The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum

“Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.” ~ Maeve Binchy

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“battle beast” (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 raised a bud from remembered mud; we struggled to rise above the ranks of those who run on shallow tanks; we sought to curb what anger grows with tips o' the brims of our chapeaux; we listened to what one had to say about the good ole American (Everywhere) Way; we sliced a thin salvation with sharp instruments for sale; we danced aloft with kissing bees in a tree, leaf & nub tickling, riffing breeze; we climbed a staircase, skyward hung, strained to hold on - ring, rang, rung; we embraced a hallucination, clinically not allowed, tranquility found in blood from clouds. Just another week's work in the Swirl... ~ MH Clay

Time to Reflect by Tom Hall

My first hallucination was the perfect one for me.
I had walked deep into the woods when rain began to fall
It fell so softly bending trees and rustling through the trees
The rain drops shone like blood red beads, descending on us all.

These colored drops turned colorless, following their falling.
The most relieving thing was that it painted nothing red.
To bathe the forest and myself in blood would be appalling.
The colored of the world remained, only the clouds had bled.

It was a warm and welcome thing, the rain had been to me.
I laid upon a massive rock, to let it wet me down.
And then it stopped, as rain will do, the sky had set it free.
I’d had my fill of ambrosia, there was no need to drown.

My Psych took back the pills next day, he had no way of knowing
That sanity is subjective, he’d got my engines going.

May 28, 2016

editors note: Just because it’s an hallucination doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Red rain, baby! – mh clay

The Fish Ladder at Diamond Hill by D. Russel Micnhimer

in some distant far off
sleight of hand
there stands a colossus
on its head

heart long ago
turned to stone
and breath to sand
ringing ringing ringing

eyes above the sheen
of kings
beyond the hollow
logs of barks
recording marks
of shallow ways
beyond their means
with bells that
rang and rang and rang

ears sheared
by cloud fleece tip
scales of kippered pounds
leaving their appointed
rounds writhing on grounds
of incriminations
discovered upward
sprawling
rung by rung by rung

May 27, 2016

editors note: A precarious climb to the top; wring tight those rungs. – mh clay

May Journal: Friday, May 31, 2013 by Don Mager

Late morning breezes riff the vines and
branches, playing hide and seek with small
promises tucked beneath wide open
leaves. Beside weathered fence slats, yellow
winks along cucumbers and squash vines that
trail down from well-composted mounds. Their
open sweetness imbibes the bees’ probes
and kisses. Pale green and pencil thin,
pears dangle beneath perky leaves set
to start long itineraries toward
ripeness. Fig nubs stand, beneath dark green
umbrellas, erect and hard. Neither
rhyming nor reasoning, breezes riff
streaks of movement down and up each tree.

May 26, 2016

editors note: Our Springtime rascal, the riffing breeze. – mh clay

Scissors Cut Paper by Chella Courington

I
I can’t stop buying scissors. I walk into Home Depot for red geraniums, leave with gardening shears, green ergonomic handles. Piggly Wiggly for a roasting hen. Shiny poultry shears. At a garage sale I find a pair of hedge clippers. By December paper cutters, pinking shears, hair trimmers — any blades you want are boxed in the kitchen pantry.

II
Saturday he takes his 14 clubs & disappears. In hot water, I clean scissors. Prop them on the counter before drying with muslin. Each blade I shine with baking soda. In high school I hung with cutters. They used whatever worked — broken glass, coat hangers, paper. Arms tracked with violet scars like stretch marks hidden under long-sleeve shirts.

III
Reflections in a Golden Eye: Mrs. Langdon uses garden shears to clip her nipples when she loses her baby. Snip snip — easy as pinching off deadheads. Sunday in January, I hold my left nipple between the blades of barber shears. Warm steel triggers goose bumps. Is a nipple like a finger? Can they sew it back on?

IV
Recurrent dream: blades-down, scissors drop from the ceiling, rattling & hissing. Impale the cherry nightstand, down comforter, my Land’s End bathrobe. I crouch in the tub, rocking to the sound of hail. Open my thigh — blood a rusty penny melting on my tongue.

V
I get an Alabama divorce. He signs the papers & hauls his Titliest clubs, La-Z-Boy & mahogany desk down to Florida. Parting words: The cat stays with you. I keep Moot, the crystal & the condo. Start selling the scissors on E-Bay, box by box.

May 25, 2016

editors note: Slice to a clean slate; sell’em off to start again. – mh clay

America by Douglas Polk

men in suits,
and ties,
tribal warriors,
battling for turf,
believed their own,
naïve ignorant bastards,
boundaries shift,
and borders in dispute,
fears flamed,
culture assigned,
along with taxes.

May 24, 2016

editors note: This is how we roll in the land o’ the free. How about your country? – mh clay

Red Hot Anger by Sheighle Birdthistle

How to pale a red hot anger
When rods of pain stroke
And all day long it grows stranger
Beholden to stronger folk.
An anger that knows no voice
Born nor bred by choice
Leave me die in a quiet corner
Seize the day and all of that
Close your eyes insipid mourner
Remove your mask and raise your hat.

May 24, 2016

editors note: Open face, cool head; take on the after instead with laughter. – mh clay

The Struggle by Michael Marrotti

It’s an excruciating journey
to walk amongst them
when they’re all united
to march against me
Picket signs
they signed
the proclamation
It only took a glimpse
but that glimpse
is good enough
To fuel their shallow tanks
ignite the flame
and burn down a place
they’ll never comprehend
nor even try to see it
in a bilateral
point of view
The only thing that counts
is how it’s portrayed
in the eyes of a conservative
No room for me
on the one way street
God forbid
you do your own thing
They’ll make you feel special
if you’re not like them
Independence
will leave you battered
and angry
It’s an endless struggle
I’m pleased to be alone

May 23, 2016

editors note: We can get’em to look, but we can’t make’em see. Alone, indeed. – mh clay

If This Finds You, I Tried by Daniel Lattimore

My sin wasn’t bigger than your sin, yet your name was driven into the mud.
We watered that seed together, and our rose, forever with its thorns, began to bud.
Why? I’m sure your friends wanted to know. I didn’t have that magazine cover smile
or that endorsed glow.
But for you it wasn’t about that. It was about the passion left to the dance floor.
That kind of raw passion that left you craving more.
I couldn’t keep a secret because I wanted them to understand
that the heart resembles blood surrounding a clenched hand.
In an alternate universe, you and I could converse.
They write ballads about criminal couples, and you and I share a verse.
Haha there I am, caught captive in my own home
Plagued by a picture of my youth hanging in the catacomb.

May 22, 2016

editors note: Past partners in perdition, reveling in recall. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? This week's featured story comes from Contributing Writer & Poet Lilly Penhall. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about Lilly's not-for-the-easily-offended featured short, "F.T.P.":

We’re only as good as those we wish to hold up in high regard. We’re only as safe when we worship predators and apologize for being opened and our insides explored, pulled out.

And here's a short testimony of this tale to get you started:

(photo by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

“I think you like it rough.”

Her eyes stared at the detective blankly. “Excuse me?”

“And I think…” he sat back in his chair and clasped his hands over his belted khakis, “you didn’t want your parents to find out that you had sex with a black guy. You’re embarrassed, so you said it’s rape. Am I right?” His gold badge glimmered in the fluorescent lights.

“No.” She let out a choked breath. “Not at all. I’ve had sex with plenty of black guys. Consensually. My first boyfriend was black. Plus I’m 28 years old, I could give a shit less what my parents think of who I fuck, which are people of many different ethnicities, ok? I’m not racist, I just didn’t want to have sex with that black guy.”

“Then why were you in his room?”

“I told you, he said he was drunk and lonely and wanted someone to watch a movie with him, I felt bad for the guy.”

“Well, I’ve seen women who have been beat up, ok? They have bruises, whelps, black eyes, marks on their neck, ok? I don’t see a single bruise on you.”

“He choked me until I blacked out, and my jaw was popped out of place…”

“Did they do an x-ray with your rape kit?” He sat up and flipped through her file.

“No, just took pictures. I had marks on my neck…”

He looked up at her sharply. “I don’t see ‘em.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I guess he knew how to hurt me without leaving a mark.” Her head dropped and so did the tears, as the detective told her they’d continue their investigation, after collecting the physical evidence in a few months she could retrieve her personal effects from their office.

His business card between his fingers, he thanked her for coming down to the station, call if you think of anything, we’ll be in touch. It was like some bizzaro-world cop show where the bad guy won. The NWA song “Fuck Tha Police” started playing like a soundtrack in her mind as she walked out of the police station, shaking her head…

Gotta keep reading, don'cha? Well what are you waiting for? Get the rest of your read on here.

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of June (aka 06.01.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass The Underpass!

This month we will be virtually featuring the fine folks from The Southern Collective Experience. Charles Clifford Brooks III (author, teacher, poet and the founder of The Southern Collective Experience) will be joined by Scott Thomas Outlar (host at 17Numa and Contributing Poet at Mad Swirl) & musician Kaleb Garrett (a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from North Georgia). We guarantee this’ll be a feature you won’t wanna miss! And in case you missed the memo on who/what/where The Southern Collective Experience is…

The Southern Collective Experience is a cooperative born from all genre of life, and from every part on the nation. It is not simply a collection trapped below the Mason-Dixon Line. / Our band of virtuous heathens fly the philosophy that “everyone is south of somewhere.” All of those who share a bloodline infused with blues, feel our gravitational pull. It is life lived real. / A side-passion the SCE invests itself into breaking the stereotypes artists earned, and earn, in regards to lack of dependability, rampant emotional immaturity, and people incapable of working selflessly with other creators. / The SCE is not out to change the world. The Southern Collective Experience is a tactful force. Every genius deserves to digest the truth: You are a genius.

Come on out, one & all. Get a brainful of Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl Open Mic. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

P.S. If you're on Facebook, get on the pre-list at our event page.

•••••••

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...

Lookin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.” ~ Allen Ginsberg

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“battle tested” (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 forfeited fun for a holiday in the sun; we, our politicos refused, for promises devolved into excuse; we honored the dead who gave their lives in our stead; we broke the box for beggar over fox; we questioned the suit for love obtained sans pure pursuit; we practiced spine extraction to enable kindness in action; we suffered the sting of love undone to end with the safety of dinner for one; we got down with the brightness of brown; we dispelled self-doubt in the freedom of getting out. One thing leads to another; inhale deeply, never smother. ~ MH Clay

Kyle’s Ford, Tennessee by Becky Sanvictores

I want to tell this story
from the beginning
though I really only know the end.
When you were five
there were six of you
one pair of shoes
one good dress
between you.
You weren’t yet big enough
but you dreamed of buttoning the collar
of the dress around your neck
spinning like cotton candy
twirling the hem into a tutu.

When you were ten
and there were eight of you
two pair of shoes
one for the little ones
one for the bigger,
you smoothed the dress
over your legs
knocked your knees
pulled at the hem
and folded into the davenport
losing your silhouette to the pillows.

When you were thirteen
and there were five of you –
the little ones died,
two pair of shoes
one put away
one for the rest of you,
wearing that dress
the hem hugging your thighs
just the way men like
you scurried through the door
like it was your fault.

When you were fifteen
there were three of you,
the others had left,
two pair of shoes
and the landlord wanted paid.
You put on your Mother’s dress
grabbed the bottle of whiskey
took him to the root cellar
and paid the rent.

When you were seventeen
there were two of you left
three pair of shoes
one you earned paying rent,
you put on your own dress
slapped fifty dollars on the table
and hitchhiked to Savannah.

When you were eighty-five
and there was one of you
I laced your feet into ballet slippers
fluffed the tutu around your
skinny slim body
and we rolled out the door
of the Magnolia Manor
shouting
Fuck the landlord!

June 4, 2016

editors note: A liberation tale. Nicely told! – mh clay

Brown by Arun Budhathoki

Everything is brown
The world
The colour of her
The colour of her eyes
Lighter brown
We are brown
Our world brown too

The kisses we share brown too
Her hair brown too
Her hugs and everything brown

The stars flashes like a brownie
The road stuck between the crossroads
The signs are brown too

My fingers
The words I type
Thoughts in my mind

My skin
The air I breathe
The food I eat
The water I drink

Everything is brown

My heart is brown
My soul
My heart

She makes my world brown

June 3, 2016

editors note: Can’t get no blues when everything is brown. – mh clay

salon musing by Alainah Aamir

Valentine’s day hearts
still hang on the salon ceiling
three days after the day
which makes no sense at all.

Each heart is cut in a different
sort of grotesque because they
know nobody will notice the rough
edges, with a solid concept as this.

That is why he will leave her through
empty inboxes, bubbles of silence
he will slowly pull the wooden floor from under her
so one day she will know with certainty that there is no more need for a second dinner plate.

June 2, 2016

editors note: Dinner for two, undone. – mh clay

How to Give by Nadia Wolnisty

Not
the
asshole
but

above it is a cap like one for fuel.
I reach back and turn it counterclockwise
to open the little door that’s at the root of all spines.
I use both hands with bent elbows and grab it.
The base is cold and metal like a skewer through a carousel horse.

I inhale. I yank it out.
It goes haltingly—
vertebra by vertebra,
like a locomotive,
one car at a time.

My breathing will be unlabored
like soothing mutters
on a quiet night.
My breathing will be all exhales
without that spider umbrella
of bone between.
I must do this to be weightless.
I must do this to be as water
that never thinks of itself,
but flows and heals and
asks nothing.
I must do this for the give.

And afterward, we could
prop it in some corner,
like a hat-rack for small hats,
or give it to the children
for a curious plaything.
I am trying to trade
my strength for kindness.

June 1, 2016

editors note: The ultimate gift; self as hat rack or curious toy. – mh clay

I WILL NOT LET YOU by Geosi Gyasi

I will not let you
into the wings
of my arm
till you
break it into
pieces the reason
why you choose
to live as a
man instead
of a woman

I will not let you
into the spaces
of my flesh
till you
prove to me
via litmus paper
why the color
of your skin
should be
changed to
white

I will not let you
sow the seed
of artificial sperm
into the pool
of my womb
unless you
fetch me a song
from the bosom
of your heart

I will not let you
feel the love
of my heart
unless you
prove to me
why you’re eager
to pursue me

May 31, 2016

editors note: Show me yours before I show you mine. – mh clay

OF FOXES AND BEGGARS by Beate Sigriddaughter

How come
I’m tempted to run
out and buy meat to deliver
to a hungry fox,
yet I don’t want to give
spare change to a man
asking for it
by the Lutheran church?

May 31, 2016

editors note: Maybe we’re confused. Isn’t it, “Do unto foxes as you would have foxes do…” or was it something else? – mh clay

Memorial Day 2016 by D. Russel Micnhimer

Today we honor and remember ultimate sacrifice
Of all who answered and served our country’s call;
Who fought and in gore of battle took their final fall
For each of us they gave all their yet lived fill of life.

They held freedom they were living worth fighting for
No matter what their age or when in history time
Called for their service, many went in their prime,
Never to return from the horrors of the current war.

Today we mourn their lives, place flowers on their graves
And flags to mark weapons they brandished in defense
And offense to defeat enemy before they breached the fence
Preserving the land of the frees and homes of the braves.

We know that stopping of their hearts, no matter when,
With each free breath, we take, we give them life again.

May 30, 2016

editors note: Lest we forget to remember, freedom was never free & never shall be. ~ Johnny O

Same Old by Gary Beck

When election year arrives
presidential contenders
have already worked hard
telling us what we want to hear,
however unrealistic.
Once ensconced in office
promises are forgotten
while the burden of problems
generates excuses.

May 30, 2016

editors note: Surprised? So much we promise ourselves is lost to our own excuses; why would we expect any difference from them? – mh clay

HOLIDAYS IN THE SUN by Bradford Middleton

The window is open but my curtains are drawn
A nice gentle breeze wafts through, it is salty yet fresh
I stumble to my feet and peer through into the daylight
The wind seems kind of fresh but the clouds are an ominous mass
But still there are people who insist they’re on holidays in the sun
Determined to lie on the beach until the storm takes hold and hopefully sweeps them away

Our beach is a shingled mess, invaded every weekend by lager-fueled teenagers
Can’t they just fuck off, leaving us in peace to enjoy our town?
I sat and thought about it the other night, alone in situ at the pub
And it occurred to me we’re only really alone at Christmas when the students go home
It’s then I love this city, a place of peace and tranquillity
Leaving the mind to wander and speculate on plans to escape

May 29, 2016

editors note: Remember to bundle up; layers, layers – with a generous sunblock base. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Maybe you don't NEEEEEEED-a-Read (although 9 outta 10 mad docs would say you're wrong) but we know you're gonna "WANNNNNNNA-Read" Contributing Writer & Poet, Harley White's gem of a story.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this week's featured read "Frieze in Miniature"...

"There can’t always be what we desire but there’s always going to be us and what we can imagine."

And with that said, here's a few flurries to get your feelers feelin':

(photo by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Sunday and snow. A promise made— a promise kept. Laden with oranges, apples, chips, crackers graham, muenster, and wine to placate my misgivings, a thermos of cold water, mittens, blankets, and four rain-booted children bundled for snowball battles, quivered with impatience— up Angeles Crest we plunged.

Destination— snow— 7000 feet.

Carsick children— and me.

Still no snow.

Destination— Big Pine...

To be continued right here!

••• Open Mic •••

All we gots'ta say today is Awww! OK, we have a LOT more words to share, what with ALL the poets & musicians and pics & links & tags & whatnot's we gots...

A HUGE shout-out to our virtual feature, the fine folks from the Southern Collective Experience. Poets Charles Clifford Brooks III & Scott Thomas Outlar along with musician Kaleb Garrett, brought their poetic & musical a-game! We never doubted that they would & they over delivered on the badassness!

If you couldn't make it to the show and wish you coulda, there's some live shot video of The Southern Collective Experience's feature set right here. (and more where that came from right here!)

Thanks to all who came out to The Underpass & shared in this collective delicious madness. What a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music it was!

Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

photos courtesy of Dan "the man" Rodriguez

Feature:
Southern Collective Experience: Clifford Brooks, Scott Thomas Outlar, & Kaleb Garrett

Hosts:
Johnny Olson & MH Clay

Swirve:
Chris Curiel, Gerard Bendiks, & Tamitha Curiel

Mad Cast:
Maggie Smith
Justin Booth
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
Desmene Statum
Carlos Salas
CJ Critt
John May
Suza “Hep Kat Mama” Kanon
Vic Victory
Gabe Mamola
Brett “BA” Ardoin
Jen Bochenko
James “Bear” Rodehaver
Kristine Spinner
Sean “Ta2” Buttram
Gnadia Wolnisty
Samonni Devine
Red Crow

HUGE thanks to Swirve 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!

Thanks to The Underpass's Mike & Leo for having such a badass & fine establishment and welcoming us mad ones into their home with open arms.

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.

May the madness Swirl your way ’til next 1st Wednesday…

Your Mad Googily-Eyed Guy

•••••••

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...

Moonbathin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“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

“Do whatever you do intensely.” ~ Robert Henri

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“To Everyone” (above) by featured artist Fabrice Poussin.

Allow us to introduce you to Mad Swirl’s newest featured artist, Fabrice Poussin! Fabrice’s photos exudes quite a dreamy noir vibe. Utilizing shade (like the frail detailed limbs of a tree dancing along the shutters of a building, being my personal favorite), Poussin captures light in a unique way, in a real way, and in that way which you can’t help but feel an unsettling air when you look at them. Much like they’re captured in that fine moment of calm just before the storm. Darkness can be spooky, but something about it can also calm you down, if you let it. Something about Poussin’s work manages to accomplish both. If those kinds of visuals spike your interest, and we’ve got a feeling they do – then click here to see the shadows for yourself. ~ Madelyn Olson

To view more our other featured artists, visit our Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we purloined a peak at paradise, a misplaced pearl; we resurrected a rodent; we boinked (we wish) a babe from the Man in Black; we were chilled by a chopper; we tipped a truth topper; we stayed dry in a drenching; we lost poet's poise in a too big noise; we reveled in romance, a deepening dance. Paradise, again. ~ MH Clay

RACHEL SUITES by Brian Wood

Allemande

The healing table laid just so. Jug of
Ice water, cooling pleasantly. Two
Different painkillers, both within easy
Reach. TV remote controls, all three
Of them, just to the right.

Courante

If you missed any of that, there’s more:
A Nixon book one foot away, easily grasped –
And something else on the Long March
Nearby, on the closest shelf. You can
Tell Rachel was raised by a nurse,
But if you can’t, beneath my healing
Table is a discreet unmarked brown
Puke bucket.

Sarabande

Love shoots out and manifests itself in
The world as it would. Checking it is like
Checking Niagara Falls; you can do it
But your success would be short-lived
And fruitless.

Menuet I

The anesthesiologist who met Rachel knew
She was up against a force. “I can tell….”
She said, trailing off. In my mind I finish
Her thought: “I can tell this woman is,
Despite herself, deeply in love. Nothing
Bad can happen to you while she is here
Or thinking of you. Nothing on earth escapes
This. She will protect you from all fates.
In heaven her light will make stars scarlet
With jealousy. In hell she will draw the shades,
Run the coldest shower, and stand there until your soul
Can rest.”

Menuet II

Funny how she could tell all that from your
Eyes, which were bluer than usual and red-shot,
Doing your best to look bored. You could tell
I wanted out, now, and tried to act like I could
Handle it. I couldn’t. I wanted to leave.

Gigue

How can you fall in love, in summer on the
Prairies, again in Vancouver in fall, all
Over again in Montreal, in a museum
In California, and keep falling, deeper?
Why is holding hands in the hospital
Ratification of what can’t be written down?

June 25, 2016

editors note: Dances of love for what ails you. – mh clay

Too Big a Noise for my Trade by Learnmore Edwin Zvada

I have not the lines to describe the whim of a painter
fashioning a portrait of a kept woman,
nor have I saddled my gaze upon the seesawing
bosom, supple skin’s dimpled rise, the rounds
and turns of a damsel’s posture looming out of a
steamy illustrator’s zoomed lens

How unfortunate it is to be without knowledge
of such a sinuous summation of feminine artwork,
it’s rendered foreign to me, that adverse ineptness
straddling up on my tongue
needless to say, the portrait in itself is an object
of forlorn ambience to the eyes of the escapist,
the one extremist I am inescapably mutating into

It isn’t surprising why my verses maintain that I
have tastes colder than a witch’s ears, unwrapped
to such a cruel set of words, too soon I’m bound to
step aside and let the painter and his paint do what
they think to know best

June 24, 2016

editors note: An eloquent admission of ineptitude. – mh clay

Finality by Sudha Srivatsan

The silence in my head
Grows noisy by the day
Does death die
Or is death immortal?
For it lives forever
Off hearts and souls
Swelling shapely in desire
As each moment gaits by
The canny spider trips over
Settling upturned in its web
Readily lounging
To spurt venom
That bathes me
In a ritual of sorts
I lay bewitched
To behold rain drops
Refusing to drench me

June 23, 2016

editors note: A spider-bit soak in the eternal question. – mh clay

TRUTH by Roger G. Singer

Misplaced thoughts are broken stones.
The sides of the road hold treasures
for those walking by. Old newspapers
separate us from yesterday’s tragedies.
Wisdom is born in diners and roadside
Cafes. Painted signs on old barns hold
the innocence of roadside marketing.
Paper hats have character against the sun.
Popsicles were once five cents. Longer
steps will get you there faster, even if you
don’t want to arrive. Birds work the winds
in every season. The eyes never lie.
Everybody’s your friend till the rent comes
due.

June 22, 2016

editors note: Roger’s road-worn realities keep us cruisin’! – mh clay

Knife Skills by Kleio B

Callously –
She stared at the quarry,
Methodically –
She sharpened the knife.
Deftly:
She ripped off the skin,
Chop:
Chopped dismembered,
After all a stew tastes best;
With onions done well.

June 21, 2016

editors note: A justified killing; no tears for the dead. – mh clay

Street car, Southwest Tenth Avenue, Portland, Oregon by Erren Geraud Kelly

A six foot brunette
Gets on, wearing cut off shorts
And cowboy boots
Rock and roll screamed on various
Parts of her body
As if her milky white skin was too pure
To be defaced
Her legs were as long as the route
We were traveling on
It’s as if Johnny Cash had an affair
With a Goth chick
And this woman was his love child
She’s a train wreck, you can’t take
Your eyes off of, in a good
Way

June 21, 2016

editors note: We’re looking for her on every street car, everywhere. – mh clay

Teenagers in Rural Ohio by Adam Sometimes

There were a few of us
Underage and drinking beers
Natty
You know what I’m talking about
Just boys being boys
And about nine beers deep we started getting bored

There was this gopher hole
And boys being boys we started a fire
in the hole
Nothing

Next we threw in firecrackers
Still nothing
I’m not sure what we expected
I guess we were just hoping to flush the rodent out

This stupid pastime continued
Until my uncle
Drunk as shit stumbled over with the water hose

He pushed the hose into the hole and turned on the water
It all happened so fast
The critter came dashing out
And in that instance my uncle
Armed with a baseball bat
Beat the gopher to death

He threw down the bat and walked away
We were confused
I felt dirty
How did pointless fun
Easily turn into a murder of sorts

We buried the gopher
And never talked about it again
Until now
Until Trump decided to run for president

One of the boys that were there called me
I told him I wasn’t much into politics
He said
“Remember the gopher?”

June 20, 2016

editors note: Commentary heard on your local news channel never! – mh clay

A State of Serenity by Bhupender Bhardwaj

As if in a dream the vast landscape
Of inexplicable splendours opened up
Before the eyes.

The scene was that of natural
Ornamentation: a rivulet making
Its way through the unknown ravine,
The green hill opposite prostrate
In a gesture of humility, free eagles
Gliding over their airy domains—
Knowledgeable of the ways of the wind.

The mist played its game of mystery
Across the face of the valley
Making moderate the vision
As wine does the senses.

Moreover, the sight was quite
Inspirational being a pearl ring
From a long-ago friend found after
Ages in the heap of useless things.

Paradises unknown shall always
Appear ordinary to those who
Witness this spectacle revealing the
Union of man and nature every moment.

June 19, 2016

editors note: Best absorbed in situ. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week we got two-fer ya!

The first short story is titled with "Poem" in it. But when it fell inadvertently into Short Story Editor Tyler Malone's hands, he couldn't resist snatching this one and putting it in our short story library. Here's what he had to say about it...

"I promise, time is alive but it won’t die. The moon will, though. It will keep reflecting, but the source will be extinguished: what we thrive upon, what watches over our love."

And here's a bit of "Love That Moon: A Poem in Three Parts" by Contributing Writer and Poet Ruth Deming:

(photo "Three Heads of Sunset" - above - by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

One: Jefferson

We sat on the front porch, the whole
lot of us, the Washington family, knowing
that yes our folk of all different hues of
brown, were born of the first father of our
country, our country too.

Granny, born of a young slave girl, had
nearly died today, fell down once again,
not good for much, she was one-hundred-something
but who was counting? “Take me Lord” she would
pray with her toothless mouth that still
loved to sing “Let My People Go” and to
sip homemade hooch.

We done a right good load of hay baling, said
brother Jim, pointing toward yonder fields.
Oughta fetch a pretty penny and we can buy
our ladies some right pretty material for dresses
and bonnets and what not. Easter Sunday’s
on its way, praise the Lord.

Long as you gots enough wood to repair these
rickety steps that leads up to the cabin, says I.
Oh, don’t you worry, Little Miss, we’ve got
plenty of smackers including those wrinkled up bills we save
for when’s we need em.

Plus, says I, my boy Jefferson is going away to
college some day. We all watched Jefferson as
he played with his little plastic trucks in the dirt
zoom zoom – as he crashed them together
head first.

We laughed as one, a church-like chorus where
our own Pap was preacher, he done left us long
ago.

Jefferson looked our way and smiled that big ole
Mississippi smile of his. He pointed over the
newly greening fields and stood up.

“Mama,” he cried. “There’s my crescent moon.”
My crescent moon, he shouted over and over,
jumping up and down and raising the dust.

“You are right, boy!” I said, coming off the porch
and swooping him up in a hug. “That moon
sure do love you, boy, and so do I!”

Get the rest of your read on right here!

•••

The second featured short, "The Train to Discomfort" comes to us from longtime Contributing Writer Jenean McBrearty. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this historical fictional tale:

Joy isn’t the last emotion, it’s the first smiling step to many more, all as the cyclical human cycle carried by pumping blood only begins. First a smile, then a toothless whimper.

Here's a whimper to get'cha goin':

(photo "Car Commerce" - above - by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

David McConnell didn’t realize how tense he’d been until the train left German soil and entered Austria. In a few hours he’d be in Vienna and he and Julia would shop for a cleric.

He let out a sigh and looked up from his week-old edition of the London Times. Sitting across from him was a large man with a thick white mustache and a probing stare. “Would you like to see yesterday’s news?” he said. He offered the folded paper to his fellow traveler. “The political cartoons are well drawn.”

“And, no doubt full of inflammatory commentary from your Mr. Churchill.” But he accepted the paper, and David felt a second wave of relief; he didn’t like being studied. This fellow looked like a professional observer. A psychiatrist, perhaps. All the arrogance of a military officer and the accusatory eye of a clergyman. He turned his attention to the passing countryside.

“What do you think of Herr Hitler?” The man asked.

The question intruded on David’s prurient thoughts of Julia. “I haven’t given him much thought at all. As long as I don’t have to go to war, I don’t care what Europe does. I’m getting married when I get to Vienna.”

“Committing to life-long war, then.”

“I prefer to think I’m marrying an ally not an enemy.”

“Of course.”

All aboard, this story train is leavin' the station! Click here for more of this mad ride!

••• Open Mic •••

This month we will be featuring Dallas Poet & Artist & all around mad man, Ta2! Wanna know more about Ta2? Here’s a bit about this mad man:

After surviving an auto accident from a drunk driver which crippled his career as a freshly published and degreed architect, Sean Gregory, who is better known in the poetry community simply as Ta2, was forced to make a change at the Why in the road. This brought him to the world of heavy metal music where he remained as a professional touring vocalist until 2004.

During that time, Ta2 immersed himself in poetry where he founded in 2005 The Dead Beat Poet Society. He focused on live spoken word shows and poetry slams. He is currently surviving as a starving artist by creating hyper-realism commissioned work, Henna art, and tattooing.

Ta2’s poetry styles vary like his topics which range from simple haiku to free-verse, and topics such as raw sex to coping with ADHD and Anxiety Disorder. This 1st Wednesday Ta2 will take you on a journey of sight & sound and LSD Memories. So, close your eyes and open your mind to the world of the absurd; the world according to Ta2.

How’s that for a write-up? Got your interest piqued? Good! So come on out, one & all. Get a brainful of Ta2, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

For mo info, visit our Open Mic page!

•••••••

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...

Doin' It',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them." ~ Hermann Hesse

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“To the Queen” (above) by featured artist Fabrice Poussin.

To see more of Fabrice's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we stressed the structures of singular styles; we got bad blood from a bad brick pile; we drained love's breath where not was death; we lost love's gain, drew pleasure from pain; we willed to touch on water (too little), not sun (too much); we heard static as we tried to stop a suicide; we rested our heads in matchbox beds; we doubled our doubts trying to figure things out. Connected or dis-, to each our own bliss; we writes'em like we sees'em! ~ MH Clay

Finally talking to a guru in India by Timothy Pilgrim

In the beginning, phone-tree,
long branch, press one for savior.

Time on hold to ponder,
do we cease to exist or exist

to cease. Me, out of it, off
a bit, high on tea, so much so

need to call for help, not visit
the spiritualist, where folks queue,

air kiss, woo-woo session
with lost wives, lovers, of whom

I have not any left. Guru hisses,
low-pitched, complete the reversal,

fetch redemption, undo each wrong.
Be less bad than old me, better

than the new. Silence does not mean
no answer. He hangs up on me too.

July 2, 2016

editors note: I’d put god on speed-dial if I knew his number. – mh clay

Thimble by D.A. Moulton

We are becoming smaller again.
The soul of a mouse,
hiding inside the walls of this house.
Time doesn’t matter
and time isn’t waiting.
Time simply turns to water.
It’s wasting us down
dripping carving watering
waiting in a basement.
And so the wasting begins.
All around us thin and waning,
shouldering cobwebs shuddering.
Shrinking, scratching for crumbs
or a thimble of water.
Hiding from the light stretching
behind the walls of this house.
Squeezing into a hole smaller.
Inventing tiny dreams
that could fit into a matchbox bed.

July 1, 2016

editors note: Enough to make a quiet mouse want to roar. – mh clay

STATIC by Clyde Kessler

A friend called long distance stoned in Maynooth.
Said she was rooked. Said the air felt hacked from a wall.
An owl, if it was an owl, was shrieking like a tomcat.
She said something flew across gravestones, married
to her eyes. I heard but more imagined her words. Compared
the dark horizon to her raincoat, the distance to a short circuit
in her voice. There was silence, no voiceovers. A car door
wedged itself into radio waves. I imagined her lips moving,
her words inside the filaments of street lamps. College kids
slipped by. One of them propped a wallet on a gravestone.
She said a taxi drove by. She said it was turning around.
She said she could jump into the street and listen for brakes.
She asked if I could hear the brakes. I said I heard static.

June 30, 2016

editors note: What gives in the white noise. – mh clay

Satellites by Stephen Page

The tree frogs called the rain last night,
but the rain did not answer.
The intermittent croaking, about
every hour or so, was followed by
a gust of wind and the scent
of water, but no sprinkle, no pour.

The new gaucho, an angelic Moral
who rides our horse to sores,
has dried the soy beans not yet
planted. He horns the sun and peels
paint from his home.

Twenty millimeters of rain is not
forty nine, even with the north
wind. Two plastic gauges announce
the Tattler’s arrival in the park.

The newer gaucho, taller, broader
shouldered than the Angel
shunned away, suffers the sun
of unshaded twenty-one with
a smile and shovel-blistered hands
(but later became the Excuse Maker).

Just one day of the computer-
promised rain should soften the earth
and shoot the canal
full of internet cable, that is,
if the flexible orange pipe is found
on time.

With each truck that passes lot
three, earth crumbles and narrows
the road. We hope that the Three
barricade that which blackened
and thinned the cows.

I will the odometer to quit
increasing exponentially, and the bushes
Teresa planted not to yellow near
our home.

June 29, 2016

editors note: Atmospheric conditions unaffected angelically. (Congrats to Stephen on the imminent release of his new book, “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River.” Learn more about it and reserve your order here.) – mh clay

Death of a Lonesome Cowboy by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Come hurt me
With your stinging rope of an attitude

Stripping me down
Watching your turquoise tattoo dance

In front of a curtainless window to the world
Your sexy smile and sharp teeth white as lightning

You’re a one-night woman
Unbroken by no one

As I die in all my tomorrows branded by you…

June 28, 2016

editors note: Ride the bronco, bitter to be bucked; unrequited cowboy. – mh clay

DEATH WAS NOT IN PARIS by Alisa Velaj

We must learn something from the trees. ~ Kasem Trebeshina

Death was not in Paris, my darling,
It had never walked
In Luxemburg’s Garden either.

Every Autumn leaf
Was less than loneliness,
And the naked tree was quite unlike
The hesitating sounds of your guitar.

(Abandoned from whispers, it threw oblivion away –
Faint waltz chords
Filling the air of eternity.)

My sadness looked like the light at the verge of dusk:
That tree should have at least taught you
Why death was nowhere to be found in Paris.

You should have learned all only from the trees…

June 28, 2016

editors note: An aboreal adage, amorously applied. – mh clay

House of muck and straw and cast brick by Dave Kavanagh

It was not a dream
though memory says it was.
That house of straw and muck
and cast brick.

Asbestos sheeting cold as ice in winter
and oven hot in summer.
Amplifying the cries of pain.
Rain and wind rattling the eaves.

Fingers of cold weaving
in under corrugations.
Chilling spines of exposed bone
prone bodies shivering on wooden floors

Freezing words unspoken
cold lips, the kiss goodnight. A betrayal
on a soft child cheek.
Too weak to fight that house
Of straw and muck and cast brick.

Of voices raised in pain and rain
flooding in under a green door.
Floors awash with leaves and snapped twigs
lies and broken promises. Deals reneged upon
contracts voided between a demon and a thief.

Bailing fast to stop us sinking.
Thinking it was just the water
pulling us down to drown
in the mire of hate and disappointment
when all along it was us, bad blood
caused the flood.

A deluge of despair in a lair
of broken lives.
A house of straw and muck
and cast brick.

June 27, 2016

editors note: A story of destruction in a house of bad construction. – mh clay

Architecture by David Subacchi

A door or window opening
If rounded not straight
Is called Italianate.

A sharp, pointed line
Is English Gothic
To be specific.

A dome or upturned
Glass of wine
May be Byzantine.

Pillars and columns
An ornate border
The Classical order.

Concrete, steel
Any brutal structure
Modern architecture.

June 26, 2016

editors note: When Modern becomes ancient, will it no longer brutal be? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! If you've been jonesin' for that special read to feed your feeler's need, don't fret, "Emergency" by Clive Aaron Gill is sure to please.

Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Emergency":

"Motherhood, a timeless, worldwide anxiety. Some of us won’t have to deal with it, though, but isn’t that the worse curse?"

And here's a snippet to get your feelers feelin':

photo (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

“Nine, one, one. What is your emergency?” asked the Dispatcher at 6:03 in the evening in the County San Diego Operation Center.

“My daughter is being abused by her father,” yelled a woman.

“What’s your name?”

“Susan Johnson.”

“Are you a witness to the incident?”

“No. A neighbor heard my daughter’s screams and called me.”

“Is this the first time for this alleged type of incident?”

“My daughter, Jennifer, hasn’t told me of another.”

“What’s the father’s name and address?”

“Mike Johnson. Sixty-seven-ninety-nine Grace Glen Court, Clairmont.”

“Stay on the line.”

The Dispatcher communicated with Police Headquarters.

Within ten minutes two police officers arrived at the reported location in two black patrol cars with flashing red and blue lights. A holstered gun rested on each officer’s hip.

An officer rang the front door bell causing a dog inside the house to bark. A man in his forties opened the door, holding his Rottweiler by the collar. The mingling aromas of fried potatoes, onions and garlic followed him.

“Good evening. Mr. Johnson?” asked Officer Bretzing. The Officer’s thick, black hair, frosted with gray, lay over a plump face that held deep-set eyes and a button nose.

“Yes.”

Mike Johnson rubbed his raised eyebrow. A narrow, black mustache grew under his wide, flat nose. His gray eyes looked from his high cheek-boned-face and a vertical line creased his forehead. A full reddish beard covered his chin.

“I’m Officer Bretzing. My partner is Officer Pope.”

Mike saw a short, round man with curly, brown hair and piercing coal-black eyes. His arched nose, shaped like a beak, rested on a thin face.

Officer Bretzing said, “We’re responding to a report of a disturbance at this location.”...

Did that get your feelers goin'? Good, 'cos this teaser scene is about as much of this tale that we can reveal. Get the rest of your read on here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of July (aka 07.06.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass The Underpass Bar!

This month we will be featuring Dallas Poet & Artist & all around mad man, Ta2! Wanna know more about Ta2? Here’s a bit about this mad man:

After surviving an auto accident from a drunk driver which crippled his career as a freshly published and degreed architect, Sean Gregory, who is better known in the poetry community simply as Ta2, was forced to make a change at the Why in the road. This brought him to the world of heavy metal music where he remained as a professional touring vocalist until 2004.

During that time, Ta2 immersed himself in poetry where he founded in 2005 The Dead Beat Poet Society. He focused on live spoken word shows and poetry slams. He is currently surviving as a starving artist by creating hyper-realism commissioned work, Henna art, and tattooing.

Ta2’s poetry styles vary like his topics which range from simple haiku to free-verse, and topics such as raw sex to coping with ADHD and Anxiety Disorder. This 1st Wednesday Ta2 will take you on a journey of sight & sound and LSD Memories. So, close your eyes and open your mind to the world of the absurd; the world according to Ta2.

How’s that for a write-up? Got your interest piqued? Good! So come on out, one & all. Get a brainful of Ta2, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

For mo info, visit our Open Mic page!

P.S. To get on the preRSVP list, visit our FB event page.

P.P.S. If you can’t make it to Mad Swirl Open Mic this 1st Wednesday but wanna catch the mad action from the comforts of wherever it is you like to watch madness ensue, Mad Swirl is gonna try on this whole “Live Feed” thingie that FB is doin’ these days. Tune in to our Mad Swirl FB home at 8:00-ish (CST) and see if we can get this whole technology thing figured out!

•••••••

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...

Hidin' (not),

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way." ~ June Jordan

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“ballpointpen14x22cmsoct9-2015” (above) by featured artist Norman Olson.

Mad Swirl’s newest featured artist is just what you would expect for us to love – a multi-talented madman! But Norman Olson brings a lot more than what one might expect from with his inky illustrations. With his almost comic-book styled drawings, we can’t help but feel he’s telling a story here – one of those stories where you’re still piecing together all the details days later, trying to figure out what the hell that even meant. With a mix of trees limbs, human limbs, strange faces and patterns, Olson’s pieces come off messy yet calculated, disorderly and yet completely composed. Take a look and see for yourself – is Norman Olson aware of what he’s creating? Or are these mystifying works more or less creating themselves? Either way, there’s an unshakeable feeling that they needed to be seen, that they have a tale to tell. ~ Madelyn Olson

To see more of Norman's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we beat a retreat; we minded to meet; we hurt in our want; we went hand in bird; we shook wealth from our shoes; we pimped our power; we ate what we are; we sorrowed and sorrowed and sorrowed some more. ~ MH Clay

Progress of Clocks by Tyler Malone

Look at the healthy grass grown in Dallas,
even in a life of closed eyes, we see the city
quarantined by the gods of July
among skyline bones, weaseling in kitschy graffiti.

We’re all good, with only moderate genocidal relations,
pale riders on paler horses seeking more hurt than Heaven.
And summer has only begun to bleed
as crows see our hope in karma but sing us no songs.

Only a few lick blood off fingers, all of us say in hope. America’s religion,
where there are no saviors for those won’t value others. Still,
something’s in those open holes in chests grown since childhood,

beating as we move mountains of dead through generations,
reluctantly to thoughtlessly allowing others to the top,
adding to our Babel of bodies, all to look God in the eye
and demand it fucking weep for what we love to see die.

July 9, 2016

editors note: Caught in a cavalcade of carnage; we can’t break free. (Read another of Tyler’s mad missives on his page – check it out.) – mh clay

Eternity in Global Warming by Donal Mahoney

A clerk in a health food store
became upset when I said
I didn’t see anything I wanted
since I wasn’t a vegan
or vegetarian and liked my
red meat rare and dripping.

She said I needed to know
Nature is God and
Satan is Climate Change
and if I didn’t eat right
I would spend Eternity
in Global Warming.

I went back to the counter,
apologized with all my heart,
and said I would like to buy
the biggest hand fan in stock.

July 9, 2016

editors note: Forgive us our meat, as we forgive those who meat against us. – mh clay

Whore pair of The Valy/Sillyikon by Gregg Dotoli

Good whores
Share
who mean well
power biblical American
bit smart byte foolish
Share
built on rich soil
pungent soft earth-black
Share
google/apple
highnumber/red tempter
Share corpus
body corporation
God-given
execute gist

July 8, 2016

editors note: Gist or gism? Determined by spin. – mh clay

Sand Dollar by Christopher Raley

I have no power in my name,
no confidence of position,
no money in my house,
no clothes of personal cut.
My love should be poor,
but my love is not.

We were made
in a world without intrusion.
We heard no radio,
listened to no voices,
felt no other’s feelings.
We walked on a strand of white
between a grey, foaming deep
and a forest quietly singing.

We found a dollar and called ourselves rich.
We were warm and it was raining.

July 7, 2016

editors note: The uncountable currency of companionship. – mh clay

the bird freed from form. by James Rodehaver

what is origami without paper?
the bird freed from form,
the hands signing to the void:
we could not bend the air.

i saw the bird in mind before i began,
and just never stopped seeing it.

now she flies where i do,
wings unfolded by freedom,
body untouched by matter,
song uncluttered by shape.

i once saw one hand clapping,
and knew the only bird
who could hear the sound.

July 6, 2016

editors note: A koan constructed for our enlightenment; or, the bird’s. Selah… – mh clay

Don’t you just want to by Gayle Bell

I’ve given to strangers
For a sum or a repast
Or because it was Friday
the cat prowled restless

I have questioned many times
What is this hold, this malady
Your smell surrounds me
Self inflicted blues wail into the night

Wiser friends try to prevail
I tell them,
sometimes,
when you know it’s hot
but want the burn
don’t you just want to
when you know it’s a sheer drop
from the jazz note of b flat

I’ve chased windmills Quixote
But you ride a deuce and a quarter
I inhale the dust your kiss left

Not sad, for I know where that lies
But for my troubles dear jinn
Or a country haint that put roots on me
Daring me to find your mandrake
you hid inside me

Don’t you just want to
Don’t you want that time
Replayed when eyes narrowed
You claimed the part of me

July 5, 2016

editors note: We can’t break from that sweet ache. Yes, we want to… – mh clay

Patchouli Gore by Christopher Barnes

Humbugging commune in Flakyville Desert.
Blabbing through imprisoning screen door,
Lord Kitchener ill-omened the postman.
A tiptoed suspicion of peripheral affairs.
They regressed into a Cinerama El Dorado.
Charles Manson, talisman for fruit-cakery,
Ensnared delirium.
A no-voice chant radiated into sand:
Your mind needs you.

July 4, 2016

editors note: Yes, it does. Join today! (With this submission, we welcome Christopher to our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out!) – mh clay

Damage options by Robert Ford

Sometimes there is no sign of a struggle.
Perhaps they are brought to the house already dead,
molested a little, and then abandoned.
They seem more forlorn this way, inert and muted,
like they simply fell from the sky and managed
to land underneath this particular chair in the kitchen,
or in the middle of apparently random spaces.

It’s different when they’ve put up a fight, however
futile; the scattering of fragments will spread
to several rooms. The heavier feathers
hang like jetsam, beached and unmoving,
while the down, with its filigree whisperings,
takes flight whenever a door opens, almost lighter
than the air it would’ve been used to capture.

July 3, 2016

editors note: Out with a bang or a whimper; out just the same. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week's featured story comes to us from down-under Contributing Writer, Brenton Booth.

The stage that Brenton sets in his tale "The Other End of the Bar" sounds like the perfect devilishly heavenly scene for more than a few mad ones we know. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Bottled, just what these writers would have wanted in death. It’s all they wanted in life, too. To be bottled. Just don’t find yourself there with breath and words in your lungs. Find your own life, your own way, your own art."

And here's a few sips so you could see what we mean:

(photo "Bottles of Beatniks" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Jesus! What am I doing! Robert thought to himself. It was midday and he was alone in his tiny room with his mind in the salt shaker.

He is quite strong. He benches 280 and arm curls 130. He is a writer who just lifts weights for something to do. He has been watching a lot of mixed martial arts lately. He loves it. It’s so logical. The most focused, best skilled, strongest person nearly always wins: it just makes so much sense. He wonders about art: Why is it like it is? The weak on top and the strong made to suffer.

He has been writing several years now and sending to editors. Though everything he’s sent has been sent back with polite rejections printed on small bits of paper. Occasionally something else arrives: one editor’s response to a story was YIKES! Another said he should be ashamed of his poor work. And another said he should take some writing lessons.

He has been worrying a lot over the past few weeks. He fears he will quit writing and become a fighter. He even went to the mixed martial arts gym on Castlereagh Street last week and got the timetable. If he went ahead with it, he would just focus on wrestling and kickboxing. It wouldn’t take long to learn. He learned to take a good beating early in life, and since he has nothing else, he could really apply himself to learning it all as quickly as possible.

Every morning after he wakes he looks at that timetable before he does anything else. He has thoroughly studied every inch of that small yellow page, every letter, every word: that piece of paper scares the shit out of him. It makes him think of money, women, and a room you could take more than 5 steps in and not hit a wall. “Fuck,” he said to himself then left his room and headed to the bar on Darlinghurst Road, where he noticed three men rushing out the front door. “Get the fuck out of here, you pussies!” screamed a thin dark haired man just behind them with both his fists raised. Robert had another look at the three guys. He then recognized them. They were Beats. The fucking Beats: Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Corso. They continued running...

Get the rest of your chugalug of a read on right here.

••• Open Mic •••

Notes of Gratitude to the Mad Ones : 07.06.16

(photos courtesy of Dan "the man" Rodriguez)

All we gots'ta say about this past 1st Wednesday is Awww! OK, we have a LOT more words to share, what with ALL the poets & musicians and pics & links & tags & whatnot's we gots...

A HUGE shout-out to our feature, loco local poet, artist, and all-around mad man, Sean “Ta2” Buttram, who brought his poetic & Brain-iac musical a-game! We never doubted that he would deliver on the badassness and did he ever deliver!

If you couldn't make it to the show and wish you coulda, there's some live shot video of Ta2's feature set right here. (and more where that came from right here!)

Thanks to all who came out to The Underpass & shared in this collective delicious madness. What a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music it was!

Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

photos courtesy of Dan "the man" Rodriguez

Feature:
Sean “Ta2” Buttram

Hosts:
Johnny Olson & MH Clay

Swirve:
Chris Curiel, Gerard Bendiks, & Tamitha Curiel

Mad Cast:
Vic Victory
PW Covington
Jen Bochenko
Paul Sexton
Gnadia Wolnisty
James “Bear” Rodehaver
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
Desmene Statum
Rob Dyer
Kristine Spinner
Brett “BA” Ardoin
Suza “Hep Kat Mama” Kanon
John May
Reverie Evolving
Hector Ortiz
Harry McNabb
Sonny Wyatt
Catie McClain
Martin Sutphen

HUGE thanks to Swirve 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!

Thanks to The Underpass's Leo & Mike for running such a badass & fine establishment and welcoming us mad ones into their home with open arms.

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.

May the madness Swirl your way ’til next 1st Wednesday…

Your Mad Googily-Eyed Guy

••• Mad Blog •••

(photo by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Stand United or Fall Divided by Contributing Artist & Visual Editor Madelyn Olson

I have shied away from speaking up much on hate-crime for a while now, for fear of coming off as ignorant as I feel. This is sensitive – breathing life is miraculous, murder is serious, and I AM ignorant. Not because I don’t care, but because I haven’t had to, it hasn’t been personal – me or mine at the other end of a gun, face to face with injustice, begging for my life to matter, to be recognized. I let others speak before me, for me, I let them mourn. I acknowledge grievances, I keep quiet. It hasn’t been me. It hasn’t been my people. I don’t feel right to speak.

But the fact of the matter is, it has been my people, our people. Our brothers and our sisters, we are ALL witnessing senseless, violent, hateful attacks against the cosmic and vast source in which we all come from and are made of – we experience this life together. We forget.

And though my first instinct is to be angry (and yours may be angrier, rightfully so) as I sit and watch – helpless, hopeless – the act of hate against living beings, what is important here, despite it all, is uniting. What is important here is remembering that we are all connected, a team. When harm is done to some, we all suffer. Just as when we harm others (or justify it), we are not only perpetuating an ugly frequency, but we are also hurting ourselves (and then putting that bad energy back out into the world – a dumb little cycle that hasn’t benefited anyone, ever).

Empathy and compassion are some of the most precious and soft things our hearts are capable of. We are stronger than the cold and corrupt systems oppressing us beCAUSE of our ability to hold each other, to heal each other, to spread and share our softness.

This is a time of revolution – I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels it’s a long time coming, either. It’s easy to be demotivated, even heartbroken, in the face of the idea that we are a doomed, self-destructing species, despite our great evolution into so much potential… but what is important here, is uniting. Is picking ourselves up even when we’re wounded, picking each other up… and not quitting.

These systems in place want us to forget our power. Don’t. These systems will collapse – we won’t. We are stronger. Love is stronger. It is easy to feel hate, anger, fear, grief in the face of such corruption – and we will. But extend love. With your voice, with your actions, with your thoughts, with your prayers – and don’t stop. To prepare for what’s to come, prepare your heart. Tune into that cosmic collective that is our breath itself and you will hear what you need to, we will hear what we need to. Uniting in this, love will win. Collectively, we will rise.

•••••••

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...

Truth Tellin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"I try for a poetic language that says, This is who we are, where we have been, where we are. This is where we must go. And this is what we must do." ~ Mari Evans

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“ink5x7inches1-17-2016” (above) by featured artist Norman Olson. To see more of Norman's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we found our muse in a loss for words; we flew the coop of a crazy bird; we flipped a lid; we ungilded the grid; we extended the finger; we let love linger; we marveled at a man on fire; we measured a mystery from higher and higher. Up and on from dawn to dawn. ~ MH Clay

Obscured vision by Hem Raj Bastola

I read
Your face
On the way I walk
Face to face smiles
Gathering.
I answer a question,
Who am I
To appreciate
You?

I climb
The tower,
Blurred past searching
Horizon to horizon, peep
And I find you
Disappeared
Among the clouds.
Oh! Beautiful stranger
Am I impaired
In vision
Or are you
Obscure?

For the angles
Of your beauty
My defunct
Clinometer is
Unable to measure
The height
Of your mystery.

July 16, 2016

editors note: Amorous altitudes render dizzied discourse . – mh clay

How I Know The Human Ego Is Not Combustible by Samantha Hawkins

Because I once saw a man set fire to his own left arm
and when he fell with the flames

He saw only his shirt and tie shred away
and not his own skin unbraiding in a column of smoke

He smelled like fried steak
and he could taste the gray ash collecting on his bottom lip

But he swore it was someone else’s limb burning blue
he was just getting the backlash

And when a thoughtful passerby offered him some water
he shook his head through the plumy clouds of tar

for somewhere was a man on fire who needed it more
Though his reflection stared stoically back at him
(from his spirit pooling on the ground)

with metamorphic hair and sunken sockets

He carried on, just carrying on
And he figured the sun was having fun at his expense

Then he scratched at a scab he mistook for an itch
and he marveled at his radiant fingertip

July 15, 2016

editors note: Fire? Ain’t no fire! – mh clay

To the only friend I ever had by Sergio A. Ortiz

"A hummingbird of love between your teeth" ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

This is the journey I propose: let’s wake up
without wanting to possess the world,
breathe the music of galaxies,
and in the evening dew
quench our deferred passion.
Love
should be the pursuit of shadows,
this desert
where the fear of losing you is hidden
in the ancient filth of daylight.

July 14, 2016

editors note: A game-changing proposal. – mh clay

Taunting by Jada Yee

Do you scream, my wide-eyed pet?
Is it really a yawn escaping from your mouth?
Because, bits of you are missing;
chewed, pulled, twisted, and ripped away.
Something foreign has grown on you,
milky and unclean,

and yet I will stare
in a way that does nothing for your benefit.

I am an owner, unfairly blamed with neglect,
but I reject such conviction with a guilty finger;
proven to push straight-spine buttons.

Middle finger, you fiddle so well with the air.

July 13, 2016

editors note: Neener, neener, n-e-e-e-e-ner! (We welcome Jada to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Electric Rainbows by A.J. Huffman

burn out. One stripe
at a time waves a final flare, falls to
gray. The hollows echo the empty
sentiment of stale breadcrumbs
over roads revealed as not-quite-gold.

July 12, 2016

editors note: Power fails, colors fade; entropy for all. – mh clay

Jar of Chaos by Angelica Fuse

like Pandora
we opened the box
we asked why

sure, the gods said,
here’s a whirlwind,
a cocktail of spite,

all the answers
you want and some
you don’t.

July 12, 2016

editors note: Many we don’t. Who asked for more? – mh clay

CORNDOGS IN SPRINGTIME by David Spicer

In Vermont, Professor Ledge
taught flute and ate corndogs
in springtime. He sported
a patchy beard, an amputated arm,
and the students called him Saint
Rattlesnake. He smelled of peonies
and violets. One day after practice
I asked him if he wanted to cop some
junk. I dig it, but can’t. A flicker
of excitement in his eyes, he shrugged
and grimaced, and that surprised me.
I don’t know why — I thought I had
a new client who’d sacrifice groceries
for nods of smack. Mr. Ledge was no
invalid, nor hostile. I followed him
home once, knocked on his door.
He invited me in, pulled back the curtains.
On the sagging couch an ermine stole lay
on the arm rest. Bongos surrounded us.
Can you — he interrupted me with a sigh
and retrieved an enameled model aircraft
on a nightstand. Warriors these pilots were,
Matthew. Nothing to long for. Strolling
to the kitchen, we unlatched the door
and climbed a ladder to the roof.
Take a leap, kid, be a warrior,
he dared, a rattlesnake in his eyes.
Fuck you, fluteflake, I answered,
hauling more ass than I knew I had.

July 11, 2016

editors note: Didn’t your Momma teach you never to play so close to a ledge? – mh clay

I Don’t Know What To Say by Lilly Penhall

I don’t know what to say
There is so much wrong in the world today
And I don’t know what to say
About injustices being perpetrated
By people who look like me
Against people who don’t look like me
Cause looks seem to be more important than ever these days
And I don’t want to look like one of them
Even though I am
I don’t know what to say
If I say “Black Lives Matter”
Do I sound like a white hypocrite?
Can I stand up for your people without standing against mine?
Can I love the Anglo in me in spite of their wrongs throughout time?
I don’t dare say “white” and “pride” in the same sentence
Might as well put on a white hood
Or tattoo a swastika on my face
But I don’t know what to say
Because I relate less to the people of my own ethnic background
And yet I don’t wanna be accused of cultural appropriation
When my radio station
Is tuned to soul music
Instead of country
Cause I like Eartha Kitt more than Travis Tritt
Cause James Brown feels good like Zac Brown never could
But I don’t know what to say
Lest I look like EL Fudge
Ya know, those little elves
Vanilla cookies with a chocolate center
Is that what I look like when I sing along with a rap song?
Yeee boyeeee
Baking cookies in my tree
Let me be honest with you
I know I look like a fool but I can’t help it
Do you know what it’s like
To have your heart rate increase
And palms sweat when you know
The “n-word” is up ahead in the song
When you’re singing along?
Can I say it if I’m just repeating Drake?
If I say “n-word” does it just sound fake?
The “n-word” is an inward expression for those with African blood in them
But I can’t say it just because I’ve had an African-American in me
But inwardly
I feel more pride when I see
A powerful African-American woman
Accomplishing great things
If I hit “Like”
Does that make me look like a feminist
Or like I’m trying too hard?
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t say much on social media
Because I feel it’s not my place
But I support my sisters and brothers
From other mothers
Because I know inside we are all from the same Mother
Who created us to be different from each other
Because if we were all the same
What would we learn? What could we change?
I understand that I will never understand your struggle
But I’ll defend with my life your right to fight
And I wanna be on the side that’s right
Without looking like I’m making up for being white.
I was born this way just like we all were
I’ve made it my mission to not let my looks define me
But looks seem to be more important than ever these days
That’s why I don’t know what to say
So I’ll let my actions speak for me
And treat every person like a human
Regardless of what I see
The color of skin has never mattered to me
Personally
I just want you to see that I’m just being me
Not a poser or a faker or a “wigger”
I had to fight against racism too
In my own family
Oh they act like progressives while masking their hate
My dad likes to sing the Stones song “Brown Sugar”
But the first time I brought a black man home
He told me to “stay with my own kind”
I was ashamed but I knew I would never change his mind.
Fine. I decided to change
The world so my kids will never hear those words.
We’re all the same kind, beautifully different in our own ways.
Born full of love and taught to hate.
Not me. Not my kids. It changes today.
Because now I know what I need to say.

July 10, 2016

editors note: Now she knows. Do we? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! If you do indeed need one, you've come to the right post!

The pick of the week this week is "Night at The Dakota" by Steve Slavin. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about it:

"Rarely is what we are is what we really need to be. Embrace that fact more than embracing the beast under your skin."

And here's a bit of a teaser to tempt your tale reading tummy:

(photo "The Right Time" (below) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Nobody likes “the professor,” but he does throw great parties. Lots of good-looking yuppies, excellent food and an open bar.

A distinguished professor of psychology at the City University, he owns a huge apartment in The Dakota, a landmarked building on Central Park West. He never could have afforded it on his salary but he earns substantial royalties from his pop psychology books. They include such titles as Relations That Last Forever, How to Make Great First Impressions, and Anger Management for Dummies.

You would think that the professor would have a great store of personal experience to draw upon but apparently his social life revolves entirely around his parties. He stands at the door most of the evening greeting his guests and checking their names on his list. If you are not on the list then no amount of begging will get you in.

Pushing sixty, the professor is not an attractive man. With a Trump-sized head looming over the scare-crow body of an Ichabod Crane, he’s a rather unusual looking dude. On the bright side, he has a ready-made Halloween costume.

Caroline and I met at the gym. She’s what guys used to call “a real looker.” Fantastic body, angelic face, and Midwestern nice. Me? Just another plain Jane from Queens. Or, as I sometimes overhear some man saying, “Nothing special.”

Caroline is one among New York’s tens of thousands of aspiring actors, few of whom ever progress beyond a handful of unpaid showcase productions. But she does make a nice living doing commercials.

She confided that most of the men she knew were actors, and you know what that means.

“They’re gay?”

“You betcha!”

“Hey, y’know what, Caroline? Why not come with me to some parties? You’ll meet tons of guys – and all of them will be straight.”

“How do you know, Holly?”

“’Cause they hit on almost every woman they meet.”

“Sounds charming!”

It just so happens that this weird professor is hosting a party on Friday night. And get this: He lives in The Dakota.”

“Rosemary’s Baby! John and Yoko! Oh, and Judy Garland, Leonard Bernstein, and Lauren Bacall! You know, Holly, next to being in a Broadway play, I think visiting where all those stars lived would be almost as much of a kick! Heck, I’d go just to see the building!”…

That's quite a teaser! How could you stop now without reading the rest of this story? You can't! Get the rest of your read on 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...

Doin' It to It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"At the typewriter you find out who you are." ~ Tom Robbins

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“ballpointpen12x20cmsdecember10-2015” (above) by featured artist Norman Olson. To see more of Norman's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we prayed for words from gods absurd; we squeezed some more to spill on paper; we whetted our whistles on a morbid epistle; we dined at home on plates of bone; we spoke not with twang of tongue, but with strum of strings; we made feet to sing, forever times sixteen; we took things half lived to make a whole life; we ended all with everything. ~ MH Clay

everything by Andrew Chmielowiec

among the nights i lost:

(1) we are sitting around
the kitchen table
& there are drinks

& we are young & full of hope
& everything is louder
& everything is light blue
(not robin’s egg, but close)

& you are still a thought.

(2) we are at home under the bridge
& we broke our bottles on the rocks,
except for the one that didn’t
& bounced into the hudson river

& we are laughing
& everything else is quiet
& everything is a pale yellow,
except for the water:

a motionless dark blue

& you are closer
& i can almost feel you now.

(3) there is a light
coming through the bedroom window
& we are alone now

& there is no music,
but we are dancing

& everything is glowing
& everything is orange

& you are here.

July 23, 2016

editors note: Sweet singular presence. Yes, everything! (We welcome Andrew back to our creative congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his reinstated page – check it out.) – mh clay

Make Me Whole by Alex Rocha

some days
after work
after i take that drive home
and it’s 2:30am
after i work that job
that is ever awesome so.
usually Thursday mornings,
because i know thursday mornings the gardeners come
and make so much goddamn noise i can’t sleep
i drink more scotch than usual,
in order to sleep through the madness.
leaf blowers going on high
enough to rattle your goddamn brain.
i drink more scotch than usual,
not because of the gardeners,
but more so because of the loneliness that eats at my soul.
3am is the loneliest time of the world.
that’s when it gets cold
and the bed feels empty
and i begin to feel empty
and down,
and not so well.
so i overdo the scotch to feel good,
and i put the ear buds in to drown out the pain,
with ice cubes in my scotch as a trick.
a trick that never works,
but i pretend it does.
my women of before do not like me,
so it’s empty here.
around 4am i get the itching to go out for a smoke,
and i stand out there
in my penguin pajama bottoms
and my flannel button up
and my hat of course,
because any decent man wouldn’t leave his house without
his hat on.
and i smoke.
i look over to the curb where she used to sit,
and wish she was there now,
so i could go talk to her,
she understood the loneliness,
because she is like me.
i hear the birds chirping,
the beginnings of a new day
the start of a sunrise
that peaceful moment in between.
i am alone in the universe.
and then i hear those trotting steps
of that guy who runs through my neighborhood at 4am,
with a relay pylon in his hand,
i hear his shoes stomping the ground,
and i see him run down the street,
and i take 2 steps back,
and make myself close to the wall and try to hide,
but he sees me
and waves that pylon in the air,
and says to me,
“Have a good day man! Be Careful.”
in the most polite and friendly way possible.
and i wave to him
casually.
i wonder about him.
does he wake up early to run?
is he training for a marathon?
i wonder if after his run,
he goes home and takes a hot shower,
and then sneaks into bed,
next to his wife,
and rubs up against her warm body,
and feels an eternal happiness that
is so wonderful
it is enough to devour the world
and eradicate loneliness?
i hope he goes home after his run,
and crawls into bed next to his wife
and realizes just how precious life is.
i want to be him.
i want to love my wife.
i want to wake my kids up for school.
i want to go to parent teacher conference night,
i want my wife to bitch at me for all the projects
i have parked in the driveway.
i want to crawl into bed
next to that nice warm ass i adore
and snore into oblivion.

make me whole.

July 22, 2016

editors note: A whole wish for the whole of all. – mh clay

The Infinitude of LOVE by Anca-Mihaela Bruma

Embraced equinoxes
on the lips of a Spring,
breaths made visible
with Chi power,
meridian feelings,
no North poles
on the other ends…

Solstice mysteries,
boreal mélange
and infused potpourris,
we twirl with Druid feet
and sing our footprints’ song.

During all our 27 glacial years
in front of each winter I knelt,
all monochrome seasons were bundled
and veiled each midnight sky
with Mercurian hands
and Venusian dreams,
traced your smile
between Neptune and Jupiter
with thousands of hellos
and millions of welcoming good-byes!

During all our 16 eternities together,
LOVE kept growing exponentially,
with realities colliding in poetic holograms
devising the infinitude of the Infinite.

July 21, 2016

editors note: A manic mandala of words. Fun with the Infinite! – mh clay

and then the guitar spoke by Anjana Basu

and the wild cherry bloomed in its sanctuary the news was that the girls had gone back to the forests
taking their tears and broken hearts to bury again beneath the mould in a flurry of marigolds
over breakfast the lines of a cross connection distorted our message of love into something else altogether
some kind of violent lust fest that made the pigeons hide their eyes never mind the television while the
cuckoos screeching battled the strings

and then the guitar spoke in a zillion kinds of din or string and the girl lay down in the furrow waiting for
fire to strike and declare her pure of contamination but the news said the fire lied and her tears set a
limbless amputee tree in scarlet bloom trying to speak without tongues

and then the guitar spoke

spring in midwinter had come rainclouds blowing from west to east across the last telegraph wires
before the axe cut down the poles and woodcutter went to smoke a cigarette and never returned.

July 20, 2016

editors note: Guitar-speak; where there’s fire there’s a smoke break. – mh clay

BONE CHINA by Chuck Taylor

May not come from China but
Usually contains cow bone

Use the animal, right? If
You are going to kill it

Use it like the plain’s tribes
Use their sacred buffalo

Imagine, as I know you can,
Bone China placed out for

Family on the dinner table,
Set out well, formally, with

Good silver, a white table-
cloth, gorgeous flowers,

The kind that you like,
Right for the season. Now

Imagine that you do this
Once a year, perhaps on

Thanksgiving, so to bring
Back in spirit your mother

And your father, the bone
Contained in the China

Comes from their cremation,
And your lovely table would

Not be so arrayed without
What they did for, and to, you.

July 19, 2016

editors note: Flesh from flesh, bone from bone; thanks for life and thanks for home. – mh clay

THE MORBID FOUNTAIN by Partha Mohanta

Now or never !
The call keeps haunting.
Julienne of pride
Hung there for my future trade offs
A morbid fountain never should dry
But then I never knew why
It still lets me feed on it… unconditionally!

Is this what you loved for?
Is this what you hated till death?
Is this what you never could understand?
Bless the morbid fountain for its eternal bliss
Right now I cannot say – Why?

In the late hour of clock
I always woke up with a trace of dream
A dream to die for!
A dream to kill for!
A dream to exchange with useless protocols!
Drink from the morbid fountain for it tastes like brine
Sweat or a few drops of tears… you will never know!

July 19, 2016

editors note: Don’t know, either; but – taste the salt? – mh clay

My poems by Shirin Hasrat

They are not mere words
They are the blood that oozes
from a broken heart
The debilitating pain
That pierces deep
And spills on paper.
Blurred words?
Perhaps a teardrop
escaped
Tired of being imprisoned
In sleepless eyes.

July 18, 2016

editors note: An insomniac’s expression to wake us all. (We welcome Shirin to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Damn Those Poet Gods by Robert L. Martin

Sleepless nights and distant days
Through thorns and sordid blinding haze
Pushed through comfort and rest about
Steady hands molding faith in doubt
Stopping when hell is a sacred place
And earth is a lofted planet keeping pace

Those damn poet Gods and their pushy ways
I’m a rag doll losing my way thru the maze
My own thoughts are sufficient words unheard
A ragged warbling from a song-less song-bird
My pride is an anchor wrapped around my feet
A sweetness dipped in a sauce made bittersweet

How beautiful those commanding poet Gods
I hear their words, their palpitating vocal throbs
The overbearing ways they enter my mind
Their passionate journey to find what they find
Their dashing to my heart like a shooting star
I stand amazed in awe for what they are
Those damn poet God’s, please come again
I beseech thee to blow your breath on me. Amen.

July 17, 2016

editors note: As we are damned by them. Amen. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week's featured short story comes from Contributing Writer, Kim Farleigh. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick'o'week, "I Was Here First":

"You’re alive and you’re you, that’s reason enough to be the most important person on the planet. All people who know they’re equally special will bow before you. And if they don’t? Then there’s always hate. Always, there’s hate."

Haters gonna hate and lovers gonna love... this story! Here's a few lovin' morsels:

(photo "Get the Horns" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

People leaving the stairwell entry in the front row of the bullring’s top tier kept stopping to admire the view, moving on when hearing: “Fucking move!”

When Mohican screamed, he stood up. He had stood up a lot. He was in the front row beside the entry.

“You’re in the fucking way!” he belched, for the twenty-fifth time.

Stunned faces spun, seeing Mohican, before moving on.

Mohican’s pale face’s hairy, black mole adorned an inflamed cheek, his Mohican like an outraged bird’s plume upon his pudgy head.

“Fucking move!” he screamed again, his victim spinning in amazement before moving on.

Someone else then stopped in front of him. The bulls would be charging into the ring soon.

“Get out of the fucking way, for Christ’s sake!” Mohican yelped.

“Calm down,” someone said.

“Move!” Mohican screamed.

Skyrockets informed the crowd that the bulls were about to run. The stairwell entry cleared quickly.

Mohican rose, holding a camera.

“Sit down!” someone screamed.

Mohican’s camera’s screen revealed the gates through which bulls and runners would be rushing shortly.

“Sit down!” the same person shouted.

Mohican didn’t respond.

“Incredible!” someone else huffed. “He screams at people for blocking the view and now he’s doing the same thing himself!”

A man went over to Mohican said: “Sit the fuck down or I’ll punch your fucking lights out.”...

Will Mohican actually sit down or will he get himself a fist sandwich? Only one way to find out... read on!

••• Mad Swirl Swag •••

Come & Get Mad Swirl Swag!

If you’re MAD and you know it, why not wear it loudly and proudly? The whole Mad Swirl of merch begins here, in our online store! If you haven’t already got yourself some “mad” clothing to sport, then you’ve come to the right place.

This merch will be available for purchase until August 4th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you some!

Get one for yourself and while you’re at it, get one for your nearest and dearest mad one in your swirlin’ world!

•••••••

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...

Discoverin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts." ~ Henry Moore

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“ballpointpen14x23cmssept3-2015” (above) by featured artist Norman Olson. To see more of Norman's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

(due to tragic losses in our Poetry Editor MH Clay's clan, there will not be a weekly rant)

weeding the wars by Goodness Lanre Ayoola

so before we pray again for peace
let us crave first for a weeding
for the thistles of wars grown
on the soil of our bruised innocence…

for the constant wars in the black and blue
fathers’ paint on the cheeks of our mothers
under the watch of our little eyes…

for the wars watered by the tears of mothers
in our hearts
from their sniffing sobs
u
p
o
n
our dreamless nights
when the thunder of abuse rips
our calm skies into a forceful pool of weeps…

for the wars beastly pencils of sticky lead
draw on the thighs of our virgin papers-
and helplessness
singeing in us the fire of vengeance…

for the wars in the pinches
that sour the juice of forgiveness in our infancy
and build in us the walls of wickedness…

for the wars we etch
in the brawls of ‘take your bicycle away’
and ‘give me the food i gave you a fortnight ago’…

for the wars of poisoned doctrines
forced down the throats of our childhood
and the seeds of hate planted
i
n
t
o
the survival of love in our hearts…

so before we pray again for peace
let us crave first for a weeding
or we pray in vain
and our wars are eternal…

July 30, 2016

editors note: Instead, we enhance them with GMO stamina; war without end, Alas, no more, no more… (We welcome Goodness to our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page; plus another new one about our poor treatment of words – check it out.) – mh clay

News by Arif Ahmad

News of gloom
That of the impending doom
Negative news and then some
That lump in the throat
Reporting on the ugly, broadcasting the terrible
Over and over
A disproportionately pessimistic view of this world
Dampening of the good, exaggerating the bad
Keeping us on the hook and edge
Calling, one disaster after another
Ignoring most of which is better
And our misery addicted minds
(Misery often that of the others)
Keep buying into this sick sensationalism
A frustrating experience it is
Most of what we get as News
Whatever sells and is good for business

I guess

July 29, 2016

editors note: No guess work! Satisfaction guaranteed! Buy more, be happy; rinse and repeat! – mh clay

UNDISTORTED EXPERIENCE by Stefanie Bennett

It’s Growing up diagonally
At 64 and remembering
September 11
(Not specifically because
Cousin Ricki
Was there…).

It’s the tick-tacking accuracy
Of whether anthrax spores
Are absorbed
In our
Hung-over
Morning coffee…

Pseudo market forces.
PC hackers:
(Con amore)
Or – tri-lingual brokers
Ensnared by
A crust of
Bullion rising

That collars the phrase
… We become
What we
Deplete.

July 28, 2016

editors note: With less and less of us each year… – mh clay

A Drunken Regret by Jen Bochenko

You’ll just have to find some middle ground

someone tells me

but i am a pendulum in full swing
and the middle comes fast and frequently
and leaves just as quickly and as often

i am rushing from empty to full
i am gorging on His presence
and soon enough the same eyes that desire me
will cast me away with disgust
for He drinks me in lavishly and in excess
and like a true masochist, i let Him

and i ask all the questions from last time
because i will not be a drunken regret
-again

i am sober
He is not
He growls with desire
i growl in frustration
the pain and fury i feel as He is entering my life
-again
means it will all be amplified when He leaves it
-again

this is a rabbit hole i know i shouldn’t go down
but i will because i am a silly rabbit

and now in the cleansing sunlight of a new day
i worry not about being His drunken regret
but about Him being my sober one

i’m wondering about how far the pendulum will swing this time
how far can i fill up before i just explode
and i skip the middle completely
to be suddenly left at empty

July 27, 2016

editors note: Keep swinging to freedom; empty or full. (We welcome Jen to our crazy conspiracy of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Lava Bits Dancing: Lovers’ Lament by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Lava bits dancing, dancing, dancing,
Flame fingers dancing all dark long.
Learning page prancing, prancing, prancing,
Lessons from prancing all dark long.
Lamenting romance, romance, romance,
Woodland copse romance all dark long.
Prodigal chances, chances, chances,
Tomorrow’s chances all dark long.
Lodging no answers, answers, answers,
Praying for answers all dark long.
Cycles spill questions, questions, questions,
Sons and their questions all dark long.
Dangerous letters, letters, letters,
Queries, not letters, all dark long.
Fire and water, water, water,
Volcanic water all dark long.
Gone astray children, children, children,
Romance’s children all dark long.

July 26, 2016

editors note: And so we step through love and life, “all dark long.” (Say, Mad Readers! Hannah has a new book, “Friends and Rabid Hedgehogs,” just launched. This collection of short fiction can be ordered on Amazon here.) – mh clay

DAKOTA CHARMS (or I THINK I SEE A WAY OUT) by Steven Storrie

The garbage piled up at the curb
Always says hello to me whenever I stride
Out of a morning
Moving away from my home

Maybe it’s the pink sunglasses
Or the jet black hair
And eyes like smoke
Maybe it’s the Batman bikini
Or a smile that tells me for certain
That innocence corrupts.

Maybe it’s the fact that I hate this job
And am currently masturbating to Dakota Charms’
videos in the company toilets
while singing Bob Dylan songs
at room razing volume
instead of doing my highly irrelevant work

Maybe it’s those white high heel
stiletto’s echoing on a hard wooden floor
and the fact that I’ve got nowhere left to go but

I think I see a way out.

July 26, 2016

editors note: And we’re all lookin’ for ours. – mh clay

2 Haikus by Stephanie Mojica

rosy hues muted
tenaciously unable
to dream ever again

•••

blaring silence
hollow, so much smoke
life decaffeinated

July 25, 2016

editors note: Two short slaps to the senses. – mh clay

The Grand Illusion by Randall K. Rogers

This is all an
illusion, the illusion
of perception…
which blinds us
to an appreciation
of infinite
unreality.

July 24, 2016

editors note: Blind to our blindness? (I think) I see… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Then you'll dig this and wanna dig in to this week's featured story "Skies of Hell Flame" coming from Contributing Writer/Artist/Poet Mike Fiorito. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick'o'the week tale:

Keep telling yourself your hell is worse than anyone else’s. From Texas to New York, it’s all a different sort of hell, but we make homes in hell, always.

Here's a bit of "...Hell..." fer ya':

(photo "Hell's Ceiling" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Texas heat beats down on the lawn in front of the house. There is a scorching wind gently blowing the blades of inch high grass. The grass is wet green, as if oils soaks through the surface to slicken the grass.

The sun’s blaze doesn’t reach the inside of the house. Along with the tarantulas and snakes, it’s stopped at the front door.

A sign hangs in the kitchen that reads God Bless This House. The walk-in kitchen is designed perfectly; its drawers are filled with corn cob holders, lime squeezers, egg beaters, spaghetti servers. All silver. A wine rack nailed to the cabinet displays crystal wine glasses hanging upside down as if in a state of eternal crucifixion.

“We have to be ready by noon,” says James. “My mom has the photographer for three hours only.”

“I wish she’d given us more notice,” says Natalie. Her face is red, her eyes half closed from too little sleep.

“She told us a week ago,” says James.

“I need more time to schedule the hairdresser.” She speaks looking into the mirror, combing her hair.

Buttoning his shirt, James looks into the mirror on the other side of the dresser drawer. His small blue eyes sink into the puffed flesh around them. The fat from his neck swells from out of the shirt.

“I don’t know why your mother does this to me. She doesn’t want me to look pretty,” shouts Natalie.

•••

Later that night they come back from the family photo session.

•••

“Well, I guess the pictures came out ok,” she says.

He nods.

“I’m just so tired. What with work, the kids, and everything else,” says Natalie, pouring wine into a large glass. The liquid makes a gurgling sound as she pours it.

“You’re taking those pills. You’re not supposed to mix them with alcohol.”

She takes a long drink...

And on that cliffhangin' note, we now direct you right here to get the rest of this read on!

••• Mad Swirl Swag •••

Come & Get Mad Swirl Swag!

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of August (aka 08.03.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our NEW mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass City Tavern!

This month we will be featuring Why Ohh You! (aka YOU!) Oh, and we’ll also be debuting our swirliness on a new stage. Come and witness this mad-mentous occasion!

Come on out, one & all. Get a brainful of Why Ohh You!, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

Fo' mo' info', visit our Open Mic page!

P.S. To get on the preRSVP list, visit our FB event page.

P.P.S. If you can’t make it to Mad Swirl Open Mic this 1st Wednesday but wanna catch the mad action from the comforts of wherever it is you like to watch madness ensue, Mad Swirl is gonna try on this whole “Live Feed” thingie that FB is doin’ these days. Tune in to our Mad Swirl FB home at 8:00-ish (CST) and see if we can get this whole technology thing figured out!

•••••••

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...

Discoverin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Art is what you can get away with." ~ Andy Warhol

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“ballpointpen14x22cmssept29” (above) by featured artist Norman Olson.

We hope your senses have enjoyed the works of our featured artist Norman Olson. We got his whole collection on MadSwirl.com so feel free to visit whenever the mad mood strikes ya! And hopefully Norman will share more of his swirl'n drawings and paintings with us in the very near future!

Stay tuned for our next featured artist coming your way real soon! Until then, check out our other featured artistsin our Mad Gallery

••• The Poetry Forum •••

(due to tragic circumstances in our Poetry Editor MH Clay's clan, there will not be a weekly rant today)

A BLOOMER IS A BLOOMER LOL by Alex L. Swartzentruber

So you are a late bloomer.
That’s ok.
You’re a slow burner.
Neither a winner nor a loser,
you are a hottie in the muck.
You’re a diamond uncut.
You are a stag deep in the forest
of real life.
There’s torturous trees here,
just out of reach fruits, and toads
who will be your friend.
Don’t worry.
You won’t always be like them,
but for now this will be your crowd.
You are their undiscovered orchid.
Maybe it’s best to bloom in the shadows.
Take your time flexing your petals.
Perhaps you’d prefer not to be clipped
from your mossy log and put on display.
You like to look up at the swamp stars,
unknown to unknown.

August 6, 2016

editors note: How to reach full potential in your comfort zone… – mh clay

Hillbilly Death Cult Extravaganza by Mike Roach

Staring ice into piercing tail light eyes
In a town that dies by 9 each night
I ran 98 miles like a frightened child
From the first time I made you smile
Pink rose petals and empty bottles of wine
The destruction, the desolation, the lynching and the fear
With the clear conscience of a convicted killer
Gone to buy more skin and tears to shed for everyone here

The savior and betrayer ever so perfect
They read the novel written in my face
To see that growing up wasn’t worth it
And giving up would be insane
And even after losing your love
and being without a warm home
My greatest tragedy is the company I keep
When I’m all alone

So tell me, goddess
Are there a lot of guys at your feet or is it just me?
And she said, “Man, more mortals than you would care to believe;
Seducers, accusers, deities, and thieves”
I’ll take all my hard work with me to the furnace
Beneath my feet will be my final resting place
Drowning so calmly, I don’t disturb the surface
Buried so deep they’ll make a river of my grave

August 5, 2016

editors note: An epic novel in three stanzas. The hero dies in the end… – mh clay

Here We Go Again by Dan Raphael

Most years January doesn’t have to do much — its reputation’s enough, every day
in the 30s, rain with 20 mile wind from whatever direction you’re walking;
sometimes the rain polymers branches, cars and streets in cold hard transparency,
soaked soil and juggernaut wind bringing down trees and lines, increasing the darkness
that should be diminishing: the sun’s been up for hours but January wont let it out,

Jan doesn’t look at us at all, knows what we’re waiting for, so becomes 2 weeks longer —
February won’t mind, having been the shortest all its life, knows what complaining brings,
its only reward an extra day every 4 years like a gold star that won’t stick to its forehead,
February’s that long car ride, soon as it begins we’re asking, is it March yet?

March marches, Mars the god of war showing off its new but familiar uniforms,
this month of sideways rain, month of flowers teased into blossoming then frosted brown
by northern winds tromping the calendar line claiming Winter’s over

March has no idea how April got here or who let it in, April so caught
in its fashionable reflection, intoxicated by its own promise,
it seldom looks outside — why are you complaining, it’s April? –
put on your shorts, dust off your bike and celebrate your way to a terrible cold.

August 4, 2016

editors note: Seized in the seasons, pulled by the politics of passing time. – mh clay

playing house by Lindsay Diem

her tiny fingers clasped a diaper wipe
and pressed it to my nose
she loudly instructed for me “blow”
and waited inquisitively

she wiped my face delicately
the way mommy and daddy do it
and blotted my eyeliner
with a look of disdain

she didn’t know what to do with the ugliness
the long black streak of make-up
her eyes, wide and innocent
baffled
by imperfection

August 3, 2016

editors note: From the start, comes the question, “What do we do with the garbage?” – mh clay

THE PAST AND THE CURIOUS by John D Robinson

As a young man
I was never a great
success with the
girls;
it wasn’t that I
lacked the urge or
the desire but
rather I always felt
awkward and ugly
and always ended
up saying
something
dumb and I was
always the first to
get crazy drunk
and
get into some kind
of hassle;
naturally I had my
times with the girls
and enjoyed the
majesty of their
flesh and gentleness
and their special
ways that I’ll
never understand
and my curiosity
hasn’t diminished;
I love women
and at over half
a century old I’m
a little more at
ease with feminine
beauty and their
natural sensuous
ghosts
within their eyes
and lips and hair and
the way of their
sunsets, the way of
their worlds and
the music they make;
forever captivated
and
enchanted by the
flames of heaven
and hell.

August 2, 2016

editors note: The ultimate incarceration; prison divine. (We welcome John D. to our creative confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Relict by Sanjeev Sethi

Sluicing in the runnel of your ruminations
a collage of close-ups pinwheels
through mental frontiers. I smile
a smile whose breadth demonstrates
your depth. Your watermark splashes
when through the light of alone time
I notice how well-lit you left me.

I connect emotions and their effulgence
with the young. But look at me, at this
vintage. Does freshness of feelings infuse
newishness? When in fuss and flap of
love, curiosities about a lover are a curse.
Whatever one knows is less. Wavelength
of vacancies help erase mackled edges.

August 2, 2016

editors note: The relic recapitulates his relevance. – mh clay

The (Un)seen by Peter Magliocco

Pale wildflowers were left at your doorstep.
Near the end of spring warmer wind came
to stir hair from unrecognizable faces,
like your dead Civil War soldier boy
following you everywhere in the city.
That modern gothic city of torn dreams
melded you into a mature woman
the lost waif never left inside you.
To forage through oneiric possibility
existed in the plight of others,
you said, “whether alive or dead.”
He spread pale wildflowers every day
with blessings withering at your feet.
In his uniform, haunting the byways
shadow people drive by in distress,
plotting crime, doing life chores
while beating away real consciousness
in their unknowing human brains,
never seeing the Civil War soldier
with his purely diffracted skeletal face
(under dust of immanent thoughts)
they choose to deny & ignore totally
as dead flowers slowly stalk us.

August 1, 2016

editors note: Though the dead would teach us, we still won’t learn. – mh clay

Cosmic Hand by Harley White

Once upon a ghostly star,
knee-deep in a darkling place,
I meandered off too far
into outer, outer space.

As I wandered in this land
of the void beyond the night,
suddenly I saw a hand
reaching for a cosmic light.

Though lost in darkness dreary
and adrift in bleak despair,
disheartened, weak, and weary,
I could not but stop and stare.

Such a wondrous illusion
floated in those blackened skies!
Was this only delusion
that I saw before my eyes?

Did collapsed star long ago,
pulsar spinning crazily,
cause that nebulaic glow
emanating hazily?

Was this sight to be believed?
Astrophysical ideal?
Pareidolia perceived?
Yet the phantasm seemed real!

Fingers colored brilliant blue
clutching at a fiery band
formed a most amazing view
of this archetypal hand.

And my musing mind was full
of this inner mystic spell
serving as the heavens’ pull
out of my own private hell.

That ethereal display
brought me eerily around,
showing me the light of day
and a destiny profound.

Ever onward I would plod,
thus to seek the truth inside,
on a path that few had trod
where deep wisdom would abide.

With this purpose as my guide,
though the way might twist and bend,
I would live until I died
with enlightenment my end.

Yea, it was as if a dream
of a helping hand within
shone a bright eternal beam
where obscurity had been.

July 31, 2016

editors note: When what we see brings enlightenment and hope, then let’s see more of that! (The image inspiring this wonderful, ekphrastic outburst can be seen here.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! Once in awhile we get a short story that is waaay out there and we just caaan't help ourselves but to publish it! "Jimmy the Human" by Contributing Writer WJP Newnham is one of those. Here's what Short Story Editor has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

Hope is pointless when humanity is perpetual. That’s how we want it, though. Always alive, always struggling, always until we’re ash.

And here's a bit of his byte madness to get'cha goin':

photo "Factory-made Sunset" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

Jimmy the human. Well, vaguely human.

It’s been a long thirty years on the factory floor,

A robotic existence, but you’ve made a feed

For yourself and the factory fodder you and your wife

Spawned at intervals:

Funny how their conception times to

Celebrations of promotion and pay rises.

Like hey baby, I’m financial: let’s procreate!

Escape.

Lest the mewling offspring howl in protest

At the jail term…

Shackled from birth to the machine

And worked to death

Near death

So fucked up!

Acres and acres of bricks and wire mesh, Halon globes burning bright with candle power greater than the sun; early morning overtime to pay the mortgage. Mile upon mile on weary legs and feet: varicose veins straining for release against tired old flesh. Trudging slowly uphill to catch the tram: faces drawing ground ward, eyes slumped like slag, cold and ready for the banality of another day on the job.

“See, you find one nice girl

You get to marry!

You both got job?

Ok, you save you money!

…

Always dumping wage into the bank.

You know, but food with wife wage…

2 years, maybe 3 you got

Twenty thousand dollars and you get loan.

Maybe 50-60 thousand. You buy a house!”

And you buy and you buy and you buy and you buy and you buy and you buy…

You click ▼you click ▼you click ▼...

••• Open Mic •••

All we here at Mad Swirl have gots’ta say about this past 1st Wednesday is Awww! OK, we have a LOT more words to share, what with ALL the poets & musicians and pics & links & tags & whatnot’s we gots…

A HUGE shout-out to our NEW mad mic home, downtown Dallas’ badass’d City Tavern!

If you couldn’t make it to the debut show and wish you coulda, there’s some live feed action recorded on our Mad Swirl FB page but it pales to being there.

Thanks to all who came out to the City Tavern & shared in this mad-mentous collective deliciousness. What a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music it was!

Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

(photo courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez. See Dan's whole collection from this past month here)

Feature:
Why Ohh YOU!

Host:
Johnny Olson

Krude/Swirve Walker:
Clark Walker & Chris & Tamitha Curiel

Mad Cast:
Desmene M. Statum
James “Bear” Rodehaver
Opalina Salas
David Parham aka Rob Dyer
Jen Bochenko
Carlos Salas
Vic Victory
Brett “BA” Ardoin
Cynthia Ann
Jake Kinnard

~intermission~

Charles”Kerseymere” Randall
Wes Anthony
Paul Koniecki
Gnadia Wolnisty
John May
Reverie Evolving
Hector Ortiz
James Hargrave
Catie McLain
Sonny Wyatt
Max Young

HUGE thanks to Krude/Swirve Walker for taking us to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

Gigantic grats too to our Viking sound and lights guru Thad & cheers to our burly bartender Ben for keeping us buzzin’ all night long!

Heaps of thanks to 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.

and last but NOT least…

HUGEST thanks to The City Tavern’s proprietor Joshua Florence for blessing us with our new digs and welcoming us mad ones with open arms and giving us a swirl’n space we can call home.

May the madness swirl your way ’til next 1st Wednesday…

Your Mad Googily-Eyed Guy

P.S. Interested in prforming? If you are a mad poet, musician, actor, singer and/or performer (circus freaks and Elvis impersonators always welcome) & live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, come to The Underpass Bar & strut–yo–stuff.

P.S.S. Got questions? E-mail us at openmic@madswirl.com for further details that may not be listed here.

P.S.S. The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

•••••••

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...

Gettin' Away with It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within." ~ Edith Hamilton

••• The Mad Gallery •••

(click here to to hear the accompanying track to this piece)

“Cars” (above) by featured artist Suza Kanon. To see more of Suza's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

Our newest featured visual artist, Dallas-based Suza Kanon, is quite the multi-talented one! But if you already know Suza you already know this. But if you don’t, surely you will know now! Suza brings us collaged mixes of dark images with sharp and scribbled words to match. These scribbles and hand-written edits serve her form quite finely too. A view at her works almost feels like we are perusing something straight out of a secret and guarded notebook that we shouldn’t be peeking through. But try as we must, we can’t look away. Something tells us this self-proclaimed ‘unrepentant scribbler’ might not mind us having a peek at what’s going on in her not-so-secret notebook. So if Suza’s opening it up to us, we’re gonna take a gander! And we think you should sneak a peek for yourself too!– Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we reposed in the regrets of war; we walked a new way to discern the same day; we looked through the sun to the bliss of two as one; we plumbed the depths of death to hear a poet's dying breath; we tried to hide from the carnival ride... of love; we dirtied not beliefs hard bought with clean soap and free thought; we tempted fate to make death wait; we wrecked the whole thing on the seeds of a dream. ~ MH Clay

SEEDS by Helen Harrison

1

On a Sunday in mid-summer
Right at the edge of the park
You come to me;

Talking future plans,
Shining eyes,
And a heart that dared.
We saw ourselves

Buying a car to travel
Down to the coast
Whenever we took the urge

All planned out under the elm
Of eager spreading roots.
Many seeds scattered

Ideas with wings on the breeze
Hope floating all the way
Towards the sea along winding
Open-windowed roads.

2

Smashed in spring – the last
Season you inhaled;
Lying singing on the back seat.

The front driver’s side was saved,
Letting me drive
To dreams that died.

Dreams have a way
Of coming at you by the front
And leaving by the back door.

I pass it now, the car
In the scrap yard
At the edge of the town
It’s only half now.

August 13, 2016

editors note: These unplanned stops; who can bear them? Keep driving toward your dreams. (This poem comes from Helen’s collection The Last Fire. You can find it on Amazon here.)- mh clay

Let us die of a slow life by Fabrice Poussin

Counting the seconds on the hour glass is no hobby,
while the fluffy cumuli keep on their carefree flight,
slowing time, while listening to a relentless rhythm,
the conductor imagines his dancers in slow motion.

Dos and Res and Tis float as if from the autumn tree,
lines in the air, scars in the sand alike are no trap
to the eternal invincible freedom of the symphony;
let us this die of a slow life as we make our arts.

There will always be time for your handsome flesh
to slide off those charming bones I know so well;
no need for you to look down to the speedometer,
you may slow a little and see a scene not so blurry.

Death can wait, immortal, we need not worry;
her scythe may rust just a little more for our sakes;
we will die of a slow life, for you and I can rest;
the sunsets and moonrises do take their time you know.

Smile my love, with all your pearls, let your heart sing
the melody written on the dimensions of the galaxies;
there is room for you, for you too are the size of a dream;
no need to rush, run, take your time to my grave.

There is laughter to be heard, smiles to be painted;
the canvas stretched seems limitless in your soul;
mind not the colors for they have lost their taste;
breathe in my love, and slowly walk to be with me.

August 12, 2016

editors note: Suspend each grain in the palm of your hand. Hold it for as long as now will stand… – mh clay

The Void by Michael Marrotti

Living a life
void of belief
is like using
an anonymous
bar of soap
to scrub away
the unbeknownst
filth of the earth
in a lukewarm shower

Dirty towels
dry away
unguided souls

No transcendence
or declension
when the elevator
is out of service

Not knowing
is not caring
And living a life
free of indoctrination
is a life
of free thinking

August 11, 2016

editors note: When we don’t know what we don’t know… Well, which way IS up? – mh clay

Slight of Hand by Rafael Andrade Garza

Nothing I write
satisfies my heart
I long to reach the end
of my novel shore
where the sun barely touches ocean
like when I circle the curls of your hair
lost in your loop
taking me back to the carnival of love, again
with its endless magic and tricks
your illusions and all
caught in your spell
mesmerized as if I’m seeing you pass me again
for the very first time

© May 4, 2014

August 10, 2016

editors note: Ahhh! True Love… so mysterious; before we learn the truth of it. (Read another Mad missive about love on Rafael’s page – check it out.) – mh clay

The verses by Milenko Županović

Apparitions
death
disappear
in a fog
recollections
verses
dead
poet
hidden.

August 9, 2016

editors note: The ensuing void we would fill with words. – mh clay

The Movement by James Brown

Looking up through the sun roof; the illusion delighting to the mindset, gravity has the hold, movement of the clouds divulge the delusion.

When you wake paint me in your reflection as the mirror emulates and the mind subsists as we exist in a love abyss.

August 9, 2016

editors note: A brief, sweet forever… – mh clay

Walking 5th Avenue by Ally Malinenko

I needed a change of pace,
of footfalls and a different shade of face
on the people I weave between
on my long journey from home to here

so I moved up one avenue,
just to see what else there is to see
and when I crested the hill at the old cemetery
and Manhattan spread open like a hand
begging for me to take it,

I realized that I was so small
on this hilltop
on this island
on this planet
in all that black space

and that being small has so many advantages.
I stood still for a moment thinking I could feel the planet turn
but it was just a seagull passing
hanging for a moment above me,
before screeching and moving on

August 8, 2016

editors note: Small enough to go unnoticed by passing calamity. – mh clay

Summer Unveils my Woe by David O’Brien

Arising the troops
steadying the streams
cleaning the battleaxes
rinsing the shields
saddling the needy steeds
testing the waters
preparing for the barricades
calming the nervous
calling the duties
tying the ropes
rehearsing the wartime speeches
thinking the tactics
listening to the commands
ignoring the conscience
repairing the instincts
mapping the routes
expecting the sieges
spotting the brand new battlefield
disbelieving the sight
targeting the enemy
relaying the others
trapping the ill witted
ensnaring the timid
burning the bridges
building the walls
anticipating the backlash
praying for the non faithful

mourning the friendships lost
regretting, as you walk the other way

August 7, 2016

editors note: Aggression breeds revulsion. Why not walk away first? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you Need-a-Read then need no more! Mad Swirl's featured short, "Henry Showed Wendy His Paintings" comes from Contributing Writer & Poet, Donal Mahoney& it just might leave a chill up your spine!

Henry and Wendy Throckmorton had been married a week when Henry took Wendy to his garret 100 miles south of their estate in posh Kenilworth, a suburb of Chicago. Wendy thought she was going on a delayed honeymoon. Henry had never told her that he was a painter by avocation. She knew only that he was a successful patent attorney and had a large, profitable practice.

There was a heavy snowfall that evening and it made the trip for Wendy, looking out the window of the car, all the more beautiful. They arrived at the garret around midnight and walked up three flights of stairs in the dark. It was good that Henry had brought his flashlight. He used three keys on a long silver chain to open three locks on the steel door. Once inside the garret, Henry turned on the light with triumph.

“Voila!” he said as he turned slowly in a circle with arms outstretched.

Wendy was certainly surprised. There were paintings all over the walls. Other paintings, half completed, sat on their easels waiting for Henry. He explained to Wendy that she was the first person to see his work–his work of a lifetime. He had never shown his work to anyone before but now that they were married, he felt she had a right to see it.

“Wendy, you are the one person I know who is qualified to see my work and I am very happy about that.”...

Get your show-and-tell read on 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...

Expressin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Thus, the poet's word is beginning to strike forcefully upon the hearts of all men…" ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

••• The Mad Gallery •••

(click here to to hear the accompanying track to this piece)

“Houdini” (above) by featured artist Suza Kanon. To see more of Suza's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we flew the coup for a bird's nest soup; we griped and groused o'er the odds of the house; we marked a mundane story of life in purgatory; we ran real-estate life with a styrofoam wife; we copped to a post-coital deconstruction; we filled a hole with forbidden fruit; we wrapped our world with a bonnie girl; we neared Nirvana nearly well, seeking sanctuary to Get Out Of Hell. Near perfection, perfectly near. ~ MH Clay

Leave by Contributing Poet Kenneth P. Gurney

My Buddha wears a red dress, spiked heals
and a Chicago Cubs tramp stamp.

My Quan Yin appears both as a sparrow
and a mockingbird.

Morning’s acolytes speed away from me
wearing bright colors and the latest running shoes.

If I gave you my Get Out Of Hell Free card,
would you give me your veteran’s burial right

so I may rest eternally under the sycamore shade
of Antietam’s national cemetery?

By now the coyotes have dragged
last night’s white tail deer road kill into the wood,

so you may exit the house without witness
of that particular mechanized savagery.

Even the worst part of me loves you,
forgives you, for the oblique issues we howled last night,

each of us too lone wolf under a full moon
to hear the hunger and loneliness deep in our bodies.

The worst part of you, takes my Cubs hat
and wears it to keep your hair out of your eyes

as you work on the pickup truck’s engine
or on a walk in the rain that inspired Noah’s toil.

editors note: Knickers nabbed in Nirvana. Ommmm (my)! – mh clay

Bonnie by Guest Poet David Ratcliffe

You, the scene changer
add color to sullied days;
quirky, cute, undignified,
as unconventional as
a kept secret, turning partial
imperfection to complete
emancipation.

My crystal paperweight, warping
lies into virtual truth; Bonnie Parker
in ribbons and scars, more
worthy than those worthless
troubles wrapped within
humdrum days.

Totally insane
to be normal in these times of
turmoil you say with a lisp as
crisp as a cut-glass vase.

Bringing life to the graveside of
horizontal fools, where
I take your hand, dance upon the
twice dead, content to be
unsettled, while settling for
unnatural immortality.

editors note: The perfect mate with whom to navigate this graveyard life. – mh clay

For Lily In The Garden by Guest Poet Jack D. Harvey

If one apple
were eaten

before eating
think innermost

when unzipping

how a skin
has a sweet life

how a depth reached
leaves a hole.

editors note: Said serpent to sylph. Yet, here we are again. Think… – mh clay

AntsBirdsCoffee by Contributing Poet Charlotte Hamrick

Coffee is pooling under the coffee maker
with little bits of grind like ants swimming
around. It’s been leaking for weeks while

I ignored it as I’m trying to do you.
My life, too, is spilling out around the edges.
I try to contain its dark liquid, try to maintain

my balance on the high wire in my head
whirring with chirping birds flying
in a frenzy, wings batting and tiny bones snapping.

Every day a little bit more of something seeps out,
every night I wipe it into my sleep,
holding it behind tightly closed eyes, willing

it down deep where light is swallowed.
But every sunrise it’s back, pushing through
cracks, birds swooping and ants crawling

in the seepage. Another day, another potful
of crazy, another push of the lava swell of lies
down my throat swimming
in a bellyful of you.

editors note: Reflux recurring; love lost, but lingering. – mh clay

The Real-Estate Developer by Contributing Poet Ryan Quinn Flanagan

He is up each morning
the real-estate developer
building sandcastles on the beach below
with a purple pail and a yellow plastic shovel
his work tools, the tools of his trade
and halfway out the front door
on his way to work
he stops to kiss a hat rack with a styrofoam head
on the cheek
(his wife of many years)
before taking the elevator
down.

editors note: Maybe he will run for president… or king. – mh clay

Purgatory by Contributing Poet Ann B-D

He comes home and she circles around him
Rubbing the pain into the wound
Have you eaten, was it nice
Did the car drive well
Monosyllables or no syllables
The stare straight ahead
The slight nod
And she stops talking.
Flow of air
Motes of sun
The snap and hiss of the open beer cap.
The evening begins.
The tv crackles on, it’s the bottom of the fifth
Bases loaded but lots of time to play
As he slowly eases down
And pries off his shoes.
The couch
The beer
The game
goes on.

editors note: Dante’s revenge on the working class. – mh clay

EITHER WAY, THE PENNY DROPS by Guest Poet Dean R. Boic

I throw money at the slots,
The casinos,
Trying to make an honest income
But it doesn’t stick
Nothing does
I say to the machine,
“Come on, give me something,
I need it, for my wife and kids”
I savour my beer
And smoke my cigarettes
I put one out
And light another
And try some more
But it doesn’t budge
Some irritating man
Parks his behind
In the chair next to me
And starts watching me
Trying to gauge
If I’m winning or not
And he ruins my buzz
Altogether
I don’t like people
And now there’s a person
Right next to me
Too close for comfort
I hear him breathing
And I’m put off
I go from winning to losing
Going down
And going up again
To feeding money
And getting nothing back
Eventually I get up
And leave
The irritating man
Immediately sits at my machine,
Shoves some notes in
And boom
He wins
The jackpot
Either way
The penny drops
It’s my loss…

editors note: The odds always favor the house (or that irritating man). – mh clay

SWIFTS ARE MAD BIRDS by Guest Poet David A. Thompson

Swifts are mad birds
They never sleep
But can close down half their brain for a snooze

Swifts are mad birds
They fly at 60 miles per hour
And throw themselves at
Walls and tiny holes

Swifts are mad birds
Building nests of spit and insect legs

Swifts are mad birds
As soon as they can fly
Having never ever flown
Take off and immediately head for Africa

Swifts are mad birds
Because they fly 5000 miles to spend a Northern Irish summer

But – humans are even madder
Who eat swift spit, mud and insect carcass

And call it birds nest soup

editors note: All trade protected by the Bird’s Nest Soup Lobby. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Who Needs-a-Read? You, that's who! And we here at Mad Swirl have got quite the read to fit your need... "Who’s Who" by Contributing Writer John Lewis!

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"The world’s a small town and you never know who’s on top of who no matter how well you think you’re on top of them."

Here's a few lines from "Who's Who" for you you's:

(photo "A Nobody" (below) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Mr L.K.J. Portland was in shock. He couldn’t put his finger of what he’d done wrong. Well, to be truthful, he had done wrong—he’d taken an illegal turn and collided with an old car driven by a young woman. A nobody. That was what troubled Mr. Portland. The nobody was but a fly yet she stood her ground when he swatted her. Who did this Akeela Banks think she was?

L.K.J. Portland or Port as he was popularly known to the rich who dwelled above the law knew this little incident seemed to be getting out of hand.

Miss Banks had challenged the accuracy of the accident report given by the police which transferred the fault from Mr Portland to Miss Banks—from the affluent to the working class. The absence of a lawyer at her side was further cause for Port’s disgust. He felt that his credentials deserved much better. In the past had he not won in the face of greater odds? Port knew he did.

He had his lawyers mail his demand for repair costs to his top model car but the nobody Akeela Banks insisted that it was he who must repair her car because he was at fault in every respect. The next thing that angered Port was a call from the magistrate who asked in a feminine but assertive voice him to drop the case. The magistrate, in her off-the-record conversation, knew that Port was using the law as a ship to satisfy his ego. What does this bitch know? thought Port...

Who wants some more of "Who's Who"? You do, that's who! Get the rest of your read on 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...

Strikin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race." ~ Johann Georg Hamann

••• The Mad Gallery •••

(click here to to hear the accompanying track to this piece)

“Surveillance” (above) by featured artist Suza Kanon. To see more of Suza's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we grieved on paper true, bleeding ink from red to blue; we pulled the lever of atomic never; we lost everything but the weight which pulls us down; we danced in the street in a prismed crown; we sheltered in the eaves of clinking leaves; we wondered at the word of a mystery bird; we slipped in the slur of a cataract blur; we avoided inane talk by an honest jaywalk. Every day we wake in the steps we take. ~ MH Clay

the jaywalker by John Grochalski

we’ve lived in the same building
going on eight years now
see each other in the hallway
the laundry room
in the basement when i’m throwing out
the cat litter, food scraps and booze bottles
on this long street we pass each other
maybe three or four times a day
going nowhere good
me to work or the liquor store or to the grocery
and he to go and sit
in the laundromat or citibank vestibule
and with each passing it’s the same thing
how’s it going?
have a good one
each time we meet in the apartment, too
there are these customs we have
a head nod, a tip of the hat
i don’t know which one of us started it
eight years of these trite greetings
and no other conversation, thank god
well, yesterday i was coming down the street
coffee and a bagel and a wicked hangover this time
and he was coming up the street
we both looked steeled for the same old same old fate
when suddenly he broke between two parked cars
hustled his old ass across the street away from me
with angry people honking their angry horns
leaning their heads out windows to curse him out
on their way to church
not even a head nod my way
eight years broken in one bold move
and as he limped off toward wherever
i watched him
not angry
not sad at being shunned as such
but feeling happy and full of grace
that someone in this world
had finally taken the time to get to know me
and what i really wanted
after all of these silly
wasted years
on such hollow kindness.

editors note: Honesty for false honors? Good trade! – mh clay

Cheap Trick by Jonathan Beale

One slight; one night; once among the neon
and the bar room noise
The chaos
Seemed to be alien vaguely relative, somehow familiar.
The action something invisible something unreal
Although important for need of mankind
The need for when all else has drained
Down away away away…

All their eyes were distracted by
The neon, billboards, and garbage blowing about
Now forgotten
Yesterday’s wants now gone – bellies empty
Unrequired – yet to cut out as a cataract
To forget the image.

editors note: The impossible trick; to unsee a thing. – mh clay

Bird Songs by Christopher Minton

I passed you every morning, for we had a routine
And like a good New Yorker, I kept my head down
I did not look at you, not even once
But I listened, for it was impossible to avert my ears

You spoke to me, uninvited, every time I went by
The things you said were maddeningly inconsistent
They rained down, a chaotic soup of judgments
That I was left to wrestle with in my own time

One morning I heard you smile even before you spoke
“You know what I like about you?” A pause.
“I like the way you make yourself laugh when you’re all alone.
That is,” you pronounced, “cute and quite endearing.”

Another morning your voice wasn’t as soft
“You know what’s really sad?” Silence.
“What’s really sad is how much energy you expend
Worrying about what other people think of you.”

We carried on in this manner, you and I
How many days or weeks or months I could not say
I clung to your sing-song voice throughout the day
Despite my self-admonitions to do otherwise

And then one day, as I approached your nest
I stopped and looked up, making eye contact for the first time
And there you sat, surprisingly beautiful in your knowing
You laughed and the sound echoed across the years

I knew then who you were, and I relished my understanding
Your mouth opened and let fly no words, only a bird song
It was joyful, and I knew what you were telling me, and I believed you
“Now,” you sang, “we’re getting somewhere.”

editors note: “I’ll bet you think this song is about you.” – mh clay

September Journal: Monday, September 30, 2013 by Don Mager

As earth rolls the horizon up and
away from the sun’s unflinching glare,
the long-armed light splashes shifting patches
of sparkling margarita lime high
across the clinking leaves at the tops
of trees. The breeze shakes variegated
pom-pom shimmy-shammies. Short skirts fluff
and shiver their pleats. As they giggle
in irrepressible voiceless
childish glee, miss and hit flutters of
spiraling unhurried leaves drift through
the dark cavernous lower branches
to hide among shadows blanketing
earth. Earth’s roll moves on as the dark ascends.

editors note: Arboreal ecstasies, last minute mayhem before dark. (We welcome Don to our crazy conspiracy of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page.) – mh clay

Muscovite by Sheikha A.

it was like doing the cha-cha on a sheet
of glass; the side street was carpeted
by pebbles,

I could as well imagine walking my feet
on tiny rubies, emeralds or diamonds
crunching and grunting

but the watchmen’s children invented a game
substituting marbles cleverly

their laughter filling the air like the sun
sparkling on thin windows, the light
falling on their hair like a crown of prisms

their beams reaching to the sky
telling the birds to join in the play

maybe it had rained stones
the night before
or snowed grey/black crystals –
nothing can be a bad thing
happiness can be transparent, after all –

editors note: Pebbled and child-laughter happy. No darkness on that street. – mh clay

i do not want to lose by Carl Kavadlo

my keys
my mind
my favorite trapeze
a guitar string
the warmth of coffee
friends of the past
nor my coat
nor my hat
in the snowy blizzards
nor the functioning of
the a.c. in the summer
the buttons to my shirt
nor the hair on my head
loved ones

just
the one
immovable
that doesn’t
budge: weight.

editors note: An endless conundrum; let go, hold on. – mh clay

Caution of an Atom by Mike Fiorito

When the bed’s miserly corners
Consort with the ceiling to enfold you,
You reach for the lever – never
Did you think?
Life could shrink
So small that you couldn’t count Angels within its walls?
So small
Air strangles in one last breath.

And near death,
You reach for the lever – forever
Is a long time to dangle your feet off –
Of a sun crushed to the caution
Of an atom.

editors note: Even then, still hope for one ionic bond. – mh clay

High by Katie Lewington

went to the cemetery –
hoping to dig my own grave
look at all these people –
buried away
sky was overcast –
tears were swept back
it seems peaceful and comforting
not at all like death in his early years

well, now look I’ve written some lines
a poem from other people’s dead lives –
current was blocked
that no doctor could stop

I’m writing in red –
unable to find the pen that writes in blue
as b4
habits bespoke –
there is something more than silence something worse –
coming out –
the ticking of the clock
like the train from the tunnel
the sudden light fierce –

books should not be this quiet
they should be crying from the shelves –
life should not be passed should be encountered –
and still that clock ticks

alone with blonde librarian
imagine the romantic possibilities
triumphing any of the stories
in these novels –
I bet

mum of a girl I once knew comes
inside for a look
I know you wouldn’t recognize me now
I think
nobody ever does –
I haven’t changed –

found blue pen.

editors note: So high one can go with the right color of ink. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

It's Happy Need-a-Read Day! Let's cheers to that. Howsabout a lil Hennessy on the rocks? And let's make that a double, another for this week's featured short story, coincidentally-not titled "Hennessy on the Rocks" by Samonni Devine.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Drop your foot, lay roots, then pick up and see what of you is left behind. Live like this and see what’s left and then call it humanity."

Here's a sip to whet your read thirst:

(photo "I like my marriage like I like my drinks: on the rocks." (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

I know this older lady who left her soul in every barstool across the city. She appeared to be this beautiful shade of lost with just a hint of recognition. Her eyes told this alluring story that I was interested in finding out, and I eventually did. The night I met her she told me she dreamt of being a musician. She told me everything—everything that led her to her pain and her self-inflicted demolition. And I felt for her.

“Excuse me, may I get you ladies anything?” asked the bartender.

“Two double shots of Hennessy on the rocks, please.” I replied.

Meanwhile the woman continued to confide in me like I was a new generation guardian angel who wasn’t going to damn her for being marked with a little sin. Sin for being herself. Sin for being hurt. Sin for being lost. Sin for being broken.

“And he broke me,” she continued. “He broke me.”

And I don’t know which broke my heart more, the stone dead look that appears on a human beings face after the fifth double shot of Hennessy, or the pain that lingered in the air once she spoke of him and said his name...

Lift your drink, take another sip & get the rest of your reading buzz on right here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.07.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our NEW mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass City Tavern! (The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street)

This month we will be featurin’ on of our loco locals & a true mad sista to all of us Mad Ones, poet Desmene Statum! Can we get a big ol’ “UHhhhh!”? YES! What we are really tryin’ to say is: You. Do. Not. Want. To. Miss. This. Show. Exclamation. Point! So…

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ “UHhhhh!” helpin’ of some Desmene, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

Fo' mo' info' visit our Open Mic page!

•••••••

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...

Speakin' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds." ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Tesla” (above) by featured artist Suza Kanon. To see more of Suza's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we imagined a trip past oneupmanship; we took a lonely spin on growing thicker skin; we loosed some licks on a painted prick; we read a disclaimer for an animal tamer; we sought self good in the deeper wood; we fanned the fire of sleeping desire; we saw the future for all our babies - it sucks; we suffered no scorn for blowing our horn. Blow, Baby, blow; long and loud. ~ MH Clay

You Told Me To Blow My Own Trumpet… So I Did (Ignoring Your Sarcasm Completely!) by Paul Tristram

I’m really glad that I took your bitchy advice
… I might never have left
that little bum-fuck Town.
Missed out on my travels, adventure & glory.
I might have remained there in a job I hated,
the same council house for years,
life nothing but a practical monotony… sigh.
Living solely for the unfaithful weekends
where I could pretend that I was hot shit again
for a few pathetic, desperate hours.
Then crawl home shamelessly to my other half,
hating them for reminding me, constantly,
that I had settled in life like the coward I would be.
No, I’m glad I stood up as you mocked
and bravely blew my own trumpet
whilst you merely resigned yourself to that fate!

editors note: Practical monotony or impractical autonomy? Choices, choices… – mh clay

Premonition by Bhargab Chatterjee

Indian child development minister is thinking that she
must extend the maternity leave for working women.

Afternoon naps improve my health,
I don’t care how we spend our baby moon at Miami.

The baby in the perambulator smiles at me.
Sex is hushed up. Let’s talk about love, buddies.

She wore a plunging black gown for her music promo.
She sang for raising her baby twins after divorce.

Americans name their babies after guns –
‘a nightmare on elm street.’ After the party

she pretends all is over – a ‘million dollar baby;’
though I have an infighting against mediocrity.

Pro-industry GDP doesn’t impress voters.
A gross environmental product will breast-feed them.

editors note: For all us babies, the future is one big teat. – mh clay

Unquenchable by Nalini Priyadarshni

… then you entered
smiling
with a cigarette dangling from your fingers
and unhinged my grip
from the frame
my life had settled in.

Somewhere between the cycle of
awakening and surrender
I stepped out of myself
into the tapestry of chaos
woven with longing.

And now, everything’s a blur
except those moments when we are together
forging new language
to seek each other’s shallowness and depth
retrieving lost worlds
in primal and perennial conversations
with new fluency.

Desire is a light sleeper
that stretches across miles
when awakened
follows primeval rhythm
of skin and soul
memory and anticipation
until two solitudes bridge over
and smoulder into unquenchable.

editors note: Didn’t know I was thirsty until you brought cool water. – mh clay

Of the Deeper Wood by Ken Allan Dronsfield

A madness descends upon one to attend
the clock on the wall after those who recall
the hiding or seeking and soft squeaking
in a dilapidated cottage of the deeper wood.

Harlequin colors within an irrational swirling
find a mind spinning in the haze of red wine
and I can’t find my way through night or day
blinded by the tock, as the tick seeks to rock.

Standing there bare, while the cat’s on the chair
dizzy and fading while the clock sings a sonnet.
Feeling no pain within a numbness of the brain
salvation’s a meal, confined in a maniacs creel.

Dance by the fire, whilst absorbing warm desire
within the fistula of life, a steamy purge of strife
moving with a gallop through the life of a trollop
cast spells in the dark, to a stars reddish quark.

I am whom you think, wasting away in the stink;
listening to “Lunatic Fringe”, on tape in the parlor
readying the knife, I’ll dissect your wretched life
within a dilapidated cottage of the deeper wood.

editors note: A little weekend get-away for personal reflection and relaxation. (We welcome Ken Allan to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

MARIE by John Grey

She was a nature lover
who never thought me green-blooded enough,
who figured my pale skin
should be more the color of dirt.
I remembered she was Marie
but the names of trees eluded me.
I picked a wildflower for her.
She informed me that I’d killed it.

She loved to ramble through the
woods for hours.
She despised the city.
Too loud, too busy, too smelly,
she said.
These were all my argumenta in favor.

She was as beautiful though
as the downtown at night after a rain shower,
soft and neon-colored,
sparkling where you’d least expect.
This comparison stayed with me.
Silent praise knows when it’s well off.

Once she took in an injured owl,
nursed it back to flying.
This is why I never understood it
when she tried to clip my wings.

editors note: Animal husbandry; never easy for the animal. (Read another mad missive from John on his page; about making more than keeping – check it out.) – mh clay

Painted Prick by Peggy Flora

He is nebulous and poetic with a delicate comprehension
He fucks with his tongue and speaks with his dick
He’s got toys in his eyes and tickles with his lips
He’s a prick, painted in disguise, utilized, he’s quick
He’s slick, he’s fearful, he’s the antidote for no shit
He’s fever in strength; he’s the burning candle
He answers in quips as he rattles
He’s heard and listened, settled and peddled
All the words a chick can handle
He’s vague in defeat and noticeably discrete
He devours everything he desires
He’s the love destroyer of flowers
He’s drama with a penis and a tiara.

editors note: A romantic rebuff or political opinion piece? Hmmm… – mh clay

Tough Hide by Irena Pasvinter

They’ll do you in
With such thin skin.
Please, dear, I count on you:
Tighten your hide
For a bumpy ride,
Grow it an inch or two.

Girls, they’ll cut
Through your mild heart.
No, darling, this won’t do:
Turn it to stone
And make it known
Rock is softer than you.

Crooks will pretend
To give you a hand.
Take care, I’m begging you:
Weaken your trust
If you want to last,
Beware, whatever you do.

So, with tough hide
On this bumpy ride,
With heart, harder than stone,
And with zero trust
You’re bound to last —
So what if you die alone.

editors note: Survival need not be solitary. – mh clay

EXPLOIT IMAGINATION by Saloni Kaul

Equality’s rare
In most regimes, most regiments, work or pleasure,
Where hierarchy comes into play
But in what counts, in combat fair
Giving measure then for measure
They levelly beat the lights out of day.

Sophistication, elegance reigns
In the upper class like sugar crunch caviar munch
Till it’s time for one upmanship
Ah then who cares
It’s punch for punch
All whole swing, free for all, all unzipped.

Exchange of ideas
On the other hand as it ought
Like conversation cool
Is meted out gentlemanlike to peers
Thought for thought
Where we play by the rules.

Businessmen and marketeers
Exploit imagination’s stream.
Silver or gold plated
There they go selling dear
Dream for dream
To all (and sundry) unmitigated.

editors note: Bottom line growth is nothing funny. Imagination – equality, sophistication, ideas – are great if they make money. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well today is your lucky day 'cos we got just the golden story to rock ya a bit & get you groovin' into the weekend. Winner-winner!...

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Our bodies are cages we hopefully learn to enjoy with time, but we choose our own neon prisons with great pleasure."

Here's a bit of "Vote" by Contributing Writer Dennis Milam Bensie to get you goin':

(photo "Out!" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

The flyers up around the gayborhood didn’t say much: no date, no time, and no location. They just say VOTE: A NEW GAY DANCE CLUB – COMING SOON. It’s rumored to be inspired by Studio 54 back in its heyday—you know, when the bouncer handpicked the hot and important people outside the club.

The address everyone is passing around is an old Circuit City building out by the mall: an abandoned electronics store from the ‘90s. There’s a commotion and I turn around and see a guy coming out of the building with a bag. He’s methodically making his way through the crowd handing out golden tickets. No one over thirty is getting a ticket. He isn’t giving tickets to women or fat guys, either. I suck in my belly and march right up to him and smile. He hands me a golden ticket. I’m so fucking excited I can’t stand it!

Blaring club music from down the street is getting closer and closer. A beat up school bus painted black with the VOTE logo on the side pulls into the Circuit City parking lot. A man steps out of the bus dressed in a form fitting rubber suit and chauffer’s cap. Very cute. The crowd goes wild as all of us chosen men with golden tickets climb aboard.

The bus windows are painted black and there are no seats. We’re all crammed together standing up. It smells like sweat and cologne in here. The bus moves but I have no idea where they’re taking us...

Quite a cliffhanger, eh? Well if you wanna find out where this bus is goin' (and trust us, you DO!), you'll just need to click here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.07.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our NEW mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass City Tavern! (The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street)

This month we will be featurin’ on of our loco locals & a true mad sista to all of us Mad Ones, poet Desmene Statum! Can we get a big ol’ “UHhhhh!”? YES! What we are really tryin’ to say is: You. Do. Not. Want. To. Miss. This. Show. Exclamation. Point! So…

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ “UHhhhh!” helpin’ of some Desmene, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

Fo' mo' info' visit our Open Mic page!

Attention Facebookers: Get on the pre-list at our event page

•••••••

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...

Singin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us." ~ Mary Oliver

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“The Dreamer’s Inconsolable Solitude” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak.

If you’ve been following Mad Swirl for a while now, we’re sure you’ll recognize the twistedly bizarre & beautifully beat works of Bill Wolak. If you missed his feature round the last time around you’re in luck because Bill’s back with more and we here at Mad Swirl can only hope he keeps this creative collection going for a mighty long time. Wolak is a multi-talented mad man hailing from New Jersey and his collage work is mostly symmetrical, sometimes phallic and always captivating. If we haven’t sparked your interest yet, maybe you’re in the wrong place. But we doubt that. So WHEN you’re Ready-Set then GO!… we know you won’t regret it! ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we shot us one son of a gun; we slipped a slow cycle, one time only; we saw the horizon in a cowboy's eyes; we felt like a jerk for living to work; we were schooled in the way of Octavio's day, women to win by quatrains; we were warned of the harm in pigs on a farm; we suffered their fussin' by paying for cussin'; we harbored our hope for what hasn't happened (yet). Dream big - wake up ready. ~ MH Clay

It Hasn’t Happened Yet by Johnny Olson

I wake up optimistic with high hopes in my heart that today will be the day that happiness, peace and love will flow our way. I day dream that by the time my head hits pillow this night and sleep slips slyly across my soul, that a smile will slide upon my lips and I will remember why I thought it was worth waking up today. It hasn’t happened yet.

I pray. I plead with God to wash upon us a wave of peace and love and understanding. I beg that He bless us one and all… all people of all colors and creeds in all places and nations, the young and old, the sick and the healthy, the poor and the wealthy, the sad and the happy, the sleeping and the awake, the warring and the peaceful, the quick and the dead. I feel my spiel is sincerely real and that if all this making good intentions and giving heartfelt prayers and creating my manifestations, if all this stuff really works, it’ll come true. But, it hasn’t happened yet.

I sit in predawn parking lot at work and write out my untarnished thoughts of the day to come. I intend to write a poem that speaks of the peaceful and easy feelings that I seek in this world of ours. I strive to find the right words and meanings that will teach and learn me the propitiousness of love. Oh, how we homo-sapiens love us some good love! But that divine inspiration that used to sit so closely to me just isn’t hanging around these days. No matter how hard I beg, she alludes me. I open my notebook to let her write her song but she doesn’t. She drops the pen and says she’ll come back again. But it hasn’t happened yet.

Too many days I wake up to hear the headline news that makes me shake my head in disbelief that we humans can be so inhumane to one another. Another white cop shoots another black man for reasons I’ll never understand. The loudmouth bullshit-inaire and the fortunate daughter cHillary throwing barbed sound bites at each other, leaving me isolated in the growing middle. Another catastrophic storm/fire/quake bubbling from something we may or may have not done. Extinguishing creatures whose fate should have never been left in our fucked up hands. My faith in my fellow man is dwindling down the more my optimistic smile turns to pessimistic frown. I pray someone, anyone (not it!) save us from ourselves! I hear my inner scream and say “OK, OK I’ll do my part” hoping a whole lot more like me are trying too and that our collective push will move this fucking needle back to good. But no matter how hard I try and as much as I wish it would, it hasn’t happened yet.

Usually, right about now when I get into these funky punky poetic moods I’ll turn it around at the end with an AHA moment so that all this “woe is me and we and he and she” that I just spewed upon your senses, is all OK. A nicely wrapped insight with a bow of hope to top this poetic puke. I’m even trying to find one now, as I tip tap these final words onto this page knowing damn straight that I got to get this write right. But, alas, this poem has ended, and it hasn’t happened yet.

editors note: Keep writing, hoping, loving, helping. Just cuz it hasn’t, doesn’t mean it won’t. Yes! (Read another of our Chief Editor’s mad missives on his page; a departure from the norm – check it out.)- mh clay

SWEAR JAR by Lindsay McLeod

Yes I know
the kiss of the thistle.
So I’ll drop another
small change sorry
into your bottomless
apology hole,
yes yes I know
so I’ll shut the Hell up
and go back to being
a lower case i,
a blind overflow
with disabled parking.

editors note: Once they’re out, they can’t come back. Two dollars, please. – mh clay

The Three Little Pigs by Chrissie Morris Brady

After the wolf had been roasted on the fire,
the three little pigs lived happily in the house made of bricks.
They grew, plump and no more little,
so they packed some food and looked for another home.
They walked up hill and down dell
until they found the perfect farm.
The rest of their story is told by Orwell.

editors note: Conflict to contentment, complacency to conquest. Watch how your story unfolds. – mh clay

If good looking men by Desmene M. Statum

If good looking men
Are going to insist
On quoting Octavio Paz
To me
I am not responsible
For what happens
To them

If you want a woman to think
About you
All damn day
Send her Octavio Paz Quatrains
She might not have even given you
A red letter thought
Up until then

Then she’ll read your poems
And think dangerous thoughts
Feel felonious feelings
All damn day.
Even if she’s vowed
To never love another artist
Or writer.

editors note: Gentlemen? Are you paying attention? – mh clay

Work by Hector Ortiz

Wear and fatigue have claimed me
Losing track of the time
Modern day slavery
Just to make ends meet
80hours a week just to make sure we eat
All work no sleep
Gettin up in the morning
Dragging my feet
Do I really wanna live like this
Wanna scream at the supervisor fuck you
Wanna tell Uncle Sam fuck you
Tired of this routine
I just want something new
Stuck in a corner don’t know what to do
Instead of loving another sky blue
I just think ok just get through
This 8hours
Clock in clock out
Stuck in a cage
Lost in a rage
8hours a day
12hrs a slave
They say hey it’s ok
You have a job at least you get paid
Working to live
Living to work
Is my hourly wage really my worth
All the miraculous events that led to my birth
Have brought me to this place I call work
In these walls someone calls the shots
In these halls they grow a pair of balls
They’re the shit I leave in these bathroom stalls
Fuck it

editors note: The hero’s anthem. Sing it while you work. – mh clay

Body Language by Sharon Frye

there it is again
the tilting back of the head

the three-syllable laugh
like the father’s

a renaissance cowboy
without a ranch

see the lost horizon
in his eyes

the lonestar in the wood
sailing stones across the sand

editors note: A wild wester in a civilized land – mh clay

Irreversible Cycle by Peycho Kanev

In the framed picture
on the mantelpiece
sits a snapped moment
of an old woman
getting younger in
the past.
Light shifts from
east to west slowly
as a glacier.
Close your eyes with me,
it will not happen again.

editors note: Mortal amusement. – mh clay

The Devil and Jim by Jesse Doughty

fire in the trees on the side of the road
broken glass and a dead man’s home
as children play and grown men run
a bottle of gin and a son of a gun

a murder of crows flee from his bones
a drink and a dance and the devil’s last chance
an old guitar plays a dusty song
well the devil is waitin but it won’t be long

the clouds are full and the moon is gone
thunder and wind and the battle for sin
the dust is cryin as the rain rolls in
an empty bottle and six gun Jim

shadows of women and a fiery light
swan song killer and a pillar of stone
a ghastly sneer and a ghoulish grin
in O’Leary’s bar stood the devil and Jim

a thousand years had come and gone
his garden of lies truth despised
but before the dawn he would retire
the devil spoke a word and the word was Fire

Jim was murder and murderous Jim
was tall and clean quick and mean
he wore leather shins and a colt .45
twas the last the devil saw out his good right eye

the bullet danced out the back of his head
it left a wilderness of blood and mess
and there stood Jim crowned King of Hell
well the devil had his day but on that night he fell

so fallen angel on a cold wooden floor
colt .45 back at Jim’s side
and with morning’s glory yet to come
a bottle of gin and a son of a gun

editors note: It’s a cowboy movie ’bout a son of a gun… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you Need-a-Read then need no more! Mad Swirl's featured short, "Earth Angel" comes from Russ Dymond & it just might the groove you need to feed ya'.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

Will you be mine? If the answer is yes and we catch someone falling from the skies, it’s nothing but love to keep dancing until death.

Here's a few notes of "Earth Angel" to get this groove goin':

(photo, "Angels Bid Thee to Thy Rest" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Soon after it happened, police cars swarmed in, followed by a fire truck and an ambulance. She watched them all evening from her second floor window that looked out over the parking lot, red and blue and green lights swirling through the darkness like kaleidoscopic searchlights. Around midnight, upset and nervous, she went to bed, wondering if she should check out and disappear, wondering when the knock at the door would come, if she didn’t; wondering why emergency vehicles never seemed to turn off their motors.

The next morning, first thing, she turned on the TV. The man was 76. His name was Edward Norwiski. He was a retired engineer, single, lived alone. His billfold was missing so the suspected motive was robbery.

A couple of police cars still remained in the parking lot. She thought about going downstairs for the free breakfast, but then decided against it. Instead, she brewed a pot of coffee in the room and sat down in the chair by the window, wondering how long it would take them to find her. The motel, after all, had cameras on every floor. They would know.

So what would she say? How could she make it credible? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it didn’t matter. They would never believe her anyway. If it hadn’t happened to her, she wouldn’t believe it herself...

Get the rest of your read on right here!

••• Open Mic •••

(photo courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez. See Dan's whole collection from this past month here)

All we here at Mad Swirl have gots’ta say about this past 1st Wednesday is Awww! OK, we have a LOT more words to share, what with ALL the poets & musicians and pics & links & tags & whatnot’s we gots…

A HUGE shout-out to our NEW mad mic home, downtown Dallas’ badass’d City Tavern!

A HUGER shout-out to our feature, loco local poet, Desmene Statum, who delivered us a one-two poetic punch with a heaping’ helping of some UHhhhh! We never doubted that Dez would rock our worlds and did she ever!

(if you couldn’t make it to the show and wish you coulda, here’s some live video of Desmene’s feature set)

Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

Feature:
Desmene Statum

Hosts:
Johnny Olson & MH Clay

Swirve:
Gerard Bendiks, Chris & Tamitha Curiel

Mad Cast:
Chris Zimmerly
Opalina Salas
John May
Victory
Carlos Salas
Reverie Evolving
Gabe Mamola
Aye Nero
Gnadia Wolnisty
Maggie Smith
Elliot Pickens
Eileen Simeonov
Becky Sanvictores
Jen Bochenko
Catie McLain
Eli

HUGE thanks to Swirve for taking us to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

Thanks to all who came out to the City Tavern & shared this beat-utifullest night of poetry and music with us!

and last but NOT least…

HUGEST thanks to The City Tavern’s proprietor Joshua Florence for blessing us with our new digs and welcoming us mad ones with open arms and giving us a swirl’n space we can call home.

May the madness swirl your way ’til next 1st Wednesday…

Your Mad Googily-Eyed Guy

P.S. Interested in performing? If you are a mad poet, musician, actor, singer and/or performer (circus freaks and Elvis impersonators always welcome) & live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, come to The City Tavern & strut–yo–stuff.

P.P.S. Got questions? E-mail us at openmic@madswirl.com for further details that may not be listed here.

P.P.P.S. The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

•••••••

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...

Gettin' Saved,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"I only give expression to the instincts from my soul." ~ M. F. Husain

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“The Relentless Resonance of Her Nakedness” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more of Bill's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we hoped away our fears of those who cut with shears; we gave heart a home, packed in styrofoam; we left home to drink alone; we made an existential meatloaf; we entered a plea for refugees; we lapped up a lingo luau, Pidgin style; we strove to extract hope from a pile of despair; we lamented the loss of fish caught and fish that got away. It's a smorgasbord of words; make the meal that matters most to you. ~ MH Clay

THE BIG ROCK CREEPS by Hal J. Daniel III

From a lecture given in Biology 6040, “Animal Behavior,” East Carolina University, 2008

With limited intelligence and absolutely no knowledge of Biophilia
But tons of testosterone, money and privilege,
They kill our big-eyed deep water Marlin as a gaggle of local dock Creeps
Give them cheers and big bucks to do so.

None of the high testosterone Yuppies has a bloody clue
About top-predator biology, anthropocentricity or exploitation.
Some might call it the “Tragedy of the Commons.”
What if the big fish are cognitive and have feelings?

What about their being hoisted up to cheers and fist pumps,
Their last big-eyed vision being that of their upside down “high T” murderers?
What about those gut hooked and released
To swim in painful circles for the sharks to plunder?
My wife, saddened by the spectacle,
Asks if they clean and eat the “poor big fish”.
I tell her the rule of my Mississippi grandfather:
“If you kill it, Boy, then you shall eat it,” which they blissfully ignore.

I respond further by saying that the 5 hundred pound Marlins are doomed to the wall,
Stuffed, mounted and once again staring down
At those who placed them there;
Their tissue, viscera and sinew most likely going to cats, blue crabs and incinerators.

They call this type of exploitation “Ecotourism;”
Say it’s good for the economy.
They embrace the pontifications of Aristotle and Saint Augustine
And all that “humans are on top the evolutionary shit pile scala naturae Judeo-Christian nonsense.”

None have read anything about biodiversity,
Pelagic predation,
Human etiologies to the crises in the world’s oceans,
And, I am absolutely positive, nothing on the cognitive ethology of fishes.

So what do you Nawth Kackalacky students think about this Outer Banks anthropocentric outrage?
“I’ll tell you what I think.”
And what is that, Ms. Midjette?
“Dr. Daniel, you should be fired for lecturing like this!”

editors note: Used to be it was just fishing. Now, every move mangles something else. – mh clay

STAYING STRONG IN HARD TIMES by Bradford Middleton

I’ve got to stay strong and got to maintain
As life right now is a hard thing for me to deal with
Now she has gone and everything seems fucked
Whether it be Europe, my own questioning of life
In this town or just the thought that maybe I’ve been
Right all along and there is nothing for us
Now that it’s all fucked
Now that I’ve realised that
Love is dead
Politics is pointless and this
Life is hard
So, what is there to do but
Find a new way to live this life

editors note: It’s all we can do… But, we CAN! – mh clay

VERBAL KINE JAZZ by Joe Puna Balaz

See da old man
wit da cho cho lips
and da rat bite on his head—
Aisoos! Mongoose!
da fighting chicken wen lose
and now da buggah is dead.

Pluck all da feathers
trow ‘um in da pot
everybody like kaukau.
Poho loosah
in da ring anyway
so now we going make luau.

Everybody dance
everybody sing
everybody jan ken po.
No need fight
foa desert tonight
cause we all get kulolo.

Look at da moon
up in da sky
just like wun big fish eye.
Sit on da ground
wit wun fat opu
and no even wondah why.

New kine story
same kine smell
everybody understand.
All mix up
like wun big fruit cup
heah in da hula-hula land.

So now local lingo
is just like wun jingle
holoholo good fun razz.
Kissing da ear
making everyting clear
living in da verbal kine jazz.

Hawai’i Pidgin Glossary:

aisoos – Filipino exclamation of sighing out loud and saying “darn it” or “oh no.”
buggah – A person, especially a male; the word can also refer to an animal or thing.
cho cho lips – Fat lips.
holoholo – To go out; to go out visiting.
hula-hula – Variant of hula, a native Hawaiian dance.
jan ken po – Japanese name for rock-paper-scissors game.
kaukau – To eat; food.
kulolo – Hawaiian pudding made of taro, brown sugar and coconut milk.
luau – Hawaiian feast.
opu – Stomach.
poho – No can; waste time.
rat bite – A bad haircut that shows the scalp through the hair.

editors note: Another smidgin’ o’ Pidgin’ from Aloha Land; got a groove you can dance to. – mh clay

Near the Dog House by Cade Williams

Describing and transcribing the life of an exile makes one feel all ways but well
The sting of a quill carries the charisma of a hill
We clamor in the maze of hallways
Interconnected, but from society rejected
Looked down upon, sprayed and unpaid, the enclave is frowned upon
We pervade the yard
Step on us.

editors note: Don’t eliminate. Integrate. We all crawl the same hill, after all. – mh clay

Invention of Meat Loaf by Jeff Grimshaw

We were all present for the invention of meatloaf
I remember your black & orange high tops
And Debbie drinking her can of Cel-ray Soda
Through a Silly Straw. The DiBello twins,
Anxious to be somewhere else but never
Leaving. Onions, said Frank DiBello, if you
Chopped up some onions and worked them
Into the meat… For the love of Christ,
Said Benny DiBello, Enough of this shit,
I want to get back to the truck.
Onions would be good, though. I don’t
Remember the year. It was one of the years
When you could wear a paisley shirt, which
Benny DiBello did. That’s
How I remember years. The year of the
Paisley shirt, the year of everybody threw out
The 8-track tapes, the year of the
Shitty little dogs. Debbie wanted to add
A can of beef soup to the recipe. I told her
She was on to something but
A whole can was too much. The TV was
On but we couldn’t find the game.
That guy David who nobody liked dropped
By and told Frank, Your truck, I thought
The tires were flat? But what’s
Happening, it’s sinking? In the swamp?
You shook your head and said:
Somebody go get seasoned bread crumbs, and
I think two eggs. (In the end we only
Used one.) Yes, mixed vegetables, but only
On the side. Yes, tomato paste, although
Tomato sauce is okay. Yes. One day
Some of us will be dead, and
Another day all of us will be dead, but
(Continued Benny) right now
We are all alive, all
Here, and all of us inventing meat loaf.

editors note: Great to be alive; now we know who to blame… – mh clay

Sunset by Sarah Bonaccorsi

Just 3 days ago, in that other place, that home,
the sun set at 8:30. Now, It sets at 9:22.
Really it sets at 21:22. Everything is different here.
The accents, the company (none,)
even the sun.
On Wednesday I drank a boulevardier with family,
pet the dog, lazed the day away.
Now, I sit in a grey chair that a stranger bought,
in a studio flat that a stranger owns,
and I wait for work in a bustling office in a city far away
from my family, my dog, and my boulevardier.

editors note: That disjointed feeling when self is where the sun sets… somewhere else. – mh clay

Fit Me In by Daniel Kuriakose

The leftover brownie’s
pretty good,
‘cept I taste the styrofoam
I boxed it in.

Now I understand
the batch of people
licking trees in the park.

I taste foam
on my thoughts, is that
normal? That can’t be normal.

Get me out of here.
Don’t think I can’t
see the synaptic
packing peanuts
jetting out your window,

lodging your air
-conditioner
with themselves.

I woke up today
to the burglar alarm.
First place I checked was
my chest.

editors note: Foam to pack your china or your heart; resistant to shock, but not theft. – mh clay

Hope by Lisa Moak

Now rising, now giving, now flowing,
Winding, testing its tendrils towards the sun.
Blossoming, straining, slipping,
Secretly budding before the hollow eyes
Sense its growth, coming then with shears,
To cut down the tender stems.

editors note: Let hope shine brightly; blind the hollow eyes. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Who Needs-a-Read? You, that's who! And we here at Mad Swirl have got quite the read to fit your need... "The Wall" by Contributing Writer & Poet Harley White!

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Build yourself, make you who you want to be. See yourself shine beautifully, then crumble. Destroy yourself."

Here's a few lines from "The Wall" for y'all:

(photo "he Greatest Wall" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Like hoping, wanting, wishing—in fact I gave up as many feelings as I could get rid of.

Strange how that works. You decide—only semi-awarely—to stop feeling pain.

You put up a wall—invisible, impenetrable—surrounding you.

Seems reasonable enough. If the wall is thick enough, no one can hurt you, disappoint you, reject you.

Right?...

Ready to continue this climb of "The Wall"? Get the rest of your read on 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...

Expressin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Arriving Unseen Inside Light” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more of Bill's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we kept love from spoil with garlic and oil; we lost love frustration in lover separation; we stalked in a summer garden for an unattainable dream; we mourned innocence missed by not never been kissed; we found no satisfaction in chemical reaction; we loved to delight in that brother was right; we stood as a casualty of the Nuclear Family. It's all volatile; elements interact, explosions ensue. Ever changing dynamics 'tween we and you. ~ MH Clay

A Nuclear Childhood by Donal Mahoney

What if your parents
had never met
had never married

had never yelled
at each other
and instead had wed

someone they loved
and lived peacefully
all those years.

That would have been
their Eden but you
shaking there now

decades later
wouldn’t be with us
cursing the tremors

of a nuclear childhood
you still remember
long after they’re dead.

editors note: Fusion or fission, we are we because they were they. – mh clay

Pamela by Michael Estabrook

Now he’s gone and I find myself
strangely drawn
to the most important woman in my brother’s life –
statuesque, dark eyes, olive skin, perfect hair –
as if she’s drunk from
the Fountain of Youth (he didn’t
marry her, but almost).
And as she tells me she loves opera,
reads Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, listens
to Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi and Bach
I stumble for my words,
imagining his smirk and that
“I told you so” look in his eyes.

editors note: Loss brings gain; what might have been becomes a wonderful “could be.” – mh clay

My Forte by John Kross

My forte has never been chemistry
especially in matters of the brain
that delicate science eludes me
but give me a knife and I’m a pro
a butcher in a cesspool of
a drowning stagnant me
where the water under my bridge
does not flow out
but backs up tighter than
a meat packer’s drain
overflowing with bloody blobs of
broken promises and good intentions.

editors note: Heart, spleen and bowel; together well meant, somehow badly spent. – mh clay

never been kissed by Catie McLain

i’ve never been kissed
i’m 12 years old and i’ve never been kissed
so i find myself a boy, an older boy, a high school boy
he’s handsome and a little bit racist
and i kiss him on his lips
they’re soft and sweet and somewhat disappointing
but i don’t care and i don’t care about him
all i care about are my bragging rights

now i’m 19 years old
i’m 19 years old and i’m a virgin
i’m a virgin and i feel like maybe if i don’t change that soon i might become one of those spinsters i keep hearing about
so i go to a club and i dance alone
i’m alone until a man notices me
he has lip piercings and a rapidly expanding bald spot.
i go home with him and he soils my purity without a condom because i was raised catholic and am still kind of weird about sex because of it.

and now i am 22 and i have never been in love
i’ve never fallen in love and i sleep with the tv on because the silence is suffocating
so i find a man and fuck him on his kitchen table until he breaks up with his girlfriend
and sometimes when i sit at that table and share breakfast with him i find myself smiling because i like so much what my life is right now
i fall deep for him and i think he has the most beautiful hands i’ve ever seen but i can’t ever seem to say the words out loud
so instead i sleep around and then get angry when i find out that he has gotten himself a respectable girlfriend

and now i am 23 i really am in this moment 23 and trying to figure out how to wean myself from the cycle of sexual and emotional dependency
i’m 23 and i’m dependent on my phone i’m dependent on the attention of men and i depend on strangers to always tip me my 20%
right now i am here talking about my present and i don’t know what to say because i never understand anything until i’m looking at it from the rear view mirror.

editors note: Hindsight as historical fiction, too real for reality TV. What comes next? – mh clay

The Garden Outside the House by Natalie Crick

She was out there again that morning.
Talking, laughing, singing,
The garden filled with sweet birdsong
And the aroma of summer.

The sunset leaked red blood,
Annihilating him.
A love gift or a
Romantic invitation.

She had one eye, he had two.
He was waking from a fitful dream.
It soon became dark,
The sky full of storms.

He saw her solemn death dance,
Wet and electric,
An Autumn widow wearing grey.
It was starting to happen again.

editors note: And it will keep happening if we walk in that garden, obsessed with that invitation… – mh clay

I’ll Say Goodbye To You But Not To Love by Ralph Freda

The 8 a.m. zombie brigade files past me for the final time…
Neighbors, who have found too late in life that they have been slighted…
Along halls, riding elevators, and down the stairs…
(Maybe it is their seventh time around, maybe their first, maybe somewhere in the middle… I don’t care)

I have grown greedy for the gold and the fruit of angels such as Mozart and Picasso and Ginsberg and Updike…

(Remember: in this life, the selfless act of love and a woman are singularly and together the most beautiful thing; impossible to ignore)

Once I knew the joy of being alive…
Now I know the happiness of not having to live alongside you…
I say only two prayers – the first is that I don’t awaken in the fires of Hades, should they exist; the other, that should this be my first time around, or my seventh, or somewhere in the middle, I may never awaken to know the face of the Hell within which you live…
…and again see the horrible moon without mystery in the sky…

editors note: Here’s to hope; that love and mystery be eternal, suffering not. – mh clay

Aglio E Olio by Jeffrey Park

The torrid sizzle
of their meeting
could have easily resulted
in a lifetime
of congealed regret,

but fortunately
for the olive oil,
in today’s online economy
revirgination is only
a mouse click away.

editors note: There’s an app for everything. (Read another of Jeffrey’s jabs on his page, about a dog’s life – check it out.) – mh clay

THE BIG ROCK CREEPS by Hal J. Daniel III

From a lecture given in Biology 6040, “Animal Behavior,” East Carolina University, 2008

With limited intelligence and absolutely no knowledge of Biophilia
But tons of testosterone, money and privilege,
They kill our big-eyed deep water Marlin as a gaggle of local dock Creeps
Give them cheers and big bucks to do so.

None of the high testosterone Yuppies has a bloody clue
About top-predator biology, anthropocentricity or exploitation.
Some might call it the “Tragedy of the Commons.”
What if the big fish are cognitive and have feelings?

What about their being hoisted up to cheers and fist pumps,
Their last big-eyed vision being that of their upside down “high T” murderers?
What about those gut hooked and released
To swim in painful circles for the sharks to plunder?
My wife, saddened by the spectacle,
Asks if they clean and eat the “poor big fish”.
I tell her the rule of my Mississippi grandfather:
“If you kill it, Boy, then you shall eat it,” which they blissfully ignore.

I respond further by saying that the 5 hundred pound Marlins are doomed to the wall,
Stuffed, mounted and once again staring down
At those who placed them there;
Their tissue, viscera and sinew most likely going to cats, blue crabs and incinerators.

They call this type of exploitation “Ecotourism;”
Say it’s good for the economy.
They embrace the pontifications of Aristotle and Saint Augustine
And all that “humans are on top the evolutionary shit pile scala naturae Judeo-Christian nonsense.”

None have read anything about biodiversity,
Pelagic predation,
Human etiologies to the crises in the world’s oceans,
And, I am absolutely positive, nothing on the cognitive ethology of fishes.

So what do you Nawth Kackalacky students think about this Outer Banks anthropocentric outrage?
“I’ll tell you what I think.”
And what is that, Ms. Midjette?
“Dr. Daniel, you should be fired for lecturing like this!”

editors note: Used to be it was just fishing. Now, every move mangles something else. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

What's the clock say? It says it's time to feed your Need-a-Read'ness!

This week we are featuring Contributing Writer, Paul Smith and his tale titled "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Sorry, but never say you’re sorry. It’s the word you can’t wash out of your mouth."

Here's a bit to slip you into the mood:

photo (above) "Welcome, Come In. Always Come." by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

“Did you come?”

She was quiet, laying there on her back, her eyes closed. I guessed she did. She acted that way. I was just asking. She didn’t answer. I felt stupid asking a second time, but did anyway.

“Did you come?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes!” she said in an exasperated tone. “I did.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry. And don’t ask! God!”

“I thought you did. I just wasn’t sure.”

“Why do you have to ask? I could tell you came. So did the people upstairs. So did everyone in Borneo.”

“Sorry,” I repeated.

“Stop saying you’re sorry. You are ruining everything. Just hold me.”

I rolled her over and held her. It felt good for a minute. Then I got tired of it. She smelled like she came. I was getting hungry. I looked at the clock beside the bed. I decided to hold her for five minutes. That should be enough for any woman. I started timing myself.

“You’re watching the clock, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No.”...

If you find you're also watching the clock, no worries. You're halfway there. Get the rest of your reading rocks off right here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of October (aka 10.05.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our NEW mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass City Tavern!

This month we will be featurin’ loco local singer/songwriter Jake Kinnard!

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ helpin’ of musical madness from Jake, groove to some Swirve, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our open mic list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

•••••••

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...

Speakin' Our Minds,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Snowflakes Blown into a Keyhole” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more of Bill's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

This one closes out Bill's latest run as our featured artist. Stay tuned for our newest featured Visual Artist coming up this next week!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we called one a shrimp, not because it was short; we played to an ameoba, single cell organism support; we thanked for the pleasures of tasting and seeing; we bopped to the beat of being; we made autumn's case for summer fruit; we ran through radio to ramen to resolute; we geared up for a golden sleep; we sparked love into flame to keep. Each week we seek new words to speak; to bring certainty and sense, to clarify our present tense. ~ MH Clay

EMILY AS MIDNIGHT WITHOUT STARS by Darren C. Demaree

Made of light
& present
without being

present, Emily
knows the feeling
of my attention

is the dull side
of a sharp knife.
I flash only

when the action
of the blade can
work through her

in these poems.
She knows outside
of the art,

all I want to do
is rub against her
until the sparks

find the ceiling
of our locked room,
our safest danger.

editors note: Celestial love to spark a constellation or, at least, trip the fire alarm. (We welcome Darren to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out. ALSO, Darren’s latest poetry collection, “Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly,” is due to be released this November/December by 8th House Publishing. Follow his website here for details. ) – mh clay

Autumn 2014 by Susandale

Mist rising from shorn fields
In it, the ghosts of autumn
Quiet, golden children
Coming to carry summer off
To a cradle of long sleep

editors note: Every year, come children; drowsy for winter. – mh clay

불확실성 by Opalina Salas

I don’t know how to feel about this
Seems to be my mantra these days
Uncertainty
I put on some Reverend Green
Look out the window and think and
My whirled up thinkings follow me
To the king spa all skin of tawny
Women
All shapes and shades under the dim light scrubbing
Away our sadness and week
Of unreleased grime
How can you mend a broken heart?
Released under hot veil of bubbles
Sweat out on concrete stools
With tied bunches of herbs
Sloughed off and dripping
In here, no one can see you cry

I don’t know how to feel about this
Bulhwagsilseong
The small framed Korean ladies
Dainty but strong
Straddle the Western thighs
Of the Americas scrubbing with both hands
To peel away the layers of regret
Shearing us down to a more manageable
Morsel of grief
Buttered skin and then we rinse
The waterfall
Take me to the river
And wash me down
Won’t you cleanse my soul
Put my feet on the ground

And all the other countries say
Look at what those crazy cowboys have done now
Shoot’ em up style
With their guns and their bombs and their drones
Look at what they have sown
It’s all still the wild wild west
Outlaws insatiable for blood
Bang bang, shoot ‘em up and gone
Oh those crazy Americans

I’m just trying to escape into my bowl of Ramyun
I’m just trying to sleep in the dark blanket of Al Green
Mercy Mercy Me
I don’t know how to feel about any of this anymore.
Uncertainty
Bulhwagsilseong

editors note: A wasting week to wash away in radio and ramen. – mh clay

Over Ripe by Dave Kavanagh

Lane choked
with overgrowth.

A slight breeze
stirs a verdant sea
of cocksfoot and fescue.

Feathered ferns unfurl
In hues of green and rust.

Late summer
hangs on tangled threads,
promises and regrets.

Burgeoning deflated,
harvest weeks away.

Air heavy,
humidity clawing
at damp clothes.

autumn waits,
a promise on bated breath.

editors note: And we are now fruit, eager to be picked and refrigerated. Cool, come cool! (We welcome Dave to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission; read more of his madness on his new page – check it out!) – mh clay

SUMMER BLUES by B.Z. Niditch

A Beat poet
cooped up like a parakeet
in a New England winter
tired of TV screens
reruns of faded old films
clouded over
his bloodshot eyes
wanting to be a runaway
or a Rimbaud
here in Vermont
with a red French wine
and French croissant
takes out his sax
to play riffs
along the Green Mountains
yet afraid to be
terrorized from a water bed
abandoned from home
and his made up exercise
on the trampoline
to take up the alto clarinet,
a lost friend from the band
shows jazz’s balancing act
in his disturbed universe,
as my kid brother
throws a football against
a city graffiti wall
found from the Patriots
locker room,
telling him a Chinese proverb,
“Tension is who you think
you should be, relaxation
is who you are.”

editors note: If that was Summer, look out Fall! – mh clay

Pleasure by Mikel K

You are that first sip of coffee,
that first bite of sushi,
the pillow on which I sleep.
You are a sandwich when I am hungry,
a nice cup of water with lemon when I am thirsty,
a pat on the head when I need one.
You are a smile from a stranger,
a shout out from a friend,
a paycheck that covers my bills.
You are a car that doesn’t break down,
a bus that I catch on time,
a grocery bag full of goodies.
You are my dogs wagging their tails,
my cats meowing in approval,
my turtles just hanging out.
You are every good feeling
that I have ever had, and I thank you.

editors note: You are everywhere, even when we’re not. – mh clay

Ameba Pride by Robert L. Martin

Lift your heads high amebas
If you have heads to lift
If you don’t have heads
Then what do you have?
If you lift your feet
Will you fall on your butts?
If you don’t have butts
Then what do you have?

No more jokes
Will be aimed at you
You do have feelings
That we overlooked before
For that we’re so very sorry

Ameba pride is what you deserve
You can walk? or march?
Swagger? swim? or ride?
With fortitude and confidence
If we laughed at you before
We take it all back
You deserve much more than that
You will always remain
The most noble
Of all the nobles
Ameba pride is what you deserve

editors note: I say “amoeba,” you say “ameba.” Either way, say it proudly! – mh clay

The Sports of Shrimp Babies by KJ Hannah Greenberg

The sports of shrimp babies, those decapod crustaceans,
Minus mainlanders’ blue rocks, iridescent stones, ice,
Round little ponies, frosted cupcakes, cockershells, orchids,
Seem calculated for their elongated bodies, nothing more.

When critters rely, primarily, on whirling as their approach to locomotion,
On paddling with swimmerets, not turning cartwheels, nor jumping branches,
They discover screaming for help means screeching or otherwise shrieking
For safety. Consider, stalk-eyed beasts’ shelter’s only found in sediment diving.

Prawn, after all, remain so low on the food chain as to be expendable.
They lack rocking horse dreams, know no warm breakfasts of frumenty,
See no flames tickling heat into empty spaces, except for intervals like
Oil spills, finned predators, many troubles lancing their domain.

editors note: Not so bad, these lives; fried in panko, dipped in cocktail sauce. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short may cause moisture to the eyes. If you are prone to verklemptitis, we suggest you grab some tissues now 'cos this one is gonna tickle the tear ducts.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Time, Dreams and Broken Stitches" by Tammy Brown:

"Rebuild or die trying, that’s living."

Here's a bit to slip you into the mood:

photo (above) "Welcome, Come In. Always Come." by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

My first born of two sons died nine years ago. It was the day after Easter Sunday and the month prior to his 18th birthday.

Without warning and within moments our lives were unequivocally altered. We were pummeled to our knees, bloodied and broken by the happenstances of life.

He died within 20 feet of his father and I… horrific images permanently seared into our eyelids. In those moments an incompleteness, a piercing emptiness so vast was born.

But the universe is infinite and although it was the apocalypse for us, Earth did not see it that way. She continued to spin upon her axis forcing us to survive the blackest of nights and endure an immense number of colorless days. She prodded us forward. While fully engulfed in our distinct desolation we woke each morning and trudged through each day until eventually the rebuilding of our world, from dust, began...

Get the rest of your read 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...

Feelin' Grateful,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"The pictures are there, and you just take them." ~ Robert Capa

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“abandoned ship” (above) by featured artist Jennifer Lothrigel. To see more of Bill's mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

Our newest featured artist, Jennifer Lothrigel hails from the west coast and she brings us some photography that really rocks our Swirl world! With the ever-present contrast of light and dark – daylight seeping through the windows of an abandoned building, a giant piece of an old ship against an otherwise clear, grey beach – stirs something up inside of us that we can’t quite explain. As if the scenery itself wasn’t enough, there’s a female figure in every image. She’s turned away, anonymous – like something straight from a dream, the kind you can hardly piece together once you open your eyes the next morning. Needless to say, Lothrigel’s work does a lot for us. But mostly, it leaves us curious, compelled and hungry for more. If you too are prone to mad curiosities and are feel compelled to get your visual feast on, you’ve come to the right place! ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we wound a woman in earth, or earth in a woman; we quested for questions, OK with no answers; we were hard to see; we were hard to be; we sought relaxation in transformations; we twined two for too late; we muddled through the math to balance love's equation; we brought past moon to calm the present beast. Start to finish, we grow, not diminish, when we let the poem be. ~ MH Clay

I want myself back, my crescent moon by Haris Adhikari

My crescent moon, I was like you
Many, many years ago — idyllic, and free
Of dirty treads, of wounds and pain.
You’d beam bright upon my being
When I’d be down in disturbed liquors,
Pull me closer to you, my crescent moon, you’d
Create havoc in hell and heaven,
Calm me down, my crescent moon, you’d
Wake my soul up from extreme exhaustion
And I’d see you riding on dinosaurs,
Up and high in spirit to win the world,
My true warrior, you’d show myself
Calm and compassionate in the beasts’ eyes;
Oh! I want myself back, my crescent moon.

editors note: Yes! Bring back the days when the Man in the Moon was you! – mh clay

Math, you, and I by Samantha Hawkins

If all the world was a pie chart and all the people
merely percentages of a greater whole number
then you would be a three-dimensional, fuchsia-colored slice
And if life just consisted of sterile integers and barren digits

you would be the picture worth a 1000 pixels squared
I would be the nervous wreck of a train going 90 mph
barreling for nowhere in particular, too soon, too fast
Because some equations never change

no matter how many times you divide and multiply
Divide and multiply, divide — oh you get the point
If the value of you is me to the infinite power
then the value of me is x times the square root of your love

I told you once you were my favorite digit
I lied, you are my favorite improper fraction
so very top-heavy, and by that I mean brain-wise
Compared to your numbers, I am wanting

When simplified, our least common denominator is 1
before you I wasn’t even a prime number
wasn’t worth a notch on the number line before or after 0
I was a textbook manic, a black splotch of a decimal

introducing a most resplendent series of 9’s
And you solved every one of my word problems in short form
But if I could be less than binary with you for a minute
more transparent, and screw the math altogether

I’d tell you that no amount of factors or multiples
will ever lead me too far away from you
Because our differences plus the ratio of your 2 lips to my 2 lips
are the sort of statistics dreams are made of

editors note: Love in (rational) numbers. (We welcome Samantha to our creative congress on Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Two flowers by Sakazaf

Two friends, two days,
Two ways, two lives.
Too late to be like two flowers.

Things were said,
Said was thrown,
Hurt was gifted.
Too late to be like two flowers.

Two friends, one day
One way, one life
To become two flowers.

Fallen leaves,
Dried out roots,
Trampled under dirty boots.
Too late for two flowers.

editors note: Indifference? Betrayal? How fragile our bonds can be… like these two flowers. – mh clay

Transformations by Stephen Page

The weight of grass is heavy
Upon my shoulders; lift it,

Scythe is, mow it, let the cattle
Feed that I may walk again.

I sit upon a log in the shade
Of Wood. I sip mate.

I visit Buenos Aires and lie
In bed all day and watch cartoons.

I just want to sleep in
One Saturday, One Monday.

I want the Field Crossers
To stop trampling the grass,

To stop walking across my back
When they think I am napping:

Don’t they know the padlock turns
Are all numbered and recorded?

Editor, Advisor, stop planting corn
When I want my fields clovered.

I want again my daily strolls
In the quiet of Wood,

To watch for hours the bumblebees work
And lock eyes with the mockingbird.

editors note: Clover over corn? Yes! (This poem is a fine one of the mad many included in Stephen’s new collection, A Ranch Bordering the Salty River, published by Finishing Line Press. Get it here.) – mh clay

A SONNET OF LOGICAL POSITIVISM by satnrose

above the mainly positive is known
so let there be discussions and the Name
proponents of the member language shown
before the circle turns around again

consensus joins to vet the written word
the advocates speak in a language plain
but opposition makes it seem absurd
and still Vienna begs to be explained

the doctrine of the standard proposit:
to add it up you must include your toes
it’s rational as long as it has Wit-
tggenstein assume an a priori pose

epistemology is well and good
but what is what if you’re misunderstood?

editors note: Yes, precisely… What? (Read another of satnrose’s mad rants on his page; fear, assuaged in beer. – check it out.) – mh clay

Numb by Goirick Brahmachari

The dust I have acquired over the years
has hid my eyes from all that is before me
And I rust, disappear a little from your memory
Your vision
It has been a slow ride
And now the hills have turned their back
And I am not exactly sad
Or happy, I can’t see very well.

editors note: No definition, no disappointment. – mh clay

Not Forgotten by Bob Burke

So it starts
With a star explosion

Giving light to billions
Giving life in the form of minions

The architects with blood of Prometheus
Crafters of stars and protectors of the origin of light

All things are already learned
They just learn them again for cosmic kicks

Learning that they are their own creation
For that moment of salvation

Sun born galaxies rise and are left in their wake
Leaving the sparks of their imagination to light the night sky

~
Limits are set
But are not real

We believe what we perceive
Boundaries placed by what we can see

The Galaxies surround us unseen
Eyes closed by the infinity of space

They do not see, there is no limit
Above the horizon of their night sky

Where dreams are formed
And new realities born

~
Who am I?
What is this?

Do I belong?
Have I longing?

Who ignited so many stars?
And why do I see only a glimpse of their life span?

~
What we are
They once were

Lost to be found
With only questions

Hold them still without answer
Invite light not words, ignite stars not wars

Some questions serve better unanswered
But not forgotten

Left in the presence of being
With their own destiny to fulfill

editors note: Learn to leap limits as luminaries for long-lost lookers. – mh clay

When the sloping Earth… by Bhupender Bhardwaj

When the sloping earth within the latticed wooden perimeter
Of the duck pond cracks open in spaces from the fierce heat
Of the tropics it not only yields the anatomy of the wilted
Blade of grass but also the snapshot of its glowing core
That rotates non-stop. The plaited nightgown of water flows
Smoothly down your woman’s curved body of monolithic
Stairs landing into the pond. The paper-white ducks freighted
With the foreknowledge of future wade thoughtfully; the impending
Drought showing itself in their buttoned up eyes. Through the
Stiffened leaves lying scattered the wind steals like a thief and
Raising dust that settles on eyelashes, dictates the essay of stoniness.

Yearning with its cargo of incredible visions and perfumed ponderances
Enters the world through two pillared gates and Bells tinkle sonorously in
The ears of timorous hope.

editors note: Earth breaks forth with its own agenda. (We welcome Bhupender to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short-short "Planet," by Contributing Writer/Poet Sam Rapth, is outta this world! Or is it? You'll be the judge...

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Planet":

"We want to be echoes, we want everything to last or outlast us. But when nothing’s left, everything’s left to start over."

Here's a bit to slip you into the mood:

photo (above) "Our Place" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

“This one is located twenty light years away. The planet should be habitable with the right gravity and pressure as is revolves around its star very comfortably in the goldilocks zone”

“Does it have water?”

“It did long time ago, may be a million years. Look at the lines over there. Water had been flowing in there once.”

“I see. Could it have supported life? Like aliens?”

“Definitely. If there was water, there should have been life. Million years ago, but not now”

“Why?”

“Not sure. Maybe a meteor in the past millennia.”

“If it was a meteor, there should have been a crater on the surface. Nothing like that shows up in the picture.”

“Maybe the aliens must had exhausted all the water and oxygen and made the planet a raging hurricane of useless gases and acid rains.”

“I see. Let us send a probe and do some basic research on the surface. What are the coordinates for the planet?”

“Galaxy is Milky Way, located very close to Zodiac Star Cluster and is the third planet to its star.”

“Done. Give it a name now”

“Earth. It shall be called Earth.”

•••••••

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...

Takin' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

"Look around. Look at what we have. Beauty is everywhere—you only have to look to see it." ~ Bob Ross

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“abandoned church” (above) by featured artist Jennifer Lothrigel. To see more of Jennifer's's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we were star-struck, fooled; we saw red, by Autumn schooled; we received what was given; we gave poor a way of livin'; we gamed love's system, winnin' and losin'; we got our own through jealous shmoozin'; we fizzled our fire to fix a flat tire; we wound up the week in an easy speak. No cover. All wonder... ~ MH Clay

THE PICCOLO BAR by John Najjar

for Vittorio

Feeling like a piece of debris
In life’s flooding flow
I come here to enjoy the show.
A place for the dispossessed.
Its dark cave light
Offers a coffee-cup shield
Against the ticking clock.
A cafe patronized
By interesting people
Or so the sign said.
Wonder why I am here
Hiding in this blue cloud.

Remember it’s a place
To sit and dream
Drifting with memory’s stream.
Anguish just lost moments
Searching the menu board
While Billy Holiday’s voice
Filters into the night.
Safe in this warm glow
I sit in the corner
And watch characters
Exchange masks
Playing the night
With these star-splashed themes.

editors note: Walk right in, folks. No cover. Masks optional. – mh clay

With each hand… by Simon Perchik

With each hand the same turn
you learned to take apart
put together, tighten

and though the wrench holds on
the tire’s slowly going flat
the only way you know how

– you let go, circle
spring-like, for keeps
around the pin-hole leak

already planes falling into place
as a training song from the 40s
louder and louder, struggling for air

– at last the tire goes down
half under the ground
where you need both wrists

the way flowers wilt and each breath
takes in more smoke, still black
on course, end over end, almost there.

editors note: Meek machinations to maintain mobility, leaking languor. – mh clay

THESE DAYS OF OUR LIVES by Joseph Lisowski

This lady up the block
got this daughter across the street.
They ain’t exactly buddies
but, you know, they get along.
One day the girl’s dad, her ex
comes visitin’ with his new wife.
I mean it’s like nothin’s said
but soon there’s this parade of guys
knockin’ on the lady’s door–
five of them ina week by my count
an’ once two in one night, all comin’
in clean, shiny cars, them spiffed,
knockin’ ona door it seems
whenever her ex is ona porch
across the street.
The guy don’t say, do nothin’.
No tellin’ what’s on his mind.
I look again at the woman,
I can’t figure what she got
that causes the traffic jam.

Who knows? Maybe she
makes one helluva omlette.

editors note: Some eggs on a plate to put egg on his face? – mh clay

The Games by Chuck Taylor

Here’s John, honestly in himself,
Wanting his cock in cunt,
Not caring beyond beauty,
The bodies divine, wanting
To stay and walk away

And here’s Mary, unsure too,
Wanting it too, in love
With beauty but fearing
It’s name, calling it “cute,”
Thinking John’s might be

The one for babies,
And they want it
Both soft and hard
Fire quick and molasses slow.
You know how it goes

The Humorous, the intense
The Light, the dark
Forever and a day
Both Liberty and security
The whole swinging ecstasy

And all the while
Here comes the beginning
Of the always saying
You’re the one who’s
Got it all wrong,

And soon they turn
burned with anger,
Righteous as anyone’s God
“Try to learn respect,
I’m not a piece of meat!”

editors note: Just a game, which everyone plays for keeps. – mh clay

Pro-poor by Lawdenmarc Decamora

I got the spirit of the world ninja tuna
I will stay poor my life to experience life
I have dreamed of you so much my sound

My jitney flies and I want to touch bloodbuzz
Blueberry body into the persuading coolness

I don’t have money to enter forgetting
I don’t have money because I don’t like it

The photograph hung against the blue world
Blue pain buzzing bee-bowskidee-doo-beep
Would you like to take a walk and sleep

The morning with simple kindness and bells
Tintinnabulating like my heart church crisis

Come away getting rich what we are not
Before you know it the dream is gone

Logical squares finally squawking
And thinking freer then freezing free
Like a perfect circle caking corners
Crooked imagination and begonia skies

You may be thinking I am limitless
And I have nothing to offer
Yes I have nothing and I’m proud of it

But there’s music in it full of love lions

Looks like it happened again you got them
All capital magisterial magic numbers

Still got the sensible wear-me-out blues
Of moneyheads undervaluing poetry
Of the breeze knifing through shades
Of the thousand blue get real

I will stay poor my life to experience life
Who’s going to disappear write forever

Who’s going to change I say, Go do!

editors note: Yes! Do! Cuz, before you know it… – mh clay

Received by Akanksha Varma

You, me, ripped jeans,
cigarette ash, beer, iPod.
That was seventeen years ago
and that is seventeen seconds ago.
Nothing much has changed
except those superficial
wrinkles next to our eyes,
the rings on our third
finger and the slight
loose fat on our arms.
Nothing much has changed
except when our song
came, we felt a tingle
imagining our future and
now we feel nostalgia
imagining what could’ve
become of you and me, us.
Nothing much has changed,
except that our previously
clandestine meetings are
now known to our husbands.
Nothing much has changed,
except that I’m afraid to tell
you how I still feel about
you and that you are now
afraid to hear what I may
say, even though you know.
Nothing much has changed
in these seventeen years.
It is still a small party.
You, me, ripped jeans,
cigarette ash, beer, iPod
and our unsent vestiges
of love, received.

editors note: A love, once given, once received; still given, still received. – mh clay

Pomegranate by Lana Bella

you thought you saw
red in the autumn foliage,
fraught with seeds of
spilling pomegranate –
a concentric witness to
the same gravity that kept
seasons fed in aviary
restraint and embryonic
tantrums, you had been
introduced well to
this old story that became
new, while palace of young
leaves burst into blades
of grass, cold spells snaked
through roots, stitched
runnels from beads of rain –

editors note: A whole world constructed from what we think we see… – mh clay

Empyreal Heart and Soul by Harley White

O Nebulae of Heart and Soul!
In infrared portrayal WISE,
your colors grace the stellar skies.
Have you a core celestial role?

Supernal presences you seem
that steal one’s fancy unawares,
far-off from earthly human cares,
inspiring a soulful dream.

Does music of the spheres resound
in utterness of heavens’ art
to beating of a boundless heart
we seldom hear here on the ground?

You bring to mind the vintage song,
where lovers fell in love and kissed
one magic night in moonlit mist —
a classic tune, still going strong.

Six thousand light-years from our Earth
is where you two evince your charm —
part of Perseus’ spiral arm —
in cosmic womb for starry birth.

That limb is in our Milky Way.
Cassiopeia holds the Soul
east of the Heart, to make the whole
of the mosaic on display.

Your archetypal names evoke
Cupid and Psyche myths of old,
tales allegorical untold,
poetic visions you awoke.

In concert you’re a perfect pair.
Befittingly you reign on high.
Lest we forget wherefore and why,
our true humanity is there!

editors note: Again, these storied stars tell tales of us. What tales do we tell of them? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

Need-a-Read? This week's featured short-short "A Swan’s Memory," by Christopher Iacono just might trigger your memory! Here's a bit to get you recollectin':

When I was seven years old, my father dragged me onto one of those swan pedal boats they used to have at the beach.

It was so hot the seatbelt buckle burned my fingers every time I touched it. Staring at the water, I wished I knew how to swim so I could jump right in.

While Dad was peddling, I sat back and watched the other people in their boats. He grinned the whole time, but I was bored and imagined all the boats colliding like bumper cars.

The whole time, he kept rambling on about swans, grinning at his own knowledge of such things. “Did you know swans remember every kind thing you do for them?” I didn’t care. Instead, I imagined treating the boats like bumper cars and colliding with the one carrying a girl with blonde pigtails.

Sweat stung my eyes. I tried to wipe it away, but the moisture coating my arms made it worse, so I cupped some water in my hand and threw it in my face. What a relief! I flung some more, but then Dad said, “Stop it!” So while he wasn’t looking, I unbuckled the seatbelt, straightened my knees just a little, leaned over the side of the boat, and stuck my whole forearm below the surface, the waves licking my elbow. The boat tilted a little, but I didn’t think much of it. I turned my body and put my other arm in it. Dad was still looking straight ahead. My knees were cramped, so I stretched them, tipping the boat even further.

“Hey! Dad shouted. “Get down from there.”

As I turned around, I lost my balance. I spun my arms in a pinwheel motion before tumbling into the water...

Keep this read going'right here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of November (aka 11.02.16) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our NEW mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ badass City Tavern!

This month we are celebrating our 12th year of mic madness by hosting us a MAD HOOTENANNY! And nothing says HOOTENANNY like musical MAD-jazzyfunkyfolkyyes-NESS from Swirve-Tree (featuring Chris Curiel, Gerard Bendiks – MH Clay, Chris Zimmerly, Greg Robinson, Chris Hunter).

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ helpin’ of musical mad grooves from Swirve-Tree, share in the Mad Swirl’n festivities, & if the spirit is movin’ ya get yourself a spot on our open mic list. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to swirl-a-brate!

The City Tavern is located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

•••••••

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...

Seein' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

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