The Best of Mad Swirl : 04.16.17
"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“MOS” (above) by featured artist David Ross. To see more of David’s mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we increased utterance; we made none; we muddled memories; we smiled on others; we kerosened cake; we dithered to discourse take; we amped an acid-brained mind flip fake. Frumious flakes, were we. ~ MH Clay
Insomnia Rules & Regulations by Paul Tristram
If you unleash anger and frustration
without any set purpose or target
they will fuse together in self-hatred.
Add four or five sleep deprived nights
to the mix and any moderation gauge
has flown right out of the window.
Leaving behind a snarling rock face
to repeatedly climb time and time again.
The mind becomes an inescapable enemy,
it’s like being chained to an LSD
crazed wolverine with an hard-on
for cranium carnage and self destruction.
Those inward pathways are a delicate
set of tightropes to traverse
and you’re banger car racing around them.
Drugs and alcohol smile their wicked lies
and the Devil’s in the small details
and the small details are all you’re left with.
Millions and millions of the fucking things
to dissect, analyse, inspect and reshuffle
until it’s either Meltdown or Explosion?
April 15, 2017
editors note: Seek emotional heavy water; keep those reactions from critical mass. – mh clay
Perpetual Discourse by Ken Allan Dronsfield
Unrelenting passion in a sonneteers thoughts
moving in rhythm with the windblown grasses
a paramour’s hand held walking the long path
written vows of brazenness with ocular beauty.
Transitional mystique is steeping in tepid zeal
an intuitive antiquarian dead on a windy beach
unsympathetic muse grovels in pious idealism
up a stairway of unrivaled peaceful impression.
Adrift after the bite of the Reapers great scythe
fantasies obsessed and tossed on parchment
death of the rhapsodist in a world of dissension
his icy anarchist dreams are but an eventuality.
April 14, 2017
editors note: Perpetual, eventual; we try to make it different in between. – mh clay
Lighter Fluid by Samantha Hawkins
Today I think I will make colored rain
of the pictures of you in my wallet
Watch a burnt orange sun slide down the long neck
of a cold foreign beer
I will sing a little Cash and get a little broke
on the wrong side of the bar
behind $20 worth of a pick me up
Then I will tell you off in pig latin
like the cardboard celebrity you are
You used to rub me the right way
like an antique Cognac
Now you go down my throat flavorless and scratchy
You are a bad hangover I will come out of
one of these unholy days
When I finally shake loose of these low spirits
But not today while my thirst is still so damnable
and a plain vodka crowns
a shelf, calling my name in its Russian tongue
No, I won’t burn up in a dry frenzy of apologies
I will dry off the tears with something wet
and take a dip in the familiar ocean of your lies
My kerosene is your cake
I will eat it too like I don’t know better
feel the sugar soak into the creases and folds
of the wounded mass of tissue you left in my chest
But only once I am done
licking the bottom clean of my glass
April 13, 2017
editors note: Soaked in such a state; stay away from open flame. – mh clay
Vacant Vagrant by Lizbeth George
Waking today to blue skies
I glimpse the pattern
scratched deep
within strong arms
that hold me
torn…
a finger nail
traces an outline
around my lips
I chance a smile
remembering the tumble
through stones
crevasses now worn smooth
by salted tears
rough edges rounded
corners collapsed by truth
as my legs unfold
touch the floor
they feel the vibrations
your voice left behind
forever awake
talking…
I smile once more
April 12, 2017
editors note: The sweet marks of memory inscribed on skin. Good morning! – mh clay
My Uncle has Alzheimer’s by James Robert Rudolph
Inside your head’s a Dalí painting
birds fly backwards fire puts out water
you remember what you didn’t hear you
feel your way in a funhouse you’re about
as scrambled as a three egg omelet
on acid with ketchup.
Talking to you is like tuning
a cheap radio you’re all buzz and break up
you’re broadcast from Mars it’s
bad reception. Like your sister and brother
before you three blind mice see how they run
on and on and right over the cliff.
And all of a sudden right out of
the Superfund site that’s your head like a
vision of Mary levitating over a bayou
just out of reach of the snapping gators and
swamp gas and you remember
Greenwich Village in ‘59 as clear
as the light from God’s forehead
on resurrection day and my heart gasps
a little leaving behind a small and purple
bruise but it’s there for sure.
April 11, 2017
editors note: Recall, not total, but pinpoint specific. Take the bruises. (We welcome James to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay
days of our life by Milt Montague
as one who has been blessed with years
let me admonish you not to waste
your precious time trying
to change people’s minds
showing them the truth
on a political matter
is a thankless task
devolving into hectoring
loss of friendship
the days spent lecturing
are a fruitless expenditure of time
that could otherwise be spent
in the pursuit of happiness
…and love
our days on earth are numbered
spend them profitably
you won’t get a second chance
April 10, 2017
editors note: Nuff said. – mh clay
Combinations by Robert L. Martin
Random words scattered into space
An empty book, no name, no face
Of hungry chasms waiting to be filled
Room for fallow souls to be tilled
As tasty words long for confinement
Of sacred thoughts for their enshrinement
Each go to their own proper places
As empty music pines for uplifting basses
Words are the calming of all-out rages
Or the riling of too tranquil stages
Each combination serves its rightful mood
A savory platter of passion’s food
An ode to words and their influential power
Like nature drawing a bee to a flower
Combinations gather up the best they can
For the spirit to flourish since time began
To love, to fight, to laugh, and to cry
An ode to words and their rousing combinations
Words, you have served me well
I thank you from the bottom of my
Poetic heart
April 9, 2017
editors note: Yes! No words, no wonder. – mh clay
••• Short Stories •••
If you're in need-of-a-read, we got just the tale to regale from writer Philip Kobylarz!
Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Leafmeal":
"Some lives can be summed up in a sentence, and there’s nothing wrong with the beauty of brevity."
And here is the whole shebang, in ALL of its one sentence glory:
(photo "Up in Smoke" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)
Into a nondescript cardboard box, they packed what remained of her life since she wasn’t one for owning things and due to her great age, although she would argue that there wasn’t much great about living ninety-six years, she didn’t really need much more than her prayer books, her many and ornate crucifixes that she worshiped and even kissed as if they were secret idols, her myriad votive candle holders, useless and come to think of it cheap religious knickknacks that others sent her when she entered into those last years of the ill weather of her diminishing health, the days, the months, seasons she would sit in her wheelchair, that she despised more than sin itself, and through the sliding glass door that her daughter resolutely cleaned each day and then shined with yesterday’s newspaper, she would watch the every movement and behavioral pleasantries of a local, temporary flock of birds—mostly sparrows, robins, grackles, an intermittent jay—the most common of commons, and how she would talk of the worms they would try to loosen from the ground or the long gulps of water they’d take from the ashtray she would fill with cold water for them when she could get around better; because she collected these from a Europe she never cared to return to only to hold the thin stalk of ash of her daily menthol cigarette that no one, not even she, knew why she smoked at the same time of each and every day and then dumped into the fenced off rectangle of the garden in hopes that from it, in it, something useful and beautiful might grow.
If you need more reads, we got us a whole mad libraries worth to choose from. Get yours 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...
Understandin',
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“MOS” (above) by featured artist David Ross. To see more of David’s mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we increased utterance; we made none; we muddled memories; we smiled on others; we kerosened cake; we dithered to discourse take; we amped an acid-brained mind flip fake. Frumious flakes, were we. ~ MH Clay
Insomnia Rules & Regulations by Paul Tristram
If you unleash anger and frustration
without any set purpose or target
they will fuse together in self-hatred.
Add four or five sleep deprived nights
to the mix and any moderation gauge
has flown right out of the window.
Leaving behind a snarling rock face
to repeatedly climb time and time again.
The mind becomes an inescapable enemy,
it’s like being chained to an LSD
crazed wolverine with an hard-on
for cranium carnage and self destruction.
Those inward pathways are a delicate
set of tightropes to traverse
and you’re banger car racing around them.
Drugs and alcohol smile their wicked lies
and the Devil’s in the small details
and the small details are all you’re left with.
Millions and millions of the fucking things
to dissect, analyse, inspect and reshuffle
until it’s either Meltdown or Explosion?
April 15, 2017
editors note: Seek emotional heavy water; keep those reactions from critical mass. – mh clay
Perpetual Discourse by Ken Allan Dronsfield
Unrelenting passion in a sonneteers thoughts
moving in rhythm with the windblown grasses
a paramour’s hand held walking the long path
written vows of brazenness with ocular beauty.
Transitional mystique is steeping in tepid zeal
an intuitive antiquarian dead on a windy beach
unsympathetic muse grovels in pious idealism
up a stairway of unrivaled peaceful impression.
Adrift after the bite of the Reapers great scythe
fantasies obsessed and tossed on parchment
death of the rhapsodist in a world of dissension
his icy anarchist dreams are but an eventuality.
April 14, 2017
editors note: Perpetual, eventual; we try to make it different in between. – mh clay
Lighter Fluid by Samantha Hawkins
Today I think I will make colored rain
of the pictures of you in my wallet
Watch a burnt orange sun slide down the long neck
of a cold foreign beer
I will sing a little Cash and get a little broke
on the wrong side of the bar
behind $20 worth of a pick me up
Then I will tell you off in pig latin
like the cardboard celebrity you are
You used to rub me the right way
like an antique Cognac
Now you go down my throat flavorless and scratchy
You are a bad hangover I will come out of
one of these unholy days
When I finally shake loose of these low spirits
But not today while my thirst is still so damnable
and a plain vodka crowns
a shelf, calling my name in its Russian tongue
No, I won’t burn up in a dry frenzy of apologies
I will dry off the tears with something wet
and take a dip in the familiar ocean of your lies
My kerosene is your cake
I will eat it too like I don’t know better
feel the sugar soak into the creases and folds
of the wounded mass of tissue you left in my chest
But only once I am done
licking the bottom clean of my glass
April 13, 2017
editors note: Soaked in such a state; stay away from open flame. – mh clay
Vacant Vagrant by Lizbeth George
Waking today to blue skies
I glimpse the pattern
scratched deep
within strong arms
that hold me
torn…
a finger nail
traces an outline
around my lips
I chance a smile
remembering the tumble
through stones
crevasses now worn smooth
by salted tears
rough edges rounded
corners collapsed by truth
as my legs unfold
touch the floor
they feel the vibrations
your voice left behind
forever awake
talking…
I smile once more
April 12, 2017
editors note: The sweet marks of memory inscribed on skin. Good morning! – mh clay
My Uncle has Alzheimer’s by James Robert Rudolph
Inside your head’s a Dalí painting
birds fly backwards fire puts out water
you remember what you didn’t hear you
feel your way in a funhouse you’re about
as scrambled as a three egg omelet
on acid with ketchup.
Talking to you is like tuning
a cheap radio you’re all buzz and break up
you’re broadcast from Mars it’s
bad reception. Like your sister and brother
before you three blind mice see how they run
on and on and right over the cliff.
And all of a sudden right out of
the Superfund site that’s your head like a
vision of Mary levitating over a bayou
just out of reach of the snapping gators and
swamp gas and you remember
Greenwich Village in ‘59 as clear
as the light from God’s forehead
on resurrection day and my heart gasps
a little leaving behind a small and purple
bruise but it’s there for sure.
April 11, 2017
editors note: Recall, not total, but pinpoint specific. Take the bruises. (We welcome James to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay
days of our life by Milt Montague
as one who has been blessed with years
let me admonish you not to waste
your precious time trying
to change people’s minds
showing them the truth
on a political matter
is a thankless task
devolving into hectoring
loss of friendship
the days spent lecturing
are a fruitless expenditure of time
that could otherwise be spent
in the pursuit of happiness
…and love
our days on earth are numbered
spend them profitably
you won’t get a second chance
April 10, 2017
editors note: Nuff said. – mh clay
Combinations by Robert L. Martin
Random words scattered into space
An empty book, no name, no face
Of hungry chasms waiting to be filled
Room for fallow souls to be tilled
As tasty words long for confinement
Of sacred thoughts for their enshrinement
Each go to their own proper places
As empty music pines for uplifting basses
Words are the calming of all-out rages
Or the riling of too tranquil stages
Each combination serves its rightful mood
A savory platter of passion’s food
An ode to words and their influential power
Like nature drawing a bee to a flower
Combinations gather up the best they can
For the spirit to flourish since time began
To love, to fight, to laugh, and to cry
An ode to words and their rousing combinations
Words, you have served me well
I thank you from the bottom of my
Poetic heart
April 9, 2017
editors note: Yes! No words, no wonder. – mh clay
••• Short Stories •••
If you're in need-of-a-read, we got just the tale to regale from writer Philip Kobylarz!
Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Leafmeal":
"Some lives can be summed up in a sentence, and there’s nothing wrong with the beauty of brevity."
And here is the whole shebang, in ALL of its one sentence glory:
Into a nondescript cardboard box, they packed what remained of her life since she wasn’t one for owning things and due to her great age, although she would argue that there wasn’t much great about living ninety-six years, she didn’t really need much more than her prayer books, her many and ornate crucifixes that she worshiped and even kissed as if they were secret idols, her myriad votive candle holders, useless and come to think of it cheap religious knickknacks that others sent her when she entered into those last years of the ill weather of her diminishing health, the days, the months, seasons she would sit in her wheelchair, that she despised more than sin itself, and through the sliding glass door that her daughter resolutely cleaned each day and then shined with yesterday’s newspaper, she would watch the every movement and behavioral pleasantries of a local, temporary flock of birds—mostly sparrows, robins, grackles, an intermittent jay—the most common of commons, and how she would talk of the worms they would try to loosen from the ground or the long gulps of water they’d take from the ashtray she would fill with cold water for them when she could get around better; because she collected these from a Europe she never cared to return to only to hold the thin stalk of ash of her daily menthol cigarette that no one, not even she, knew why she smoked at the same time of each and every day and then dumped into the fenced off rectangle of the garden in hopes that from it, in it, something useful and beautiful might grow.
If you need more reads, we got us a whole mad libraries worth to choose from. Get yours 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...
Understandin',
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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