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The Best of Mad Swirl : 11.05.16

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"If you want to win anything - a race, yourself, your life - you have to go a little berserk." ~ George A. Sheehan

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“ego separation” (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 turned rejection on its ear; we beautified now with those not here; we constructed faith from crucifixion; we took from givers, without conviction; we bowed with a bower; we cowed with a coward; we dismembered a member; we contained a crazy. We covered it all, from clear to hazy. ~ MH Clay

This is the Title by Tom Hall

A lot of people I call “friends” don’t know that I’m insane.
“Insane” arouses passions when I really am quite tame.
“Tame” is a subjective word I feel that I attain,
Cause even though I have no skull, it’s hard to read a brain.

Using iams, I will try to make this next line work.
I’m bi-polar with little hints of schizophrenia.
Think: Fluctuating feelings with a little squirt of quirk.
At least that’s what my state says, and that’s California.

Thus, my doctors without bounds, they give me lots of pills.
A trillion dollar industry I’ve done my share to float.
You’ll see my graceful qualities, my motions, wit and skill,
Those stories that you might have heard, all petty anecdotes

But now when Tom-Tom eats his poo, I’ll open up the door.
We’re all in this conspiracy, It’s not for me to bore.

editors note: Cause or effect; his title or their trade? Aid for the doctors, or doctors for the aid? – mh clay


dick in a wheelbarrow by Melanie Brand

I’m a girl who was born with a giant dick.

My dick is so big that I had to special order a jumbo sized wheelbarrow from Lowes just to have some way of carting it around.

Walking down the street, hauling along my massive cock in a jumbo sized metal bucket on wheels is an exhausting chore. This gargantuan piece of sore meat is so hard to see around that I often trip over every possible thing that most people don’t even think twice about stepping over or around.

I run into everything with my hefty hunk of junk. Yesterday I rammed it squarely into the door of the women’s restroom so hard that I felt like I was going to pass out from the shooting pain and embarrassment.

It’s so hard to hide the girth of my penis. No matter what I threw over it to hide it people would still see it and snicker under their breath stuff like, “Check out that chick hauling around that massive wanker” or “who’s she trying to fool by trying to hide that ugly man meat under that tarp.”

Some people though chase after me to get a better look at my King Kong sized flesh dong, they want to touch it, rub it and do all sorts of things to it that make my stomach turn at the mere mention. Their sexual advances get tiring after a while, almost as tiring as it is to have to lift this wheelbarrow up all the time to get anywhere.

Then there’s the problem of my disgusting dick getting in the way of keeping a job. No matter how hard I try to hide that bruised up and sore lump of embarrassment, my jobs always end with the same excuses of my perverted freakish dick being too distracting and obscene for their work place.

Christian fanatics are worse, they chase me down the street when they see me shouting “You’re a sin against god. You and your dick should be stoned to death. You’re a massive pervert.” My personal favorites are when they call me a pedophile even though their brats are the ones throwing rocks at my giant dick.

When I run out of breath, trying to escape the torment and pain, strangers poke at my colossal cock with sticks, inflicting more pain on the most vulnerable part of my body, just to satisfy their sick sense of curiosity.

Good days end well if I haven’t tripped over my enormous dick more than a dozen times or had some smaller prick try and feel up that lump of flesh in a wheelbarrow. A good night for me is if I can just move that ugly slab of flesh out of the way where I don’t have to see it or feel it and enjoy the bliss of being able to ignore my giant dick in a wheelbarrow.

Just for one night.

editors note: Kafka was a prophet. Who knew? – mh clay


eagerly waiting by Volodymyr Bilyk

eagerly waiting for a moment
to be blatantly missed
and torn apart preemptively
deemed utterly superfluous…

CREAKING door sound
under the curtain.
“for your imagination.”

though futile.

sitting still.
thoughtless thoroughly.

guess i should stand up and pray for rain
so i can think then.
or something…

waste muscles its way through me
spurting clouds through any aperture it finds.
turns out – there are a lot of them.

it’s quite annoying.

goose flesh ensues,
eyeballs rolling…

editors note: Apertures everywhere, not a towel in sight. – mh clay


King of Misfit Toys by Chris Zimmerly

I bow before you the king of misfit toys
Always wearing a hole
Always leaving a stain
I didn’t mean to frighten you
I was just thinking like I do
All these years of darkness fondling the dream
Angel versus devil they seem the same thing
All the colors of hurt wing
When love is the hardest thing
Try to fly on a broken wing
When love is the hardest thing

editors note: To remove a malignancy, yet leave the heart intact; so hard, indeed. (Read another of Chris’s creations; something to crow about, on his page – check it out). – mh clay


Chain of denial by James Brown

My mind, full of envy over my open heart passion of giving so freely and sight never seeing clearly, mind and heart juggling instruments for the receivers with knowledge of my heart and them deceiving.
Mind holds back, fighting facts, heart reacts, gifting out, no thank you or profitable give back, only a single red eye blink back.
Hands are out to receive never for reprieve for a condemned heart covered in gold.
Mind encased by the power of slave love with every whipping beat from the heart; chain of denial.

editors note: Altruism; what takers love to see most in others. – mh clay


Golgotha by Milenko Županović

In cold
chambers
of death
gruesome shadows
of sinners
disappear
in the dark
depths
faith
on the hill
of crucifixion.

editors note: Truth to cleanse, found in the dark of self. – mh clay


Overflow by Nikki Anne Schmutz

I couldn’t let go,
so I buried you deep inside
where the reminders of loss
remained unseen, resting
as seeds scattered in places
tended by memories.
A garden sprouted
in the depths of my soul
and grew until it could not
be contained.
I couldn’t let go,
and you became the beauty
inside.

editors note: Yes! Sweet recall to make the emptiness full. – mh clay


Dear Editor: by Joan McNerney

Unfortunately I’m unable to
accept your rejection.

So many come in, it is
possible to accept only a few.

Due to staff limitations
no specific comment
can be made on yours.

Be assured it received
a careful reading.
I do hope you find a home
for this rejection.

Remember rejections are my
foundation and lifeblood.
Always feel free to send more.

editors note: Walkin’ in another’s shoes… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short-short "The Idiots Heritage," by Guram Svanidze just might feed your read need Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"Words to live and die by, but mostly to die, because if most artists have it their way, their words will be all that’s left after death."

And here's a bit to get you goin':

(photo (above) "What Outlasts Us" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Each street has its own imbecile, and such was the case with ours. His name was Vaja, with a stutter that caused him many troubles. Anybody could “pretend to be” Vaja and allow himself to babble everything. Nonetheless, sometimes it is useful to have such poor idiots. Vaja invented the word “Ке-ке”, which means: “someone has died.”

One day some men were playing backgammon directly in the street under a tree’s shadow. Meanwhile, a little boy brought a message that 100-year-old Uncle Vano had died. There was a break, with Vaja punctuating this pause: “Vano ke-ke!” The neologism soon became habitual. What was there in this word: disrespect or fear of death? In the event, no one bothered to reflect on it.

The exception was Bejan, my neighbor: “Disrespect to death will be avenged!” He arrived at this conclusion when he became really ill. For a long time, Bejan had been reproaching himself that he was abusing the use of alcohol. However, once an idea struck him that he had been punished since the time when Robert, a young lad, had died. He suffered from a ruthless illness and expired in the hospital. As usual, men were playing dominoes in the street when a woman, a neighbor, opened the window and with a tearful voice delivered the awful news. Bejan was in a good mood. He had just won several games, one after another.

He let drop as follows: “Robert ке-ke!” Nobody noticed. Other men became agitated and approached the woman. Only Bejan with his domino pieces remained sitting.

After a while, Bejan’s liver began to ache somewhat, he lost his appetite, and weakness overcame him such that he had to cease working. He was a taxi driver, and his stomach suddenly started to expand. Soon thereafter, doctors made a diagnosis: cirrhosis...


Keep this read goin'right here!

••• 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…

This month we celebrated our 12th year of mic madness by hosting us a MAD HOOTENANNY! And nothing said HOOTENANNY like musical the MAD-jazzyfunkyfolkyyes-NESS from Swirve-Tree!

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. To see all of 'em visit our Mad Swirl Flickr page)

Host:
Johnny O & MH Clay

Music:
Swirve-Tree

Mad Cast:
Desmene Statum
PW Covington
Gayle Bell
Paul Koniecki
Catie McLain
James Barrett Rodehaver
Reverie Evolving
BA
Gnadia Wolnisty
Eileen Simeonov

HUGE thanks to Swirve-Tree (Chris Curiel, Gerard Bendiks – MH Clay, Chris Zimmerly, Greg Robinson) 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…

•••••••

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...

Goin' berserk,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 11.12.16

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"The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls…" ~ Auguste Rodin

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“journey” (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 took a swing in a love thing; we perfected our imperfection; we conspired with a cobbler; we unseated an idol; we factored the math of existence; we vivisected vision to find what is; we Disneyfied our days gone by; we rambled through a romance, make up to break up. It was a week of yoyo mojo, walkin' the dog. ~ MH Clay

Last year’s crush by Sissy Buckles

And now you’re feeling pretty
shitty because you just
opened Pandora’s box
and peeked at the fella’s
FB page you’re all sweet on
with cinnamon stickybun
reveries of climbing slowly
on top and running him
up and down all steamy
night long wave his body
hard like a Fourth of July
flag on a pole I swear I’d
walk the line for that man and
oh baby shake the peaches
in my tree until — Whoa!
you see two tatted up
rockabilly chicks’ selfies
posted on his wall typical
hot rod colleens in cuffed jeans
bullet bra and bettie bangs
Ruby Woo lippie enveloping
huge blinding white smiles
and yeah they seem really
nice could be fun to hang out
slamming shots of tequila
and lime washed down with ice
cold beer besides I’ve never been
the jealous type what good
could come of that? Bless
recite the Sunflower Sutra
mayhap a pensive tear (or two)
and move on that’s what
I always say and yeah
you could imagine them
western swing dancing with
each other because the boys
won’t cut a rug creating a
riotous twirling centerpiece
on the dance hall floor like
1950’s girls have done for
years and oh yes this night
they’ve really got the first
place prize all sewn up
hugging each other giggling
and posing provocatively a
little cheesecake softcore
on his massive chopper in
front of the club and you just
stare with dropped jaw while
you’re heart sinks down to
your grubby classic red
Keds sneakers it’s back
to square one again and your
neighbor from the islands’
Maui Wowie classic sativa
medical cannabis that you
smoked last weekend for
DV PTSD flashbacks
must still be messing with
your head because all of a
sudden you don’t even know
what in hell you want so with
ten more minutes of lunch
you steal on over to
Poetry Daily only to read a
grand rollicking poem
something huge and righteous
and glory glory hallelujah
about Ma Rainey discovering
the blues and Son House
“If I don’t go crazy, honey, I’m
going to lose my mind” with
the requisite knives
guitars and squirrel guns
Johnny Horton scratch
pluck and twanging sob
leading down dusk
and sultry dirt country
roads to the original
local chicken shack and
now armed with verse
you can finally expel that
pent up suspended breath
you’ve been holding for the
last half hour because
suddenly all is right once
again in your small town world,
at least today anyway.

editors note: Personal relationship pachinko; “huge and righteous and glory glory hallelujah.” It’s a good day when we make it so. – mh clay


Viva Visa! by Ivan Jenson

perhaps in
a third world country
or in the Far East
or in the Upper Peninsula
or Down Under
I will be appreciated
and adulated
the way I
was when I reigned
supreme in the
Disney World dynasty
of my delicious
tenacious pre-teen
gold-leafed
time frame
back when I looked
like I was ready to star
in an afternoon special
about a goody-good
who made good
with all the goodies
a goofball could
get hold of
and I am catching
the next
non-stop flight
heading back in time
to a place
that currently
has a high exchange
but low
currency rate
on unconditional
love

editors note: Though this could be a week for looking back, to have our past-ports stamped; the good ole days haven’t happened, yet. Forward, Friends! Eyes front… – mh clay


Is and Vision by Gregg Dotoli

Don’t mention memento
Is was there and needs no reminder
trinkets fog reality
only Is is
be with Is
embrace the nowness of you
nose to nose with self
pure you
scramble that past
throw it in that trash
with the kipper and kitsch
Is’s brother Vision
jealous as Caine because
only Is is

editors note: There’s our challenge; to find the is in vision. – mh clay


MORPHOGENESIS AND ME by Derrick Gaskin

When all these numbers are finally crunched
As electrical spasms jerk each thought
At equations of such simplicity –
Patterns emerge that were there all the time.
Nothing arrives without arithmetic
Shaping paws – or stripes on a cat’s long tail,
Calculating the way it thinks and purrs
To heal itself as some illness takes hold.
Adding this to what’s seen in cold night skies
That seem far away, everything becomes
Clear, almost algebraic, not simple
But chalked on a blackboard for a child to read.
Do subtracted lives shrink in importance,
Pale figures, vague shadows in the distance?

editors note: Sometimes, our equation seems unbalanced; impossible to solve for “x” when we can’t see “y.” – mh clay


The Idol by Jonathan Butcher

In this evening’s haze, edging down that same
road again, watching you perpetually twitch
as you talk and pull pre-stashed cans of
larger from behind wheels of random parked
cars as we edge towards the city.

It was within that tower of innocence that
the front you developed blossomed; and
we allowed it’s fatal breeze to penetrate
our group, if only to keep the peace, and
to allow your voice to echo.

As I frown once more, you intimate your
confusion at my repudiation. I gradually learn
your presence involves more than a little risk;
that creeps upon me slowly,like a sudden,
unwanted bout of reduced inhibitions.

Though these idle crowds your anxiousness
never settles until each eye is penetrating
your own. I gaze forward again, keeping your
back protected, yet at arms length as I slowly
await the end that only appears at your request.

editors note: By our repudiations, all idols topple. – mh clay


SHOEMAKER by Akeredolu Tope

Hello, Mr Shoemaker!
On empty and naked soles I have traversed
This lengthy and thorny path
you I have sought unbidden
like Delilah to Samson.
I wish that you make for me a pair of Sandals
Let the soles be stocked with valour and hope
Since they’ll come handy on my voyage
Lace the floor with painted patterns
From life’s many canvases of stages
That it may remind me when the next stage beckons
I do not want a uniform sandal
Paint the right with shades of green and white
That I may see my fatherland when I behold it
Paint the left in rainbow
Let me behold my brothers
From the seven shades
I know of leather sandals
Of rubber sandals; he said
Not of Sandals with soles of valour
But Since that’s what you wish
Let’s get to work

editors note: Sometimes, you gotta make them before you walk a mile in them. – mh clay


CRACK FEIGN by Cassaundra Bingaman

Put up your perfect
The world can have that
I’ll take the broken
So I can fit between the cracks

editors note: Step on a crack, dial the judgment back. – mh clay


Sway by Dawn Marie

Ecru weave, damp from rain.
The fresh of a rainy morning, light softened gray, a fade of blue and sun hazed out.
Taking a seat on the swing, motion makes the sway.

In the muggy air, the handles sweat on mugs of chilled coffee.
The aroma faint, the taste rich.
My attention is on those eyes of his.
He is huddled in a cocoon naked in comfort.
The gleam and grin on his face makes me sway.

Listening, learning, revealing.
Thoughts tumble out, questions raised.
Laughter and a smile.
Swinging or floating? I can not tell the difference when looking across to him as I sway.

The sun breaks across the space.
There is calm and quiet. The rain has slowed from drizzle to mist. Then we rise and embrace as we walk away.
Leaving only the sway.

editors note: So sweet to swing in this sway. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short-short "The Golden Sunshine," by Chuck Taylor just might feed your read need Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"The simple life is the most complex life. Don’t waste life watering withered vines growing under a cracked foundation. Look to the sky and know there’s a home for us all."

And here's a bit to get you goin':

(photo (above) "Hello, Sunshine" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

I saw Jadene, my neighbor across the street, take a sledgehammer to her small brick house. She was working on the east side, smacking the red bricks cemented in a row right above the cement pad, cracking bricks and then removing chunks with a small crow bar.

I don’t know how long Jadene had been at the task. When I noticed, it was around nine on a Monday in June and I was late for work. She had a bottle of water stuck into a fanny pack at her hip.

Jadene managed a convenience store down on the nearest highway. We rarely spoke as neighbors, but I went to the store regularly. When the place was empty, we’d chat a bit. Jadene said she had once lived the high life—grand food, unlimited drinks, drugs, and partying all the time—as an undercover DEA agent who’d infiltrated a major Austin drug ring. How she did this she did not explain, but now she has a new name and new identity. She found her present life dull and unsatisfying.

“You get hooked on the high life,” she told me...


Keep this read goin'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' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 11.19.16

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"What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why." ~ Allen Tate

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“hag” (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 (should have) changed a shirt to heal a hurt; we drew a new card from an old deck; we made a morn romantic in a swirl of mad gnat antics; we tipped a totem, an idol broken; we reminisced in summer's bliss; we sought satisfaction in cold abstraction; we downed deception through clever perception; we tipped our tea to clamorous be. We dotted our "Is" and crossed our "Ts," and didn't spill a drop. ~ MH Clay

Clamor by Bhargab Chatterjee

clamor
from a neighborhood
famished
cracked
measure d on the Richter scale
three village folks we re sip
ping tea
in uncle tom’s cabin
the clamor was inter rupted
some) where
in the north bengal tea gardens:
hunger is a prisoner’s out (fit
in coma

the face value of the disaster:
‘self is seen
not as a person al essence
rather as an aesthetic and ethical object
to be create d and cultivate d’

editors note: Sipping tea; becoming you, becoming me. – mh clay


Perception by Dah Helmer

Perception is based on
light’s variations
or one’s point of focus

Something clear
is a glass wing
or a cracked pane

Somebody says
the burnt eyes of noon
are chilly

The first snowflakes
are deep sleep
or a masquerade

The faraway blue
is drifting liquid
or a baker’s glaze

At night
everything starlit
is contagiously dark

Perception is clever
in its ways of leading us
to what we want to believe

editors note: Yes, our poets are pundits. They make us like what we believe. – mh clay


Frost by Monica Beaujon

blue sound stretches
over the everywhere always—
i listen to endless cerulean

pale moon blooms in
the obsidian soil of sky,
has the scent of lilies

i fall in love with
fossilized nothings
remembered as somethings

into my granite bones i
embed crystal eyes; they
glint from lilymoon breath

i am the sunbeams that
bounce off the clouds
and never reach the ground

i am the body that swallows
cold abstraction in the
hopes of becoming it

editors note: First frost; affectation, in time for holiday hyperbole. – mh clay


Granma’s Summer by Vineetha Mekkoth

Summer seemed interminable then.
We lay on straw mats languorously
Limbs at odd angles as only children can do
Our eyes half closed to the world
As one of granma’s hens would suddenly feel
Like crooning sweetly
And then she would raise an arm to shoo
Where it would flap its wings and cackle ‘murder’
In all possible tones and volume of squawks
Till sleep was nigh impossible
What with the flies that persisted
On landing on the lips
Making one spit in alarm
The thought of some contagion
Rising alarmingly with pictures
From the science textbook
And the fan would drone on and on
Untiringly
Ineffectively
As the juicy mangoes dribbled
down gluttonous throats
And the water in the earthen pot
Was the coolest and tastiest in the entire world.
The summer
That will never return.

editors note: As cold approaches, here’s a delightful look back to warm. – mh clay


Talisman by Jonathan Beale

After Marianne Moore

There, by the de-barked tree
There was once this figure
An embolismic statue.

This totem

Lessons in the day gone by
The one craved ”you must”
A goblin in the sky

A portent

Beauty is never a reality
It’s the frailly human reflection
The broken images

The broken idol

Here are lessons for men
Here! Long dead long lost
Even to memory – gone, here

In this totem

editors note: Tokens of remembrance; creators, long forgotten. – mh clay


December Journal: Thursday, December 19, 2013 by Don Mager

Midmorning sneaks calm pools of light in
between abrasive chilly breezes
and drops them where sun patches stand still.
The breezes flip ivy leaves upside down
on tree trunks. Theirs is a tireless green
whose knotted twines mesh mercilessly.
The pools swim their calms with haloes of
gnats that lift swirling plumes, dizzily
suspending themselves inside the air,
then, as if air dropped out its bottom,
plummet en masse toward dead grass like a
fumbling diver. The last moment and
morning catches its breath to push the
gnats spinning helix back toward the sun.

editors note: Gnat magic on a winter’s morn. – mh clay


Metallurgist of Symbols by Brendan McBreen

slow

deliberate

move

as

a cypress

grows

then chant
ten times

all
the names

you wished for

as a child

editors note: A new tarot for divining these strange days. – mh clay


Drake’s Neck by Megha Bajaj

And who would have
thought
the colour of betrayal
was bluish green.
Note to self:
Ask him her lipstick shade,
before it burns.
The white shirt.

editors note: An entire soap in 8 lines… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short story at Mad Swirl, "In the Summertime" comes from long-time Contributing Writer, Oleg Razumovsky. If you already know Oleg's works, you know this read will be rowdy & raw with a Russian flavor that no one but Oleg can deliver. Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"Old dogs and their old bones are our oldest stories, from night to day, especially when someone in love waits by the window for the reason their heart beats to come home."

Here's a bit of "In the Summertime" to get you goin':

(photo (above) "Sorry, No Cruisin' for a Boozin'" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

I remember one outstanding summer day. Not very hot, with occasional warm rain, but also with a lot of sunshine when you can sit with your buddies in the yard, in the shade, and drink vodka.

Perfect. 

The day before I had drunk with my wife all night long and in the morning, she, as usual, went to look for a job. She did it every day. No luck yet.

 When she went, I immediately go out. There on our stone under Shiryai’s window sat a couple of our guys and that fat man from the other neighborhood, who sometimes came there to drink with us. I didn’t like him. Forgot his name. It wasn’t important. But fuck him, the motherfucker.

 By the way, he had a hideous nickname and looks like shit. Shiryai respects him and that was his personal business. That’s why I drank in this company only one glass of vodka and left. I had nothing against Shiryai and other pals, but this dumb fat fucker irritated me and I still don’t know why. He was as stupid as the stone on which he sat and drank. Shiryai respected him and he told me once that this guy was a tough gangster, but I didn’t care a fuck. I just didn’t like him, that’s all.

Now I remembered his name. Hera. What kind of a name is it? Fucking shit. Maybe right now he is still alive, though unlikely, because them gangsters were shot and killed pretty regularly during the past years. 

Well, I left Shirjai, Hera and some other punks to talk about their fucking problems and went to our bench...


Keep this read goin'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...

Questionin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 11.26.16

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"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" ~ Charles M. Schulz

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Mr. Warner: 1” (above) by featured artist(s) Daniel Ableev & Bob Schroder.

Our newest visual artist(s) come from the land of Europa with some pretty fascinating works that we can’t resist! While in a comic book style of sorts, each cell can stand alone too, with black and white detail that could keep you gazing for days. The visual talent of Bob Schroder combined with Daniel Ableev’s profound and curious story telling skills truly creates an entire artistic experience we just couldn’t pass up. We’re sure after you take a look-see, you’ll feel the same! ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we quenched throats parched on a dryland march; we danced to the tune of plenty (came away tired and empty); we learned to bend in a world without end; we sought seaside serenity, watched watchers watch us; we, our love to bless, answered questions with a "yes;" we confused nearsight for insight; we embraced our sick self, left snake oil on shelf. When sickness brings silence, words are remedy! ~ MH Clay

SUN OILED SNAKE SKIN by J H Martin

I tried it once
And it wasn’t good

It just made me sweat
And think way too much

That old scratch
I can’t itch

That pretty wife
That I miss

I mean
If all these meat markets
Are cheap flip flops and shorts
Then what’s the point of the sun?

No

It’s all just –
Me, me, me
Ain’t it babe?

Praise the lord

This whisky
This beer

This tiny locked room
That stinks of dead flesh

Sure
You can dip it in chili
And soak it in garlic
But it’s still just a bad photograph

This hollow temple that we bow down inside
This family of blood that we scratch on the walls
This history of bones that we soothsay for signs

No man
I tried it once
And it wasn’t good

That sun oiled snake skin
Tastes like
Rooster, pig, rat

editors note: When the cure is worse than the disease… – mh clay


hallucinations unlimited by Bradley Mason Hamlin

thought I had vision
contemplating universe
wearing glasses now

editors note: One’s enhancement is another’s impairment. Rose-colored or raw, keep squinting. – mh clay


AUBADE by Willie Smith

Do I love you more
than dew in the
dawn sparkles?
Do webs irised
in the garden
twinkle less
than the smile I
catch in your
eye?

Yes and yes.
For our love
forever lives
in this breeze
so soon
in the heat of day
to still.

editors note: Sweet morning’s muse. Love for thanks and thanks for love. – mh clay


Eyes In The Sand. by Dennis Moriarty


Jelly fish look like eyeballs
On the beach
Sockets prized open and drained
Of light
Their contents emptied on the
Sand
Pernicious corneas watching.
Masterfully I crafted a path bypassing
That optical spillage
Circumnavigating rock pools swollen
And distorted
By the grimacing reflections of crabs
And down to the sea’s lonely side
Where the horizon fluttered
A bunting of sails
And the waves unfolded flotsam
Of broken sunshine.
There at the edge of that desolate shore
Hearing the gulls
Swearing oaths of allegiance to
The wind.
Quite alone yet watched by a thousand
Beach combing eyes.

editors note: Nothing like a (dis)quiet(ing) walk on the beach. – mh clay


How the Universe Works by Irena Pasvinter

When your happy world
is
falling
apart,
melting down to a tragic swamp,
sucking you into the depths of sorrow,
squeezing you with the burden of loss,
it’s as if the whole universe is

going

down

with

you.

But rest assured:
the universe stays put,
never mind accelerating expansion.
Even when millions of happy bubbles
burst in a single explosion,
the universe doesn’t budge.
The show goes on,
with or without you,

but

it

takes

a

lifetime

to get used to
how the universe works.

editors note: World without end (though, not for us), amen. – mh clay


Brief Dreams by Gary Beck

In the intermittent struggle
between capital and labor
that started in the caves,
or even earlier,
the wealthy usually triumphed,
or when briefly toppled,
wangled their way
by any means necessary,
until once again they directed
the destiny of mankind.

Jacquerie, rebellion,
revolution, all resulted in masters,
new or old,
well-disguised puppets,
dancing,
as they made the people dance
to celebratory tunes
applauding riches.

editors note: The toppers love it best when viewed from the bottom; the more viewers there, the better. – mh clay


hopeless hope until we are a land by Paul Koniecki

of no land
i plant

jo-joba in con-
centric circles

around the latrine

the rats hate it
and it sells

well to the upper-class
sometime last week

after the tea-party and
before the free-dead risers

the kids all got the cough
and i felt the air begin to die

we started what they’ve named
the dryland march

bivouacked i carry water
for three

and teach them to sing
the dream songs

we talk about shade-heaven
and the peacefulness of bridges

how much our teeth hurt
and why we love it

right before it rains
we get to stop

await the spark
and life can catch and gather

mostly i try
to help everyone

editors note: Yes! Just the balm we need for the rash time. Thanks, Paul! – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short story at Mad Swirl, "Chicken Breast or Rump Roast" comes from long-time Contributing Writer & Poet, Donal Mahoney. Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"From youth to ragged age, there’s always feast, you just need to know where to find it. We don’t have to starve."

Here's a bit of "Chicken Breast or Rump Roast" to get you goin':

(photo (above) "Touch Me! Always" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

Freddie and Fern were an old couple, a very old couple if truth be told, but on the matter of age, the truth seldom surfaced. Their kids were grown and gone and had families of their own. All of them lived in different cities and two of them had even asked their parents to sell the house and buy a smaller place near where they lived. But Freddie and Fern, despite all their aches and pains, were an independent couple and they liked their privacy. Seeing their grandchildren was nice but living close enough to have to babysit them, that was quite another matter.

Most evenings Fern would sit in her rocker and work crossword puzzles and Freddie would sit back in his recliner and watch whatever sport was in season. They were very different people but in 50 years of marriage they had always gotten along well. Each was solicitous of the other’s needs. Always had been. But as age encroaches, certain needs change and others remain the same, life being what it is.

Fern, for example, had arthritis pretty bad. Her back was always acting up on her. From day to day, it was just a matter of how bad it was.

Freddie had arthritis in both legs but he could still get around pretty good for a man with his ailments, too good sometimes as far as Fern was concerned, especially when Freddie would get that look in his eye. Sure enough, he would ask her if the next time she had to go to the bathroom, she’d bring him back a Coke from the fridge. And, of course, she always did.

But Fern always knew it wasn’t just the Coke Freddie wanted. The old goat wanted to watch her walk down the hallway. He told her many times she had more bounce to the ounce now than when she was young...


Keep this read goin'right here!

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

Back by Popular(ish) Demand: Mad Swirl T-shirts & Sweatshirts!


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 the holidaze if you buy before December 15th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you some and while you’re at it, why not get one for the whole fam?!

•••••••

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...

Figurin' It Out',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.03.16

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"The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it." ~ Craig Raine

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Mr. Warner: 2” (above) by featured artist(s) Daniel Ableev & Bob Schroder. To see more of Daniel & Bob's mad 'toons, 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 posited to piddle-about for answers in the middle-about; we replaced dastard with dog, though both were golden; we laid down a rap that would show up on Snapchat; we soothed a sight for sore eyes; we floundered for floor "why"s; we wrestled with fear that our muse won't come near; we surrendered expectation to watch with fascination (every poet is a fire). Poet, muse, middle to end; we tell our tale as our tale tells us. ~ MH Clay

Expect by Trier Ward

I once knew a poet
capable of torture,
beautiful,
full of the fire
of himself.
I broke my heart
upon him.
Now it hurts less
because I don’t expect
him to be noble.
I don’t expect anything.
I just watch and wait
as he plays himself out.
He’s still beautiful.

editors note: No expectations; yet, hope for the poet in us all. (Read another of Trier’s missives; the ultimate selfie – check it out on her page.) – mh clay


ODD TIMES by Bradford Middleton

The last few months have been a bit odd
Success has come in some form and now
Well, frankly, it’s all just been a bit odd
With happiness comes a failure of my muse
As I struggle to find the words to describe
How this feels and what it means to me
Because now, as I sit gazing out the much
Viewed window here in the last resort I know
I can no longer be miserable as
For the first time in a long time I actually
Have enough, or will soon do, to get out
But right now all I want to do is remain
As this place has been my world and
I worry that if I move on what will become
Of the muse who came to me in those
Mad, deranged, booze soaked, drug addled
Days when I’ve been stuck here living
This life in the last resort

With the idea of getting out and moving on
I worry as will me leaving here mean I can
No longer create the rough-hewn words I
Laid down here as life becomes
Just a little more comfortable and
With no misery and nothing to hate
What is left for me to do but write about the
Booze but now even that avenue
Down which flooded oceans of primo
Lager, gin, ale, whisky, rum and wine
Have dried up as I attempt to clean up
And survive a whole month without
Even a tipple, surely impossible!

So, if you don’t hear from me for a while
It’s because my muse has become infected
With clean-living, optimistic dreams of a
Life that may very well come real

editors note: Odd times beg the question: Does environment make the muse or, vice versa? – mh clay


…and the floorboards were golden by Tom Pescatore

so that you ran your tongue against them
carving and chipping bone and screw

so that you were forgetful
unable to piece together what had come before

so that you pulled your knees up to your chin
blind to dirt and dust and scruff and tar

so that you took to running knifed edges across grain
drawing up curled veins

so that each needled point penetrated the skin
and left glitters of light in their path

so that with each step the surface gave slightly sinking
marking your footprints your face prints your palms

so that at night it appeared as it did before
but for the metallic taste

so that even though your outside mildewed with collapse
the inside shone brightly in the sun

editors note: Many reasons for the color of the floor. Name yours… – mh clay


Visine by Paul Hostovsky

My left eye is killing me,
I say to my wife. It could be
allergies, she says. It could be
my retina getting ready
to detach, I say, or glaucoma
or syphilis or cancer. Why
do you always have to jump
to your death? she says.
I don’t answer right away.
At the CVS, a whole aisle
of eye drops: drops for dry eyes,
drops for watery eyes, drops
for red and itchy eyes. My eyes
light on Visine and suddenly
I’m sixteen again and smoking
pot every day and trying to hide it
from my mother, cutting classes
left and right and writing
my stupid clever poems
about sex and trees and death.
There’s a poem in here just itching
to get out, I think as I tilt
my head back and squeeze:
two fat drops stinging as they go
to work. And how long before
Johnson & Johnson figured out
the reason for the precipitous jump
in sales? And how long before
I fell so far behind in high school
I ended up dropping out?
The truth is, I’ve been jumping
to my death all my life. Because
it’s good practice, I say to my wife.
And what about your eye, is it
still killing you? she says. No, I say,
but now my feet hurt. And also
my right knee. That could be
from all the jumping, she says.

editors note: Hypochondria or soothsaying; if we’re gonna jump, gotta see. – mh clay


Insta Queen by Hannah Searsy

Double double
Toil and trouble
Fire burn and
Envy bubble
Build me up an Instagram queen
Posting her local lattes
And modeling screeds
Fucking skinny bitch
With her undercut
And nipple piercings
Star tattoos and colored hair
A pinch of crop top, a bit of Wicca
A slap of that, you know, attitude
Let’s keep it up and she’ll get thinner
Look at me look at me look at me
She says with sparkle and smiles
Let’s be like every bitch
Except for me

editors note: Celebrate your common uniqueness; on line, always better than off. – mh clay


The Three Bears by Chrissie Morris Brady

After the golden haired girl had run away
after intruding and breaking furniture,
Papa Bear carefully fixed the bed and chair.
Mama Bear served fresh hot porridge.
Baby Bear sadly said, “It won’t be the same.”
So they all had a think and then Papa Bear
took his family to town to buy new locks.
Instead, they came home with a Golden Retriever.

editors note: After upheaval, loss retrieval. – mh clay


Aye, Funny, Innit by Paul Tristram

How you can drink yourself sober.
Love someone too much.
Be in the wrong place at the wrong time
and not even realize it
until Fate’s sealed up all boltholes.
Get out of bed on the wrong side.
Wear that smile on the other side of your face.
Why kicking a dog when it’s down
is to be applauded these days.
How everyone loves a Winner
but everybody wants to stop them getting there.
Solitude and Loneliness
have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
End a ten year marriage by squeezing
from the wrong end of the toothpaste tube.
The Left is wrong, the Right is wrong also
and the sensible answer
is sitting somewhere in the middle
but no one’s ever looking there.
You get in trouble for retaliating.
Most murders and rapes will be committed
by someone you’ve already
smiled at and shared a coffee with.

editors note: We were laughing, until it happened… Not so funny, anymore. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short story at Mad Swirl, "Repressed Slumber Party Memory Syndrome" comes from Gregg Williard. Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"Remember the innocence you never had. Pretend to carry all the details of when you were a better person with you because the burden of being a good person never weighs enough."

Here's a bit of "Repressed Slumber Party Memory Syndrome" to get you goin':

(photo (above) "Memories Set in Stone" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

It was the night of the slumber party. The little brother served bowls of ridged potato chips and garlic and onion dip to the teenage sister and her friends in pajamas. But wait! Wasn’t there a truck driving past the house at that moment? Try to remember! The truck was painted violet with decorative tendrils of fuchsia, and silver, remember? But wasn’t that a strange color for a truck in the late 1950s? And what was such a truck doing on your residential street? It was doing something! But wait! The fuchsia tendrils, there was a name for such decorative flourishes! Was it customized detailing? Try to remember! Such designs appeared on hot rods and souped-up V-8 dragsters. But wait—the little brother didn’t care about engines or cars, or trucks! Memory follows appetite! Follow that appetite! The chips! They were ridged! The edges rippled, as if cut with special scissors! And those scissors are called pinking shears! Cutting such saw-toothed or wavy or ridged edges is called pinking. The tendrils on the truck were fuchsia and silver...

Keep this memory goin'right here!

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

Back by Popular(ish) Demand: Mad Swirl T-shirts & Sweatshirts!


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 the holidaze if you buy before December 15th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you some and while you’re at it, why not get one for the whole fam?!

••• Open Mic •••

Mad Holiday Hijinx Swirl-ebration!


‘t’is the season for some Holiday Hijinx and a perfect reason for Mad girls and boys to Swirl up some noise! Bring your holiday hoots and howls together; the whole spectrum of expression this time of year invokes. It’s all you, all us, all together in our Mad Holiday Hijinx Swirl-ebration!

Join we merry Mad ones (with musical guests Bendiks-Hendricksen) this 1st Wednesday (aka December 7th) The Swirl-ebration starts at 8:00pm sharp and lasts until no more cheer can be shared!

Come on out, one & all. 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!

Catch us swirlin' up our madness at The City Tavern located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

P.S. If you're a Facebook'r and want to get on our pre-list, visit our event page and let us know you're gonna be there.

•••••••

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

The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.10.16

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"Well we all shine on / Like the moon and the stars and the sun / Well we all shine on / Ev'ryone come on" ~ John Lennon


••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Mr. Warner: 3” (above) by featured artist(s) Daniel Ableev & Bob Schroder. To see more of Daniel & Bob's mad 'toons, 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 looked for the where of a place not there; we lost some more from desperate shores; we blocked out war on the dance floor; we gave up will for no good, and still; we burned up the profit in prophecy; we shook out the water for the glow; we felized navidad for the show. Everyone different, everyone the same. Seasons greetings in any name. ~ MH Clay

Feliz Navidad by Donal Mahoney

Pedro swings a mop all night
on the 30th floor of Castle Towers
just off Michigan Avenue
not far from the foaming Lake.
The floor is his, all his,
to swab and wax till dawn.

The sun comes up and Pedro’s
on the subway snoring,
roaring home to a plate
of huevos rancheros,
six eggs swimming
in a lake of salsa verde,
hot tortillas stacked
beside them.

After breakfast,
Pedro writes a poem
for Esperanza,
the wife who waits
in Nuevo Leon.
He mails the poem
that night, going back
to his bucket and mop.

Pedro’s proud
of three small sons,
soccer stars
in the making.
On Christmas Eve
the boys wait up
in Nuevo Leon
and peek out the window.
Papa’s coming home
for Christmas!

Pedro arrives at midnight
on a neighbor’s donkey,
laughing beneath
a giant sombrero.
He has a red serape
over his shoulder,
and he’s juggling
sacks of gifts.

When the donkey stops,
the boys dash out and clap
and dance in circles.
Esperanza stands
in the doorway
and sings
Feliz Navidad.

editors note: This Santa is no holiday concoction; he arrives with gifts and laughter for real. Feliz Navidad! – mh clay


Feel Me? by Daniel Kuriakose

The falafel joint jets out on the block,
like a marked card.
This guy, with his tie dyed attitude,
struts to the joint,
meets eyes with another guy
he hasn’t seen lately.

“How you been?” Other Guy asks.
“Water in my ears. What’d you say?”
“What kind of water?”

They clasp each other’s hands
by the finger joints
and Tie Dye, with the joint problems,
winces as they pull in, to bump
shoulders, in a semi-orbit,
like two galaxies who’ve gotten too close.

Tie Dye shakes the city out his ears,
the way physical contact is a lubricant
to undo isolation crusting over itself,

the way you say “let’s blow this joint,”
to your life, all of it, out his ears.
He looks up and explains the river
flooding his canal:

“Know how the ocean glows sometimes,
’cause all the bioluminescent algae,
how they try to touch,
but glow instead?”

editors note: At our dysfunctional best, sometimes we glow. – mh clay


ANTI-POLITICS THUMBNAIL by Stefanie Bennett

… Whoever’s prophet material
Had best seek counsel
From the nation
Of ‘The Northern Lights’:

No velure head-hunter need apply –

No Moulin Rouge mudslinger –

No tyrannous protoplasm
Batting an evil eye –.

Lucidity epitomises
The cold ground’s
Imminent banter;

“Where man ends
The flame begins” *

And we will never
Put Prague
Or Jan Palach
Back together, again.

{*Miroslav Holub}

editors note: If self-immolation was the required imprimatur, we’d have damn few prophets. – mh clay


To Shoot Up with Regrets by James Robert Rudolph

Songbirds start forming circles
in a roughening sky there’s trouble ahead
dust devils careen and clone
gritty, pitting, stinging in their spin
a mange-ing cat wet hisses at a
far off siren and something’s on its way.

A bony doorman invites me
into a brothel he has no teeth and smells
of damp onions air static as a bell jar’s holds
sexual squeaks and bathroom sounds in
a soupy suspension and nothing nothing good
can come of this.

I eye fresh sutures closing the gap
on my forearm and if I don’t watch myself
I’ll unlace my arm like a corset and infection
will redden my skin like an algae bloom
a red tide and I tell myself don’t go there.

I know lost weekends and the poking horns
of no good devils and setbacks and how
none of it’s worth it and still.

editors note: “Here we go again!” Every addict’s refrain. – mh clay


Mods Dancing by Linda Imbler

Stripes, squares, planes and angles
lots of stripes, black pinstripes, but not Sergeants’ stripes.
Parallel lines and black and white squares
but no squares on the dance floor, undulating.
Music from the speakers blasting pulsing electric vibes
and as they begin to move, subtly,
twist but don’t shout, hands expressive,
self-expression without judgment,
their own music-the Mods-their lives are all
about fashion and all about the thumping beat.
Dance floors are so crowded with bodies
moving in place, eyes closed experiencing rhythms
heard with their unique ears. They weave and
bounce but keep the attitude cool, girls with hair with bangs,
but not the bangs of escalating war
in some foreign land. Boys with hair
grown to length, hanging over collars,
sharp collars that for some will be replaced with drab green.
Clothes not funereal, surprisingly,
not drab checkerboard patterns dazzling the eye, something
so colorful about this dress worn by
kids who had yet to discover hip,
those for whom video was all in the head.

editors note: Delight on the disco floor, oblivious to the beat of war. – mh clay


Expatriate by D.A. Moulton

The list goes on.
Cry me out a layer
thick and salty
crusted crystal.
Digging beneath walls
like Berlin. And I am east,
so far east.
Hiding in hollowed out car seats,
deplumed and desperate.
Save me from razor blade
wired fence, made of mind
and kind. Thrashing aside
long boat river bullets
running.
Bloated and blind
drifting to the bitter Atlantic.
Weeping at the roll call.

editors note: Names not called; nowhere to go when the last doors close. (We welcome D.A. to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay


I STRIVE by Stephen B. Fleming

I strive against the haters
The master debaters that call themselves statesmen.
I don’t like your states of mind, men.
You say you want to serve but you swerve to the curve of your ego.
You go where the money is, the fear is and smog the air with unfeeling blindness.
There’s no kindness in your policy that I see.

I strive to seek the truth your lies disguise.
To dissect the torrent of information
The filtration of the voices that seek to explain but just drain my will.

I strive against my flaws and vices.
So many devices to stop me from perceiving the grieving of my soul
That obstructs the vision of a clear decision.

The hate within is the barrier to see the carrier of the hate without
To know the truth with a big T and little t.
Not just to see but act.
The fact of Truth is more in the act.
I wear the cloth of sloth too often as my garment.
But to persevere is to fight the fear.
To be alive.

I strive.

I strive.

editors note: A call to be the “I” in strive. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has just the one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short story at Mad Swirl, "The Wicked One" comes from Chris Minton . Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"Just when you think you’ve quit the carnival, it moves next door. Lions, terror, horror, when laughter corrodes to screams, it’s all so close, and all there for you. Shut your eyes and breathe it all in."

Here's a bit of a hit of "The Wicked One" to get you goin':


She closed the door and, through the peep hole, watched him walk down the hall to the elevator as his semen leaked from between her legs and pooled in her underpants. As soon as he had disappeared from sight, she pressed her forehead against the door and began to quietly cry. From behind her came a familiar voice.

“I thought he’d never leave.”

She began to cry harder.

“Now, now. Come have a seat with me.”

She shook her head, flinging tears on the threadbare carpet below.

“That’s not nice after all I’ve done for you.”

“Leave me alone,” she croaked. The words felt distant and translucent, as if uttered by someone else and intended for an age long since passed. They scattered helplessly on the floor around her.

“You don’t really mean that. I can tell.”

Her knees gave out under the weight of the truth and she crumpled to the floor. Minutes passed, the only sound—low and guttural, dripping with shame and disease—emanated from the place within her where memories are permanently and unforgivingly emblazoned.

“I’m waiting.”...


Keep this need-a-read fix goin'right here!

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

LAST CALL: Mad Swirl T-shirts & Sweatshirts!


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 the holidaze if you buy before December 15th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you some and while you’re at it, why not get one for the whole fam?!

••• Open Mic •••

(photos courtesy of Dan "the man" Rodriguez. To see all of 'em visit our Mad Swirl Flickr page!)

’t’was the season for some Holiday Hijinx and a perfect reason for all the Mad girls and boys to Swirl up some noise! They all brought their holiday hoots and howls together to swirlebrate the whole spectrum of expression this time of year invokes. It’s was all you, all us, all together in our Mad Holiday Hijinx Swirl-ebration!

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

Hosts:
Johnny O & MH Clay

Music:
The Gerard Bendiks & Ed McMahon Duo

Holidaze Hijinx Cast:
Johnny O
Opalina Salas
Paul Koniecki
Kristine Spinner
Carlos Salas
Phillip Todd Brewer
Brett Ardoin
Chris Zimmerly
MH Clay

Mad Mic Cast:
Vic Victory
Paul Sexton
Desmene M. Statum
Danny Muñoz Chibli
Lee Phan
Cj Critt
Hershey
Hope Holz
Max Young
Suza Kanon
Mahnoor Samama
Jacob Tesky
Zarmonee
Jack Joiner
Tom Ferris
Kato

HUGE thanks to Gerard Bendiks & Ed McMahon 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…

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…

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...

Shinin' On,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.17.16

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"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine." ~ Ludwig van Beethoven

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Mr. Warner: 4” (above) by featured artist(s) Daniel Ableev & Bob Schroder. To see more of Daniel & Bob's mad 'toons, as well as our other featured artists, visit our mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

Stay tuned for a new featured artisté comin' at'cha next week!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we met a striver, a wide aliver; we planted our love on a bench in a garden; we listened to roadkill, our softness to harden; we saw a poet-loving fool with a saccharin drool; we held on tightly to letting go; we reminisced o'er all we know; we gave o'er despair to home repair. All us, all inward; all good for the good of all. Tis the Season... ~ MH Clay

OLD HOUSE by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

The old house is haunted
by things that should be
tossed away. It holds
on to memories and
turns on the nostalgia
of broken dreams.

The old house needs a
new owner or a good
cleaning. It pulls you
in and throws you out.
It makes you long for
things that worked,
but now are broken.

December 17, 2016

editors note: In a depressed market, maybe renovation is best. – mh clay


Standing In the Doorway Of Yesterday by Susandale

In the thin light of March
When naked trees wear
Only voices of the past
Then do I rewind remembrance
Time velvet in depths of shadows
Weightless dreams and distant figures
Standing in nocturnal doors
Light and the way it creates
Atmosphere around the years
The way light falls on yesterday
With its breath of mist
Feathers drawn across
The wet paint of memory
Tremors – Quivers – Aloft in the air
Yesterday, with its lines crossed over
Rubbed thin, crumpled within
The fingers of fate
Ephemeral shadows shading winter windows
Luminous winter light
And the snow that dusts
My windows with dreams
Sweeping with vertical strokes
Wiping over with whitewash
Across the epitaphs of time

December 16, 2016

editors note: All we remember are shadows and light. – mh clay


Fear of flying by Lisa Moak

You, regard in disbelief,
shifting your feet like a bird testing its wings,
the ticket agent who says,
“At 15 you are old enough to fly alone.”

You, fumble anxiously
with belt and shoes,
while the line ahead shuffles and moans,
and I walk beside holding your passport.

You, stare over my head
at the empty tarmac, enduring this too.
“Flying alone must be hard,”
the gate attendant worries.
She has a daughter your age,
but her worries are not for you.

You, tired and annoyed,
ask, “Why don’t you just go?”
Mothers don’t leave,
you must have forgotten
all the days and nights
I have remained.

Boarding begins.

You, offer me your arms,
spread wide, embracing things to come
while I cling to those familiar.
Then, off you march,
grasping your suitcase,
backpack flung across your back,
towards the dusky doorway,

and don’t look back.

I wave good-bye
to no one.

December 15, 2016

editors note: Leaving is looking and longing for leaver and left. Bon Voyage! – mh clay


the poet at midnight by Dan Evans

she composes poetry
in a spiral cloud draped
across a crescent moon
bold black letters circling
the miniscule page, as she
measures meter and rhythm
by the length of her arms
and the palms of her hands
counting out syllables
with fluttering fingertips
and breath from her lips
pen poised at pristine page
words waiting to awaken
sings sotto voce serenade
against diaphanous backdrop
of lavender and honey
and i, defenseless man
drooling saccharin haikus,
cannot help but love her

December 14, 2016

editors note: Alliterative infatuation evolves into amorous adoration. – mh clay


Dead Dog Music by Gnadia Wolnisty

Your music sounds like roadkill,
I told you when we first met.
Perhaps you didn’t hear me or were a little offended,
because you got quiet.

But I figured this was an okay thing to say
because you had asked me, quite blankly,
if I had ever installed dry wall and if
I had enjoyed inhaling and then coughing up the particles.
I told you No, with all the dignity I could muster,
but was thinking Dear god, that sounds amazing
and I want to.

What I meant, though, was
it’s the music of the real, and
that can be jarring sometimes
and cause for pause – like seeing matted fur
outside your car window.

Roadkill isn’t like other rubbish; you can’t
just pick it up and throw it away
or use a bottle when your ashtray gets full.
There is a particular resilience to roadkill,
even after the damage has been done.

I don’t know what the roadkill is like
over in New York where you are
learning to dance quietly
like the end of a fishing pole,
where you are learning about how small
a house can be, and how to leave the few
safe places you have known.

Perhaps there are more squirrels,
less dogs, more birds, or some big elk.
But I think if you make music like
the flash of fur and red through a window
then the cruelty of heavy things
won’t ever make you frail.

December 13, 2016

editors note: Something to have on everyone’s playlist. – mh clay


Who Loved These Gardens by Logen Cure

You hold my hand as we walk through Kew Gardens
(it is morning, this is London) and we laugh at how
it’s pronounced like the letter Q and I think
that things are not as phonetic as they seem.

It is morning (and London)
and you are wearing your new shoes
and I am wearing my new coat
(we bought these things in hopes they would last),

and as we walk, we read the benches.

Mary Hunt
Set free to enjoy the
bluebells forever

I think about how people choose their place,
how they make homes of swans to feed and paths lined with daffodils

and it occurs to me that my place—
my place is wherever
your here is.

We are young (and this is London)
(good morning) and I am thinking of tomorrow and
tomorrow and (I’m sorry)

and the daffodils and benches
(I’d like our initials and an ampersand
or nothing at all).

December 12, 2016

editors note: Wherever your love is planted, there will your garden be; & or nothing. – mh clay


I STRIVE by Stephen B. Fleming

I strive against the haters
The master debaters that call themselves statesmen.
I don’t like your states of mind, men.
You say you want to serve but you swerve to the curve of your ego.
You go where the money is, the fear is and smog the air with unfeeling blindness.
There’s no kindness in your policy that I see.

I strive to seek the truth your lies disguise.
To dissect the torrent of information
The filtration of the voices that seek to explain but just drain my will.

I strive against my flaws and vices.
So many devices to stop me from perceiving the grieving of my soul
That obstructs the vision of a clear decision.

The hate within is the barrier to see the carrier of the hate without
To know the truth with a big T and little t.
Not just to see but act.
The fact of Truth is more in the act.
I wear the cloth of sloth too often as my garment.
But to persevere is to fight the fear.
To be alive.

I strive.

I strive.

December 11, 2016

editors note: A call to be the “I” in strive. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Mad Swirl has an easy one to feed your need with.

This week's featured short story at Mad Swirl, "Easy Money" comes from Austin Brookner. Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone has to say about it:

"Success is tis one truth: opportunity. Being somewhere in the world and seeing some way to come out living better. Some, though, can’t keep their hands to themselves and they only stand close to others to steal a dollar from their pack pocket."

Here's a quick steal of "Easy Money" to get you goin':

photo (above) "Quick Bite" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

I’d been walking around the east side in circles. I felt sluggish and in pain. I had to go somewhere. I had to eat. Like mother says, “a hungry man is an angry man.” I decided I would stop off at Piano’s for their happy hour lunch special. Burger and a salad for five bucks. Can’t beat it.

Where was I? Damn, this is the annoying part of town where the streets and the avenues aren’t numbered. Let’s see… Eldridge, Allen, Orchard, Ludlow. So four more blocks. Gosh, how could four blocks feel like so many? As though someone would have to manually pull me along with a chain. I dragged my bones into the joint. There were only two other customers—a young gentleman, eating a burger and gazing out over his beer, and a young woman rapt with her phone. Occasionally the woman would lift her head away, only to ponder what to type into it next. When she reached for her martini glass her eyes never drifted from the screen.

My burger arrived and I greedily went after it. The young gentleman was now reading a paper. The young woman was reaching into her pocketbook to pay her bill. She was prepping herself as though she had important things to go do. It occurred to me that people were getting younger. Then it occurred to me that maybe I was getting older.

When I finished my meal I went outside and sat on the bench for a smoke before returning to pay my check. A man came out from a bar next-door while I was smoking and said aloud to no one: “Awww, they split.”

He sat down next to me.

“Hey man, what’s going on?”

“Fine. Hangin.”

“I’m fucked up, man.”

“That’s good. Nothing wrong with that.”

He looks around, lets out an “Accgh,” and like a man possessed goes back into the bar he just came out of...


Smooth rollin' so far! Keep this need-a-read fix goin'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...

Practicin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.24.16

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(photo courtesy of Tyler Malone)

"Art is Art. Everything else is everything else." ~ Ad Reinhardt

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Love Defined” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

We think you may recognize our featured visual artist’s latest batch of mad photos because there’s nothing quite like what William Zuback brings. Either way, whether you’ve seen his work before or not, you’re sure in for a treat! Looking at Zuback’s visionary work almost instantly plants you in some other world – one with with naked, tattooed bodies that you’d find in the deep, dreamy crevices of your imagination. There’s no doubt Zuback’s photography is dark – but all the while, there is something so wonderfully whimsical that we have trouble breaking our gaze. Something about his work leaves us feeling like it may be a different experience for everyone, though, and THAT’s what we here at Mad Swirl love about Zuback’s work the most. It’s intangible and inscrutable with just a hint absolute madness. That’s just our opinion, we’ll leave the verdict up to your interpretation and imagination. ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we quibbled with a quandary; we spiked a nog in nostalgic fog; we named what's noble in a forest of trees; we window shopped for a deity deal; we sweated spell in search of Noel; we succumbed to the seasonal circus (lights, years, blinking); we trimmed a tree in memories. 'Tis the season... ~ MH Clay

The Christmas Tree by Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

Uprooted
misplaced
center of volatile calm
stoic devotion to enliven the embalmed
transient equivocal exuberance
foreplay of distraction
branches heavy with unsustainable serenity

yet carefully
lovingly
I wrap around it
stringed laughter of my children
tinseled dreams
glittered wishes
memories of kisses in shiny glass balls
toasts of friendships tied in neat bows

refuge on green altar
from who ?
from where ?
a tree in my living room
shooting roots in dread
till I drag its corpse
through my heart’s chambers
dried hopes still clung to its stiff needles
and drop it at life’s curb
I look at the empty space a tree had been placed
already envision a new one there
was that boredom that sparkled
on its new fresh scent?

December 24, 2016

editors note: It’s not the space it occupies in our home, it’s just a tree after all; but, the space in our hearts… – mh clay


How to know it isn’t a dream by Francesca Castaño

I close the door very gently
I was patient all day long
I can feel the weight on my limbs

All the symptoms of the season
Are around: smiling lights like
Angelic emoticons blinking-

I’ll linger in what’s ripened
I must forget exhaustion
I’ll sink in dreamy sleep

Why worry? The woolen socks
look comfortable and the couch
safe and right as I eagerly sink in

Clarity seems not a problem
The difference is managing rhythm
As lights come up and night rises

Optics interconnected, the hand
the world, this audible circus we’re
part of… and years lasts seconds.

December 23, 2016

editors note: Even when we think we know, we blink at years before we go. – mh clay


August in Croatia by David Subacchi

We land at Dubrovnik airport
Unfolded wheels scraping tarmac
Rumbling a welcome in the heat.

The pilot’s Manchester accent
Wishes us happy holidays
He sounds too young to fly jet planes.

Fifteen degrees when we took off
Above the Lancashire roof tops
But here the sun burns fiercer

For the destruction that took place
In the war for independence
And for precious lives extinguished.

In the old town the streets are smooth
Stones worn by soldiers’ heavy boots
Causing unexpected hazards

But most things have now been repaired
So tourists are not embarrassed
And can spend their money safely.

We gaze down from fortress like walls
The pleasure boats plying their trade
Give no hint of what occurred here.

Only the endless walking tours
Uncover the true history
That refuses to be disguised.

December 22, 2016

editors note: Horrors hide beneath holiday trappings. Bright lights to buy gifts; shirt-sleeved reparations to atone for the past. Noel! – mh clay


How Much Is That God in the Window? by Scott Thomas Outlar

I stared straight into the eyes
of Jesus Christ
through the side window
of a Mormon church
several years ago
during the early a.m. hours
on a cold, blustery, winter
morning in December
somewhere outside the suburbs
of Atlanta, GA.

Now maybe it was all due
to the cheap bottle of whiskey
I’d quickly consumed
to drown my liver
while absorbing the vitriolic wisdom
from a Doug Stanhope comedy special
before taking my drunken sojourn
through the city,
but I’m fairly sure
that J.C. sent
a synchronized smile
imbued with the Holy Spirit Vibration
back in my direction.

Years prior to that,
I met the Easter Bunny
at the bottom of a rabbit hole
I used to frequent
where I eventually wound up
losing much of my mind.
Well, hell,
come to think of it
that might help to explain
the earlier part of this story.

I still chase after Cupid
each new Valentine’s Day,
struggling to steal
one of those damn arrows
he refuses to shoot my way.
But that, of course,
is a tale for another time…

December 21, 2016

editors note: It’s a merry mindf**k, all the way to grandma’s house (our your local religious institution). Jingle the bells in your belfries! – mh clay


Detained Trees by Heather M. Browne

I think of forests
massively filled
air swaddled
with pine and snow
needles crisp, sharp
to bind

But here, a squeezed corner
of penned trees
Douglas, Noble Fir
captive, owned until
the agreed passing of coins
this chain-link Christmas

Piled high
no more room at the inn
yet blooming prolifically
behind this fake snow
and out of reach from the flock
a bird of paradise blooms
Son of God

Nobility comes

at a murderous price

December 20, 2016

editors note: Which is noble? Tree for a season? Or, Bird, to bloom always? – mh clay


Spiked Eggnog by Madelyn Olson

Tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum and
whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

All day I’ve been trying to remember where my childhood ornaments are.

My mother gave them to me in an old lunch box some years ago.
I misplaced them someplace between here and there
But they’re somewhere.
I know that they’re somewhere.

I can’t stop trying to figure it out.

In that same way,
I cling to the memories,
Something in my heart always aches about the holidays.

But tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum
and whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

I’ve never been able to handle lifes’ changes like a well-adjusted adult,
But I put on a good front.
Most of the time.

I ache – tender, in the way that I ache – for moments in time,
Things the way they were, not are.
A gross cycle because I wind up berating myself
For always clinging to that which no longer exists.

My family and I – some other Christmas – putting up our Christmas tree.

The holidays remind me of the moments
I used to exist in but never reflected on because
I was too young to understand the aches and pains of nostalgia.
Still, I bet I don’t know the least of it.

So tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum and
whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

I will try to be present.
I will likely forget.

In that same way, I’ll exist on, drift further,
Misplacing memories somewhere between then
And now,
But they’re somewhere,
And I don’t know if I will ever stop trying to figure it out.

But I do know, I like drinking eggnog – spiked with rum and whiskey

December 19, 2016

editors note: Ornament as memory; nostalgia for Noel. (This one is from our Mad Gallery editor. Thanks for this holiday splash – of eggnog, Madelyn!) – mh clay


Christmas Quandary by MH Clay

In the beginning
There was god…

Then came questions

Man likes answers
Likes invention
There’s the devil in our dogma
In our absolutes, oppression

Our best rubrics
Have the best marketing
All our attentions are captured and directed
Where the market needs them to be

Then someone tells a joke
And we laugh
Sings a song
And we’re filled
With happiness
Good will

So, why not a handshake?
A kind word?
Yes, this season manipulates merry
Into goods, for the good of commerce
Which is, of course, good for all

But, let’s make it what we want
Wonder
Welcome
Warm wishes

Turn our myths to mirth
Our markets to magnanimity
Homogenous happiness and harmony

So…

An elf, a reindeer and a rastafarian
Walk into a bar
The bartender says,
“We don’t serve reindeer in here!”
The rasta says,
“Dat’s OK, Mon! I’m not hungry.”

The elf says,
“I don’t get out much these days,
It’s nice to get away.”
The rasta says,
“No, Mon? I’d o’ thought
Workin’ for da Santa Man would be
A walk in da park.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” says the elf.
“We work ‘round the clock for no pay.
Santa says we should be happy with the knowledge
That we are bringing joy to all those children.
Well, I got lots of joy,
But, you’re gonna have to buy the drinks,
Cuz I’m broke.”

The rasta says, “Wow, Mon!
I thought you elf types were rich, rich, rich.
Santa don’t pay you?”
The elf says,
“Santa may be jolly, but he’s a cheap bastard.”

The reindeer says nothing,
Because reindeer can’t talk.

That would be ridiculous.

Merry Christmas!

December 18, 2016

editors note: ’tis the season to give ’til it hurts. But it doesn’t have to be? Can you imagine putting bows and ribbons on homogenous happiness and harmony and calling them gifts? Yep, I can too. Thanks for the cockle warming, MH! ~ johnny o

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? We got just what you need, wrapped up nicely and ready to read.

In keeping with the spirit of this week's ho-ho-holiday themed poetry, we are featuring "Merry Marshmallowed Memories" from Mad Swirl's Chief Editor Johnny Olson. Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this trip down memory lane:

"It’s that Mad season again, and let us play in the Swirl like children with our tongues out, ready for the skies to bless us with memories."

And here's a lil slip down memory lane to get you goin':


’twas 1978, early morn on the eve of all Eves, snow came crashing in waves of big fat flakes that blasted our dingy urban world in a blanket of white wintry innocence. As I recall decades later, with nostalgic-tinted glasses, the mundane neighborhood landscape seemed to turn magical as I looked out the fogged-up windows and saw this dream scene. Within minutes I was bundled up head to toe in a half dozen layers of clothes leaving only my eyes and nose exposed. A merry mummy I be as me and my friends ran out to greet this blizzardy scene...

Slide on thru the rest of this merry memory 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...

Warmin' Cockles,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 12.31.16

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"An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language." ~ Henri Matisse

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“And She Danced” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we forgave our souls like Christmas Scrooges; we prayed our prayer like hi-tech stooges; we found enough in a life changing pome; we ate harsh words which came back home; we roamed as wolves through storied lives; we gazed at stars in wondrous skies; we made ready for change, just left of strange. We'll come 'round new; new me, new you! ~ MH Clay


One world to the left by Kristine Spinner

A new blood pulses through my veins to the off time beat of syncopated disbelief. I am trying to establish a rhythm, a rule; but, it eludes me just now. There is an incorrigible effervescence just below the skin on my cheeks. I am changing, melting, melding into something unrecognizably grand. I won’t be long, I’m just around the corner, one world to the left.

December 31, 2016

editors note: For any New Year naysayers. “Yes!” comes right, from the left. – mh clay


Seasonal Skies of Wonder by Harley White

http://madswirl.com/author/hwhite/

Skies of wondrous starry nights
all aglow with shining lights,
we look up to you with awe
thus to inspiration draw…

Fortunate we earthlings are
on a planet not bizarre,
close enough but not too far
from our solar system’s star

beaming its apricity,
swirled in synchronicity
to nocturnal shimmerings
lit by lunar glimmerings

as the moon reveals her face
gazing down at us from space…
(Though we know how shine those rays
still her luminescent ways

stir our fancies, as in dreams…)
Poets with their reams of themes—
tragic, magic, comical,
even astronomical—

marvel as stargazers do
with celestial aperçu
at galactic scenes on high
querying ‘where, when, and why?’…

This our orbit round the sun
of twelve months again has run
out of time in earthly flight,
and a new one looms in sight.

Looking back, I’ve seen some dreams
lose their way, or so it seems.
There’s been gladness, sadness, fear.
Now we face a coming year…

Skies of wondrous starry nights
all aglow with shining lights,
may we keep your stellar view
in our ken, beyond the blue,

with musings, self-reflective,
lest humans lose perspective!

December 30, 2016

editors note: We are the true tale spinners! Our New Year’s story will be reflected in the stars. – mh clay


Did I Ever Tell You The One About Growing Old? by James Diaz

The force of it all
a century of wolves roaming
strangers
dipping into the conversation
as we fall apart
the golden coast
somewhere
a dark vein touching
against the shatter

tell me your sleep is troubled too
north of the body, breaking
bread, land masses pulled apart
the beautiful truth
is we will die
with out hearts intact
stories roaming the river
like a bad dream
we’ll sigh into each other
counting the hours
between forgiving & forgetting
the last language we’ll ever speak
a longing
still framed
and glistening.

December 29, 2016

editors note: Bittersweet! The future holds wonder if we will. – mh clay


Aces Low by Ian Mullins

Our words lead lives
of their own; while we sleep
they hang around bars
and get into fights,
spend time on their knees
down dirty back alleys
getting down with
other words

before crawling back home
and slipping behind
our teeth and tongues.

When we wake up
we want to spit them out
like flies in Coke,
wondering why a word
sober on Monday
can smell like a drunk
come Tuesday afternoon

when we throw it on the table
like a joker or an ace,
but the game won’t turn
our way.

December 28, 2016

editors note: Let’s play our cards well in the days ahead; especially you folks in the big game, with us as their big stakes. – mh clay


THIS POEM WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Beate Sigriddaughter

It will — you did look, didn’t you? —
remind you of your dreams. It will
remind you the world owes you nothing
and you owe nothing in return. Life is
a gift, not a duty; it glides like a river
that doesn’t carve canyons for love. No
deference, no duty, no obedience.
It will remind you of your skin and how
it shelters dreams and bones. How beautiful
you are, exuberant when someone
unexpected crosses your path, a lizard,
a hawk, a lover, and you know even God
isn’t God in order to be loved. You can
breathe now. There are waterfalls
you yearn for you will likely never see,
and dances you will likely never dance
again, though they were dazzling and
perhaps still are in someone else’s bones.
But if you get up early in late summer
you may already find winter’s beloved
Orion in the eastern sky. You are enough
to make things happen.

December 27, 2016

editors note: Yes! Orion floats above us, the coming year is full of hope. Yes! – mh clay


Lord’s tweet by Timothy Pilgrim

r dad up hi
u r super
u r way cool al ovr
give us bred 2day
4giv breakins we do
& WTF no luring
fedx evil away
u r very great
rule on
amen

December 26, 2016

editors note: amen – mh clay


seasonal affectation disorder by Rob Dyer

there are no seasons for me
days
like torn pages of a dark novella
repeat the story line
a tired hero staring,
in search of the villain in his head

yet, as I indulge in a bowl of warm bread pudding,
I somehow am taken by a tinge of Christmas
my memory bank stepping around time bombs
and settling on smiles once bestowed to me,
as I ripped through wrapping
and peered into the hearts of the few who Loved me

the Scrooge in my soul pardons himself
and you’ve caught me believing in Santa one more time

December 25, 2016

editors note: (no) Bah! (no) Humbug! God bless us everyone. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Who needs-a-read on this last day of '16? Well, we got one that just might be a perfect topper to the emotional roller coaster that this passing year was.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about Brandon Hansen's story "Pain":

"Madness isn’t always ridiculousness, but when it is, it’s never silent as unhinged visions seep under closed eyelids."

And here's a lil slip down memory lane to get you goin':

photo (above) "Under Eyelids" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

There’s this show on MTV called Ridiculousness, where Rob Dyrdek, 42, is the coolest, most quick-witted, snap-backin’est, high schoolin’est adult ever, and he spends 22 minutes of a half hour around 10pm laughing at and narrating videos he selected from the part of the internet where people get hurt. He wears snapbacks bearing the Monster Energy Drink logo and overlarge sweatshirts bearing the Monster Energy Drink Logo, and he rolls the sleeves up to his elbows. He is always ready to skateboard.

His co-star, Chanel West Coast, is Los Angeles beautiful. She laughs like a mule.

Tonight, I’m watching Ridiculousness, limp, mouth slack. The videos go like this...


Get your trippy dream read on right here.

••• Open Mic •••


Was your New Year’s resolution to create more madness in this world? Wow, that was ours too! Then join forces with Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of January (aka 01.04.17) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ City Tavern!

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ helpin’ of musical mad grooves from 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!

Catch us swirlin' up our madness at The City Tavern located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

P.S. If you're a Facebook'r and want to get on our pre-list, visit our event page and let us know you're gonna be there.

•••••••

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

The Best of Mad Swirl : 01.07.17

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"Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is." ~ James Branch Cabell

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Learning to Fly” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we reposed to rise and pour; we sauteed what we're sorry for; we pulled a prince from off his horse; we watched revenge in raging force; we helped a hill to show we care; we combed a beach for lifetime fare; we pulled a soul saver from a rutting raver. Heaven rains while we rule. ~ MH Clay

Billy by Tricia Marcella Cimera

The old Bohemian lady, formerly of Cicero,
who lived across the street slyly claimed
she witnessed Billy Graham fornicating in the
field once where my house now stood, long
ago when he was young, well before my family
moved to the evangelist’s old college town.
It was him alright, she swore. Years later,
I took my Chicago Southsider husband to
to visit the Billy Graham Museum. We saw
the famous Heaven Room; its’ blue cloud-
filled ceiling was rain-damaged at the time.
If heaven has water stains, I don’t want to go,
my husband loudly proclaimed.
Billy, you couldn’t save everyone.

January 7, 2017

editors note: (Cracked) plaster in Paradise? No, say it ain’t so. – mh clay


Beach Comber by Andrew Sano

To walk between the waves and wrack
with ankles numbed and eyes salt squinted,
glints of room things wash away,
while sandy soles forget what’s far.

A comber as it ever was
encompasses and brings to shore
all glories and unnoticed moments,
periwinkles, paradigms.

To take the hand of who did skirt
all continents, an edge addressed,
a mighty Kingdom made of village,
hamlet, hearth and heart, a chain.

But not a fetter, more a necklace,
on a fair throat, throbbed and kissed.
In mist we find what’s missed and cherished,
with averted eyes, we stare.

A care, in soft, uncanny daydream,
all our being, beams in brief,
like tern cries half imaginary,
rookeries of ghost and thief.

January 6, 2017

editors note: Gather as we go… – mh clay


Aliens by Randall K. Rogers

Look at this little anthill
he has created;
it’s a little world

look, they don’t know
where they came from

each one has a mind
like us of it’s own

their animals are like ours
stupid

they have mass
(slowed down and congealing
matter) shootings

we need to help them

Let’s get’em.

January 5, 2017

editors note: Think we can do better? – mh clay


RAGE by Gina Nemo

Rage swallows her heart
While roots entwine her soul
Tearing it to shreds
Yanking at her hope
While she comes up for air

The sun hides behind clouds
Anger climbs the stairway
That circles around those tunnels
Trapped behind those walls
Someone needs to disappear

Torches shimmer in the room
The thief stands with his shadow
This is the night to hurt someone
Edgar Allen Poe would do it
The ink leaks with those dry thoughts

Revenge was never so sweet
The note plays over and over again
Tortured memories amplified
Screams that echo in her mind
He died a slow death with time

January 4, 2017

editors note: “Hell hath no fury…” – mh clay


Deception by Daginne Aignend

So prince charming
Has fallen off his horse
And without any warning
He changed love into force

A rose with a poisoned thorn
So now everybody knows
That this guy is a bloody unicorn
Who likes to piss rainbows.

January 3, 2017

editors note: Oh, when icons topple… – mh clay


CHANCE ENCOUNTER by Alan Britt

When she asks, Would you like to seduce me?,
I scissor her illusionist hips & say,
I live here, even though I’m passing through.

She folds four porcelain knuckles
beneath her chin & muses, This universe
needs work. A slave is a slave is a slave is a slave
& time to abolish this ungodly nonsense.

I agree & pursue what I came for: Quantum
lightning in every sector of my brain before
she fluffs one 4000 thread jasmine wing,
twists & says, I’m buried to my chest in sin. It’ll take
more than guilty kisses to set me free. How about you?

Not hearing well, these days, I sprinkle organic
thoughts into a skillet primed with extra virgin,
cold pressed olive oil, Greek, & sprigs of Italian
parsley, immune to the future.

January 2, 2017

editors note: Salvation by sautee, best served without guilt. – mh clay


Reposado by Devon Balwit

Oh you, Oh me, Oh the small skerch of the cork
pulling free, and the gurgle plash of amber in the

bell-shaped bowl, the sudden cool of stray drops
evaporating on skin, the lift of it, both the glass

and the anticipation of what’s inside the glass, and
the sips heating the tongue, spreading molten

down throat into belly, and the day, Oh the day,
Oh them, out there, melting away, Oh like Lazarus,

I rise from the crypt of small disappointments,
I rise, pour, and rise some more.

January 1, 2017

editors note: I’ll drink to that. A Mad Toast to the New Year! – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well Mad Swirl has a really hot story to share with you from Contributing Writer/Poet/Artist Mike Fiorito!

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about Mike's story "Pale Leviathan":

"No ghost, ever, except for what once was. That’s the forever haunt."

Here's a bit to "warm" you up:


The heat had become unbearable that summer.

“Make it stop, daddy,” Liddy’s son, Torin, said, as they walked home from school. The sun glared down with a vengeance, its rays like vicious lapping tongues. It seemed to Liddy that the sun was angry at the earth.

“I can’t make it stop,” said Liddy. “But we’ll be home shortly. Mom will have the freezing air on.” People had to get special solar powered freezing air units to maintain livable temperatures in their homes. The sun rained down relentlessly, as if hurriedly punishing the earth.

Holding Torin’s hand, Liddy felt the heat blasting his face, too.

“Please, daddy,” said Torin.

The shine beat down on his eyes, even with the sun goggles on. Without the goggles you couldn’t open your eyes, or your eyes teared and became blood shot.

When they got home, Torin cried, the temperature so powerful it made his skin break out in red blotches.

“Rinse your eyes with cool water,” his father said. Torin stopped crying once the cool water hit his face.

As they prepared for dinner, Liddy lifted the canvas shade covering the window. Outside the sky looked hazy and dense. The sun’s rays rushed in like a swarm of bees, even though he just peeked out the window...


Did that lil teaser get ya all hot & bothered? Follow the link to get the rest of this heated read!

••• Open Mic •••


If your New Year’s resolution was to create more madness in this world, you mad ones did it this past 1st Wednesday at our first open mic for 2017!

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

Hosts:
Johnny​ O & MH Clay​

Music:
Swirve​

Mad Mic Cast:
Chris Zimmerly
Reverie Evolving​
Paul Koniecki​
Nadia Wolnisty​
Elliot Pickens
Laurie Lynn Lindemeier​
Paul Sexton​
James "Bear the Poet" Rodehaver​
Desmene M. Statum​
Suza Kanon​
John May
Misty Amber Moore​
Brian Cox​
Hector Ortiz​
Annika Michelle​

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Tamitha Curiel​, Gerard Bendiks​ & Chris Curiel​) 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…

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…

P.S. In case you missed the mic madness that happened this past 1st Wednesday, here's the Facebook LIVE feed of what we swirled up!

•••••••

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...

Rebellin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 01.14.17

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"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." ~ Cecil Beaton

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Untitled Portrait of Brooke” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we started life's reel with a spin of the wheel; we drew from the dark our dead from the shadows; we dallied a night with disco desperados; we clamored for common, to make one from two; we made a pawn purchase to buy blues from blue; we screamed at the death bridge, nightmared numb; we ended to start with a satisfied hum. So it goes... ~ MH Clay

Resonance by Lisa Shields

You never expect or plan for resonance.
It is never a gradual, logical linear progression,
rather it is rare and random,
like finding a perfect diamond where lightning fell,
burning everything around the strike
leaving a bit of wonderment in carnage.

I could not, never did count on you,
did not believe in such wild magicks
after life bled me white or romantic notions,
but there you stood, and I felt
insane connection, owing nothing to “compatible”.

Not suitable. Not Appropriate,
tell that to the force elemental
who seized us both after each hello.
She doesn’t give a damn for decorum,
leaving us stone and tinder
to strike flames without intention.

Love is the human construct offered
to those who will never touch as we do,
unplanned and unasked.
I can’t hate you for wanting calm,
for needing an even keel,
but I can’t deny
that we will never NOT touch each other
in this mad, feckless, breath stealing fashion
so long as we draw breath.

And you are not allowed to hate me
for the pounding in my chest,
because we have been too long away
from the force of life we became
too close to not ignite.

Resonance is not the individual pulse,
the thud of blood, heart, or bone.
Resonance is the matched beat
that quiets the ravening parts,
we never found another way to feed
save in each others arms.

January 14, 2017

editors note: Allegiant appetites aflame; harmony from hunger. – mh clay


Paranoid scream by Hem Raj Bastola

?
Dark of the night
Silence creeping
Dead is alive.

Rattling among the bones
Cracked ribs I hear
Nibbling skin, rats are enjoying
Smoking kiln active
Invisible fireworks blasting.

What a celebration
When life is in transit
The bridge is needed to cross.
A thread of hope is blinking
Far ahead the phosphorus flame
The grave is shining, a ghost
Emitting phosphorus
Enacting to live.

And I, as in dream
Terrified and
Paranoid, scream.

January 13, 2017

editors note: Even with the bridge in sight, it’s a terrifying unknown. – mh clay


blue guitar by Carl Kavadlo

there’s a musician
falls in love with a blue
guitar
not
a blues guitar
just
a blue guitar.
THAT’S
a poet, a heart
of music,
a beam of light.
bought it in
a pawn shop.
somebody
with plenty of
blues brought
it there in
exchange
for rent
cigarette money
clothing
transportation,
maybe a nip
of wine and
received far
less than its value.

then sold to
my friend
way over
the denominations
of a fair price
by the seller
over the glass counter,
saxophones on the wall,
toasters on the shelves,
trinkets in glass counters
with wrist watches, slacks
on hangers, jackets, skirts.
who falls in love with a blue guitar
in a pawn shop window?
somebody wanting to pluck
the strings for jitterbugs
across long, wood plank dance floors,
like the poets running to puddles
to record the raindrops,
while everyone else
misses the dance.

January 12, 2017

editors note: Best when played with eyes closed. – mh clay


Life’s Prisoners by Darryl Wellington

If I can breakfast with them
then I can frugal repast with you.
If I can socialize at the early table with them
and trade throat lozenges in between the laughter
then I can share planetary accoutrements
and iron chains
with you.
Sad that you make it so difficult.
Whoever you are,
and this will make the second time I have caught you,
speak, speak, speak to me in sighs instead of
perusing my mail.

January 11, 2017

editors note: Continuing the search for common ground. Speak! – mh clay


War Zone by Julia Cirignano

Lipstick containers lined up like black glossy bullets
Little black dresses meant to burn your eyes and steal your soul
The ticking of the clock and the beat of the music
Counts down the minutes until your death
Eye liner drawing out the rules and the game plan
Eye shadow hiding our secrets and romanticizing our pupils
Our heels make you gag and stare
Hallways and bright lights, cold air and warm breath
You taste vodka on my tongue like I’ve poisoned you
But I’ve only poisoned myself
Sweat drips down my smile as I dance
My hair tangles itself around my neck
You can see your victory as if we were already in your room
But we’re not and I’m gone and I’m not even sorry
I’m running and laughing and broken and I want to cry
But I keep running and laughing coughing on the cold air
My sweat freezes as it drips down the back of my neck
I am trapped but I am running
So I will pretend I am free

January 10, 2017

editors note: Dancing away from death by disco, looking for life on the lam. – mh clay


Dead Again by Jeff Stier

The dead are all around us
they are as alive
in their way
as we are
in ours

We share a world of shadows
with these manes
and step awkwardly
into the light

Every breath of the wind
is a dead soul passing
every autumn leaf that falls
a secret hieroglyph
from the beyond

Beasts in the wild
know this
thus the coyote
sings his mad lament
the raven turns his dull eye
toward the east
expecting not light
but a flight of dark wings

And dark wings
command my attention these days
my eye
turned inexorably toward
the night
Where every word
is farewell
where all commerce ends
and I rejoin the stream of stars

Done with all of this.
And surely
it will be bliss.

January 9, 2017

editors note: Yes! If one leads to another, so let it be… – mh clay


8 – 19 by Brittany Griffiths

Diaphragm vibrations
Tongue solipsism
Eye apparatus
Eardrums
Apparent disconnection
To be
Not to be
Methodological contrast
Categorical comparisons
Create definitions
Conscious pigeonholes
Work human verse
Solid space
Relationships
One without the other
Impossible
Lost attention
Interval ignorance
Melody steps
A note into the next
Marked transition
Permanence unachieved
Vanity of vanities
Vanity, vanity
Tribal history
Human ferment
Seeking deliverance
World of change
Unattached
Unborn
Unoriginated
Unformed
Essential awakening
Samsara
The wheel –
Return
To
Everyday
Life

January 8, 2017

editors note: As in the turning of every wheel; always beginning, always ending… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week we bring you a mighty fine piece from Contributing Writer & Poet, Harley White!

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about Harley's's story "Primal Landscape":

"Saying what’s never true is what we all can count on most. Embrace something routine and name it love, it’ll get you through the honest days."

And here's a li'l view of this landscape to get you goin':

photo (above) "We Build Fences" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

Day World

Hickory Dickory days, divided into boxes— Time to eat breakfast. (Finish all your egg!) Wash your hands and face. Brush your teeth. (Always up and down.) Sit on the toilet. Wipe front to back. (But never why.) Story time— play time— lunch time— nap time. Take the key and wind her up. If she hollers, shut her up.

(She never did.)

Everything was pink and ruffled and always in its place. There were music boxes, animal crackers (Only two!), and a winding staircase down.

(She always said please and thank you.)...


Get the rest of your read on right here!

(You will.)

•••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the mad conversations going on in Mad Swirl's World? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Bein' Different,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 01.21.17

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"Art is about profundity. It's about connecting to everything that it means to be alive… " ~ Jeff Koons

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Transcendence” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we encountered an aspiring son (in law); we heard the heart of an honest one (with flaws); we lingered in the light before waking; we assisted an angel, conventions shaking; we admired another who gave no notice; we cried for color in a new won POTUS; we wound up wondering what happened on the night before. We wrote to make sense of it all, nothing more. ~ MH Clay

Lives, Lovers, Livers Ago by Tyler Malone

The fuck stops here, in a room of strangers, once lovers.

Close eyes and enunciate ex-ter-min-ate with
no separate breaths between hello and goodbye
spreading across infinity, from sheets to space,
rung around mysteries inside bedside table rings,
but never slipped on any fingers.

Bar receipts crumble as petals in pockets, scarves tug as nooses,
stomach knots tie one off better than drinking to any horizon.

Beer isn’t paradise, it’s the discovery of gods
drowned in disillusion, betting on nightmares
and occasionally lucky sunsets for some of us.

Taste fingers slid between teeth, prints trace the tongue,
imprints of dirty doors and girls lied to and called whores,
safe in sending kisses to bottoms of glasses, never sunsets.

January 21, 2017

editors note: Beer-bungled, clumsy commingling; benevolence blundered, consequences unconsidered. (read two more on Tyler’s page; a romantic reader and an uncaring killer – check’em out!) – mh clay


I Spread all My Colors in Wholeness by Chiranjibi Niroula

I spread all my colors in wholeness,
As I am the horizon of a new rainbow,
My colors cover for perfection,
With the seeds of silence and compassion,
And it even travels above the dreary desert,
To create the Oasis,
For all but not for the egocentric ones,
My rainbow is stationary over helpless ones,
It desires to be an affable kin to them,
Neither does it have any colors anymore for slaughterers,
Nor mercy for any suppressors.
My colors share integrity and pride,
With the symbol of independence!
This produces my own identity in the new sphere,
That reputes a new transparency around,
Hoping to depict newness and a fair settlement,
So it travels through the universe,
In search of equality and sacredness,
And my rainbow stands for truth,
It holds the elixir for all emblems of pain and suffering!

January 20, 2017

editors note: Encouraging verses on a day which, for many, is black and gray. More rainbows, please! – mh clay


i think i love her by J.J. Campbell

i’ve been told
by people that
i should smile
more

and on the odd
moment alone
in public i’ll
take their
advice and
see what
happens

enter the
stunning
blonde

she rounded the
corner of the
grocery store
aisle and there
i was, gallon
of milk and
loaf of bread
in my cart

i smiled and
said hello

she kept
walking
without
even
noticing
my
existence

and there
begins the
inevitable
quest that
surely won’t
end well

January 19, 2017

editors note: It likely won’t. Ah, but quest we must. – mh clay


Dame Jere by Gayle Bell

Still small voice saw him first
There be angels
Mam would you mind putting these things on your walker
I don’t get around so good
The attaché had faded green party stickers
Mondale vs. some obscure nemesis
He was somewhat kempt yellowed shirt orange shorts
He offered his half a turkey sandwich
to a black woman trying to sleep
on the anti-vagrant benches near the AA center
He gestured to the crowd gates set up on Olive St
think they’re going to have the pride parade down here mam
I laughed I doubted it
I guess the temp tat no prop 8
was a dead giveaway of my orientation
You going to the parade tomorrow
been there got the shirt I’m too old
he raised himself to his haughty 7 foot
well he preened raised a bit of his shorts
with a practiced dainty hand
to reveal a pair of pink panties
frillier than the ones I was wearing
as we slow walked to the rail,
he regaled me of floats he the queen of the regalia
satins pearls tafatta
unforgiving in this lone star heat.
The train broke me from the enchanted tales
like my momma usta say
just cause you’re an angel and don’t have to be a fool
since I was neither. I told him I had to dash.
He grabbed his belongings,
thanked me for the assist.
I curtseyed and wished him a gentle journey,
he blew me a kiss
that in times past would have held
a jeweled glove.

January 18, 2017

editors note: Angels and fools? Which are you? (A fool, I be.) – mh clay


The Smile in Light by Bill Wolak

When sleep floats your body
to the surface of the well,
you must follow wherever
silk leads your hands.
Tenderness spills against you
again like jars of tiny beads
pouring over your skin.
And your flesh welcomes
the quickening pleasures
with a hammock’s open embrace.
And the smile in light
at last returns to your eyes,
as you drift closer and closer
to the wind chimes of a name.

January 17, 2017

editors note: So sweet; the moment before sleeping, the moment before waking. – mh clay


Conversation with Someone Somewhere by Harley White

Much I’ve done
and did
was to oblige
and act a part,

not from the heart.

For early on
my heart I hid—
atop a shelf—

even from myself.

I think I did it then
because I had to.

I found that to be me,
well, it was bad to.

I learned what I should feel
then I pretended,
but even when alone it never ended.

And why
do I
still do it now?

I’d stop, but don’t know how.

I’m a fraud
dismally flawed.

That’s all I know

yet on I go…

I don’t
know why
I do,

do you?

January 16, 2017

editors note: With self disclosure can we make closure? Can we? (Read another of Harley’s mad missives on her page. It’s an alien encounter – check it out.) – mh clay


RON by Sanjeev Sethi

Before your spousals, you and my only niece flew
in for few nights. Prior to our intro I had briefed
myself: you had to be liked. Between stiff vodkas,
kickshaws and some conversation I was beaming:
first part of your prothalamion was buzzing in my
brain. Beauty is in blending, the ecumenical is an
edifier. What about fragrance of the familiar?
Should it be snubbed?

January 15, 2017

editors note: A few good belts to sweeten the song; familiar from strange. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need a Read? Surely most of you need something to get your mind elsewhere this week & nothing says distraction like a good read!

This week's featured short story, "The Mary Kay Lady" comes from longtime Contributing Writer, Jim Meirose.

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

"Drive! That’s what makes love thrive. That and madness. Well, mostly madness."

Here's a lil sample to get ya goin':

photo (above) "Love in What's All Wrong" by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

What do you have that I might buy for my girl?

What do you have that I might buy for my sweetheart?

The Mary Kay lady who just rematerialized looked at him with skeletal cheekbones and said, for what seemed to him the ten thousandth time, I told you I told you I told you, I did: I’ve got nothing for you and your so-called sweetheart—just look at yourself how could someone who looks like you have a sweetheart, don’t be silly you’ve yellow teeth a greasy face bloodshot eyes and filthy coveralls—get out of my goose, let me go on. Let me go on right now!

He backed out of the goose and it continued on, and he felt insulted and empty…


Get the rest of your 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...

Connectin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.04.17

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"All of us are mad. If it weren't for the fact every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn't be any point in giving each person a separate name." ~ Ugo Betti

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Chrysalis” (above) by featured artist William Zuback. To see more of William's mad snaps, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we heard from an unhappy hanger; we found a faction of improper fractions; we liked a way of liminality; we tipped away from teetotality; we lamented not o'er absent love; we remembered white before war; we smiled and smiled to remember more. ~ MH Clay

I Remember #02 by Kenneth P. Gurney

I remember my four sisters being only one sister
seen without my glasses on the morning after
three too many pints.

I remember kindergarten as the place
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches went to be tortured.

I remember the easy bake oven
the next door neighbor girls owned
and how their mom cooked hash-brownies in it
and forgot about them when their uncle Larry rang the doorbell
and did not come back to the oven till over an hour later
only to discover we’d eaten half a dozen.

I remember buying a Barbie doll with my birthday money
as a present for Suzie’s birthday a week later,
but my dad thought I bought it for myself
and drank away the next few days and nights panicked.

I remember my first puppy shit on the floor
and I loved him all the same as I cleaned it up
as we worked out person to puppy communication.

I remember the birthday clown that scared me
limped home markedly, after I hit him in the shins
with a home run swing from my brand new baseball bat.

I remember basketball tore up my right ankle three times
and my left ankle two times and broke my left wrist in five places.
I was very, very slow in figuring out
basketball liked me less than I liked eating Brussels sprouts.

I remember screaming every cuss word I ever learned
at three drunk hunters who mistook me and my dog
after they fired shots in our direction,
claiming elk are in season and they purchased their permits.

I remember the ghosts that fill this room
like talc covered hands clapped to a cloud
and they whisper every baby name
I cooed to my daughter as I changed her
as she changed me.

February 4, 2017

editors note: Sweet remembrances. – mh clay


Snow by Ian Smith

Fashionable ladies tripping along white streets
past tall buildings, their long skirts and boots
in one of the many prints of Utrillo’s snow scenes,
remind me of the bare beauty in a world quieted,
whitened streets, leafless trees eerily lit, a wonder
of muffled sound walking to the bus with my mother.

I feel the icy sting, smell the sharp memory,
my hand snow-ploughing a fence, a cheap brooch
I gave her for Christmas glittering on her lapel.
I jog-trot to keep up, listening to the sound of tyres
yowling along Staines Road to my school, the town,
the shock of a dog dead under the viaduct.

She queues; I watch snowflakes duel with gravity
before a sawdust smell, the pet shop, a puppy
that will die of distemper trembling near the stove
in our cold house of post-war rationing
after we carry her home in a box through
a frosted realm illuminated by daytime headlights.

When Utrillo saw his 1934 scene in winter light
he could be excused for believing trouble was over
but the next war changed so much between then
and those dying days of dogs before our emigration.
His picture in my beach shack speaks
of long gone snow, shadows that still come and go.

February 3, 2017

editors note: A whole story in snowfall… – mh clay


My beloved by Ilhem Issaoui

My beloved
Neither the sun nor the moon shall be compared to
My beloved
O clandestine castle haunted by mist and mystery
O stretching fields of merriment silenced forever
O child vicious and precarious
O my adamantine pain and woe
My diaphanous suffering
My battles languished
My pride tarnished
My streams of tears amarulent gliding along
O questions that I fail to answer
My glee soaring farer
And never never
Returning to its abode

February 2, 2017

editors note: Sounds like a love better to have lost. – mh clay


The Perfect Gentleman (3 0z/ 90 mL) by Megha Saha

If sugary dollops of what feels like
the rainbow hits you too hard, then
wait for the maraschino cherry bit that
will come to your rescue and settle
on your tongue; you will let it,
until the insides of the glass tumbler
begin to tremor in sync with the live
scat jazz.

You look around the snug little
place they call the ‘The Great Unwind’
and smile to yourself about how silly
it’d have been of you to have not come
here; the warm gin will eagerly walk
you to silent comfort – like a possum’s back.

The mint sprig scent will come back
to you in a couple of tiny delicate
burps – three if you’re wild, to keep you
from hitting the floor with your head.
And if you’re still feeling oozy and like
less of a person, wait for the trusty
salted lime wedge to tend to your
adamant pout like your grandma would.

February 1, 2017

editors note: With an alcohol escort, attitude adjusted. – mh clay


Virginia’s Liminality and Mine by Kimberly Madura

We call this liminality,
this space that it is possible to stay in too long
this space that it is possible to never come out of.
But there was a before and there will be an after
Now the clamped hold, the compression, middle
pressure
we call this transition, in transition
we change
holding until/holding on
until the time when we run out of breath
until we turn blue
until we rise to the surface or sink down
like a drowning
fear can be a good motivator
be it of life or of death
Liminality is
Blue
I have decided to leave (live)
to go but not to let go.
I hold on, waiting for the next thing
hoping it will come and when it does
I fool myself into thinking I knew it would all the time,
when the truth is,
I had no idea
After all, it doesn’t always come for everyone,
isn’t that right Virginia?

January 31, 2017

editors note: Those in-between blues; best sung when the “next thing” comes along. – mh clay


By All Counts by Joan McNerney

Proper and improper fractions
have distinctive differences.

Proper fractions study at
prestigious universities. They
attend cultural events and play
at least one musical instrument.
Proper fractions step aside
for ladies patronizing
haute couture shops.

Improper fractions are hooligans.
Each one guzzles cheap beer,
crunching potato chips while
screaming at wrestling matches.
Improper fractions knock over
seniors to reach clearance racks.

Beware of mixed figures. These
hybrids can not decide what they are.
Medication might help them plus
talking therapy so popular today. Never
allow children to associate with them.

Negative numerals should be avoided.
Those will only subtract from your life
flinging freezing rain in your face.
Conversely, positive numerals are
delightful, handing us glowing statistics
and bright bouquets of fragrant daisies.

Never take integers for granted. Do not
allow yourself to be divided but let
all quotients be fruitful and multiply
until that day when your number is up.

January 30, 2017

editors note: Guidelines for a whole life; equal to the sum of its parts. – mh clay


TO END IT ALL by John D Robinson

He hobbled into the room
on 2 crutches, a plaster
caste on one of his legs;
a podgy, baby-faced 18
year old lisping fellow,
with dramatic and
feminine mannerisms;
‘I want to kill myself’
he told me several
times; he waved his
arms around and
fluttered his eyes
and said
‘I’ve tried to end it
all, several times’
he covered his face
in his soft hands and
shook his head
slowly;
obviously he wasn’t
too good at this suicide
business;
‘What happened to your
leg’ I asked;
‘I tried to hang myself’
he said looking out
of the window; ‘the
rope snapped under
my weight and I fell
crashing to the floor,
breaking my ankle in
3 places’
‘That must’ve hurt’
I said
He pursed his lips and
said
‘Like nothing
you’ve ever known’
I looked away;
‘I’ll never try to hang
myself again’
he said
‘it was a truly awful
experience
and I wouldn’t
recommend it’.

January 29, 2017

editors note: Like she said, “Might as well live.” – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well Mad Swirl has a creative memoir-esque tale from writer N.T. Franklin!

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about N.T.'s story "Neil Armstrong’s Thoughts about January 28, 1986":

"Frontiers require pioneers, and pioneers require endless traits, but there’s one above all—one trait that keeps us looking to the sky and desiring what’s past the atmosphere and lifeless rocks: Human curiosity, a desire to live above gravity."

Here's a bit to take you off:


My first response to the accident? I was catatonic. “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.” I don’t know how many times I repeated it. I’m sure I sounded mechanical. That was my first response on January 28, 1986 to the shuttle Challenger disaster. At 11:39 in the morning. Seventy-three seconds of that day started the darkest period of my life.

I can still feel the tears streaming down my face. I turned and looked at Janet on the couch next to me. We were two of 35 million Americans watching the launch. She left the room after five minutes of my crying. After that many years together, she knew I needed to be alone.

Nine successful missions. Nine perfect missions. Challenger was a good bird but it was too cold that morning. The icicles at launch time should have sent up red flags. Christa. Dead...


Get the rest of this movin' read right here

••• Open Mic •••


This 1st Wednesday of February (aka 02.01.17) we swirled it up madly in the live way that we do every month. This month we featured… wait for it… YOU! Yes, we featured all you mad ones out there! Y’all brought your A-game (like you’ve ever brought anything less) and swirled up some fine madness together!

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


(click on the pic to get 'em movin'!)
photos courtesy of Dan "the man" Rodriguez



Hosts:
MH Clay
Brett “BA” Ardoin

Music:
Swirve

Mad Mic Cast:
Zim
Vic Victory
Paul Koniecki
Kelley Cheek
Carlos Salas
Roderick Richardson
Reverie Evolving
James “Bear” Rodehaver
Hector Ortiz
Desmene M. Statum
Jen Bochenko
Charles Tuvilla
Laurie Lynn Lindemeier
Michael Neil
Annika Michelle

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Tamitha Curiel​ & Chris Curiel​) 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-ifullest night of poetry and music with us!

and last but NOT least…

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…

•••••••

The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin' on... now... now... NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the mad conversations going on in Mad Swirl's World? Then stop by whenever the mood strikes! We'll be here...

Bein' the maddest,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.11.17

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"The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it - what is said." ~ Hans-Georg Gadamer

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“the forgotten (1)” (above) by featured artist Allen Forrest.

Mad Swirl is proud to introduce you to our newest visual artist, Allen Forrest. Allen brings us an expressive art collection we’ve been waiting for! His work really draws attention to the space of the page, the white vs. black in high contrast. While some are more obvious than others, each piece seems to make a statement, demanding your attention. Though some of the scenes seem chaotic, there is a sharp and decided cleanliness about them that just… works, in a mad way that we at Mad Swirl especially appreciate. Something tells us you will too. If you need proof, have a look-see for yourself... ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we ghosted in symbols, surviving a wreck; we wakened a sleeper, with fever in check; we held back an attack for deeds wrong done; we bailed from the bus of an insensitive son; we sang a dream of life, as short refrain; we sang another, drenched in golden rain; we chose to eat, all wet and juicy, a messy life, all "hot and oozing." We write to win, no losing. ~ MH Clay

Mango by Lisa Carmen

If there is a graceful way
to eat a mango,
I don’t know it.
What? With knife and fork?
Clean nibbles, small bites?

No thank you.
I don’t want to know this way
of eating mango.

I choose dripping juices,
slithering slices, slurping.
I choose sticky lips
and sticky fingers
I choose rolling fleshy pieces
between tongue
and teeth.
Sugary sweetness,
mother nature’s eroticism,
dripping wet with nectar.
I choose this mess,
this messy mango mess.
And if there is a graceful way
to live my life,
I don’t know it.

What? With carefulness and preparation?
Clean expectations,
small steps? Safety?
Protecting heart,
offensive, defensive?
Securely closed and airtight
like Tupperware?
No thank you.
I don’t want to know this way
of living life.

I choose sudden gushes of urgent,
red hot revelations,
I choose dripping truths,
slithering epiphanies, slurping.
I choose rolling dichotomies of bravery
and terror,
Bloody battles and ecstatic dances
between heart and mind,
Bitter and sweet
deep blue funks and
spectacular orgasmic
laser light shows of living,
glitter and guts, blues and reds,
resilience and redemption
I choose this aliveness,
this live, uncut, uncensored large
living life,
this hot and oozing holiness.

I choose this mess.
This beautiful mess.

February 11, 2017

editors note: We choose it, too! (We welcome this mad missive from one of the founders of this Mad Swirl. Thanks, Lisa!) – mh clay


Ever blue Soul by Gregg Dotoli

A silhouette of teal despair
Witness to all we never were to be
and are
Witness to all we never were to do
and did

Eden’s pure spring tears
cleanse the angel-soul face
to be stained anew by
man’s circular devil deeds
a wounded muse

Everblue forever wanders
with pockets of inspiration
never depleted
casting notion and dreams among our lot
raining fine golden hope
perpetual
pure
Everblue

February 10, 2017

editors note: At last, some blues to sing; eyes open and in unison. – mh clay


The Last Wall Of My Small World by Pijush Kanti Deb

How to pass you over, my dear?
Localizing all the beauties of nature,
Accumulating all the treasures of El Dorado
And
Setting all the mountains and oceans thereon
You lie in my way,
Maybe, you are busy writing
The last chapter of my fate,
Singing
An opening song of my life-album
And projecting
My last dream
Which comes true
Somewhere
In your body, mind and soul
Just
Beside the last wall of my small world.

February 9, 2017

editors note: From the large, hard-bound Book of Life, maybe our stories go straight to paperback. – mh clay


SHOAH by Brian Wood

Hi my name is Tony and I will be
Your guide today. Just kidding. I could not
Care less. Get the fuck on the bus and shut
The fuck up. I am a teacher at School
Of the Rock, Secondary, Catholic.
It’s my job to counsel and be a role
Model, all “within a faith dimension.”
(Those last four words right from our motto.)
The first stop on our tour is the, uhm, Shri
Swamin… Swamin… Swaminarayan

Mandir something or other. What? Who
The fuck knows. What? Probably named after
Some dude named Swami. It is (I am betting)
A Hindu temple. My old man, on all his
Sober days, said every religion was
Just bullshit, just a new way of stealing.
Anyway, get off the bus, make sure you’re
On the right tour, and ask your guide if you
Little shits have any questions. I’ll be
Out back smoking.

Next stop? Let’s see. Chris, you are a doofus
Times another doofus. Shut the fuck up.
There is nothing I would not give for a beer.
Next stop is… ah… Fo… Guang Shan Temple
Over in Brampton. What? Buddhist, who knows,
A lot of people over there believe
That stuff, or say they do. I know they get
A ton of movie stars in Tibet. Big,
Big, stuff. Anyway, I repeat, ask your
Guide your questions. You know where to find me.

Last stop… Everyone get back on the bus
And shut up. This one is called… Chad… Shad… Yad
Va-Shem. What? Crap, search me, it’s way out
Of my pay scale. Funny, this one time, years
Ago, I did go on the tour, except that
It really bothered me, so I haven’t
Been since. School of the Rock wouldn’t dream
Of paying me twice. I do remember
Our guide said I reminded him why he
Worked there, that men like me were living proof

Shoah was always within easy reach,
That men like me made the trains to Belzec
A sure thing. I heard a kid laugh at that,
But I never got around to asking
What was so goddamn funny. I don’t get
These stupid tours. The prices always go up.
Most kids come back dumber than they left.
Like god from a machine will come down as
Fire. As if sin will be wiped clean. As if
My students won’t be coffin stuffing one
Day, just like me. They will fit
As well as better.

February 8, 2017

editors note: Some still say, “Never again!” (But, some don’t.) – mh clay


Pain Is Comprehension by Michael Marrotti

These clenched
up fists concede
it’s a despicable
world of good folks
being fucked over
by scumbags

Asking the cops
to protect and serve
is like asking
a rapist to use
a condom

There’s
no where to turn
for the
victims of society
besides
conjugal visits
and three square
meals a day
if they pursued
the only option
left at their disposal

Police reports
interrogation
victimized
not antagonistic
I know the truth
it’s not the system
or their defense
it’s the fact that
I’m expendable
and dialogue
is fruitless

What else
is there to say
it’s a cruel world
time to sharpen
up the blade
if I gave back
all that’s been
unjustly given
I’m positive
you can quote me
they’d suffer
the benefits of
enlightenment

February 7, 2017

editors note: When the two-by-four rule becomes the norm, enlightenment will be nothing but pain. Alas… (We welcome Michael into our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay


The Fever by Kleio B

Dreading the dead,
The cacaphonic wail;
That sinister moon,
The shivering child,
Ran up the stairs;
Covering his head,
In Momma’s hair;
Ignoring that stench,
That soaked-
Momma’s bed.

Cold as marble,
Still sweating a rain;
With shaking hands,
The child again,
Grappling the dark;
Pulled the blanket,
To cover his Momma;
All in vain.

Momma so still,
No flicker of breath,
Lay inert;
In the land of dead!
A sudden crash,
Shook the child;
Sirens blared,
Threatening the babe!

The sound a gong,
Of volcanic make;
Were they taking
His Momma away?
Shaking in shock,
He cried in pain
“Child, it’s a fever!”, she whispered
“Momma’s right here.”
Holding his Momma tight,
The child slept again.

February 6, 2017

editors note: Life as a near-death experience. (Her short stories have already splashed in the Swirl, but now we are pleased to welcome Kleio B into our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her poetry madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay


BLACK ANCHORS by Milenko Županović

Legend
about the ship
with slaves from
an unknown place
that took shelter
big storm
symbols mystical
magical powers
the sound of
heavy chain
hitting the ground
causing fear among
the population
unknown force
pulling the chains
bound edges at sea
as ghosts
shadows in the night
to the sea
black statues at sea
unknown symbols
island with black anchors
still standing.

February 5, 2017

editors note: Don’t want to be a passenger on that cruise. (We welcome Milenko into our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you need-a-read we got just the one to feed your need!

This week's featured short, "Harvest Road" comes from our very own Short Story Editor Tyler Malone​. Here's what MH Clay​ has to say about this pick-of-the-week:

"Reapers, grim and guileful. Fruit, maybe ripe, but not ready. Sanctuary sought, but unsafe. The only refuge is in the road… Keep moving."

If that write-up doesn't get your get-up-and-go goin', here's a lil' somethin'-somethin' that will:

(photo "Harvest Road" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter​)

Harvest Road took women and no one was bothered. From God’s eye and Internet maps it was easy to discover the street but miss sidewalk cracks where dark things with wet skin made night sounds, piles of departed and disfigured pets found under lost animal posters, and ghostly annual October Klansmen hanging in mesquite trees. Karen absorbed all this on Harvest Road, but for her a jog was still just another word for a walk. She breezed past what hid in obvious sight, as she had for months since moving into her rented house where spiders dripped from angular branches and spun thin horror stories...

Get the rest of dichotomous 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...

Bein' the maddest,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.18.17

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"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“the forgotten (3)” (above) by featured artist Allen Forrest. To see more of Allen's mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we grew up hard or happy, recollections severe or sappy; we cloned a traffic cone; we lost love spoken from pieces broken; we heard a film fest song go like a rongorongo (no girl got, hooked up, not); we pumped out flies with compound eyes, the fruit of propitious birthday wishes; we clammed up on the caprice of come-and-go; we caught the caress of morn's sweet dress, brushing softly, only across the brow of lonely. Comfort in conversation. Keep talking, please! ~ MH Clay

Just Fine by James Brown

If I see u and u don’t see me that’s fine, if I speak to u and u don’t speak back that’s fine, if u judge me and I don’t judge back that’s fine, I speak clearly and if it’s not clear to you that’s fine, if you live in a mansion and I live in a tent that’s fine, you call me crazy and haven’t been anywhere, haven’t seen the things I have nor the pain I have received and dealt with and that’s fine.

Again I will speak clearly,

So drained that I keep this smile to hide all my past and present pains as others have called me many of names that I’m not, been on many of bended knees asking for silence to break the disgracing words of unjustifiable speaking, standing as an entrance and exit and thank you never comes as ungratefulness runs through, the heart has fossilized, tears build and cannot fall and all is fine.

February 18, 2017

editors note: So not fine. – mh clay


Keep Your Mouths Shut by Robert Beveridge

babbling. chains have crushed your arm, rabid lemmings carry you along. how your many abortions felt, on both sides. last request. cholera is your best friend and scurvy visits you every day, bringing presents and wild boars. another sun sets, planets course over your eyes. operation on the terrier a complete success. off the cliff, do come again.

February 17, 2017

editors note: Can’t be sure who’s listening, anyway. – mh clay


Birthday is an indirect object connected with an improper preposition by Bhargab Chatterjee

after the birthday bash
i am tired

of loyalty –
the dry stone of a fruit

the collar of my shirt
is not an enough opening

for pumping out
the flies of myself

in my drawing room
the years cross the edge of my table

and sit
on the window-sill

outside all the compound eyes
gather in the front lawn

and scuffle like people
in the queues before ATMs

the mob is pushing me
into the enormous nucleus

of a Mrs. Malaprop’s cortex cell

February 16, 2017

editors note: And no word is the right word for how we feel. – mh clay


Musings on late night flirting… by Volodymyr Bilyk

I saw an announcement of a film festival in Lviv.
It was about Psychodelic Cinema, but there were no real psychedelic films,
However, there was From Dusk ’til Dawn for some reason.
because this festival was by morons to morons.

Anyway,
i was chatting about it with the girl
with the starfleet insignia i wanted to take off
because…that’s not what the poem is about…

i was chatting about it with the girl
with the starfleet insignia i wanted to take off…
…and proposed my own version of psychedelic film marathon.
One film in particular had her attention
– it was Stay by Marc Forster.
And she wanted to watch it because i’ve mentioned it instead of Lynch’s Lost Highway.

Big deal, huh?

several hours later,
when i completely forgot about this conversation
and was in the midst of procrastinating writing of something
– she wrote “I’ve watched Stay and it wasn’t any Lynch, no-no”

And i was like (cue Julia’s Bison): “Of course!
What the hell was i thinking about when i claimed so?
Was it…a spin?”
I really thought about it for a moment or so.
It was really an engaging act of pointless musing…

And then i wrote:
“I wonder what will happen when you’ll watch Carpenter’s Dark Star.
I hope you’ll write to me something like “it wasn’t any Kubrick, no-no”…
because you know it reminds me of some kind of sacred cryptic spell…

(since this conversation was in ukrainian
that phrase sounded like: “noo ne kubryk, nye”
Which really sounds like a rongorongo spell)

…and if you spell it – it will cause something-something Leonard Bernstein.
I believe you have such powers.
Please Please Please Let Me Get What i Want!”

I’m still waiting for her reply.

February 15, 2017

editors note: Yes, I think it was a Tuesday for me, too… – mh clay


I Exploded by R. Gerry Fabian

for your love.
When you held me
I burst in thousands
of directions.

Now you’ve gone
and I find myself
visiting all those places
and gathering back
all those fragments
of who I am.

Retrieving them is painful
but getting them
in working order
seems damn
near impossible –
at least right now.

February 14, 2017

editors note: One piece at a time, one piece… – mh clay


Starting a New Job is Never Easy by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

My car fails
in front of a line of orange pylons
and I take it as
a sign.

Cars fail all the time,
you say
but I know better.

The pylons are there because of construction,
you argue.

That’s how it may appear to
a layman.

But I live in the abstract,
see the many patterns.

I know how the fates conspire.

Getting out of the car
I take my place two-thirds the way
down the line.

Standing straight
and forever silent,
my arms at my
side.

Not orange yet,
but that’s what evolution
is for.

February 13, 2017

editors note: Naturally selected, a beacon for all. – mh clay


Porch swing by Alexandra Payne

innocence rests in your eyes
I see my grandpa sitting on that porch swing
with a cup of coffee and a cigarette
smoke puffs like clouds above my head
a miniature universe and he is god
he tells me tales of time gone by
about flying kites and falling in love
he says that hope is like a bubble
mirroring the passion in the sky
he says it reminds him of my life
how I never quite touch the sunshine
but I also see my grandmother
standing by the kitchen counter
making peanut butter cookies
and telling me about growing up hard
she said her daddy never loved her
he never told her she was beautiful
he drank his life away
and she hated him until the day he died
and that hatred has eaten her alive, she says
I hear my mother
crying all alone in the bathroom the day her father died
I hear her whimpers pierce the hallway
through her fake smiles
barely reaching my ears before I fall asleep to dream
of my father’s hands
working hard but hating life
struggling just to put me through school
and give me the life he drank away when he was younger
I see a man
who can’t quite mutter the words “I love you”
a man
who was never told how beautiful his insides were
a man
who is struggling just to be accepted
the innocent blueness of your eyes is captivating
but it kills me more than you know
because I see a childhood
that never manifested
and a man with festering wounds in his heart
I see a soul ripping at the seams
but he seems okay
and you act alright
but I know that you are praying to a god you don’t believe in
and hoping in a light you’ve never seen
a light you never hope to see
like my grandfather
sitting on that swing
talking about the good ole days
the ones he can’t get back

February 12, 2017

editors note: We get angst with anticipation, but catharsis with recall. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? If you got a read need that just won't quit, we got the fix to scratch that itch. This week's featured short story comes from Dianne Lowe Breakfield.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about Dianne's story "Immortal":

"We’re all living to die, but at time’s end don’t walk into the light, make it drag you in kicking and screaming."

Here's a bit to get your read need goin':

(photo "Fog of Time" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

(excerpt from the short story “Immortal”)

Excuse Me Miss, can I ask you a question?
•••
Oh, no ma’am, I’m not trying to sell you anything
•••
No, no it’s not like that. I just want to ask you something if you would be so kind as to indulge an old man for a little while
•••
Well, what could I do to you in such a public place with this many people milling around and in full sunlight?
•••
You honor me beautiful lady, thank you.
•••
Oh, where are my manners? Please, have a seat.
•••
Forgive me if I am being a little forward, I know how some women are funny about being asked their age but I must. I am going to guess late twenties?
•••
Well, color me pleasantly surprised I would never have guessed you were pushing forty. You have taken good care of yourself That is an excellent quality.
•••
I understand your curiosity about my age and I mean no disrespect but may we talk a little more before I divulge that?...


Get the rest of this timeless 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...

Bein' Free,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor


The Best of Mad Swirl : 02.26.17

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"...once you get to the point where you're actually doing things for truth's sake, then nobody can ever touch you again because you're harmonizing with a greater power." ~ George Harrison

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Vancouver Transit (2)” (above) by featured artist Allen Forrest. To see more of Allen's mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we took our ease with a morning tease; we found a long time lodger in a favor dodger; we dodged some more from a predator; we walked through the mind of a leaver behind; we slipped and slogged in the wisdom of dogs; we lost faith's stand in white-washed hands; we remembered the whole of a beautiful soul, not ugly in absence. Represent! ~ MH Clay

Shoshi’s Ugly Poem by Ann B-D

I think of you stilled
Under the earth,
Clods of clay, and your melting flesh.
Cracking bones,
Shreds of cloth
Clinging to your twisted limbs.
But that is not you, and never was.
This thing, this stilled thing
The most alien and wrong of it all,
This stillness is not you.
You, who were always
So ticking over with motion,
Rhythm, and the juice of the dance.
You, who even as you sat,
Sat alert and bright-eyed and aware.
You, who even when not moving
Had the beat of life running through you,
Waiting for your time
To jump into the circle again.
And it is so wrong, this stillness.
You, gone from yourself,
Yourself gone away and the body left behind,
A lump of putrescence,
Nothing more.
How fine that you are gone, really.
How right.
You would never have stood for this outrage,
This breakdown of holy life,
Of the joy of your life.
You would have been horrified
At what you have become.
Better it’s done,
Done and gone,
Gone away.
But the awful stillness stays.
And this is an awful poem, I know.
But I am haunted by your stillness.
Awful absence of motion
The craziest proof of all
That you are really gone.

February 25, 2017

editors note: Hard to not notice those not here, when they were so much here, before. – mh clay


THE PACIFIST by Stefanie Bennett

Beyond reasonable doubt
There’s an entrapment
The lesion
Of the spirit
Contorts to ~

The abandoned echo,
Distinctly
Brine-dipped,
Hewn into
A judicial
Stone kiss.

Perversity preys upon itself.
Humankind is not
Kind… fevering
The white-washed hands
Of faith’s tactician

Where hearts, hung like
Bedouin relics,
Are made
To be
Crushed.

February 24, 2017

editors note: Makes a combatant’s mouth water. – mh clay


LADIES & GENTLEMEN by J H Martin

Like dogs
We sit
And we wait

Like stations for buses
Like boards for announcements
Like pigeons for crumbs

As if the end’s going to change
As if it’s going to get better
As if we’re going to get wise

Like Buddha
Like Jesus
Like Muhammad Ali

Man
To say we’re the greatest
Means even less than our words

February 23, 2017

editors note: Just keep waggin’ that tail… – mh clay


Credible Urge by Paul Tristram

He skippers down nightly
under an old piece of tarpaulin,
connected to two trees,
off to the right hand side
of the beach
in the warmer months.
When Winter comes,
there’s the 2nd floor
of the derelict Fire Station
up on the North side of the city.
Busks the harmonica for pennies
outside of Boots the Chemist
most mornings
up until around noon.
Soup-runs evening meals
and bathes in the ocean
no matter the weather.
Carries no trinkets or reminders,
wishes back nothing
which he has lost.
Apart from survival,
is directionless and purposeless,
responsibilities
were never his forte anyway.
Only haunts this city
because it’s far friendlier
than the last couple of places
he tramped.
He’s neither happy nor contented,
just chilling patient,
in his own roundabout way.
For a ‘Credible Urge’
to raise up its head,
as strong as the last one,
which set his footsteps
wandering far away
from that life, wife and children,
his nature bade him leave behind.

February 22, 2017

editors note: It takes focus and determination to stay in the same place. – mh clay


SUPPLICATION by Clyde Kessler

Speed changes the hum from a shadow
to a wall, from a finch to one wild shoat
scrounging through the reeds, oinking
where the parasites have married its voice,
and the herd has wallowed and rooted away
the swamp. Speed is impossible here.
Predation is real. This gator-sized spider
is cupping sunlight in its web. This python
that whispers your name can squeeze stars
through its ribs. The snake’s heart is silent
even when its rough jaws distend around you
and most of the world feels like a gunny sack
on its tongue. The hum is like water spooned
from a cactus far away. You keep wishing
until God does all the wishing for you. You
have felt like running faster than all the water
you are walking on, because the sea is rising.

February 21, 2017

editors note: The water’s span from predator to prey, only a prayer’s breadth away. (We welcome Clyde to our crazed conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay


Cowardly Soul by Patricia Walsh

Five years’ plans are a lot to take in
A chunk from one’s life irreplaceable
Nationalising train wrecks from another’s sin
A question of language eating home.

Down to the bones of me bum, laughing at poverty
I take on many tasks to see me right
Voluntarily working, suiting the nighttime
Where the moon is cried for all the time.

Slipping in and out of windows, a famously high drop
Underscores a necessity of holding the fort
With a sword in the thatch, fighting whoever
An enemy only bearing factual news.

Nothing to descend. Swearing not to have children
Close ranks with progress, sleeping in time
Wiping hands on the tablecloth in front of spies.

Not wearing a hat to keep secrets in
The dark-furnished bedroom keeps the time
Looking out for favours detached from kind
Not sullying the gait of your colleagues.

February 20, 2017

editors note: Sometimes, there’s courage in keeping out of the way. – mh clay


Morning Wrapped Herself in Negligee by Heather M. Browne

Morning wrapped herself in negligee
Hazy silk and stars
Embroidered flowers stitched
On satin strings

As evening’s final breath lingers
Kissing moonlight tendrils morning dew
His haloed cloud and misty veil
Curtaining his demise

Heat always rises
Equally curling toes or hair

February 19, 2017

editors note: Cohabit the curl; the having which comes from heat. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you're in need of a read, still yo' mind! We got just what you need right here in this week's featured short-short by Ron Parker.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about "Be Still My Mind":

"When all you know is an angry language, no one can understand you. You live a mute life with no voice except one that’s destined to be six feet under history, and forgotten by those with tongues that speak for their hearts."

Here's a lil bit to still your mind:

(photo "Jesus Is My Co-Pilot" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

I was meditating on being grateful for my reliable truck when I transformed into an angry white man directing a fear struck Mexican to pull over. I could see him wondering if his brown ass was gonna be kicked by a Trump supporter.

While approaching the construction vehicle, I noticed the load was held by one strap and glanced at my side mirror to change lanes and pass then looked up to see a large tarp slip under my truck at 70 mph. The Nissan sucked it in like a dog eating chocolate and immediately began evacuating itself of melted and torn plastic while the cars behind became obscured in opaque dust and smoke...


I bet you gotta see how this read ends. If so, here ya go!

••• Open Mic •••


Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of March (aka 03.01.17) at 8:00 SHARP as we continue to swirl up our mic madness at our mad mic-ness home, Dallas’ City Tavern!

This month Mad Swirl is proud to be hosting the book release of poet Paul Sexton’s fourth book “Machine Of Almosting: Poems 1993-2016“


This feature set will have local poets reading pieces from the book including: Johnny Olson, M.H. Clay, Roderick Richardson, Josh Weir, Paul Koniecki and Paul Sexton.

Books will be available for purchase and signing for $15

Come on out, one & all. Get a heapin’ helpin’ of musical mad grooves from Swirve, share in the book releasing 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!

Catch us swirlin' up our madness at The City Tavern located at 1402 Main Street • Dallas, TX

P.S. If you're a Facebook'r and want to get on our pre-list, visit our event page and let us know you're gonna be there.

•••••••

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...

Harminizin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 03.05.17

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"A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us." ~ Lucy Larcom

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“Vancouver Transit (1)” (above) by featured artist Allen Forrest. To see more of Allen's mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we dreamed Monday mammoth conspirators mass raincoat catheter; we devoured desperate needle dead designers of desolate fears and rainwater heartbreak; we dodged devoid weekend wasters neighborhood hucksters master manipulators daydream dawdlers storm stealing lovers lost. We did, didn't we? ~ MH Clay

In Certain Matters of the Heart by Donal Mahoney

It’s a matter of the heart,
the doctor says,
and he can fix it
with catheter ablation.
“It works miracles,” he says,
“in certain matters of the heart.”

He’s been a cardiologist for years.
“Take my word for it,” he says.
“You’ll be sedated. Won’t feel a thing.”

No excavation in my chest, either.
Instead, he’ll make little holes
in my groin and snake tiny wires
to the surface of my heart
and kill the current that makes

my heart race like a hare
at times and mope
like a turtle other times.
He’s never lost a patient.
“You’ll be fine,” he says.
“Trust me.”

Nine out of 10 ablations work.
I’ll save hundreds a month, he says,
on medications. No more Multaq.
No more Cardizem. And I’ll never
have to wear a heart monitor again.

“Shall we give it a try?” he asks.
“I’ve got an opening
two weeks from Monday.
It’s an outpatient procedure.
You’ll go home the same day,
rest for a week and then resume
your usual activities, even bowling.
Do you like bowling? My nurses do.
I prefer woodcarving.”

“Okay, Doc,” I tell him.
“I’ll give it a try, but tell me,
where were you 40 years ago
when the kids were small
and I was young, like a bull,
and a different matter of the heart
dropped me like a bullet.
Are you sure my heart’s still ticking?
Where’s your stethoscope?
I haven’t felt a thing in years.”

March 4, 2017

editors note: You can lead a heart to fixing, but you can’t make it heal. – mh clay


The Raincoat by Guest Poet David Ratcliffe

A long straight raincoat
would drift through the village;
a thin bald man inside
taller than a telegraph pole.
Oftentimes he’d stride by our
farmyard and I’d shoot him dead
with my Winchester while rolling
for cover behind the dustbin.
His ghost returned recurrently
ever more peculiar, strangely
menacing like a preacher waiting
to claim our pitiful souls.
Regardless I’d tracked down Kincaid,
that no good rustler would swing
that night, and so he did as I waved my
rifle before his scary blue face.
His legs frantic, froglike eyes bulging,
I ran inside shouting, ‘Mum! Mum!
Gary is on the washing line
and he wont come down.’
She rushed into the yard to find the
raincoat holding my brother;
I hid behind the tall rhubarb
relieved to hear his cries.
Through huge leaves I saw the
raincoat leave in loping motion
without saying a word with mum
screaming my name into the night air.

March 3, 2017

editors note: When wet and weathered is better than dry and… – mh clay


The masses by Jonathan Beale

The people: as knights, bishops and queens.
Pawns…Pawns…Pawns. treading the stone
Stone conquers life –
Blood, bone, and flesh.
Are eroded upon this spinning wheel

Desolation is the fear of flesh
Pawns dream (that’s if the Fates allow)
Lives are galleries within galleries
Each October thrives, anew.

They are eroded still, upon this spinning wheel
The oils, now hard, lost the image
Of ages long past, the long past remains
To be uncovered once more

March 2, 2017

editors note: For each of us, it’s a new discovery: We’re stuck in repeat. – mh clay


The Eye of Horus by Paul Sexton

When I think about them
my head hurts.
When I talk about them
other people’s eyes squint.
When I look for them
they are hard to find
except for the signs
the subtle symbols.

Where they live
must be far away,
places that I have never been,
but they must have computers
and telephones
and they must meet occasionally
I suppose,
at the Bilderberg Hotel
or the Bohemian Grove.
What they do there
must be Bacchanal
decadent, even alien
or perhaps it’s all just business
the crunching of numbers
the twisting of fate
the shaping of the destinies
of the faceless
the proletariat.

We should find them.
We should kill them
if we can, but

when I think about them
my head hurts,
so I stop.

March 1, 2017

editors note: They’re not so subtle these days and they’re wearing us down. – mh clay


Woolly Mammoths by Adam Sometimes

Way past constipation and injection marks
We plundered
Ice cold eyes on the hunt for an ice aged myth
Woolly mammoth they called it
But we didn’t care
They could’ve called it certain death
And we would buy all we could and came back for more
Better than sex the addicts say
I don’t know about that
But it was pretty damn close and a whole hell of a lot cheaper
So we chilled
At some slum dog dirt floor section 8 housing in South Detroit
“The hood” we called it before we realized it lived and breathed
It was a white boy adventure
Like a life and death roller-coaster ride
With needles and whores and police chases
And when we were done we rode the two hours back south and passed out without even locking our cars
But there were a few who wanted to ride too often
And they died with needles in their arms
Their mommas crying at the slack jaw lifeless body of their boy that just fed “the hood” and got spit out in his parents
bathroom
And we soon discovered this wasn’t a ride at all
But a hunting field
With decoy woolly mammoths

February 28, 2017

editors note: Obsessed after ecstasy. Edged toward extinction, instead. (We welcome Adam to our crazed conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out). – mh clay


CAN’T WAIT FOR MONDAY MORNING by Bradford Middleton

I sit and contemplate as I look out the window
The darkness is amassing off the coast and for that I’m happy
Today I hope the beach will remain empty
Whilst town will come down after a weekend ravaged
By pointless consumerist binges of those with money
They’ll spend it on beer they see advertised on TV
And sparkling wine thinking its good champagne
Clothes from TK Maxx that’ll fall apart in a couple of months
Everything is set to break and be replaced
Just to keep the economic wheels turning

Today I want to walk the beach and see no one at all
As if it were winter when the beach can become my private playground
I’ll walk someway before stopping and sitting on the pebbles
In order to smoke a joint and take a contemplative moment
A quiet place I can actually sit and think
As round this way during the summer months all we get is noise, noise, noise
The noise of motorbikes being driven up and down
Desperate to pose and be seen as being cool
Loud obnoxious persons who take up the entire pavement
Whilst screaming at each other about what a great time they are having

I’ve seen young women walking through town on a Saturday afternoon
Carrying a huge inflatable penis and thinking they are having fun
I’ve seen young guys walking through town wearing Jimmy Saville masks
About a week after all the allegations came out and they think they are having fun
Neither of these are my idea of having fun
For me I like nothing more than sitting, quiet, and simply drinking
But round here these days there ain’t many places you can do that
What with music ruling all the pubs on St James’s Street
Whether it is country-blues or karaoke disco-pop it’s all here
But put simply on a Saturday night I don’t want to hear

If I want to listen to music I got enough of it at home to listen to
Sitting drinking and listening to The Stooges or Coltrane or some other lost classic
Whilst being able to do whatever I want, smoke, stare out my window or eat some food
And out there, in this town, are people who I want to avoid
Those screaming hen and stag people who very occasionally lay siege to my local
Before realising that here we like beer and spirits not Jaeger bombs and bloody cocktails
Then they suddenly realise that this ain’t a place for them
So they fuck off to West Street to pass on their STDs
And come Monday morning, a time I love as I never work, it feels as if town exhales
Farting the masses out of their weekend psychosis and back to their mundane little lives

February 27, 2017

editors note: Mundane Monday, so good to me… – mh clay


I Dream in Oceans by A.J. Huffman

waveless expanses of blue.
Not breathing or drowning, I float,
an empty cloud in a miserable sky.
I pick at veins to lure companions,
believing the sanctity of devoured
is preferable to the continuous
resonation of devoid.

February 26, 2017

editors note: Open wide. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week's featured story, "The Amanda Years," comes from Mark Benedict.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say:

"Horror stories don’t always claw from youth, but they do come back from the dead to take a bite or two without asking. Without us wanting, we sacrifice ourselves to monsters and say it’s for love."

And it starts something like this...

(photo "Eternity Isn't Timeless" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

The haunted trail was a sexy choice, Owen reflected in study hall. It was a perfect combo of darkness and closeness: make-out city, baby. Not that he was particularly anxious about it. He liked being around Amanda Overstreet; kissing would only be a bonus. In fact, he just plain liked her. That purring voice, man! Those swimmy eyes. Owen grinned and tried to get back into his History assignment. She was out of his lanky league, sure, but not by much. If he made a good impression, if they had a great time on this, their first date, then the Homecoming dance, two weeks away, was a real possibility.

The glossy lips. The glistening hair. Amanda looked so amazing when he picked her up, Owen could hardly breathe. And he knew what the glisten meant: that it was a big date for her, too. The night was crisp. The trail was winding. They made fun of the lurking creatures, some of whom were played by kids from school. “Oh, no way,” she giggle-purred, pointing at a sheeted ghost. “I mean, even I could do better.” Kissing seemed soon, Homecoming certain. But then Brett Myers, a zombie currently, a football fucktard generally, broke character to tell Amanda she was looking fine tonight. Owen bristled. Myers was a little too emphatic, Amanda a little too flustered. And then it came: the moment that would haunt Owen for years…


With a cliffhanger like that, how could you NOT find out how this tale ends? Get the rest of your read on here!

••• Open Mic •••


This 1st Wednesday of March (aka 03.01.17) we swirled it up madly in the live way that we do every month. This month Mad Swirl was proud to host the Dallas book release of poet Paul Sexton’s book, “Machine Of Almosting: Poems 1993-2016″

After a mad’n’jazzy set from Swirve, we opened the mic up to all you mad poets, performers and musicians. Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…


Check out the live feed of our FEATURE set.


Check out the live feed of our OPEN MIC set.

Hosts:
Johnny Olson
Chris Zimmerly

Feature: Paul Sexton’s “Machine Of Almosting: Poems 1993-2016“ with performances by

Johnny Olson
Chris Zimmerly
Roderick Richardson
Paul Koniecki
Anson
Paul Sexton

Music:
Swirve

Mad Mic Cast:
Desmene M. Statum
TA2
Vic Victory
John May
Nadia Wolnisty
Cj Critt
James Barrett Rodehaver
Reverie Evolving
Paul Koniecki
Annika Michelle
Anson
Shae Shaw
Sig
Preach

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Tamitha Curiel, Gerard Bendiks & Chris Curiel) 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!

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

•••••••

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...

Drippin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 03.12.17

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"The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles." ~ Jack Kerouac

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“The Wander’s Eyes Bleeding Neon” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak.

We revisit an ol’ favorite in our Mad Gallery… and could you really blame us? Bill Wolak continues to win our mad beating hearts with his always symmetrical and ever-enticing collages. The fascinating, layered detail in each individual piece is a little too easy to lose yourself in… and that’s just how we like it! And we’re betting that’s how you like it too… ~ Madelyn Olson

To see our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we pear plunged, hushed to hear, skinned to the end, rock hunted (hole found), gathered and spilled, drizzled and splizzed, peeped and plummeted. Around and around and around... ~ MH Clay

The Ascension by Jeff Grimshaw

I balanced on the window ledge and scraped the decal
From the window glass. “Now try and find her,” I said,
And fell five stories to my death. But later that afternoon

I wobbled on the window ledge and tapped the window
With a hammer until the cracks webbed across the glass
“This will fall into a thousand shards next time you lift
The sash, O I wish I could see your face then,” I said and

Dropped backwards, seven stories to my death. But
It was nearly dark when I crouched on the window ledge
Drawing dicks and maniacal clowns on the glass with
My grease crayon, “And your whore of a mother, too,”

I laughed, and plummeted 19 stories to my death, my eyes
Never leaving the horrified face of the woman leaning out
Of the window over yours. She was pretty, I thought, though
Of course it’s hard to tell for sure when someone is

Screaming like that. Her eyes were beautiful. I made a
Mental note to ask you for her number as the air currents
Spun me around and around and around.

March 11, 2017

editors note: You can’t make this kind of impression with a dating app. (We welcome Jeff to our crazed conclave of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay


HEADING HOME by Roger G. Singer

Farewell to day. The heat layered
high through dawn, spreading wide over
spaces where long shadows formed beyond
ancient obstacles burdened into place.

Night… finally moved in.

People casually scattered. Stars opened
their windows onto a black sky. The desert
diner closed up; its neons splizzed out a last
drizzle of sparked light.

A warm migrant breeze slipped over the road.
Coolness followed, pressing onto the sand and
weeds and anything occupying space.

The car’s engine shuddered and then groaned
into labor breathing. A cylinder war under the hood
struggled to maintain life.

A cloud of dust rose from the car as I tossed a
bottle at the last road sign.

March 10, 2017

editors note: Keep splizzin’, Baby! – mh clay


What starts is never what arrives by Mary Saracino

The wooden door swings open
hopeful feet travel the long road
stepping on stones from here to there
traversing the serpentine path from home to hinterland
dusty shoes, tattered coats
hats soggy from sleet, from dew
bellies hungry for bread, meat, comfort
open fields, lonely mountaintops
biting brambles, wind-blown wildflowers
beneficent bees, boisterous birds
massive oaks, thorny roses
swollen rivers, unfathomable lakes
wind and rain; snow and sun
we begin the journey as pilgrims
end the journey as refugees
longing for where we started
uncertain of where we have arrived
our skin tougher, more wrinkled
our hearts opened, yet weary
our hopes and dreams forever altered by
the weather, the whims of chance
the kindness and cruelty of strangers
the losses and joy, laughter and tears
gathered or spilled along the way

March 9, 2017

editors note: Pilgrim to refugee; may we gather more than we spill. – mh clay


Habitual by Rose Aiello Morales

I shall find a rock
big, hard, cave-like,
home.

Small fire,
a cat or two,
weave moss for coverings.

Crawl space,
one stand up in the middle,
a hole to the world.

There I shall make a life,
dream a fairy world
and venture out feet first.

March 8, 2017

editors note: A happy habitat; good for a stand or a dirt nap. – mh clay


Blue by Amy Barry

Cross-legged by the pond
where the world is quiet
enough to hear the caterpillars,
newly hatched,
munching leaves overhead.

I want to look inside you-
To see your mixture
of love and anger,
untangle
the deception residing there.

Your musky scent lingers
in my mind like rays of light;
I lean forward to see my face in the water.
There’s nothing in it
but yours.

No flame reflecting in our eyes.
Every comforting adventure
of skin on skin
will end –
As surely as summer does.

March 7, 2017

editors note: When lover proves to be luster, only. – mh clay


A Sudden Hush in the Wind by Stephen Jarrell Williams

stillness over the streets
over the land
over the mountains

everyone stops
with a spirit to listen

this hush of sound
telling us
so much we do not know

we bow
asking Providence
our purpose

before the storm
blows our flowers from the fields.

March 6, 2017

editors note: Yes! Listen and let no one else tell you what you hear. – mh clay


July Journal: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 by Don Mager

Early afternoon’s minutes dangle
precariously on raw green pears.
Marauding squirrels leap down from slim
Hickories like crows swooping to road kill.
Tugging each pear from its stem, knife teeth
incise chunks of sour nut-hard flesh.
Inviting the ants to come dine, the
wounded pears plunge to the grass. Their falls
are dead with the thuds of cracked drum heads.
Fermenting into soft cidery
brown spots, their relentless unconcern
joins wounded fruit from yesterday—and
the day before. By dawn, they’ll sweat
with cool dew. For now time’s all a waste.

March 5, 2017

editors note: Fruitful or fruitless; it’s in the timing. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Who needs-a-read? Well we had a feline that you did!

This week's featured short comes Contributing Writer & Poet Donal Mahoney. If you have can handle a cat-ostrophic subject matter, then "An Immodest Proposal" might be just the read to feed ya'.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say:

"The only natural resource that we should be worried about is human ingenuity. When hungry enough, though, our stomachs and brains will cook up something to save us all."

Here's a morsel to sample to see if you can stomach it:


The other day I was talking to a neighbor who said he found a way to help the poor and improve our environment simultaneously. It’s no secret, he said, that we have a dire food shortage among the chronically poor. It’s also no secret, he pointed out, many of our cities are overrun with feral cats.

Organizations already exist, he said, that trap and neuter feral cats and then let them loose again. These cats, he said, turn up on our porches, tails up, looking for food.

My neighbor is a wild game hunter who has hunted on many continents. The heads of many of his prey are mounted on his walls. He says he should not be the only one hunting feral cats in an urban environment, something he does when he is not overseas hunting bigger animals. He sees feral cats as a viable food source not only for the poor but for anyone who likes wild game.

He’s partial to a dish called “Feral Cat and Dumplings,” a recipe he shared with me after I talked with him in our alley early one morning while taking out the garbage. He had a lumpy canvas bag over his shoulder and said he had had a good night hunting. (He didn’t say anything when I told him I thought I saw one lump wiggling.)


Get the rest of this tail 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...

Burnin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 03.19.17

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"All art is a confession." ~ Gaston Lachaise

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“The Uncontrollable Laughter of Moonlight Dancing Through the Graveyard” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more of Bill’s mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we suffered consternation over proper enunciation; we hefted a heart, empty of hatred; we silenced the chatter of mind over matter; we yellowed the strain of fish down the drain; we enjoyed the elation of self-adoration; we played with the picture of a pliable ingenue; we devolved from decimation to cultural commercialization. These broken pieces, our reconstruction; how we make sense. The stir of the Swirl. ~ MH Clay

Smiling Upon Them by Joseph D. DiLella

Death
weeps inside the stone
family crypts, bones of old
nuzzled close to tombstone of a new one
no more than five, hit by a taxi, just one of thousands
transporting the near dead back and forth
to markets, to churches, to landmarks meant for saviors
who still bleed for sinners and saints
on the smallest of atolls, where rainwater embraces roads
like watery pillows on beds of sand.
Barefoot children still dance
prance like wild animals
chasing each other, or dogs and cats
in cemetaries adorned with plastic roses
aged photos of mothers, fathers melted in ceramic tiles
gracing the boxes, meant to pay tribute to the lineage
of men and women on the island nation decimated
by weapons like Ivy Mike unleashed on Bikini and others
forcing the creation of even more downtown memorials
for gawkers to photo, natives to cherish.
Will U.S. millions ever pay back
the loss of a culture, the ruin of hundreds of tribes?

People who built canoes, fished tuna, baked breadfruit
today drink Coke, eat Fritos, chew betel nut, send prostitutes
to Chinese, Japanese and American ships as payment in full
as, “Hallelujah, I’m saved!” rings from each shiny new church
saving lives by the hundreds each and every day
in exchange for all souls now and forever after.

March 18, 2017

editors note: It’s the capitalist way – world without end. – mh clay


The White Girl by Sarah Henry

Whistler’s portrait
of his mistress
turned up at our
National Gallery of Art.
I didn’t expect to be
struck by the spectacle
of a pale girl
in a long, bluntly
white dress.
A dress like this,
“was only worn at home.”
In private, anything
can happen.
The limp hand holds
a reluctant lily.
That her long red hair
is messy and fetching
is meaningless to her.
Her eyes look so vacant,
you could do anything
at all with her. This
is just a suggestion.

March 17, 2017

editors note: Just a suggestion… – mh clay


Toward Solipsism by Larry Levy

Naked,
I pull the curtain around me
and go it alone.

I am showered upon –
pin-pricked into submission
by a steady shiver of arrows.
The water runs over me
like greedy fingers
and I feel desirable.

Slowly,
I tuck my cock
between my legs –
my longing turned inward.
I’m beautiful and I ache –
every pore now receptive
to my feminine touch.

Is there no woman
man enough
to man-handle me
as I need a woman to do?

I face the mists
with eyes closed,
and from these recycled tears
feel the pain of every woman
who has ever cried
over a man.

March 16, 2017

editors note: First, you gotta love yourself. – mh clay


Gold Fish and Favorited Color Yellow by Tom Hatch

You’d be surprised what goes in the water
Behind the silhouetted tree leafless in the
Window in yellow light

You’d be surprised what goes in the water
When the door opens yellow light
Streams a leafless tree

You’d be surprised what goes in the water
Below the hearth above a yellow fire
Burns a tree shadow dancing on the wall

I want to get sloppy with yellow dances
Streams and silhouettes
That blend to be a full page that is yellow

Trees are leafless to keep out
Any brown or green
While yellow lovers stare at the blended page

Made larger by all the gold fish
That went down children’s dead
Toilet bowl drains
The non revelry of yellow
Of kids I’ll never know
That have a gold mine in the septic tank
Of dead fish

March 15, 2017

editors note: Down drain because dead; or, yellow? – mh clay


SILENCE by Ruth Z. Deming

Be silent
Be silent when you wake up
in the morning light drizzling
thru your lavender drapes

Listen to the sounds of the world
whether the cars splashing up the
street – oh, so it rained last night! – or
the mournful whistle of the passenger train

Are you afraid to hear the
whispers in your own mind?
Give them room
Give them space
They have a right to be heard!

There’s that squirrel again
outside on the back porch
the same one I saw last week
Peering at me as he nibbles
an acorn – or is it a dreidl? –
as the world enfolds us both, unconcerned.

March 14, 2017

editors note: Again, what we hear between silences shapes our world. – mh clay


Sowing the Seeds of Compassion by Indunil Madhusankha

More than a hundred times
I had wished I would die early
Before I could no longer
look after myself

If I ever happened to be
that old grandma
at least for a moment
I would rather die
than hearing the incessant
insult of the mistress
and its sharp boom
piercing the ears
almost like a wailing trumpet

The old lady was
perhaps in her nineties
Yes, the grey hair and
the pale skin
that wrinkled loose
from the bones
were a credible indication

One day I paid her a visit
and I couldn’t help my asking
why she would bear up all that cruelty
Then, despite the infirmities
she managed to stand up
and gently held my hands
I could well feel the slight
trembling of her chilly fingers

Then she caressed my head
and pointed towards the altar
that bore the sacred Buddha statuette
with the scent of the incense sticks
spreading everywhere
I saw how her feeble eyes
still gleamed with compassion
as she quoted from a Pāli Gātha,
“Nahi werena werāni”
and translated,
“Hatred never ceases by hatred”

From that day onwards
I have been wishing
I would also be blessed
with such a heart
So pious a heart
sowing the seeds of compassion!

March 13, 2017

editors note: From every culture, the elderly would tell us this. Maybe we should listen? (A “Gāthā” is a verse or hymn in Buddhism.) – mh clay


DELICIOSO! by Ricky Garni

By the time I pronounce bruschetta correctly as many times as I pronounced bruschetta incorrectly, I will be an old man, and no longer able to afford bruschetta, and if I can afford bruschetta, I will no longer know what it is and I will ask “What’s that?” and they will say “bruschetta” and I will say, “Who cares, Tommy? I for one, do not.” And then I will eat it and I will enjoy it, and they will say, “Tony.”

March 12, 2017

editors note: Buon appetito! (Whatever your name is.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you are in need of something but just not sure what it is, perhaps it's not a case of something blue, maybe all you need is a read. If so, we got just what the head doc ordered!

This week's featured short story, "Malaise" comes from Nadia Wolnisty.

Here's what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say:

"It follows, you wait. The end is always in motion but we don’t feel it because we hope the world and all its wonders spin around us."

"Malaise" starts a lil something like this:

(photo "What Waits? What Don't You Want?" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

You are sitting at home one Wednesday afternoon when you get a call. 9-1-1, you are having an emergency, the voice on the other end says. You decide to remain calm. You ask her to be a little more specific. That’s not my department, she explains, I can transfer you, but there’s a three-to-five minute hold-time, and by then….I understand, you say, even though you do not. Then what? Then what? Isn’t that the predicament you’re in right now?

Maybe we can figure it out together, says the voice on the other end, who sounds a little too desperate to be professional, as if she were new at her job. Okay, you figure, that’s the only thing to do, so you nod, even though you know she can’t see you...


If that snippet is doin' the trick then you best rush your way to Mad Swirl and get the rest of this read on... NOW!

•••••••

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...

Confessin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

The Best of Mad Swirl : 03.26.17

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"If you believe you're a poet, then you're saved." ~ Gregory Corso

••• The Mad Gallery •••


“The Same Lost Wind Reflected in Every Dream Mirror” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more of Bill’s mad illustrations, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••


This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we networked with real nets; we must-ed could from dark regrets; we recalled the taste of honeyed light; we seized a shocker, brain put right; we began at the end with silence on skin; we dabbled in dada, played three to win; we stretched some incredible shrinking wrap (avoidance of conflict achieved in a snap). We did everything but disappear. Still here? ~ MH Clay

Downsizing by Nadia Wolnisty

I’ve sure you’ve all heard about it by now–
That Crazy Wrap Thing by It Really Works!
Before you roll your eyes and scroll past this on to pictures of kittens and babies, please just hear me out.

I’m a brand new representative, and,
I gotta tell you, I love working for It Really Works! It’s a great career for me, because I’m a busy mother of three kids, and I get to be my own boss!
But most importantly, it really does work! Just look at the pictures below and see for yourself.

I gotta admit, though, I was skeptical at first, so I tried it myself, and the results are astounding. It’s so easy too!

You by take one of our wraps and affix one end inside the front door, securely.
Make sure the door is shut firmly. Take the other end of the wrap, and wrap it around the outside of your house. Be sure you are working counter-clockwise.
Walk in a complete circle around your house, pulling the cloth firmly so it doesn’t sag. When you reach the front door again, carefully open the door, go inside, and attach the other end of the wrap.
Do not open the door again.

You can see results in less than three weeks.
You can lose up to 200 square feet. (I only lost 150 feet of house, because I’m such a klutz and didn’t wrap tight enough.)

The results will be slow, at first, but dramatic once you take it all in.
The first thing to shrink was that purple abstract I have over my armchair. The lines got smaller. Then the couch got thinner. The unflattering lumps went away.
Other things in the living room, too. Books you’ll never finish became as slim as volumes of poetry. The faces in family portraits became closer and closer together.

Other rooms, too.
My king-sized bed became a twin.
My bathroom lost its extra sink. Whole rooms got tightened, tidied.
My kitchen is now only one foot wide and can barely accommodate my ample hips. Whole cupboards’ worth of dishes got smashed, chairs look like something from a dollhouse, and my spare room shrunk so much that only the cats can go in and out with ease.

I became a giant,
surrounded by objects so small and easily stored.
Everything tidy and still.

Private message me for more details!!!

March 25, 2017

editors note: Be the first on our block to disappear. (We welcome Nadia to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay


Not your Mama’s DADA by Tom Hall

Two people sitting, facing each other.
One vase stands stoically, silently between them.
Bisected at the sides in neon beige and neon black.
One person sees beige; one sees black.
Both are telling alternative truths.
But neither is telling the the vase’s truth, the complete truth.
Either side could have easily had a puppy fetus stapled to it.

Jennifer and Jack both start with the letter J.
Not implying they are intrasexuals or hermaphrodites.
I like desserts and people
Who bleed out sherry, not nonsense.
Unlike vases, Jennifers and Jacks can’t bisect and live.
That you want them to makes no difference
To those you’ve bored with your desires.

Relativity is the only all-absorbing entity.
If it were a river it would be dry and not a river.
If it were a theory, it would be over my head.
And if it were a floor, only tall people would survive.
Four alternative truths,
All based in my perception of truth, not relativity.

It follows this stanza should have five lines.
But I rarely live up to expectations.
The reason there are three is so it’s not a couplet.

March 24, 2017

editors note: For those who don’t give a good zip-a-dee-doo-DADA. – mh clay


BOUNDARY by Mark Senkus

the silence that is missing will
come back to us
the womb we were unaware of
with its embracing cave of stillness
only the drum of heartbeat off
through the distance
through a moving galaxy of blood
river upon river
before the lungs invented air
we knew this silence so different
from the lack of sound
we knew nothing of sound
only this silence surrounded
by the hearing of ears not yet
connected to thought
the first born birth of silence
felt through the skin this silence
that is missing will come back
when it chooses
to quiet what remains of us.

March 23, 2017

editors note: It’s all womb; from silence to silence. – mh clay


This Clonic Earth by Brittany Griffiths

ruminating
things come slowly
pass the time
stare
at nothing

suppurating
surface
–>> seizure <<– abrupt convulsions jittery grand mal experience it effects – “electrical changes in the brain“ she read that on the Internet somewhere she thinks she is dying debt compounding she returns to normal continues on following day purchases a 10-year term life insurance policy conscience cleared pellucid sky waiting for death meanwhile… the sun sets on an indifferent landscape March 22, 2017 editors note: Sweet security, guaranteed (for the insurance company). – mh clay


The Sea of The Golden Palaces by Hongri Yuan

Happiness is the memory of heaven
And the soul is the sweet sun
On the canvas of death
You daub the smile of the gods
Oh, that is light,the honey of light
If you can hear the music of heaven
That is the sea of the golden palaces
Over the space of sapphire

March 21, 2017

Translated by Yuanbing zhang

editors note: Oh, to fly in such a firmament… Remember the honey? – mh clay



Crack of Shine by Harley White

The sky was dark and dreary
as I trudged along the path,
with vision dim and bleary,
under thunderclouds of wrath,

one foot before another,
plodding onward through despair,
yet knowing of no other
road to lead me anywhere.

With blackness fast descending,
though my journey incomplete,
the trail became unending,
and I gave up in defeat.

Surrendering my proneness
to stouthearted courage prove,
I foundered in aloneness,
too dispirited to move.

Every hope and dream was gone
as I lay me down supine,
having no will to go on…
Then I spied a crack of shine.

Light was streaming through the cleft
in a sort of golden haze.
The impression that it left
was of some illumined blaze

which had kept aflame within
midst my melancholy mood
and a mindless inner din
that begot disquietude.

The fissure in the shadow
letting in the rays of light
summoned forth an inner glow
which was hidden from my sight.

I stayed there lying prostrate
for what seemed eternity,
speculating on my fate
as to be or not to be.

At length I managed to rise,
unsteady but striving still.
For life goes on – great nature’s wise –
it can, it must, and it will.

Yes life goes on – the truth there lies –
it can, it must, and it will.

The vision that was present
has never lost its power.
What I saw plus what it meant
comes back in my darkest hour.

It reappears through thick and thin –
that crack of shine that dwells within…

It’s always there through thick and thin –
that crack of shine that dwells within…

March 20, 2017

editors note: Yes, it can, it must, and it will. Thanks, Harley! – mh clay


The seine by Hem Raj Bastola

To fish
By the shore
I spread, the seine
Intertwined string
The knots.

I let
My sinkers drown
Loosening the rope
Waiting for her sight
Occupied with
Similar job
Other side.

How long
Do we live
Face to face
Opposite banks
Dissemble not, please
To embowel in arms
Come into the waters
I will pull ashore
The seine.

March 19, 2017

editors note: The original network; before FB, fish. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you are hungerin' for a read, Mad Swirl has just the tasty tale for you!

Here's what short story editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:

"Life should be lived off fries and stories, no matter what happens between first and last breaths."

Here's a samplin' of "French Fries" by J.D. Hager, to get your taste spuds goin':

photo "Spud Pile" (above) by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter

"The day of the fire, Jasper called some guy a douchebag in the drive thru right before dumping a tray of milkshakes in the backseat of said douchebag’s Camaro. Mr. Bowdon had a conniption. His face turned red and that one vein in his forehead started bulging and throbbing like it was about to explode. He screamed, That’s the last straw, taking a straw and crumpling it between his chubby fingers in an attempt to look, what? Menacing? Pathetic was more like it. I noticed a smear of ketchup on his crooked tie and sweat stains under his pits. Even though Bowdon was a total dick, I felt sorry for him.

Bowdon marched Jasper into the back office and closed the door, and when they came out Jasper looked about ready to put another dent in the shake machine. Jasper was no ray of sunshine even on a good day, thanks to PTSD from two tours in Afghanistan. Bowdon would have fired his ass long ago, except Bowdon knew how bad it would look to can a veteran.

“Bowdon put me on probation, fry station only,” Jasper said. “Told me I can’t speak to customers under any circumstance.”

“Probably for the best,” I said. “You hate customers.”

“Yeah, but I hate French fries even more. The order goes Bowdon, French fries, and then customers.”

“Those fries aren’t going to boil themselves,” Bowdon yelled from the back of the food prep area. “Chop chop, soldier boy.”

“Fuck French fries,” Jasper said. “And fuck Bowdon.”...


Get the rest of this tasty 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...

Gettin' Saved,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor
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