than the cost of cookies or sunshades.
- KJ Hannah Greenberg
(1 poem added 02.16.15)
editor's note: Our current state of affairs, deftly described; affairs of state managed by minions of War, Inc. (KJ has a new poetry book you gotta read, "The Little Temple of My Sleeping Bag.") - mh
Free love
I spied the street guy
balancing three huge
Hefty plastic bags
bulged with crushed
plastic bottles and cans
dripping a wet sticky
snail's trail behind him
down the crooked rustic road
precariously balanced
on his parked makeshift bicycle
haunches squatting
in poignant tableau
leans his curved spine
over a small ancient
paint distressed
three door dresser cabinet
a magnificent prize
left on the street in
front of somebody's house
with a 'For Free' sign
taped to the front
tenderly he opens
the lopsided drawer
squinched eyes peer inside
musing head sideways
thoughtful grubby finger
stuck in mouth
as if imagining what
rare cast-off treasures
he would store there
for safekeeping
smack dab in the middle
of old Lemon Avenue
- Sissy Buckles
(1 poem added 02.15.15)
editor's note: With the whole world your bedroom, treasure comes not from possessions, but from places to hide. - mh
••• Short Stories •••
Need-a-Read? Howsabout two?
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week short-short, "The Tickler” by Harley White: "Dark things hide in youth, things that reached out from the shadows to touch us and map out places we hope we go in the future. But childhood isn't the future, though. It's the never-ending bridge of perversion from innocence to experience."
Here's a taste to tickle ya':
Tonight would be special. I would be allowed to stay up an hour past my bedtime. There would be punch and cookies with the grownups. Music and dancing would make the living room and mother’s face look happy.
The sounds of a party were beginning to drift upstairs. My older sister and I combed and fluffed in white pinafores, sat carefully on our pink-topped beds, Now don’t you get dirty! still ringing in our ears.
I followed my sister to the top of the stairs. Here we took up our positions behind the railings, a vantage point that enabled us to see a portion of the living room from above. A table, dressed in white linen, held a glass bowl with red punch and three trays of cookies. Sailors in black and white uniforms perched on the arms of the sofas, strutted over to the punch bowl, then resumed their perches, only to jump up again. Women in shirtwaists sat demurely on the couches, with forced smiles and strained attention, trying to engage the sailors in party conversation. On the wall, a banner had been hung, with the red, white, and blue letters WELCOME and USO. Someone spilled a glass of punch on the carpet. I cringed and wondered what would happen. In deference to the special privileges bestowed on grownups, it was quietly cleaned up. (I would have been called clumsy, maybe spanked, and sent upstairs.)
Mother’s voice, with company patience, sailed out, “Girls, where are you? Come on down…”
•••
Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the second pick-of-the-week tale, "A Knock on the Door” by Ruth Z. Deming: "Only a devil would call themselves a god. If that's what you're looking for, though, by all means, let them take you to heaven."
Here's a peek thru the peep hole get you goin’:
I was doing my dishes one day and heard a knock on the front door. I leave my door open in the summer and always have a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge. I love the way the lemon wheels float to the top and the glass pitcher gets all frosty.
Imagine my surprise when I turned around and saw a man standing there.
Not just any man, mind you. But one who looked exactly like Jesus from the Bible.
“Christ?” I called, as I walked to the door. “Is that you?”
He smiled that gentle smile of his and pushed a stray hair behind his ear.
"It’s me!” he said. “Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
I was so excited I didn’t know what to do. My mind flashed many thoughts. Was I properly attired to meet Christ, our Lord? Did I have spots on my shirt? Walnuts in my teeth? Did my toenails need trimming?
Barefoot, I opened the door…
••• Local Mad Events •••
On 02.22.2015 the mad cats behind Mad Swirl and the ArtLoveMagic tribe will team up to bring you another Love Swirl Poetry Writing Salon & Workshop as part of ArtLoveMagic’s “Lovin’” February exhibition at the Janette Kennedy Gallery inside Southside On Lamar. We are bringing our organizations together to encourage local writers in their adventures and explorations into the written word of poetry.
Calling all poets, slammers, open mic’rs, first-timers, budding songwriters/lyricists and lovers of the written word... join in on this colloquy of composition! All types of writers, all levels of written skill are welcomed.
For all the pertinent info that you will need, visit the FB event page. We look forward to reading with you!
•••••••
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...
Getting’ On With It,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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