The Best of Mad Swirl : 06.11.16
“I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.” ~ Julia Margaret Cameron
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“nightcat” (above) by featured artist Jeff Skele Sheely. To view more of Jeff's twisted beatific images, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Gallery at MadSwirl.com!
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we lamented the limpness of males of the species; we feared the thrust of a hum unjust; we were shocked to have heard the worst of words (not spoke by me); we endeavored to break from the same mistake; we chilled our nerves with cold preserves; we found green reason in the turn of a season; we dealt with duress in our goddamned mess; we sulked in the slammer of wrong-wrought grammar. Our language means are meant to be seen. Wha'? ~ MH Clay
Notes for My Reading Repast by Lawdenmarc Decamora
For one:
I saw a book, ash-colored; on the side
of its skin lived the initials DB
riven by blankness
and a fatal crave darker than dark.
It read Dobby Gibson. My eyes
hungered, wishing for another
court in the sky, or another throat
to house another world in another time.
Second:
I should be in jail. I have been crippling
syntax to its spindly few. Spelling
I pummeled to misspell Dumaguete
as Desperado. Words whiplashed
on fire ice: Kripinoy, a Joaquinesquerie
jeepneying with Saint Lazarus—
the emperor of English over grass
lilt parsing poison into ice cream
poetry and screaming grammar noir.
The narrative of tradition, beer-fellowed
by cultural madness to digress
and mull over a foam
of savory crab fat alongside
our pickled come-what-mays. For this,
Art arbitrarily is sans an ‘A’. And thus ‘RT’
we all are. So I should be back to bed
confessing the secret of syllables
under the covers. Good morning!
Finally:
At the glum gates I see clock wives
in need of music, my geography
lessons I still can recall
while longing for vestiges of light
the long summer
the sweet mishaps
frozen fireflies in the mind—
the left and leaving, inaugurating
the nameless things
here, there, in the waiting room.
P.S.
Many times we have pried into the secret lives of words, how syllables could swim like Shinji in our head, bethinking of our mutual weirdness, rufous-headed, in present perfect.
June 11, 2016
editors note: Present perfect or not, the emperor of English can jeepney himself. – mh clay
It Is by Victor Clevenger
We are
all sugar.
We are
all water.
We are
all ruined,
and there
are sticky
fingerprints
all over
this world.
It’s a goddamn
mess down
here.
June 10, 2016
editors note: Damn right, it is! Where’s the cleanup crew? – mh clay
Season Of Spring by Archita Mittra
i.
and spring came tumbling
from a hope-shaped crack
in the sky,
a naked
falling
Icarus
melting,
the ancient snow
of our hearts.
stripped of all our belongings,
we found ourselves,
like the once-skeletal trees,
clothed
in the colours of daisy and primrose
our lips chanting
‘new’, ‘new’
as the white curtains drew apart
and moist green love
spilled
over the dark earth.
then the woods were filled with Song.
a rabbit, out of hiding
led the way…
lost in the woods,
we became the whirling leaves
we became the whistling wind
even as the cuckoo in His stolen nest,
chirped cheerily of Death.
laughing,
we looked at each other
in the forest pool,
and lay singing
a lullaby of love and longing
in the sun-kissed grassy grave
of spring.
ii.
a butterfly with jewelled wings
kissed our dreaming silken skin
and Love grew on it.
in this suicidal paradise,
we unfurled ourselves-
our fingers of ivy
our limbs of slender birch
into the rainbow-hued stasis
of belonging.
but the shy blossoms
tickling our mossy green-ing toes
pleaded us to awake
their fragrance of promise
whispering
goodbye
and so soaring
we fell,
wingless.
iii.
hunted,
we left our butterflies,
our dream-entangled ivy
and returned,
desperate,
to the silent silver pool
and the emerald grass
and the Song of the cuckoo.
with the heart of a frisking lamb,
and the eyes of a chased fawn
we returned
to a world,
poisoned
by the Song,
ephemeral.
water rippled at His footsteps-
finally
our wanderlust-soaked soul
too, tasted the word
never.
feverish,
we RAN from the Hunter
we run still,
but the woods are silent now.
June 9, 2016
editors note: Run from the hunter, into the Summer; speak the safe word, ‘new.’ – mh clay
The Cellaring by Ken Allan Dronsfield
A moldy cold
like a freshly
turned grave.
The smells of
decaying flesh
permeate the
bowels of the
icy basement.
Cobwebs move
in the dead air
a soft whisper
like long Spanish
moss being toyed
with by a gentle
wind upon red
oaks or pecan.
I’m home within
the coolish cellar
humming a sonnet
in my burial dress,
black strap shoes
hair a ghostly mess
a purple lilac purse
and Easter bonnet.
June 8, 2016
editors note: A cool place to wait while lying in state. – mh clay
the same mistake by J.J. Campbell
if your parents
have to go on
national television
to express their
love for you
please
understand
they are simply
in it for the
money
and take a little
piece of advice
don’t have your
own children and
repeat the same
mistake
June 7, 2016
editors note: Media appeal inspires parental instincts in our modern world; mistakes are inevitable. (We welcome J.J. to our Contributing Poets with this accepted poem – check out more of his madness on his new page.) – mh clay
The Revenge Of The Dirty Laundress by Paul Tristram
“Aye, but did you ever hear this one about them?
… come closer… shocking, I know… but there’s more.
And it wasn’t an isolated incident neither,
there’s a crooked streak running through that entire family.
I’m only telling you what’s already common knowledge.
Yes, really… give her an absolute dog’s life,
I know, butter wouldn’t melt and all that kack
but you know what they say about the quiet ones.
The Grandfather was also a nasty piece of work by all accounts,
I never met him personally, I’m picky with the company I keep.
There was also a wicked rumour going around about her…
yes, the other one… there’s no smoke without fire.
I don’t care what anyone says, once you’re a whore you stay one.
Anyways, I haven’t got all day to stand around here gossiping
it’s time I got back to minding my own business
and don’t you forget, you never heard a word of it from me!”
June 7, 2016
editors note: The truly bad stuff about “them” never comes from any of us, right? – mh clay
with the hideous by Volodymyr Bilyk
with the hideous leer
and the odious sound:
Crank the bubble –
yell!
when echo falls –
blink
and
mouth the hum unjustly.
sky will foul you.
clang knees
senseless,
snap below
into the breath’s mist
and lapse into unkind spot
– wait till something will occur…
wait until you swell…
and then – the timid tit
– swipes the heat
and rash ensues,
jib and jib and jib:
repentant yowl
re-bellows
sickly sentimental
deep
into the inmost hollow.
“oh,”
down the lewd
through entrails to dissolve in vain.
June 6, 2016
editors note: Emotional upheaval or acid indigestion? Take a pill for each and await results… – mh clay
E.D. by Hal J. Daniel III
“A male raccoon, Procyon lotor,
has a curved bony strut
in his penis.”
The Professor then shows
this interesting structure
to his anatomy students,
while explaining the structure’s
scientific names:
os penis and baculum.
He continues the lecture
by adding some good old boy
southern vernacular:
“Texas toothpick,”
“pecker bone;”
“mountain man toothpick.”
An older non-trad lady comments:
“Too bad about certain
other male species”.
He places his raccoon penis strut
back with his osteological collection;
comments, “I know what you mean.”
June 5, 2016 :: 0 comments
editors note: If we know, let it be rationally vs. empirically. – mh clay
••• Short Stories •••
We here at Mad Swirl hear all kinds of stories. Some mellow others rowdy. Some tender, others debaucherous. All quite delicious. And some have all these mad ingredients blended in and that's exactly what we've come to expect from Contributing Writer Oleg Razumovsky.
Here's what Short Story Editor, Tyler Malone, has to say about Oleg's raucous tale "Boredom"...
"For a life lived, that’s a punch to the teeth. What privilege is that? The privileged of the born and the breathing."
And here's a few jabs ("BAM-BAM, BUM-BUB") to get this knock-out of a story started:
(photo "Hydration Station" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)
In the evening my phone rang. Nobody had called me for ages. I thought that all the people I ever knew had died already. It was so boring. And suddenly it turned out an old friend remembered me. I have not seen him for a thousand years. Since he had gone into business, we parted ways. Here, all of a sudden, he invites me to visit him. I was shocked. Why, for fuck sake?
Okay, I agreed to come. Frankly speaking, I was sick and tired to sit at home doing nothing. Oh, it’s so boring. I wanted to get out for a change. It was pretty late but trams still ran.
I was riding the tram where two women clutched at each other, screaming something about the bloody politics, tearing hair. On the back of my seat it was scratched “Lenin is alive” and painted a big star. The man sitting next to me, the same style, like many other citizens, dressed in an old brown coat and a hat, immediately addressed me as if he had known me for a long time. And he began to tell episodes of his complex life. It turned out that he was at the funeral. His mother was an old woman. She lived alone in an abandoned village. One evening two villains broke in, took all the money, killed her and burned the house. At the funeral only his sister, her daughter, son-in-law and his father, mourned. The citizen is a big shot or a businessman, a boss of some sort. He is fat like a hog and dissatisfied with everybody and everything. He was drunk and started to grunt, moan and drool.
Who would be that, especially at the funeral.
I told him at last, “Look, you better stop it. It is not much fun to hear about anyone’s funeral that isn’t yours. Try to behave yourself, mister”
Stop there? You better not! If you know what's good/bad for you, you'll wanna move your mouse (or finger) right here and get the rest of this read on!
•••••••
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...
Longin',
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“nightcat” (above) by featured artist Jeff Skele Sheely. To view more of Jeff's twisted beatific images, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Gallery at MadSwirl.com!
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we lamented the limpness of males of the species; we feared the thrust of a hum unjust; we were shocked to have heard the worst of words (not spoke by me); we endeavored to break from the same mistake; we chilled our nerves with cold preserves; we found green reason in the turn of a season; we dealt with duress in our goddamned mess; we sulked in the slammer of wrong-wrought grammar. Our language means are meant to be seen. Wha'? ~ MH Clay
Notes for My Reading Repast by Lawdenmarc Decamora
For one:
I saw a book, ash-colored; on the side
of its skin lived the initials DB
riven by blankness
and a fatal crave darker than dark.
It read Dobby Gibson. My eyes
hungered, wishing for another
court in the sky, or another throat
to house another world in another time.
Second:
I should be in jail. I have been crippling
syntax to its spindly few. Spelling
I pummeled to misspell Dumaguete
as Desperado. Words whiplashed
on fire ice: Kripinoy, a Joaquinesquerie
jeepneying with Saint Lazarus—
the emperor of English over grass
lilt parsing poison into ice cream
poetry and screaming grammar noir.
The narrative of tradition, beer-fellowed
by cultural madness to digress
and mull over a foam
of savory crab fat alongside
our pickled come-what-mays. For this,
Art arbitrarily is sans an ‘A’. And thus ‘RT’
we all are. So I should be back to bed
confessing the secret of syllables
under the covers. Good morning!
Finally:
At the glum gates I see clock wives
in need of music, my geography
lessons I still can recall
while longing for vestiges of light
the long summer
the sweet mishaps
frozen fireflies in the mind—
the left and leaving, inaugurating
the nameless things
here, there, in the waiting room.
P.S.
Many times we have pried into the secret lives of words, how syllables could swim like Shinji in our head, bethinking of our mutual weirdness, rufous-headed, in present perfect.
June 11, 2016
editors note: Present perfect or not, the emperor of English can jeepney himself. – mh clay
It Is by Victor Clevenger
We are
all sugar.
We are
all water.
We are
all ruined,
and there
are sticky
fingerprints
all over
this world.
It’s a goddamn
mess down
here.
June 10, 2016
editors note: Damn right, it is! Where’s the cleanup crew? – mh clay
Season Of Spring by Archita Mittra
i.
and spring came tumbling
from a hope-shaped crack
in the sky,
a naked
falling
Icarus
melting,
the ancient snow
of our hearts.
stripped of all our belongings,
we found ourselves,
like the once-skeletal trees,
clothed
in the colours of daisy and primrose
our lips chanting
‘new’, ‘new’
as the white curtains drew apart
and moist green love
spilled
over the dark earth.
then the woods were filled with Song.
a rabbit, out of hiding
led the way…
lost in the woods,
we became the whirling leaves
we became the whistling wind
even as the cuckoo in His stolen nest,
chirped cheerily of Death.
laughing,
we looked at each other
in the forest pool,
and lay singing
a lullaby of love and longing
in the sun-kissed grassy grave
of spring.
ii.
a butterfly with jewelled wings
kissed our dreaming silken skin
and Love grew on it.
in this suicidal paradise,
we unfurled ourselves-
our fingers of ivy
our limbs of slender birch
into the rainbow-hued stasis
of belonging.
but the shy blossoms
tickling our mossy green-ing toes
pleaded us to awake
their fragrance of promise
whispering
goodbye
and so soaring
we fell,
wingless.
iii.
hunted,
we left our butterflies,
our dream-entangled ivy
and returned,
desperate,
to the silent silver pool
and the emerald grass
and the Song of the cuckoo.
with the heart of a frisking lamb,
and the eyes of a chased fawn
we returned
to a world,
poisoned
by the Song,
ephemeral.
water rippled at His footsteps-
finally
our wanderlust-soaked soul
too, tasted the word
never.
feverish,
we RAN from the Hunter
we run still,
but the woods are silent now.
June 9, 2016
editors note: Run from the hunter, into the Summer; speak the safe word, ‘new.’ – mh clay
The Cellaring by Ken Allan Dronsfield
A moldy cold
like a freshly
turned grave.
The smells of
decaying flesh
permeate the
bowels of the
icy basement.
Cobwebs move
in the dead air
a soft whisper
like long Spanish
moss being toyed
with by a gentle
wind upon red
oaks or pecan.
I’m home within
the coolish cellar
humming a sonnet
in my burial dress,
black strap shoes
hair a ghostly mess
a purple lilac purse
and Easter bonnet.
June 8, 2016
editors note: A cool place to wait while lying in state. – mh clay
the same mistake by J.J. Campbell
if your parents
have to go on
national television
to express their
love for you
please
understand
they are simply
in it for the
money
and take a little
piece of advice
don’t have your
own children and
repeat the same
mistake
June 7, 2016
editors note: Media appeal inspires parental instincts in our modern world; mistakes are inevitable. (We welcome J.J. to our Contributing Poets with this accepted poem – check out more of his madness on his new page.) – mh clay
The Revenge Of The Dirty Laundress by Paul Tristram
“Aye, but did you ever hear this one about them?
… come closer… shocking, I know… but there’s more.
And it wasn’t an isolated incident neither,
there’s a crooked streak running through that entire family.
I’m only telling you what’s already common knowledge.
Yes, really… give her an absolute dog’s life,
I know, butter wouldn’t melt and all that kack
but you know what they say about the quiet ones.
The Grandfather was also a nasty piece of work by all accounts,
I never met him personally, I’m picky with the company I keep.
There was also a wicked rumour going around about her…
yes, the other one… there’s no smoke without fire.
I don’t care what anyone says, once you’re a whore you stay one.
Anyways, I haven’t got all day to stand around here gossiping
it’s time I got back to minding my own business
and don’t you forget, you never heard a word of it from me!”
June 7, 2016
editors note: The truly bad stuff about “them” never comes from any of us, right? – mh clay
with the hideous by Volodymyr Bilyk
with the hideous leer
and the odious sound:
Crank the bubble –
yell!
when echo falls –
blink
and
mouth the hum unjustly.
sky will foul you.
clang knees
senseless,
snap below
into the breath’s mist
and lapse into unkind spot
– wait till something will occur…
wait until you swell…
and then – the timid tit
– swipes the heat
and rash ensues,
jib and jib and jib:
repentant yowl
re-bellows
sickly sentimental
deep
into the inmost hollow.
“oh,”
down the lewd
through entrails to dissolve in vain.
June 6, 2016
editors note: Emotional upheaval or acid indigestion? Take a pill for each and await results… – mh clay
E.D. by Hal J. Daniel III
“A male raccoon, Procyon lotor,
has a curved bony strut
in his penis.”
The Professor then shows
this interesting structure
to his anatomy students,
while explaining the structure’s
scientific names:
os penis and baculum.
He continues the lecture
by adding some good old boy
southern vernacular:
“Texas toothpick,”
“pecker bone;”
“mountain man toothpick.”
An older non-trad lady comments:
“Too bad about certain
other male species”.
He places his raccoon penis strut
back with his osteological collection;
comments, “I know what you mean.”
June 5, 2016 :: 0 comments
editors note: If we know, let it be rationally vs. empirically. – mh clay
••• Short Stories •••
We here at Mad Swirl hear all kinds of stories. Some mellow others rowdy. Some tender, others debaucherous. All quite delicious. And some have all these mad ingredients blended in and that's exactly what we've come to expect from Contributing Writer Oleg Razumovsky.
Here's what Short Story Editor, Tyler Malone, has to say about Oleg's raucous tale "Boredom"...
"For a life lived, that’s a punch to the teeth. What privilege is that? The privileged of the born and the breathing."
And here's a few jabs ("BAM-BAM, BUM-BUB") to get this knock-out of a story started:
In the evening my phone rang. Nobody had called me for ages. I thought that all the people I ever knew had died already. It was so boring. And suddenly it turned out an old friend remembered me. I have not seen him for a thousand years. Since he had gone into business, we parted ways. Here, all of a sudden, he invites me to visit him. I was shocked. Why, for fuck sake?
Okay, I agreed to come. Frankly speaking, I was sick and tired to sit at home doing nothing. Oh, it’s so boring. I wanted to get out for a change. It was pretty late but trams still ran.
I was riding the tram where two women clutched at each other, screaming something about the bloody politics, tearing hair. On the back of my seat it was scratched “Lenin is alive” and painted a big star. The man sitting next to me, the same style, like many other citizens, dressed in an old brown coat and a hat, immediately addressed me as if he had known me for a long time. And he began to tell episodes of his complex life. It turned out that he was at the funeral. His mother was an old woman. She lived alone in an abandoned village. One evening two villains broke in, took all the money, killed her and burned the house. At the funeral only his sister, her daughter, son-in-law and his father, mourned. The citizen is a big shot or a businessman, a boss of some sort. He is fat like a hog and dissatisfied with everybody and everything. He was drunk and started to grunt, moan and drool.
Who would be that, especially at the funeral.
I told him at last, “Look, you better stop it. It is not much fun to hear about anyone’s funeral that isn’t yours. Try to behave yourself, mister”
Stop there? You better not! If you know what's good/bad for you, you'll wanna move your mouse (or finger) right here and get the rest of this read on!
•••••••
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...
Longin',
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
Comments