The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum

“Art is the most beautiful of all lies.” ~ Claude Debussy

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Carefree As the Journey of Perfume” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more Mad works from Bill, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... wwe quelled the quizzers, drawer snapped shut; we fell into a free zone freak out, kissed fangs, spilled milk, wished we could sneak out; we sharpened acuity on obliquity; we sought levity in brevity; we were red tennies' fodder on life's teeter-totter; we picked our preference - poets over pundits (poetry over their pale patter); we versed our best in a tailorbird's nest, sanity for our party guests. Wake, or party; one equals the other. Let's live it up to write it down. ~ MH Clay

Schizo-I by Bhargab Chatterjee

a bus moves slowly over a torn page of history
i feel a push on the back EMPTINESS in a
puddle@familyplanninginindia grass-blades flicker
in the sun here green is OBliterated rain objectifies
the summer heat and the characters of a love story
published in a school magazine the nest of a tailor (?)
bird doesn’t depend on its country’s inflation in
the sweltering summer days good and evil have faces of
triumph it’s QUEER that Adam’s desire breaks the wall
of nature a self is viewed “as an aesthetic and ethical
object to be created and cultivated” VIOLENCE
“schopenhaur has described the surging dread that washes
over man when all of a sudden he loves his way among
the cognitive forms of appearance” in the form of social
revolution “whoever in this intellectual sphere began
talking about the immorality of the soul was immediately
excommunicated” the cabinet ministers lean forward
over the table while they exchange views about the forth-
coming budget the creepy = trendy looking monster
was discovered dead by the side of a pond sitting on
a tiny branch of a tree a crow looks at the CATAPULT
where the prime minister of its country sits with a package
for the poor

my book-case is full with old reeking papers waiting for
fleshy MUSHrooms + party guests

August 22, 2015

editors note: Nature, nurture, not sure, hard to bridge the gap; gotta hold it all together till the party guests arrive. – mh clay

WHY ONE SHOULD NOT LISTEN TO THE NEWS by Hal J. Daniel III

Be that as it may
And that being said
At the end of the day
We must all be led
Down the long winding road
Adding to our heavy load
By kicking the linguistic toad
Down a hackneyed mode
Or having the price to pay
For another banal cliché
As the moronic
Call everything iconic.

August 21, 2015

editors note: Can’t say it better, “the moronic call everything iconic.” Yes! Thanks, Hal! (Chow down on another of Hal’s mad missives on his page – check it out.) – mh clay

Off Balance by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Off balance
They keep us
From liberating ourselves

Numbing our news
Hyping our games
Locked in with thumbs up

Omission of truth
Covered over with false flags
We’re nonchalantly hijacked

Speed in our milk
Salt on our wounds
Born dream-drugged

Eyes drifting backward
Butt heavy
Brain light

Expendable
At this rate
Waiting for the mushroom cloud

Hell
We’ll probably throw confetti
At the special effects

Stir-crazy for more
Guzzling drinks
Pinching the next-door neighbor

She’s an ample broad
Eagerly kissing the frog
Anything for a sex spank

When we finally fall
On our smug faces
We’ll just call for room service

The guy in red tennis shoes
With an endless appetite
For more and more of our ignorant souls.

August 20, 2015

editors note: Maybe we could keep our feet if we all wore red tennis shoes… (We welcome Stephen back to the fold of our Contributing Poets with this submission. We’re happy to see his mad missives on his own page again – check it out.) – mh clay

Welcome by Serpil Karisli

Welcome to life
When words flow between the clouds
When the past is showing you the roads
Welcome to love
When you lose your touch
When you close your eyes
Welcome to homelessness
To the dark and the light
Welcome
Take a seat
Let the play start
And see between the lives
The drunken light
When the waves touch the sea
And the shades in the mirror
And say goodbye

August 19, 2015

editors note: Yes, just so. Glad you could make it. Now, there’s the door… – mh clay

Obliquity by Walter Ruhlmann

Everything is oblique in this place, nothing is straight.
All is slanted, diagonal, sloping. Stones roll, holes form:
rain makes the terrain even more hazardous –
those drops that fell are giant shovels digging in.

As I see it from where I lie
somewhat sunbathing in the moist, fresh air,
green grass, grey clouds rushing through the sky –
one could fear they’d crash in one of the mountain tops
just like this plane did months ago – or the roof tops –
one erupting from this village lost in the snow
when winter comes
and nothing else, other than crowds skiing from dawn till dusk, matters.
All this whiteness cannot erase
the lunacy, the forlornness, the ridiculous size of this place.

He may well stare at all these trees –
branches rather, sticks that emerge from the soil,
cut off after last fall when the saint chain sawed the remains of lust.
No sin has been performed since then, all became flat again,
unlike this place where only the walls have to be straight and vertical.

August 18, 2015

editors note: One’s straight talk is another’s tangent. What your angle? – mh clay

Poisoned Dairy by Scott Thomas Outlar

Twisted, tortured, turned over
into the free zone, freak out
on the theory, conspiratorial cartoon
hallucinations near the border
of reason and insanity

Draw the lines
and drink the poison
passion falls hard in the garden

Kiss your fangs
and get the blackout

Drain the prism
it’s a whitewash

Scarecrow fever in the haystack
search after needles for scabbed veins

Sucking daydreams
through a bent straw
spill the milk and cry all day

August 17, 2015

editors note: Pity the poor border bumpers, ravished by their fascinations with the edge. Turn from them to fall into your own abyss. The edge is everywhere. – mh clay

CHANGES by Stefanie Bennett

That drawer with its two handles,
One in, one out;
Files on the evergreens,
Files on the banished…

And dust inspectors
Lolling about the hall;
And crusades of custom-built
Panicking muses come to stare

– Come to sound.
Come to turn you on.
Come to ask why
You’ve settled in –, vanishing.

Come to suggest you ‘fill in’
The questionnaire
While invisible spells strike
Moloch’s vacant chair…

I was there. I saw the emery claw
Tug unsuccessfully
At the two-handled draw
– One in. One out.

August 16, 2015

editors note: Keep those files in order; categorized by darkened deed. Keep the drawer closed. (We welcome Stefanie to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. There’s another new poem in your future, plus more of her madness, on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Howsabout two?! Well then you’ve come to the right place! We got two tasty tales that you'll surely want to devour

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week tale "Dream On" from Contributing Writer & Poet Louis Marvin:"In space, no one can hear you scream for love."

Here's a boost to take-off on:

Who minds making love to a beautiful woman? B5 was a man like any other, and making love to a lady who had powers was indeed special. But it was late at night when he dreamt of his soul mate and his reason for being. He fought this before, when to him it was nightmare. Now it was a floating dream, same as a child’s. He knew she was safe, he knew that they were safe. The three of them.

He floated from the ship then turned around and looked at the Monkey Wrench. Then he floated into space, not quick, not slow, as time had no meaning. He came upon that burned out meteor, the safe haven of his beloved. He was afraid, and it was not his to control, He came within a foot or so of her. She opened her eyes, no screaming nightmares. The monkey, like a child, opened his eyes too, and he was still, while staying snuggled next to her. The clawing had abated, that natural instinct to lash out at being trapped in this strange cocoon...

Keep orbiting this story right here!

•••

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about our second pick-of-the-week tale "The Self Apart of Harriet Sparks" from Contributing Writer C.B. Johnson:"That part of you that lives in your shadow might not only look like your shape, but it could be more you than you are."

Here's a spark or two to get you lit:

(photo by Tyler Malone)

On the day of her mother’s book launch, Harriet Sparks unlocked her second self. This was convenient because she had previously cancelled an important date, in fact a romantic date with a boy, so as not to disappoint her mother. While she didn’t care much for her mother’s free verse she cared deeply about their relationship, and so she would not miss it, this singular event in her mother’s life.

Harriet decided that she would attend her mother’s launch and her second self would be instructed to attend the date. Harriet wanted to go on the date, but the second self, who was otherwise near-absolutely identical in every physical respect to Harriet, right down to the last freckle, did not have braces on her teeth. This detail was important and Harriet believed it would be to her significant advantage in getting the romantic attachments of the boy she had wanted to name as hers since school began.

The second self of Harriet Sparks sat across from her at the kitchen table and listened to Harriet’s briefing. The second self of course had no knowledge of the boy, who was Lamont Parkinson from Harriet’s English class, and so Harriet gave a tour of a terrain she knew well, using the boy’s social media photo albums. Harriet also had to instruct her second self in her crush’s tastes in music, television, movies, and literature. Harriet patched together a taste profile from a combination of stickers she had seen on his laptop, graffiti on his library bag, and questions he had asked in class.

Lamont Parkinson had reportedly seen a movie on the only other date he was understood to have ever been on, with Elinor Ransom. The boy’s movie review, which circulated verbally among Harriet’s nearest and dearest, was three words, “Just so menacing,” and the friends were unanimous in their opinion that the review wasn’t really about the movie, but was a review of Elinor Ransom herself, who had chosen the romance comedy in question.

Neither he nor she had asked the other out again and Harriet had jumped at the opportunity...

Feel what we mean? Get the rest of your sparks 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' Beautiful,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Dancing on Burning Kites” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. To see more Mad works from Bill, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we gagged on Gonzo artistery; we sought death before poem in the protection of clothes; we turned from those of anger's ilk, no more to taste of venom's milk; we weighed the days through dark and dust to our final cracked containment; we kept love real with a summer's meal (lip-smackin' good); we lingered long on rural love, bulls in front and rain above; we worked up an appetite bigger than Death's. Words for life! Now, that's good eatin'. ~ MH Clay

The Gordian Knot by Catfish McDaris

The snow melted upon her skin
hot drifting desert sand blown
smooth hungry and beautiful

The two wars inside each person
go on forever, love and hate
the sky always a gun barrel blue gray

After she left all was loneliness and
one can on a table the label read
DEATH, eat it before it eats you.

August 29 2015

editors note: I gots me a eternal appetite. Where’s my can opener? (We welcome Catfish to our creative conspiracy of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his page – check it out.) – mh clay

A Rural Love Story by Pijush Kanti Deb

Sunrise in the tune of morning prayer
and a lazy flow of whispering breeze
carrying the scent of love
bloomed somewhere in a muddy meadow
and an enchanting melody
of her passionate calling
for her man of love,
just a good beginning of a rural love story
projecting a hilarious hustle
among the ensnared lover
and a pair of bullocks on the land
and in the sky
among the clouds
rich in sea and ocean
until the lover reaches his land of love
with sharp weapons and gifts
for his lying beloved
and the hustle is turned
into a disciplined, artful and satiable
touching and scratching
of the lover on the soft body of his beloved
staying behind a pair of bullocks
and beneath a black raining umbrella.

August 28 2015

editors note: From sun to sun (from plow to plow), the farmer’s work… – mh clay

A Singular Repast by Donal Mahoney

We are to each other now
many decades later
what we were the day

we got married, a couple
at the kitchen table on
a summer night—she

a slice of watermelon,
corners touching the ceiling,
covering my face in juice

and I the corn she butters
before she devours it.
We eat as fast as we can.

August 27, 2015

editors note: Oh my! Can’t wait for dessert… – mh clay

TRUTH OR DARE by Joseph Lisowski

People live lives
One by one, by one
By none.

Losses are legion,
Not worth repeating
Or numbering

When weight increases
Each day
Each year like

Tumbling dark down
Cellar steps
Where tools rust,

Souls scream in Mason jars
spider-webbed, cracked,
Stacked on a packed earth floor.

August 26, 2015

editors note: Not like Granny’s peach preserves at all, or are we? (We welcome Joseph to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Untitled I by Guest Poet Bekah Steimel

I’m milking venom from my memories
through the intricate process
of puncturing silence with conversation
because the antidote rests
in the release of anguish, of artificial apathy
I made the mistake of bottling anger
instead of antitoxin
I made the mistake of following their footprints
instead of making my own
but now I am headed North
on the mend
from the emotional science
of extracting remedy from rage

August 25, 2015

editors note: A perfecter of personal pathology. Physician, heal thyself! – mh clay

Brother by Alainah Aamir

Sometimes we extend hands just because we know it is second nature for one to take them in a mannerism they can’t shake.

Some clothes mold themselves to adapt to the shape of whichever identity they are protecting.

Some are like my mother in my childhood, like stiff collars on the first day of school, violent refusal to adapt to what has been put before them.

Even then there are dissidents. You submerge anything in water long enough, it loses its fight.

I would like to die before I am made into a poem.

Sometimes people are one thing for long enough, you forget they were ever something else.

Nobody ever thinks of crescents when there are full moons.

There are no black holes, only all that sunshine.
You were never here, only traces.

August 24, 2015

editors note: Be they the unborn or the early dead; we know them, but “only traces.” – mh clay

Gonzo Joe by Addie Soaraki

He got his word salad
>From blotto nights,
Psych wards,
Psychedelic jam fests,
Grateful Dead on
Permanent replay.
He took paper scraps,
In a bluesy suitcase,
All scarified and barren
Of class to the school
Of not-so-hard knocks.

He attires himself in
A newspaper boat
On his head like
Napoleon to distract
Them, them, them
>From his “grammatical
Crustiness”. He knows
Where to put his
Commas in all the
Wrong places like
The mawkish girls
He finds copacetic,
If not antiseptic, to
Do stupid things
He calls “artistery”.
Gag me
With a volcano.

August 23, 2015

editors note: So, THAT’s where “artistery” comes from! Go, Gonzo! – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place!

"Hypnosis" by KJ Hannah Greenberg is one that just might get'cha spellbound. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:"What's the most valuable thing about yourself? It’s what’s inside, down deep and way back in the past. Moments not even remembered, but places we go each time we close our eyes."

Here's a bit of "Hypnosis" to slip you under:

(photo by Tyler Malone)

Jacey: “Professor Trigger believes we can rediscover childhood through hypnosis.”

Bruce: “Pass the cheese puffs.”

Jacey: “Really! Reduced peripheral awareness and all that. Think of it! Back to diapers….”

Bruce: “Kidding me?”

Jacey: “No. Back to bullies….”

Bruce: “Who’d want…”

Jacey: “…and high school babes.”

Bruce: “Stoner. How’d you get into this school?”

Jacey: “Rich uncle. Big donations. Kidding. Good SATs. Don’t you want to be a state where you have enhanced capacity for response to suggestion?”

Bruce: “If you were a chick, maybe.”

Jacey: “Friend, I’m failing Psych 101. I need the extra credit.”

Bruce: “And which sister?”

Jacey: “For this package of brewskies?”

Bruce: “How? You’re also underage.”

Jacey: “Fraternity brother. Anyway, Doc Trigger said, in his last class, that by using a series of preliminary instructions….”

Bruce: “Can you guarantee the babes and not the diapers?”

Jacey: “… the subject will ignore all other aspects of his or her environment…”

Bruce: “Two packs.”

Jacey: “IOU on the second?”

Bruce: “Yup. Where’s the ‘psychiatrist couch?’”

Jacey: “My bed okay?”

Bruce: “If you clear the junk.”

Jacey: “Comfy?”

Bruce: “Smells like gym socks and worse.”

Jacey: “Look at this pendant.”

Bruce: “The yo-yo you’re holding or that goober half in your nose?”...

Now that you're under our mad spell, we command you to get the rest of your read on right here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl at Absinthe Lounge this 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.02.15) at 8:00 sharp, when we will swirl it up madly in the LIVE way that we do every month! This month we are featuring Poet Sebastián Páramo! Here's a bit about Sebastián:

"Sebastian H. Paramo is poet living in Denton working on a doctorate in poetry at UNT. His poems have appeared in many online and in print venues, including Huizache, Lunch Ticket, Front Porch Journal, and others. He’s also co-curator of the Pegasus Reading Series in Dallas and has read his poems in NY and Dallas."

After our feature set we urge you stick around to get yourself a spot on our list… first come, first on the list! Which means… get there early!

Come one, come all! Mad poets, musicians, actors, singers, circus freaks & other miscellaneous loco locals… come-n-strut-yo-stuff. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl.

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

P.P.S. AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin’ madness. Here’s who we will be featuring next month:

October: Alex Pogosov
November: Hello/Goodbye

P.P.P.S.

t’was 11 years ago this coming November that Mad Swirl met Absinthe Lounge. In those years we’ve shared a-many mad mic moments upon Absinthe's stage. But as they say, all good things must come to an end...On November 4th Mad Swirl will be hosting our last event at Absinthe Lounge. But don’t fret, Mad Swirl’s monthly mic madness isn’t goin’ away, we’re just gonna be swirlin’ our madness upon different stages. After November’s Hello/Goodbye festivities, we will be takin’ the remainder of the year off. Come January 2016 we will be back at it, doin’ the open mic voodoo that we do-do! Where might those stages be? You’ll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned!

•••••••

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...

Clearly Speakin’,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. I'd say what any decent poet would say if anyone dared ask him to analyze his work: if you see it, darling, then it's there!” ~ Freddie Mercury

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Balancing the Wind” (above) by featured artist Bill Wolak. This one closes out Bill’s feature run. But don’t fret, we got lots more to share! To see more mad visuals from our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we took plundering raiders and called them Crusaders; we, with throats parched dry, dreamed of water from the sky; we got handy with his and hers; we buffered the banter of a waiting room ranter; we left young dreams for getaway schemes; we watched our past place fall, replaced by a new strip mall; we removed the line between life and death. All is life when not ready, yet. Speak these words and live forever. ~ MH Clay

ICU by Beth DeSeelhorst

It’s a beautiful day for living or dying
because if you die you live and if you live
you live. Also because so very close to
you a hummingbird sings without a sound
fifty times in the blink of an eye, and did
you hear no sound? That side of the
window pantomimes creation–sunset
hyssop and hummingbirds birthed in
bright silent light. All this packed in a
glance outside the window of ICU

while the serious man at the foot of my
bed (on this side of the window) expounds
in living sound cardiovascular navigation
and one-way valves forcing gravitied
blood to the heart. His graphic words are
seeable and auricular as Casper; he just
doesn’t notice he’s talking about creation
until I interrupt, and in this white space
he says (in parenthesis) he believes too.
All this packed inside the window of ICU.

There seems to be a choice: all these sights
and sounds loosed in hope of more days
to practice endurance so more dawns can
flood the days’ vignettes under warm lights
of hallway nights versus all the sights and
sounds loosed in the nod of death. To hand-
pick divine desire stupefies, and I wait almost
dispassionately, too curious to choose or not
too sure the choice is mine to make because
even through grace, that’s the nature of ICU.

Right. As if wear and tear doesn’t enter the
picture. Geriatrics aside, geriatrics raw, old
mind full, old heart holy, old dreams of wild
rides on a hummingbird’s wings never tried
before… if not for old age there would be no
choice, there would be no time, there would
be a body not yet full, not yet weighted, not
yet weary, not yet wary of healing. Surely it
would not be a beautiful day at all because if
you die you live and if you live you live.

September 5, 2015

editors note: The tick of time, the bier of bed; thin as thoughts in a hummingbird’s head. – mh clay

For the Dust by Joseph Farley

They buy it. They sell it. They tear it down.
Those little pieces of history
In which childhood memories are stored.
You see it go, bulldozed, imploded.
Uprooted, paved over, places
Where you played or loved or dreamed.
A piece of you goes up with the dust,
Rising clouds that will not return as rain.
You watch, saddened by progress
That leaves you farther and farther behind,
Living in a past that no longer exists.

September 4, 2015

editors note: There are riches to be had in razing the past to the ground; no money in memory. No wonder we never learn. – mh clay

At My Daughter’s Beauty Pageant by Melanie Browne

They all approach the
microphone
to give their
personal introduction,
they all have different
dreams, psychologist,
hair stylist (she states
she will “Tease it to Jesus”)
actress, singer,
but one gal wants to be
a CIA agent,
and I can’t help
but worry that she’s
outed herself,
one girl wants to
be an astrophysicist,
none of them say
they want to
be a stay at home mom,
or housewife,
none of them say they want
to wash dishes by hand
when the dishwasher breaks,
or calm a crying six year
old who lost
his first tooth,
they don’t say they
want to take their child
to speech therapy
and thumb through
glossy magazines
and daydream briefly
about a different life,
maybe in Cuba,
where they learn to play
the claves,
and the light
dances in
the plumeria trees

September 3, 2015

editors note: Adult doldrums defer to liberation in Latin rhythms through little girl dreams. – mh clay

Unnerving by Douglas Polk

eyes on no one,
he rants and raves,
head back,
looking at the upper corner of the waiting room,
told to shut up,
he quietly grins,
as if the joke is on others,
the ones missing out,
too sane to argue with,
the specters,
in the upper corners of the room.

September 2, 2015

editors note: He plays straight man for the ghosts of the joke; makes us the punch line. – mh clay

Hands by April Mae M. Berza

(After Glen Sorestad’s When Hands sleep, what do they dream?)

His hands dream the calisthenics of metals of an automobile,
while hers dream of cooking her thoughts, her passion;

his hands dream juggling numbers, a jumbled telephone,
while her hands dream of imprisoned letters finally freed;

his hands dream a marriage of spoon and fork
as he moves brown rice to his innocent mouth,

while hers dream the bipolar bond of nude fingers
in the canvas plate painting her hunger, her hunger;

his hands dream how the soldier fingers camp the softness
of her breast, her nipple, a caged nightingale,

her hands dream the aggressive texture of his buttocks
as he enters, her finger’s surrender to his hips.

Sometimes his hands and her hands stop dreaming
but lie restless like defeated warriors lost

in the subconscious of hand against hand in combat.
Sometimes hands sleep in the awakening of desire.

September 1, 2015

editors note: Two for the task at hand… – mh clay

FUGUE: DROUGHT by Mark J. Mitchell

Don’t move piles of pebbles.
—Sappho, Fragment 143

A mountain escaped leaving
one pure tear—
a small lake just
to tease the city.

We dream of water here
and wake up
with dust tears
coating our pure lips.

So we take turns
kissing that lake.
We may taste it but —
teased — we can’t swallow.

Someday we’ll escape dust
like the mountain and we’ll drop
real tears in to the heart
of a dry, impure city.

August 31, 2015

editors note: With words as water, we would quench parched minds. – mh clay

Crusader (i) by Michael Corrigan

On the last Tuesday of November, anno domini 1095, Pope Urban ii, speaking outside the French city of Clermont, called for “a holy war to rid the holy land of the vengeful forces of Islam”. He offered “a cleansing of all sin for those purified in the fire of battle” and so began the first Crusade.

The first of many.

On the march to Antioch
heat killed the horses
quicker than any lance,

chevaliers rapidly reduced
to fearsome, armoured infantry.

Our progress marked
by a steady circling
of carrion birds,
massive wings
bleak,
dark,
angelic.

Beneath their darkling promise we marched, always onward, to Jerusalem.

Eighteen months before;

on the dockside at Brindisi,
we stood for hours
in an unfriendly sun,
as captains, nobles,
horses, dogs,
bags, baggage
and provisions
boarded first,

their comfort
a priority.

Finally us,
the great unwashed,
God’s grim parade
in homespun and motley,
a many mouthed mob
all bad breath
and broken teeth,
checked for weight
then passed aboard.

“A light ship for a heavy sea”
the stewards shouted
heaving our possessions
overboard,
“no point in complaining”
they smilingly declared,

“it’s policy”.

At Antioch;
Thatcher John,
killed his first Saracen,
with a handaxe to her head,
four more he killed within the hour
daughters all of the cloven headed woman,
skilled, he was, in the red work of slaughter.

“God’s will, God’s will” his raw throated roar.

August 30, 2015

editors note: Here’s an old story of the West trying to cleanse the East. We never learn… (Two more in this series by Mick on his page – check’em out!) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place ‘cos we got a captivating tale for ya’!

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about the first pick-of-the-week tale “The Wizard“ from Chris Bedell:"It’s fantastic, it’s magical, it’s wondrous. It’ll kill all of us. It’s called life, and it holds us all captive."

Here's a bit to bind ya’:

(photo by Tyler Malone)

I think most people called him the Wizard. To me he was just a monster because there was no way that a guy that keeps an 18-year-old girl in a shed for 23 hours a day was going to win kindest person of the year.

Although the shed had a window so it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Who was I kidding? It was no way to live.

I lived in the shed for as long as I could remember, unable to remember anything else. Even remembering that my name was Lucy was challenging.

I gazed out the window, biting down on one of my nails.

The descending sun meant it was almost time for dinner. Not that it mattered or anything, as I was still a prisoner no matter how I spun the situation.

A cloud crackled through the air, making a plate and glass of water appear on the table.

Did I mention the shed also had a table and a chair?

I shuffled over to the table, shoving the piece of toast into my mouth in one sitting.

You would have thought I never eaten a meal before. The water was a different story, as I’d have to make it last the whole evening.

A popping sound exploded across the air, causing my plate and glass to disappear.

Oh well! Morning would come around before I knew it, and I’d get more food and water if I were lucky.

A shadow slashed by the window hours later since a daily evening check was another part of the routine.

It was nothing for me to be flattered about though since the Wizard didn’t even bother to come in and talk. Although it was probably a blessing he didn’t come in and force conversation, as I got enough of a glimpse as it was from his glowing red eyes that reflected out at me from the window.

Most people would’ve gone mad at the thought of being held captive indefinitely, but not me. I was biding my time until I could break free…

Get the rest of your read on here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

(photos courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez. Check 'em all out here)

Oh what a night it was in the land of Swirl’n mic Mad-ness! As Swirve started their jazzy madness, the crowd found their way to the stage with their heads boppin’ and their fingers snappin’. As the last notes were fading away, hosts Johnny O & MH Clay got the show goin’ with an introduction of our featured poet Sebastian Paramo! Sebastian proceeded to unleash upon us a poetic feast! But no worries, you can still view it on our Mad Swirl UStream channel.

After a brief intermission, the mic got opened up to the mad ones who filled the Lounge. And what a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music ensued! Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Feature:
Sebastián Páramo

Mad Cast:
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
Desmene M. Statum
Carlos Salas
Vic Victoryy
James Barrett Rodehaver aka Bear The Poet
Kristine Jessup
Jolee Davis
Konnichiwa Zach Schrotter
Daniel Evans
David Crandall
Mike Adriani
Jennifer
Elliot Pickens
Jaron
Moose
Noteworthy
Brennan
Mariah

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris Curiel, Tamitha Curiel, & Gerard Bendiks) for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

More HUGE thanks to fantastic photogs Dan Rodriguez (he captured these scenes) and Rosie Lindsey for sharing their mad eye and giving y’all a taste of the night’s mic madness.

And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin’ mic.

We look forward to ALL the m-adventures to come! Stay tuned…

October:Alex Pogosov

•••••••

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

Seein’ It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.” ~ Michael Ondaatje

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Forgotten Statue” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar.

If the name of our newest featured artist, Aniruddha Sastikar, rings a bell perhaps it’s because he is also a Contributing Poet here at Mad Swirl. This time around, however, we get a visual glimpse into his world – or at the very least, how Sastikar perceives it. Art has a wonderful way of giving us a glimpse inside the soul of the artist, shining a diverse light unique to the artist. The light of Aniruddha’s featured work is a dim & dirty light – to say the least – and thankfully that’s just how we like it! Pictures of rusted cars and dirty streets, old doorways with hinged wires don’t sound immediately alluring. But in contrast with bright hues of blues (and even spiritual symbology, quite literally) we see the beautiful dance with the ugly, the sacred swirled with secular collide and we can’t help ourselves in reaching out for more – more of the story, more of the magic, more of the divine hiding out in these unsuspecting places. Give it a look-see for yourself and discover the visual world of artist and poet Aniruddha Sastikar! ~ Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we paid deity with bureaucracy; we soaked a seed with interest; we paused a while in fancy free; we revived our dying world with words; we ran a race by eating crows; we tickled grace for nefarious foes; we got together and nothing happened. Or, so it seemed; our weekly dream did come and go before we'd know. Do we? Did we? ~ MH Clay

I wanted you to have something beautiful for coming so I wrote this this morning for you by Paul Koniecki

We got together and nothing happened
We plugged in and it felt like father of porcelain and mother of pearl
The night fell as a fine blue dress
I wore make-up or blushed
The monk who found champagne by mistake laughed – yelling –
find a virtuous PERSON because their price is far above rubies
I danced my genitals off
My gavel hit the floor
Judges flinched
All the flags burned themselves because inclusion is spelled with multiple eyes
Search warrant ash filled the air like a balloon race
Spock came out in search of spontaneous combustion
Leonard Nimoy whispered in my ear
It happened fast and slow and not at all till it happened all at once
Lake Worth turned upside-down and rained bomber’s tears
Humans talked
Pens refilled with the ball point ink of our most furious anger
writing letters of safe passage irreducible mirth Mother Teresa allegories open wormholes to Utopia and cool clean feather beds
for the restless never rest till the course is run
Our words were sharp and beautiful as Pam Grier in Coffy with razors razors razors in her hair
And her lips were like a graveyard and her hair was like the sun
We got together
We got together and nothing happened
We got together and nothing happened here tonight but flying carpets
Flying carpets of acceptance and love

September 12, 2015

editors note: This is more nothing than I can handle in a night. Deeeelicious! – mh clay

DEMOCRATIC PREQUELS by Ajise Vincent

There are noisome worms
In the duodenum of righteousness;
Nefarious infidels who pretend to be redeemed
But detest all aura of rectitude.

They see
Life as an aberrant for tares,
Work ethics as a strike after the wind,
Depravity as a modus operandi;
Needful – a haven for solace

We are pious mediocres,
Morbid at their bidding; puppets
Dancing to the signals of their puppetry

They have sold justice
To the highest bidder;
And have e’en enslaved due process
In the dungeon of mediocrity

Here they are again
With rapturous smiles
Wanting our mandates
So as to stockpile for progenies unborn

Here they are again
seeking to tickle the scrotum
of our grace

Listen,
Would your thumb
Heed to the behest of compromise
Or the will of truth?

September 11, 2015

editors note: Achieving divine democracy requires grace. Please, tickle my scrotum. – mh clay

STREET LIFE by Willie Smith

Crows pick at the rat
teenage dragsters last night
to the asphalt flattened.
Noisemakers breakfasting
on one less kitchen threat.
The bigger get the guts.
The smaller rip through fur.
A runt wrestles with the tail.
Only at the last moment,
when my foot falls less than a foot
from their feathers, do they scatter,
flapping to the curb on either side.

Continuing, after crossing, on the way
to the bus, the office, the cubicle,
at my back I hear, clockwork like,
them rejoin the feast,
pecking, snapping, tearing;
gargling at a fellow to hop back
from the gargler’s beak
in the gargler’s meat.
Rat bowel stink
through the rest of the
day’s restless turns
twists,

assuring me those Crows
who own the Maze
will likewise clean me –
at the end of the day –
sudden, senseless or otherwise
– up.

September 10, 2015

editors note: It appears that only crows win the rat race. – mh clay

If Only Life Were Like Language by Paul Hostovsky

and all the natural resources like words,
then the world would be
an unambiguously better place
because when you use a word
like apocalypse, say, it doesn’t then follow
that there is one less apocalypse to go around–
there are still an infinite number of apocalypses,
more than enough for everyone–and the more
people who use a language the more
the language grows rich and strong
and resourceful and ramifying
with new and far-out ways of saying things,
not to mention all the lexical borrowings that go on,
the exotic words and phrases, and the names–
names of people and horses and hurricanes
and hand creams and automobiles–
and the lists, praise be to God for the lists!
Which is just the opposite of the world,
with its dying rivers and dwindling resources
and endangered species list.
With words you can make stuff up out of nothing
which is more than you can say
for physics or chemistry or corn. Earth’s
the right place for language. I don’t know where
else you could invent an imaginary escape hatch
up and out of a dying world,
and take a little of the world with you
in your pockets, like the jingling coins of a realm,
or like the crepitating bits and pieces
of a beautiful intact dead language
for sprinkling over the smart lunch conversation
in the next.

September 9, 2015

editors note: When all else is gone, open wide to eat them. Apocalypses for all! – mh clay

Must Give Us Pause by Harley White

If death ends all we see
in Nature’s laws—
to be, or not to be,
with no applause—
and seas of troubles flee
when life withdraws,

then how we choose to plumb
the waters deep…
or whether dreams may come
in final sleep
need never foil
our glee of fancy free…
though mortal coil
may give us pause…

But what if there be more
than what we know—
a door beyond the door
to come and go?

What further living dream
may round us form,
in endless norm,
that carelessly we cause,
and doth existing seem,
must give us pause…

an independent and
dependent clause
of consequential strand
must give us pause…

another cosmic clime
in timeless time,
a stream of conscious I’m
in reasoned rhyme
that carries all our flaws
must give us pause…

who’ll snatch us from the jaws
of slated fate—
that we create…
then vainly grasp at straws—

must give us pause…

For should we risk perchance
to miss the mark,
but dizzily to dance…

what dream of dark
in coverlet of gauze
may whelm our dying pause,
and pierce with karmic claws…

to make us heed
in thought, in word, in deed,

indeed,

must give us pause…
must give us pause…
must give us pause…

September 8, 2015

editors note: Yes! Maybe this whole life we blink is just a pause; a deep breath to take before we dive into the real thing. – mh clay

Seed by Hem Raj Bastola

Dry soil today
At least breathe, a little
Many days later it will rain
Those cemented seeds
Unable to burgeon
Will break
To come out.

Excited
Coming out
Springing shoots of life
Burned soil today is like:
Soldered weapon in the furnace
Of a blacksmith.
Eager to fill a life
Those dust particles
Sharpening the embryo
Of a seed.

Taking
Opportunity today
Expectation of a similar seed
I soak up an interest
A seed to live a life
Today, tomorrow
And unlimited.

September 7, 2015

editors note: Nothing sedentary in the life of this seed. “Soak up an interest.” – mh clay

FORM FILLING by John D Robinson

“Have you a partner?” I asked,
knowing him well and that he did not.
“Yes I have” he said quickly.
“Oh okay, is this a recent thing?
What’s her name?” I said.
“It’s a he” he said “and it’s long term,
I mean it for eternity”
“Oh, a he!” I said surprised.
“Yeah” he said “Anything wrong with that?”
“No nothing wrong with that” I said,
“What’s his name?”
“His name?” he asked.
“Yeah, his name” I said.
“Jesus Christ” he said softly,
“It’s Jesus Christ”
“Jesus Christ!” I said
smiling and grinning.
“Yeah” he said seriously
looking at me hard.
“They’re asking for a date of birth” I said
“Well, everybody knows that!
Christmas Day; twenty fifth of December zero zero
zero zero!” he answered with confidence.
“Okay” I said “Now they’re asking for proof of birth;
a birth certificate”
“Fuck me!” he cried “The Bible,
that’s His birth certificate,
He’s got millions of birth certificates
all over the world!”
“Alright” I said
“They’re being awkward now,
they’re asking for
a national insurance number”
“Jesus don’t need no
national insurance number;
but okay; here’s
His national insurance number;
JC 1” he laughed softly.
“Okay” I said “Now if the authorities take this
literally you will loose your single person
reduction for your taxes”
“Okay” he said “That’s fine;
I’ll gladly pay for Jesus,
I mean, after all man,
He paid the ultimate price
for us all didn’t he?”
he looked at me
for reassurance.
“Maybe” I said looking away,
out of the window
and into the distance.
“I’ll pay for Jesus” he said. “I’ll pay”
Amen.

September 6, 2015

editors note: Hmm. Don’t we all pay for him? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? This week's featured story still has us trippin'! Don't worry, we'll share some of this mind-altering tale with you.

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale “Hallucinating Pigmies“ from R.A. Hernandez:"Life is one hell of a confusing, crippling drug, but then again so are drugs."

Here's a bit to trip on:

The first time I’d dropped acid, I was nineteen and living in Seattle.

A guy I worked with at a coffee shop in the basement of the Elliot Bay bookstore said he had a connection.

After work we drove out of the city, into the hills, where his guy lived.

The exchange was quick but eventful. The old hippie lived atop a hill on a small farm. He seemed preoccupied with something other than the transaction at hand. It could have had something to do with the large number of nude elderly hippies that were standing in the field next to a brightly painted barn.

We got the goods and were back at his place in no time. We dropped the acid and waited.

Before we took the mind altering drug I had asked him if it was cool to do it at his place. I knew he lived with his girlfriend and I didn’t want to cause a fuss, but he said that it was cool and not to worry.

I took him at his word.

Needless to say, his girlfriend arrived and was not happy by what she found. I was jettisoned into the rainy autumn night with little explanation, a halfhearted apology and no offer of a ride home. I wish the ordeal had killed my high, but it didn’t. Instead it had left my mind shaky. That control I felt just before getting shoved out slipped away and the rain wasn’t helping any.

I decided to walk back to work and see if a coworker would take me home. I wasn’t sure if she was closing, work wasn’t far, but I had to hurry.…

Feel the story about to kick in? Then get the rest of your trip 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...

Seein’ It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Words are but pictures of our thoughts.” ~ John Dryden

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Broken Yet Standing” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar. To view more of Aniruddha's works, along with our other featured artists, visit our chockfull Mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we tallied two times seventeen; we frittered away our hopes for the day; we splashed in the swell of a long dry well; we found liberation in lowered expectation; we stirred up a beautiful life; we kept scrolled through for friendship true (too keen on the screen); we rocked a rad row with a tweaked twenty thou. Brightly burns the flame; we fly to the fire. ~ MH Clay

Eaux Claires pt. II by Taylor Gall

Twenty thousand people here and I am
one.
Twenty thousand people here and I am
proud to be
crafted out of sturdy Midwestern bones,
proud to be
a beer drinker in a tornado infested farm field.
Twenty thousand people here and I am
one of a kind,
part of the crowd,
seeing old lovers and new friends,
passing strangers and making
acquaintances with the bugs that
flew into my car to
make love with the overhead lights.

September 19, 2015

editors note: Yes! The fleeting frenzy of individuals in the collective; moths to the flames of the moths to the flame, ad infinitum… – mh clay

Internet Scam by Kleio B

Slowly the poison spread,
Surreptitiously it smiled,
You tried to resist-
Alas you were entwined!

While they talked about love,
They only sold false hope,
Caught in that trap,
Your mystery unfolds.

When you are still alone,
Your timeline’s full of notifications;
You scroll till the end,
But you still have no friend.

You call it social media,
I call it a failed hope,
Wrapped around your finger,
It’s rapping on your toes.

When will you get up?
Shun this make belief clan?
Meet real people, wave an arm?
Shove away this internet scam?

September 18, 2015

editors note: Soon… Yes! Right away… we will… First… one… more…. twitch o’ the thumb… (Kleio has moved us with his madness in Short Stories. Nice to see his poetry here.) – mh clay

The Stirring by Robert L. Martin

Breathless masses
Airless forests
Choking leaves
Ghosts of seasons
Brittle skeletons
Quiet tombs
Love’s requiem
Amputated limbs
Narrow prisons
Dusty chains
Blocked hallways
Crumbling stairs
Sluggish streams
Dead waters
Abandoned hopes
Grounded spirits
Antiquated laughter
Stagnation of time

Merciful sunrise
Vibrant colors
Exquisite shapes
Sweet jasmine
Deep breaths
Beautiful air
Running streams
Smiling meadows
Pink clouds
Musical wind
Whistling maples
Dancing barley
Swaying skirts
Beauty embodied
Sensual melodies
Rousing spirits
Nature primed
Cupid’s arrows
Love’s playground
Life living again
Oh beautiful life

September 17, 2015

editors note: Dark to light, the one you like comes ’round again. Just keep stirring. – mh clay

Not To Do List by Ivan Jenson

search yourself for
a talent
that you can squander
hunt for potential
that can never be reached
then reach for stars
that snicker at you
from light years away
now plan to stand up
expectations
at the altar
where you promise
to commit
and put a ring around
rosy promises
throw away
a perfectly
good morning
by sleeping
into the afternoon
and put up a
“do not disturb” sign
on your door
just in case
opportunity knocks
in the night
and finally
deeply
disappoint
those that believe
in you most
by panhandling
your affairs
with homeless
humility
just for the
Zen of it

September 16, 2015

editors note: Inspiring words from a demotivational speaker… – mh clay

QUENCHED by Helen Harrison

It bugged me at the beginning;
Relying on other people’s wells
To quench my thirst. My own
Myriad ran dry.

I crouched, over
Other people’s supplies;
Drawing up slowly, as
Droplets fell back down
Causing plopping sounds…

I watched as the ripples,
Awakened something inside
That cool shimmering rim.
Can’t begin to tell you
How it felt, after being
Empty for so long.

September 15, 2015

editors note: Upfilling before outpouring. Drink deeply, sisters and brothers! – mh clay

Morning by Maurice Devitt

I feel like I am standing on the shoulder
of the day, looking for something to break free,
a smile on the face of a woman waiting
for a bus, a pinch of sparkle from last night
or even the name of an actor, childhood favourite,
who has followed me around for days,
unafraid to show his face but traveling
incognito, aware that pleasure is pointless
without pain and that, in the act of consummation,
the colour drains, just as a stone shaken
from a shoe may say nothing, lose itself
easily in the crowd and the woman,
boarding the bus, will likely catch her reflection,
turn her head to find a seat.

September 14, 2015

editors note: Each morning a day in the life; turn your head now. – mh clay

TWO HAIKUS by Carl Kavadlo

haiku 1

there are few noises
sweeter than a car alarm
shutting itself off.

haiku 2

a single poem:
you are as rare as a day
in dark alaska.

September 13, 2015

editors note: Sweet relief, the first. Erstwhile love comes, the second. We say “Thanks!” to Carl. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Friday! Need a bit of beat to start this end'o'week? Then we got just the tale to share with you!
Here's a few notes of "King of the Nighttime" by Contributing Writer & Poet, Carl Kavadlo:

Need-a-Read? This week's featured story is a treat with a bit of beat

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale “King of the Nighttime“ from Carl Kavadlo:"Music, it’s all around us. You just need to seek it out by sniffing out its blood and where it flows."

Here's a beats to get you goin':

Nick was in the bedroom, occupied with a musical question. He held a red, Guild Sunburst acoustic guitar. Nick was a musician, and contributed to the support of the small family, along with Donna, the wife. She worked mornings as a kindergarten teacher in a private school. The school was one block east, on Utica Avenue. They were on East 49th, the block over, on the first floor of the two-family house.

“The chord changes follow the same pattern all the time,” he thought, “except for the song’s bridge, with a little variation there. The singer, though, he’s got to memorize a different set of lyrics each time, and then another for the bridge.”

Nick was considering singing, along with the guitar. He strummed through Fogerty’s “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.” He even sang along:

Just got home from Illinois,
Locked the front door, oh, boy.
Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch.

Imagination sets in …

“Oh, listen, Mama, Daddy’s singing,” said the older child, 4. “He sounds funny.”

“Shh!” said Mama.

“Fogerty did have a good sense of lyric,” Nick thought. And he went through the rest of the tune. Something about ‘giants doing cartwheels’ in the lyric.

“That’s it,” he thought. “I’m going to try it.”...

We know you don't wanna stop this groove! Get the rest of your tune 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...

Seein’ It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“You are the music while the music lasts.” ~ T. S. Eliot

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Uprooted Bench” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar. To view more of Aniruddha's works, along with our other featured artists, visit our chockfull Mad Gallery at MadSwirl.com!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we emoted anger o'er unfair advantage (cancer, an insidious adversary); we beat death, not off, but under; we dropped anchor, raised love o'er rancor; we dissed donors dithered o'er faith unwithered (a dollar buys healing or a bad toupee); we soaked in the tub of a bad day's rub, a liberating end with imaginary friend; we found clarity in a lightning strike, killer transformed to a canine we like; we bore responsibility for nightmare sheep, counted in the cacophony of nightmare sleep. Waking, dreaming; it's all the same. We're sleepwalkers in this life-like game. ~ MH Clay

The Night Sings Softly by Paul Tristram

It’s melancholy lament,
in shifting shades of blue,
moon-white through the middle
and humming like a funny bone
drum symphony.
As your consciousness nestles,
fidgety in the armpit
and your mind drones on and on,
evading sleep like a ninja.
Chuckling mischievously
because those sheep
you started counting an hour ago
now have names, Mohawks, tattoos
and have split up into two rival
gang factions and are about to rumble
down by the Docks, somewhere…
in a place you have never been…
Somehow here’s your old school again,
well, a part of it anyway?
except when you turn this corner,
the corridor leads to Tesco’s,
except what it used to look like
back when you was just a boy…
There’s dice and pears and apples…
and playing the piano, carefully,
even though you never learnt…
And if you listen very quietly
you can just make out someone
slightly snoring… somewhere close by,
I’ll let you into a secret… it’s partly you.

September 26, 2015

editors note: No, it’s all you… the whole thing is you… and me… and them… and everyone. – mh clay

In the Local News by Stephen Page

It begins to rain heavily,
the sound like barrels of water
being poured on the corrugated roof.

Jonathan locks his office door
and settles into his reading chair
to read a bit and sleep.

Just audible above of the sound of water
he hears something else,
like someone rattling
the door handle.

He looks up but the handle is not moving.
Then . . . Bang!
the door caves convexly in,
shakes on its hinges . . .
Bang. Bang. Bang.

Jonathan is on his feet
in the middle of the room,
an antique branding iron
held in his hand
like a club.

(You see, Jonathan has read often
in the local papers
of similar incidents:
“In the middle of the night
a rancher robbed and beaten for cash
in his office.”
Or,
“A rancher and his family
robbed at gunpoint in their home
by three ex-convicts hopped up
on Meth.”

Not that Jonathan couldn’t take care of himself, but)

The door bangs and shakes two more times.
Jonathan thinks that his shotgun
might be a better weapon,
and just as he turns to retrieve it,
lightning flashes through the skylights,
blueing the entire office,
his ridiculous shadow twice
on the floor,
and almost simultaneously,
thunder cracks and rumbles away.

Jonathan drops the branding iron,
unlocks and opens the door,

and in leaps
Dominic,
wet
and muddy and panting,
shaking water everywhere.

Dominic never liked thunder.

September 25, 2015

editors note: Dog from desperado, transformed in a flash. – mh clay

The Softer Side in My Mind by Tom Hall

It was one of those days; the boss spitting out wrath,
His venom was clinging; I craved to be clean.
I needed to soak in a hot bubble bath,
have some anxiety pills, maybe more than routine.

Finally restored, I pulled out the plug.
The strain and pain swirled down the drain.
But one bubble grew, out-sizing the plug.
I stood back, my rational reasoning in vain.

An amiable bubble, no sense of dread,
He bubbled about while I put on my robe.
He bounced on beside me and saw me to bed.
Then popped and dropped, this curious globe.

I may never be able to prove he was there;
But, I’d made a friend who was both gracious and rare.

September 24, 2015

editors note: Never outgrow her/him. We stressed out adults need imaginary friends. – mh clay

FAITH HEALING 2015 by Brian Wood

All the old tricks in place, no real change. Still
The earnest toupeed man with the deep voice
Implores you to send him your money right
Now, in God’s holy name. By faith alone
Can your small gift be made into the Lord’s
Temple. Depressed? Sick? Simply call this toll
Free line and God, or his word on this earth,
Will answer. He shall supply all your needs.

Easy enough to laugh at these moron
Frauds and their idiot donors, each one
Dumber than the last. So who is calling
These numbers? Who builds these tributes to greed?
The poet said “In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love”
Nothing would ever shake it and nothing
Would cure it. For some lucky ones it all

Fits somehow and, being blessed, bless. Some flail
About for no cause, not caring whence they came
Nor where they go. And others – born into
A world far too severe – must watch The Man
From Toupee in the hope he can bring what
They never found by things seen with unseen
Things too far to help; as if part of man
Is programmed to be unhappy, and takes

No consolation from love past or love
To come, what they hold dear, or how bright their
Light might glow. As if part of us indicts
The dark. Which could be how the preacher from
The Church Of The Airport Marriott sleeps
At night, knowing he fools no one who sees,
That his funds come from those so lost they trust
Cash sent by mail means a revelation,
One that was always good and always true.

September 23, 2015

editors note: I’ll sell you faith. With that and your dollars, I can buy a toupee. – mh clay

PERPETUAL DELIGHT by Tapeshwar Prasad

If I’ll go inversely
back in time;
I will work my diligence
to drive, past moments alive

Rigid be the thorny path,
will furrow back our time;
and work out, conquering
Lovely spaces to conjoin

Not by any quota of flesh;
But by an anchor of love
will moor the story of our land, and
Spread our saga with perpetual delight

September 22, 2015

editors note: Love is the better anchor. Yes! – mh clay

Illusionary death Orgasm by James Brown

I have masturbated with death
as it inflects a painful stimulation
making my heart ejaculate from
my chest.

With the loss of equilibrium my
mind swings like a pendulum…
the orgasmic grip of death
suspended from a point of
pivotal circumstance.

Yes; I have looked death in
its empty hood face;
dark abyss, soul sucking, gripping,
tearing, pulling, and
castrating silent predator;

Countless times I walked away
but not before death penetrated
my mind as I felt I had no protection
from death’s infection.

Now I sit in gloom in the darkness
of a room pondering the next time death
appears, will God adhere? I will speak;
“My flesh weak, my mind weak, and I
know that my soul is yours to keep.”

September 21, 2015

editors note: Not so easy; coming or going. – mh clay

Anger by Ally Malinenko

It took a month
after diagnosis,
little over, actually
before the anger
welled up inside
so fierce and hideous
like a black ink
that filled the cracks
between my teeth
and I spit it all back at
the world
with hot tears
and yelling
and accusations

and my dear,
you just sat there on the couch
your head tilted back
and let it wash over you.

Even when I told you
you weren’t trying hard enough
caring enough
Even when I was horrid
and scared and bitter
you sat there,
with your head
back, listening
your eyes half closed
your James Baldwin book
unopened
in your hand
after you had just told
me all about your plan
to read four novels by
every author you pick.

You tell me,
there’s nothing I can say
that’s going to be right.

and I lie and tell you you’re wrong
but the truth is
you are right
because right now
I hate the world
and everything in it

September 20, 2015

editors note: So hard, this journey; so deep, this pain. Sometimes anger is all we can muster; better than no feeling at all. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Of course you do! If we are doin' our jobs right, you should just about be addicted to gettin' a read fix every week!

Speakin' of fixes, this week's featured short story, "Cured" from Contributing Writer Jim Meirose is in yo' face! Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale: "How we see ourselves is crippling and a killer, but facing ourselves is what makes us fully grown humans."

Here's a few features to fill in the picture:

(photo by Tyler Malone)

Featureless, he sat before the therapist. Blank faced, serene, just a slit of a mouth in his smooth round face to go on, to speak, to answer; no eyes, no nose, nothing.

So how do you feel, asked the therapist. How do you feel today? What brings you here?

The mouth moved in the smooth peach fuzzed face making words.

The quest to grow old through drugs, he said. The quest to grow old through drugs has consumed me. I need a morphine drip, Doc—fix me up.

I’m not that kind of doctor, said the therapist. But why do you have this on your mind?

Because it is painful to have no face—I cannot see, I cannot breathe but through my mouth. I sit here.

Well we are here to solve that—tell me more.

I just am in pain—I need—

All at once, a heavily lined forehead appeared on his face.

I need the drugs—I—

The therapist exclaimed But look! A feature has appeared on your face!

The blank faced man’s finger came up and touched the forehead.

Ah—well. So it has—but I still need the morphine drip doctor—I am still in pain—the pain of growing old and nearing death—

You are not nearing death, said the therapist. He wrote something in his notepad and then said So go on—tell me more.

The mouth and forehead writhed on the eyeless noseless face. It did look painful. The blank faced man said It is all in the quest to eat the crust—the pot pies when serving four you always have to ask who wants theirs flipped and who doesn’t. I’m told it all lies in the quest to eat the crust and the need to grow old, with drugs—hey doc—how about a Percocet—I—

A chin formed under the mouth with a noticeable cleft and a small beard.

Look, exclaimed the therapist—look what has appeared! Touch your new chin! Touch it—

My God, said the blank faced man, touching his chin. So there is one—

Yes, keep talking keep talking that’s your cure—...

Keep READING, that's the cure to knowin' how this short ends! Get the rest of your fix 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...

Makin' Music,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.” ~ Pierre Bonnard

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Abandoned Amidst Greens” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar. To see more Mad works from Aniruddha, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we delved in the dust of eternal attics past; we picked apart root from bole, bark and branch exposed to soul; we braved the brunt of what comes after a predilection for taste on tongue of rousing laughter; we jumped the gap of love becoming; we made metallurgical clarity from mystical alchemy; we braced the briskness of change of season; we dallied in the sweet disruption of manic manager's interruption. There's no control, 'cept in how we roll... ~ MH Clay

NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE by Alan Britt

Tiny space . . . now clockwise . . . or left
to left, excuse me, I meant right; I don’t
appreciate interruptions, normally, but
reminds me of the time that I, hosting
a General Manager from Massachusetts,
& he entered a posh restaurant, Crystal City,
via the freight elevator.

Everyone cheered when from their kitchen
elevator filled with crates of cabbages,
corn husks & carrots, two sheepish suits
emerged.

Though well attended to, as I recall, water
glasses brimming, plates disappearing like
Houdini’s & desserts piling up like the usual
quid pro quo.

October 3, 2015

editors note: The magic of diversion; cabbages, suits and Houdini’s plates. I’ll take this for that. Yes! – mh clay

FAR ABOVE by Roger G. Singer

A ripple of air passes over a
curtain in an open window.

Papers tumble gently, trapped
at the base of a picket fence.

A weather vane signals
direction, twisting quickly.

A furious language descends.
Shutters slap senselessly
without rhythm.

Tree tops swirl like ocean
bottom seaweed.

Leaves and branches are
swallowed by wind’s appetite.

Clouds swell. The sky ignites
with jagged bristling tails.

Rain releases the beginning
of healing.

The storm finds reason to move.
Sounds fade to welcome release.

October 2, 2015

editors note: There’s a bite in the air this morning; I feel the season turning far above. – mh clay

In This Dream by A.J. Huffman

after Metallic Dreams, artist Osnat Tzadok

I am silver. Gold and bronze,
my brothers in armor (yet to be
forged), crawl from midnight’s fire.
We will join
battle against blasphemous sun.
The enemy of creation
is a molten eye. Clarity
holds a magnifying presence,
scars our skin. We prefer to pick
the scabs, let them run
like rivers amongst the fogged
echo of nocturne’s voice.

October 1, 2015

editors note: Which awakened sense preceded; eye or ear? The battle for ascendancy endures, elicits art. (This is exemplary ekphrasis; google the artist and work to see A.J.’s inspiration – excellent.) – mh clay

Do the Moon by Gregg Dotoli

Youth’s pre-love peace
Exited at light speed
Leaving a gutty paradise
Sizzling my heart as summer sand on bare feet
love emerged as my life emperor
and drove the me I became

September 30, 2015

editors note: Love’s challenge, capricious queen; to be gutty while not being gutted. – mh clay

Laughter by Nalini Priyadarshni

Camouflaged as spicy mangotini
that passed between their lips
it melted into a pool of thirst
on his warm tongue
her laughter was rousing
and he had an addictive personality

September 29, 2015

editors note: He’s jonesing for this, his delighful addiction; shaken AND stirred. – mh clay

Erosion by Andrea Bonaccorsi

Hushed words shared
of the ancient rivers
of blood that
scar the earth
like the ones that riddled
her arms
like tributaries

His story
has penetrated the soil
snapped the trees
and stabbed down

deep dark under
the soil
where gnarled roots wind
sedimentary thoughts

September 28, 2015

editors note: Getting to the root of the matter; wet words for parched earth. – mh clay

Still Up In The Attic by David J. Thompson

The trains didn’t stop at my hometown anymore,
but on firefly nights with windows wide open,
I could hear them rolling all the way down along
the Hudson, south to Grand Central or north to Albany,
then west to places I had never been. It was my world
then, the tract house neighborhood full of kids, the A&P
and Western Auto, the Tastee-Freeze, and our elementary school.
We played softball all summer long, games of ghost runners
and poison fields, bought icy, little green bottles of Coke
at the Sunoco station on the bike ride home. Our dads were back
from the war and the G.I. Bill to computer jobs at IBM
and highballs before dinner, tomato gardens in the backyard.
Moms kept house on coffee and cigarettes, served meals
like clockwork with church every Sunday.

But the summer games became summer jobs scooping ice cream
or painting houses, then the kids all scattered for college, or jobs
in Houston, Charlotte, or Atlanta. I heard the A&P got torn down
and the school closed, came to realize my parents were forgetting
any news I gave them on the phone, ran out of good excuses
for not getting home more often. They had our house air-conditioned
a few years before they sold it and moved down to Tampa for good
and died soon after. I came home the last time to get my yearbooks
and baseball glove still up in the attic, and I’m sure that down by the river
the trains were still running like always, but I couldn’t hear them anymore,
my bedroom windows now closed up tight.

September 27, 2015

editors note: Ghosts of the past in an attic now. (David is also a Contributing Artist to our Gallery – check it out.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place!

This week's featured story comes all the way from Russia with love... kinda. OK, a twisted and bloody love. But that's kinda what we've come to expect from Contributing Writer Oleg Razumovsky's stories. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "Coiffeuse":"What’s love got to with it? Everything. Always everything. Love has eternal blood on its hands."

Here's a bit to get the blood goin':

Mary worked as a coiffeuse and drank rather heavily. She even sold the toilet bowl in the apartment. Then she met a businessman named Volodya, fell in love with him, quit drinking and married. With Volodya’s help, Mary bought a bistro, where in the old days there got together all sorts of local drinking profligates. She herself often dropped in here and got drunk in the trash.

Mary opened in this iconic place an expensive hairdresser salon. They made here fashionable haircuts for two thousand rubles, and regular customers were poured thirty grams of free whiskey. To stay fit Mary started going to the fitness club and took lessons in karate. Then one day in the hairdresser salon, broke in a boy who shouted from the doorway that it was a robbery. Put the money fast on the barrel! Mary happened to be there, collecting revenue. She said to the guy, “Come here and take the money.”

The guy came up and she knocked him out immediately, as she had already well mastered the techniques of karate. She dragged the unlucky robber to the back room and chained him to the radiator. She fed him Viagra and forced him to fuck her for three days while Volodya was in Egypt. Finally, Mary let go of the kid and even gave him a thousand rubles. That stupid idiot ran to the police station and said that he was raped. The cops loved the story and were amused. They decided to put Mary and the guy in one cell and watch them...

Stop there? Really?! There's no way you can! So do what you gotta do & pull the proverbial trigger and get the rest of this read on here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of October (aka 10.07.15) at 8:00 sharp, when we will swirl it up madly in the LIVE way that we do every month now for OVER 10 years! This month we are featuring poet/singer/storyteller/comedian Alex Pogosov! (as Total Cult)

After our feature set we urge you stick around to get yourself a spot on our list… first come, first on the list! Which means… get there early!

Come one, come all! Mad poets, musicians, actors, singers, circus freaks & other miscellaneous loco locals… come-n-strut-yo-stuff. Come to participate. Come to appreciate. Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call Mad Swirl.

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

P.P.S. AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin’ madness. Here’s who we will be featuring next month:

November: Mad Eulogy

P.P.S. t’was 11 years ago this coming November that Mad Swirl met Absinthe Lounge. In those years we’ve shared a-many mad mic moments upon Absinthe’s stage. But as they say, all good things must come to an end… / On November 4th Mad Swirl will be hosting our last event at Absinthe Lounge. But don’t fret, Mad Swirl’s monthly mic madness isn’t goin’ away, we’re just gonna be swirlin’ our madness upon different stages. Where might those stages be? You’ll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned!

•••••••

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...

Strongly Pleasurin'’,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“When you look at art made by other people, you see what you need to see in it.” ~ Alberto Giacometti

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Makeshift Door” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar. To see more Mad works from Aniruddha, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... our fingers bled to fill a small room; our buffoon brother, who'd lost his way, was beckoned back with a PSA; our balloons nearly burst in the whack, knack and knack; our resolve arrested, we bled till we bested the answer to the question; our fill came full in putamus, ergo sumus; our garden grew temptation, transgression, expulsion - apples from the snake within; our shaman sister spoke balm, our storm-blown spirits to becalm. Our swirl is our world. Our wonder... ~ MH Clay

Mending Manifestor by Desmene M. Statum

Place the palm of hand
over heart
press firmly and
send white light
like lightning
through the chest
into ventricles.
See it in the top
of the mind
as the chest feels it
through the aorta.
Sense the energy purifying
jagged electricity heals and soothes.
Follow along to blood vessels and capillaries
open awake
true and hopeful.
One knows what they are made of
knew before how to manifest
the materials needed to mend themselves.
Cup forgiveness in hands and bring it to the inner eye
quench the drought-racked thoughts
replenish dried out connections
to the inner healing mother energy
do not linger within
burst forth
reach out to the hands of earth
walk through rain soaked fields
embrace the ground
with sizzling feet
atone to the the muddy earth
neutralize.
Nature floods and cleanses
anxiousness
all worries lift to be burnt
in the atmosphere and fall back down
on loved ones as blessings and prayers.
Dance into the sinking sun
until the pain burns away
caloric fire therapy
leaves the body more
spent
than addiction to a lover
could ever inflict.
First thoughts in mornings
should be part of a practice
gratitude and peace
Do not carry worries
through the day
carry only water
cleansing the thoughts.

October 10, 2015

editors note: Here’s a panacea for the sick in spirit. Take it from Dr. Dez; your Main Manifestor! – mh clay

Orchard by Tricia Marcella Cimera

She remembers
a bird called out
two knowing notes –
Yes, No? Yes, No?

She remembers
the man’s one question.
Too late her answer –
the worm had turned.

She lay
beneath a conspiring tree.
Above her – hung
his reddened face.

She saw
a broken branch
thin bent limbs.
All around – flawless apples.

She rose
left her faint shape
pressed in the wet earth –
her fallen remains.

She does not
remember the man’s name.
Like a serpent –
I cast it out.

October 9, 2015

editors note: And he’s been wandering in this wilderness ever since… – mh clay

ENOUGH by Beate Sigriddaughter

I live
therefore
I am

good enough.

October 8, 2015

editors note: Good enough for me, too! What do you think of that, Renee? (With this submission we welcome Beate into our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

why would you by Rob Dyer

she felt vulnerable
so why scream naked

he demanded vision
so why gouge his eyes

they pardoned the past
so why celebrate then

why would a dying man
slit his own throat

for the pow of it all
for the change
the liberation

for an unspoken ism, left out in the bold
for Victory
for art or Love or maybe…for the magic of it all
the Madness of it all

for that certain fracture of time to heal
or to explode a chasm of indifference
for a soft-souled warehouseman to breathe

for a D flat solo under a tin horn moon
for the snap of a snare
the clap of a heart
for the going rate of freedom

for a sapling to spread open
for the taste of generosity
or for a lane change

or maybe…
just for the blood of it all

October 7, 2015

editors note: It’s “bloody work,” but it’s gotta be done. Why wouldn’t you? – mh clay

Throng of balloons by Volodymyr Bilyk

Throng of balloons
fled
because of the pinch to be sure
that
something in the air happened in a silent way.

Some quail and tilt
and then:

Apt pear appears
all over the sudden
abruptly stopping gorgeous throes;

elliptic shadow
falls –
and bubbles
come up in the air
to fight with naughty cloud of balloons
before the sun
because ridiculous must come off big.

And then: the clash is so and so
and lots of fluff and knack and knack
So eyes get very weary,
obviously
blenching back behind the lids – whack!

And then it’s over,
barring tingle, tingle, dither, heat

enough
to be thought and be mauled.

October 6, 2015

editors note: Enthralled in this throng – “be thought, be mauled,” be dazzled. Whack! – mh clay

PSA 2015 by Gayle Bell

To all the victims and survivors of the current genocides/holocausts
and more specifically to the brother who wore deer antlers on his head
while his white co-worker-agents dressed in camo and guns posed with
him laughing for the camera. Brother man, when you got up to shave
that morn, did the foam on the mirror say, nigger die

The predatory nature of…
5 nanoseconds of fame 2015
Am I still smoking that shit
I could have sworn I quit 2 decades ago
Ms Wanda can you still hear us
Ms Maya are we still communicating
Are the hailing frequencies still open
Are the 4 Kings assembled for the summit
Or maybe I should just title this
PSA 2015

October 5, 2015

editors note: To countermand the current hashtag sensation; this Public Service Announcement to color coded folks, for whom privilege is hard-gained, if ever, but mostly never granted… – mh clay

Once Upon a Time by Joseph D. DiLella

I wrote
so many words
my fingers exploded, bled
red across the keyboard, down the white desk top
until the bones showed, exposing
the exact nature of the thoughts, emotions
carried into the letters and truths
I so sought out in midnight runs
to serenity.

Went to the doctor the next morning
asked if this condition was a permanent one.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is – unless”
“Unless what!” I bellowed, still in pain
the wrapping around the digits soaked.

“Unless you cease the unnecessary tears
you unveil. All might be lost
because every molecule of your being
is connected to a greater whole, and the ideas
you spread across the pages weep
when you tell your tale too many times
to too many people”

The well-intentioned ER medic re-bandaged my wounds
gave me a shot in the arm and a prescription
before shooing me out of her hospital.

So here I am, yet again, while the moon is full
hoping beyond hope her diagnosis was incorrect.

But if she’s correct,
and my hands are the ones to blow this time
I think I’ll just stay at home
let nature do its work
reflect on the purity of God, the Universe
before taking my final nap, shaking off
this mortal coil, knowing that my final thoughts
were those that needed to be shouted
not to the mountain tops
but to the world from a tiny room
filled with photos of my child, my girlfriend,
and all the other memories that made me
fill the galaxy full of love...

October 4, 2015

editors note: Once upon a time is ever and always waiting for the storyteller to begin. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place!

This week's featured story comes Contributing Poet Haris Adhikari. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "Dreams in the Kingdom of Chaos":"Dreams of beauty, dreams of death. Dream a world not your own, only in your head. The daylight has lasted for so long and for so many centuries, but it will never save us from what takes our minds in the night. "

Here's a bit to get ya goin':

photo by Tyler Malone

There was a man in the kingdom of Chaos. His name was Melodious Music. He was all contrasted by the warring elements of the kingdom, by their
uproars, their thundering beats and plays. He was silent, all pervading among the syllables of coarse voices, hence being-less the passers-by believed him to be.

For decades there came no Columbus. And one day, God took pity on him, and sent a poet called Platobanish to get inspired from him and write the best of mellifluous lines that gave smell of wisdom and wit. And so did the poet, with amazing patience and hope, paying no attention to what the kiddish leaders were swearing and yelling at.

The same poet brought Melodious Music composed beautifully in his insightful poetry to my eerie reverie today. And I was so happy listening to his words, but then I just woke up suddenly hearing Chaos laughing at the top of his voice. He was dancing like a crazy shaman beating a drum, humdrum humdrum. He was threatening the poet in my dream!

Get the rest of this read on here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Oh what a night it was in the land of Swirl’n mic Mad-ness! As Swirve started their jazzy madness, the crowd found their way to the stage with their heads boppin’ and their fingers snappin’. As the last notes were fading away, hosts Johnny O & MH Clay got the show goin’ with an introduction of our Alex Pogosov aka Total Cult! Alex unleashed upon us a poetic & musical feast! But no worries, you can still view it on our Mad Swirl UStream channel.

After a brief intermission, the mic got opened up to the mad ones who filled the Lounge. And what a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music ensued! Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Feature:
Alex Pogosov

Mad Cast:
Joey Cloudy
Opalina Salas
Carlos Salas
Maggie Smith
James Barrett Rodehaver aka Bear The Poet
Desmene M. Statum
BA
Ephrain
River
Wes
Vic Victory

See who was who right here. (photos courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez.

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris Curiel & Gerard Bendiks) for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

More HUGE thanks to fantastic photogs Dan Rodriguez (he captured these scenes) for sharing his mad eye and giving y’all a taste of the night’s mic madness.

And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin’ mic.

We look forward to ALL the m-adventures to come! Stay tuned…

November:Mad Swirl Eulogy

•••••••

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

Seein’ It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Commitment and creativity cannot be captured and handcuffed. Inspiration cannot be jailed. The heart cannot be contained.” ~ Gary Zukav

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Ruins remain…” (above) by featured artist Aniruddha Sastikar. To see more Mad works from Aniruddha, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we holy rolled to wholly hold another's heart; we heard a crooner as he fell, singing to the depths of hell; we lounged with lizards, bit down bugs; we slept rough, grew tough, in Gaia's girth found enough; we took teardrops, dithered in dew; we picked pleasure from the pokes of time; we heard sounds of sadness, cries from beyond, crimes now gone, but never. No lookin' back, no mirrors, no blood. ~ MH Clay

Living In a Mythical City by Chuck Taylor

I live in a mythical city where almost no one wants to be. People appear guilty. A plantation once sat on a hill in the middle of town and slaves once slaved in the cotton fields on the nearby muddy bottoms of the river. People feel ashamed.

Many stay inside as much as possible. The streets are full of tinted window cars, yet the stores are often empty. If you bump into someone in the city they say, This town, it’s got the movies and the mall and that’s all, that’s all.

You hear, I’m leaving town on a business trip. You hear, we’ll be over in the capital city for the weekend. You hear, we’ll be down on the beach on the coast, and may be doing some birding. You hear, we’re driving down to the big city to see an opera or Bob Dylan.

Late at night you hear the dead plantation slaves singing from unmarked graves. I get up from my bed and go to the window to hear better, but never can fully grasp what words are being sung.

Of course the city has its blusterers. Having been a part of the South that lost the civil war, the people love their guns and are filled with patriotic piss and vinegar. Young men pretend they’re military and to keep in shape form columns that march the twelve miles west to the river and back, singing songs about how they will save America. Then they do their praying.

What seems to actually save the city is drugs and alcohol. Many I know whose hearts are broken live at home in cups and dope, or spend their nights in a multitude of bars.

A week ago a downtown crowd lynched the poet laureate off the abandoned theatre’s movie marquee. An alligator was caught slinking down the main street.

Years earlier a distraught man torched the library. Hunks of petrified wood surround the graves of confederate officers. The newspaper says who is smiling today, and carries tales of bizarre murders.

Nothing gets aborted.

October 17, 2015

editors note: These would codify the myth of perfection to prosecute the imperfect. Their justice is blindfolded so she’ll never look into a mirror. (With this submission, we welcome Chuck into the raving ranks of our Contributing Poets. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

A Spark of Time by Chiranjibi Niroula

Time is going on its own course,
I also have been chasing it
for a long time.

My voyage has been longer than my expectation,
I witness the features of life happily.
Ups and downs! Ups and downs!

Day goes into dark, I foresee for a new day,
Wow, a new day, a new moment, a new time!
It comes again,
I like to chase it, I like to go with it,

One after another, I have got a new horizon,
My horizontal expectation is merely matched to other,
I see the rings in the sky,
The rings of colors,
I attempt to keep them,
I keep on standing,
I keep on praising!

Again the gigantic time stands at my front,
It bangs me while crossing by it,
I smile and attempt through it,
It is nothing for me and for my voyage,
As I know the thrones of time poke me,
I feel pleasure with such pokes!

I change the route, the route of mixed phenomena,
I can’t stand on mixture,
As I have different identity,
I’m an identity of madness,
I’m the identity of poverty,
I can’t stand on abundance of wealth,
As I have to see the struggle of the voiceless,
So, my path is different.

So, my time is different!

I see the path of white drop converting into the blue mass,
The huge mass, the masses of madness!
I envision to escort with madness,
To have change,
To have justice,
To have equality,
To have humanity!

So I keep on standing…..
I keep on moving…….
I keep on struggling,
Oh, god! Let me further go into madness,

To get a spark of time!

October 16, 2015

editors note: Our Nepalese brother goes through the gamut to gain a little more madness and a spark. Yes! – mh clay

Today was like by Ilhem Issaoui

Today was like no other
The blooming almonds
Burgeoning again
The dewdrops dispersed
How I wish they were still
To enlighten my sorrows
And tinge my pathos
with sumptuous tears
still in that
I see your gleaming forehead
A sunflower lofty and well-bred

October 15, 2015

editors note: A new love; seen everywhere, in everything. – mh clay

Independence Day by Paul Hellweg

wilderness backpack on July 4th
first ever typing drunk in a tent poem
single malt Scotch and rainwater
experiencing nature’s power on display
not missing fireworks
lightning and thunder and wind
flashes Tesla coil bright
kettle drum booming
wind playing hide and seek with sanity
rain drops dancing on tent canopy

Oh wilderness, voluptuous maiden of our heritage
no road signs, no tombstones, no poverty of spirit
only more and more horizons and
destinations uncharted
listen when the wind talks
heed Thor’s hammering
smell damp earth and air ozone fresh
sing with your soul as it wakes up
truly, life begins
where sidewalks end

October 14, 2015

editors note: Yes, it does! So, get out there (and remember: dig your latrine downstream). – mh clay

Some Small Lizards by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Some small lizards,
All green fierceness,
Protective of sill plus
Sunny stoop, assembled.

News rang around that
Distant critters, chitin-
Covered clans, marched
Land to land, determined
To achieve biotic conquest.

Sticky tongues adequately
Acceded most of those bugs
To space in reptilian intestines.
Scaly’s newest cohort prospered.

October 13, 2015

editors note: One day, we’ll compete for the same protein. Watch and learn! – mh clay

LADY, YOU SHOT ME #29 by Darren C. Demaree

He got to see there is
everything. He got to see
there is nothing.

It would have been
his greatest song
if the bullets hadn’t pierced

his lungs the way they did.
Just two and a half more
minutes of air

& he could have shown us
the entire depth of the well
we all swim in.

October 12, 2015

editors note: Everything and nothing; with a little more air, he could have sung more of both. (RIP, Sam Cooke.) – mh clay

The Price of Empathy by Keith Landrum

Hallelujah came
on Sunday
shouting
and stomping
wet eyes

I was a child
innocent
oblivious

a woman runs
past my pew
screaming
in a language
I can’t
understand

“Everything will be okay!”
I cry to her
because I didn’t know
what else to say

my mother orders me
to remain
silent

but…the woman
she is screaming
she is crying
I felt
I needed
to
help

my mother put her hand
over my mouth

I didn’t understand
I felt lost

but I have come
to realize
that

some people
have never appreciated
my concern
for others

October 11, 2015

editors note: An empath evolves; learns actions are better… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then let's get this reading par-tay started!

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "The Warehouse" by Hannah Frishberg:"The violent truth of change is that it’s not what’s there now, it’s what was once standing in your memories."

Here's a few beats to get your eyes movin' and groovin':

"Sunrise Over the City That Never Sleeps" (photo by Hannah Frishberg)

We’d cop 40s from the mafia front on Smith and Union (the one on the corner, not the bodega next to the pizza joint—they’d just laugh at our fakes and tell us to try across the street) and run down President till we hit the water. “Take the F to Carroll and walk to the river,” we’d tell anyone who came late, “it’s the big warehouse with the black netting. Duck the fence and come to the roof.”

Sometimes, especially later, when security got tight, kids would pussy out right in front of the building. Just mumble some excuse and turn around, walk back to the train, after trekking all the way to the edge of Red Hook.

By the end, I couldn’t really blame them. The construction guys strung lights through the place, put the barbed wire on the inside of the scaffolding and booby-trapped the stairs with wood planks. Once the crew made it to the roof, everyone was bloody, shirts were ripped, faces streaked with sweat and dirt. That was near the end of our time at the Warehouse, though. The beginning was beautiful...

How dare we stop the groove there? Teases we be because we really want you to read the rest 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' Free,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“I want to speak, to sing to total strangers. It's my way of talking to the world.” ~ Adrian Mitchell

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Three Doors, New Mexico” (above) by featured artist David J. Thompson.

Featured artist, David J. Thompson, is back at it in this second batch of mad visuals – old, chipped, decayed, and decrepit never looked quite this good before. But that’s the wonder of art, isn’t it? Making the ugly, beautiful. The forgotten, found again. – Madelyn Olson

To see more Mad works from David, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we clambered to cross a cruel communion; we expelled a skulker, seductive sulker; we named a shadow not ourselves, a different grasp on walk on words; we sought to dance through life's romance then rise in resurrection; we turned words like leaves, stacked in autumn's sheaves; we indulged ourselves in dimension hopping to do some new reality shopping; we found home in free expression not tied to place, but purpose. We live. We write. We are... ~ MH Clay

Home That Never Was by Lisa Shields

Born to a harsh place,
Concrete lots that tore my knees
when I tripped skipping rope,
but from the cliffs of Jersey City,
you could see a finger width of the Hudson,
the dividing line between NY chic,
and something else back then.

My sister told people
we lived in Parsippany
because that didn’t bear the JC taint.
And I fiercely protected my home town,
though it never felt like home to me.

Home didn’t happen till 52 years passed,
and I found myself in Harwich Port,
one of too many residents in a big house
crafted by an ocean going man
they say may have been a slaver.

It stands well,
weathered by so many years,
and filled with too many lives,
my tiny bit of heaven
where the raised voices
are never raised at me.
Where I sleep each night
in nun’s bed simplicity,
but still soundly, at peace.

The ocean a mere mile away,
Red River beach at dusk or dawn,
the distant cliffs a bit of Chatham,
facing Nantucket Sound to the South.

I can’t write there,
the words dance away,
still it is my home,
my modest garret all mine
for a hundred a week,
this worn and wondered house.

I never dreamed of Cape Cod nights,
never wished to this sort of life.
But here I am, and here I stay,
a washashore with a heart full of dreams
Jersey City never knew.

October 24, 2015

editors note: Find that home where the words dance to you. No place like it. – mh clay

ANOTHER DIMENSION by David Subacchi

When you enter another dimension
It’s not like a different room
Or a new country
It’s not like illegal drugs
Or excess alcohol
It’s far more serious

Time is suspended
You are without control
A spectator only
Unable to communicate
With those around you
Your soul hangs in the balance

Most return quickly
To familiar reality
But others struggle hard
To stay where they are
For they have seen angels
And they want to see more

October 23, 2015

editors note: Stay on to game on. The angels have seen us, too. – mh clay

October by Susandale

Hold autumn close
When the sun strikes broadside
Reach into her heart of gold
One last moment

Plunder her golden orb
On the path of summer’s glory
A whispered lullaby
To rock cradle of sleep

October – on the outskirts of summer dreams
Drink deep the poem of autumn

October 22, 2015

editors note: Live it. Write it. Be it. – mh clay

Entrance Door by Allison Grayhurst

You stand at the entrance, robbed and dazed,
alone with the rain.
Your school is poor, much like water on a grave,
it cannot restore the yellowing clover. But I believe in you,
in the parting of your eyelids and the outpouring
of your creativity.
I saw your eyes, written with the depth of the wind.
Your sorrow is not easy,
but the power of it within you
will play out into an unimagined liberty.
A longed-for communion
will possess you and bring you barefoot out of exile.
I don’t know why this disappointment must claim victory
or why joy and intimacy
were not open mouths, parting, to match your ageless purity.
I don’t understand the burning, the collapse, and why
the Earth is so hard. But I understand you,
and what a blossom of magic you are.
You are meant to know this sorrow before
you can be happy. You are meant to dance out your grief,
your rage, the incapability
of others. Balance yourself here. I will help you.
I will kiss your hand. This is not random. Disaster is yours.
But the animals know, and I know, you are close
(so very close)
to the last release before
resurrection.

October 21, 2015

editors note: Encouraging epithets for exiles. Arise! Enter your escape… – mh clay

When you are not yourself by James Diaz

There will be days in which you wonder-
why is it you persist,
you and not the other person
some thirty years ago,
much different tone of voice
way that you sat in chairs even
emotions corresponding
to different hands and different feet.

You are carried by a thin fabric
whatever it might be
love’s territory
or the impossible belief in movement
the disorganization of your shadow
finding wall
by early light

then sent home
with the wrong name.

October 20, 2015

editors note: Who am us, anyway? – mh clay

The Artful Seduction of Malice by James Robert Rudolph

You pair up with me like a lover sick
for contact any contact but you carry
harm with you in your sweat and
on your tongue and in your bed and
in your eyes you mean me harm you do.

You court on long days when sunsets
bloom peach on my lips and
you stand a silhouette dark
in my doorway cheek bones
pale and angled just so
just so I alone can see the
sharp small shadows they throw
on the coming night.

Your voice burrs on the air
between us and the air
thrums slightly then ripples
my chin seconds later and I know
right then I know I will spurn you in
a rupture of defiance So go for
you are not true you are not true
do you hear? Pack up your skulk and
disease and sweet talk for there is no
we with us, not yet.

October 19, 2015

editors note: In time, she’ll wend her way. She will be us and you will be lost; deliciously, bitterly lost. – mh clay

Sacrificial Communion by Scott Thomas Outlar

I’m going to hunt you down –
I swear I’ll track you to the ends
of the earth.

I’m going to taste your flesh –
I swear I’ll eat you to the bone
and drink the blood.

You can’t escape me –
Three days in hiding are not enough
to put me off.

You’re going to be all mine –
Run to your cross and hang there high
but it won’t save.

October 18, 2015

editors note: Abaddon invites Josh over for juice and crackers. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? This one will get you wonderin' what that was that bit you then, who the biter is now, what will be, next go 'round.

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "A Previous Life" by Donal Mahoney:"We all have venom inside us. It’s in our very blood."

Here's a lil venom for ya:

photo by Tyler Malone

It was their wedding night and Priya didn’t want to tell her new husband all about it but Bill kept asking where she had learned to walk like that. Finally she told him it was inherited from a previous life, a life she had lived many years ago in India, not far from Bangalore. She had been a cobra kept in a charmer’s basket.

When the charmer found a customer, usually a Brit or Yank, he would play his flute and Priya would uncoil and rise from the basket. Her hood would swell and she would sway as long as the customer had enough money to keep paying the charmer. She never tried to bite a customer but some of the men weren’t the nicest people in the world. You think they would know better than to tease a cobra.

Being a charmer’s cobra was Priya’s job for many years until she finally grew weary of the tiny mice her keeper would feed her so she bit him and he died. His family had Priya decapitated but she was born again later in a small village, this time as a human, a baby girl. After she matured into a young woman, she had a walk, men said, reminiscent of a cobra’s sway...

After you let that sink into your veins, get the rest of the story 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...

Speakin'& Singin' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” ~ John Keats

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Air Conditioned” (above) by featured artist David J. Thompson. To see more Mad works from David, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we wept over old wounds, snapshots far, brought near; we fostered new fluency in compassionate currency; we shelved a shell, occupant absent, identity unknown; we viewed a vagabond search for home (and love), still looking in Nome; we sought no sound sweeter than a humming heart beater; we wondered the weight of whether brains equate with a feather; we listened, lovesick lovers, for the lowing of a herd of words. Words, our shepherd; we, lost sheep - looking to be led. ~ MH Clay

LOVE POEM by Derrick Gaskin

(for DC)

I remember walking through quiet landscapes
Of English poetry, feeling distant nostalgia,
Drawing out of shadows all those words,
Ideas, metaphors, similes, the usual mechanics
Great poets used in synthetic dreams –
Half asleep, your lightning hit me awake.
For hours, days, an echo of that flash
Rattled around my head – what was it?
Waiting, crouching in a hedge of words
Pulling back dead leaves of autumn, I searched –
And there it was again, streaking across the sky.
Hauling myself up, starting to run, trying to find
The exact spot where you pinned that thunderbolt,
Something so different from the mundane,
From the ‘normal’ careful herd of words,
Like cattle meandering from an open gate,
While yours was a stampede of syllables.
Somehow I tried to avoid the crush of images,
Grabbed one of your poems by the horns.
Slowed it down. But tame it? Impossible.

And that’s how it’s been for 7 years.
The maturity of youth – would that fit?
The rush of a teenager already adult?
But the other evening I saw
Millions of wings soar into the heavens.
Like words in your poems, each bird
Separate, yet close to its neighbour.
Never touching, turning, rising, falling,
A cloud, a murmuration of starlings,
Its amazing shape, ever changing,
As if a master was painting
A living canvas. And then the finale,
As the last line of feathered bodies
Completed their aerial dance, just as night
Fell – but not fallen – the sounds of words
Chattering in my brain. Knowing that
Once those songs have been written
In the sky, or crafted down on your page,
This world would never be the same,
Could never be as perfect, again.

October 31, 2015

editors note: Ah, such love; sought by poets, all. “…a stampede of syllables.” To be trampled by them – divine. Thanks, Derrick! (Another mad missive from Del on his page; a vision of things to come? – check it out.) – mh clay

Beams of Thought by Heath Brougher

The motion of thought
[pro] motion of thought—

is it good for thought to languish
and lean and loaf
and not leap?

the brain is a muscle
slowly turning to blubber
in this post-postindustrial society,
this day and age, please
Science help [but not overly] untether all the wrinkles

the brain weighs a feather
falls just as fast,
right Science?

October 30, 2015

editors note: Ignorance has the best marketing. Right, Science? – mh clay

air traffic controllers lead the nation in suicides by Ashley Naftule

If I could, I would
tie all my words to the wind;
like notes wrapped around
the legs of a carrier pigeon.

I would let the wind free
to pollute the earth with
my syllables, just to know
that somewhere
under this blue moon
you’d be breathing me in.

I can think of no better use
for all this language
than for it to live
for a few seconds
in your lungs.

If I could help
your heart
keep beating,
I’d spend the rest of my life
using all of the world’s sheet music
as toilet paper.

No music is sweeter
to these ears
than your
ba-dum
ba-dum
ba-dum

October 29, 2015

editors note: A turn of verse to keep the beat to your telltale heart. – mh clay

Homeless in Nome by Donal Mahoney

I was beautiful once,
the homeless lady tells
the young worker

who’s filling out forms
before assigning the lady
a bed for the night.

She’s been homeless
for months since
arriving from Dallas.

She’s looking for a job
and maybe a husband
but hasn’t found either.

The worse thing, she says,
is the weather in Nome.
It’s nothing like Dallas.

With snow in the winter
and rain in the summer
in Nome she needs

something to crawl under.
Often it’s a man, she says,
with no home either.

October 28, 2015

editors note: Why, in god’s name, leave the one to dwell in the other? Well, ‘s easy – one rhymes with home, the other with malice. – mh clay

John Doe by Timothy L Rodriguez

The answer is John Doe
A name without a name,
A person without identity,
Sometimes a covered corpse
But always the chance victim.

Between mirror and face
No glimmer of recognition,
A stranger stares back mildly
Curious, doubtless confused
As to whom he really is.

Who’s this gaper that meets
Me with a smirk like health itself?
The grin is way worn and the face
Bears scant account of any deed, black
Or otherwise. Did BTK appear
As peaceful to his chance dead?

What line of work calls him?
What system of belief? Which one
Rules — work, faith or another
Master? I still don’t like the lips;
The bias suggests ridicule.

I do not trust this man
Who seems bereft of any answers
And doubtless rife with excuses.
Just look at how he holds himself,
Immune to the question—
Who am I?

October 27, 2015

editors note: All deeds are drained through Doe-ness. No Doe questions; only we are asking. (RIP, BTK.) – mh clay

CURRENCY by Stefanie Bennett

Found trespassing
In my night-climbing shoes
And little else…
At the third rung
I told them, ‘I’m assembling
Uranus and the five moons
In less traditional
Circuitry.’ For this
They threatened
To lock me away, my daughter.

Your grandmother, back in
Forty-one, was the keeper
Of several interlocking
Platinum rings [history’s
Repertoire leaves
Its trail of orderliness] but
Know how she swapped
That war time dowry, worth
A fifth of gross entitlement,
For sacks of rice and sweet potatoes.

These days you cry
Songs of losing; as if I, none of us
Had ever known the pinch
Of letting fall
What was crystallized
– Or consciously aspired.
Damn it! I taught you not
To accept diamond dealerships:
They’re none other than
The dual wall-eyed bitch –, sobriety.

Two moon discs are left us. These
You’ll divide between
Your choreographed children.
May they understand
Compassion is measured
By wealth inherent
In all
Its bright
Abundance
…My daughter.

October 26, 2015

editors note: Crystals drop and shatter; aspirations scatter. Seek the brighter thing. Yes! – mh clay

Doesn’t really go away by David E. Howerton

It breaks you old pain
suffering from what wasn’t your
fault feeling tears come.
Look at old pictures taken then
your face looked lost now you’re home.

October 25, 2015

editors note: Photo fixed, your perfect pain; framed for all to see, but only you to feel. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Good, 'cos we got just the one for you to trip on!

This week's featured story, "Acid, Mom" by Kenta Maniwa, is sure to send you a bit down the rabbit hole. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say:"It’s never what others think, it’s what we think they know, and that’s as crippling as any drug."

Here's a bit to trip on:

photo by Tyler Malone

When I was 16 my mom told me not to do acid. She told me a cautionary story about two people she knew who took acid and drove on the highway. It was late at night and they were the only drivers on the road. Then they saw a refrigerator in the middle of the highway. The guy in the passenger seat convinced the driver that they were tripping and that the refrigerator was not actually there. The driver drove into the refrigerator. The car swerved off the road and flipped several times. They both ended up dying. My mom told me that acid was bad because it permanently altered your brain chemistry in a negative way. She also said that acid drained your spinal fluid, turned you crazy, and, in some cases, made you crash into mysterious refrigerators on the highway...

Keep on trippin' on down the road right here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve this 1st Wednesday of November (aka 11.04.15) as we part ways and say a fond farewell to the only open mic home we’ve known, Absinthe Lounge. It’s to be a Mad Eulogy of sorts. This month we will pay our respects, reminiscing on the swirlin’ scenes we’ve seen, sharing what the drunken muses have gifted us these past 132 1st Wednesday’s at the Lounge…

(pssst… before we go on, we think we should say that Mad Swirl’s monthly mic madness isn’t goin’ away. we’re just gonna be swirlin’ our madness upon different stage at our new open mic home… The Underpass Bar located at 650 Exposition Ave in Dallas… starting the 1st Wednesday in December. and yes, Swirve will still be swirlin’ up the madness with us!)

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

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

P.P.S. AND, as you may or may not know, every 1st Wednesday we get all giddy with the swirlin’ madness. Here’s who we will be featuring next month:

December at THE UNDERPASS BAR: A Cool-tide Swirl-a-bration!

•••••••

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...

Alive & Kickin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“A work of art is a confession.” ~ Albert Camus

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“The Hidden Truth” (above) by featured artist David J. Thompson. To see more Mad works from David's, and our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we sat in a seat of puzzlement, conundrums filled our firmament; we grabbed Gaia by the gullet, drained her dry; we handled the candle of a carpet vandal; we made a rabbit disappear, came up, god knows, there or here; we scaled the scaffold of memory to see a paper reality; we shared a shepherd's shame of sheep devoured (the goats come next); we divvied days of life on earth into shells shot scattered, short on girth. We have what we make for living's sake. ~ MH Clay

18,515 days today by Jonathan Beale

Those counting blocks
From the demographic monsters
Changing growing twittering
Stumbling on new blocks
From those initial bloody squawks
Screams and coughs
Not metered or rhymed
18,515 days ago
Those spent vessels lie
Like cartridges
Smoking for a while,
They rattle on the ground
As they are spent.

November 7, 2015

editors note: So, praise the lord and pass the ammunition. (We welcome Jonathan to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out!) – mh clay

Sheep by Chris Butler

The sheep
feel a false
sense of security
under the sheepdog’s
vigilant eyes
after the black sheep,
with their fearsome
wool of darkness
are outcaste to
the outskirts,
until a few
white wools
lose their taste
for grazing
and radicalize,
then cannibalize
their own kind,
then overthrow
their watchful
protector down
it’s hill,
as a pack
of gluttonous wolves
lurks along the tree line,
impatiently awaiting
their sporting feast.

And the goats
watch the slaughter
helplessly from a
higher elevation.

November 6, 2015

editors note: It’s safe to look down while there’s still higher ground. – mh clay

The Scaffold by Bhargab Chatterjee

The scaffold screwed on
The stony wall of memory
Is strong enough.
Faces on the shelves
Cry
And laugh
Like mad men
Who often make me forget
Light
And darkness,
Steel,
The plants in my garden
Or, even
My pet dog,
Waiting for me,
Down.
He forgives my all tortures
But forgets nothing.
Grueling climbing
On the scaffold,
Reeks of lubricant.
The steel pipes creak
Even far away.
In my pocket
The smart phone vibrates
Occasionally
But I never shove my hand
Into it.
The garbage men
Move to and fro
On the street
Like ants.
They are burning
With the summer’s sun
On the dry paper
Of work.
I observe from the top
How all the streets crowd
Around the paper.

November 5, 2015

editors note: Memory or imagination; both look the same on paper. – mh clay

God-knows-where by Grant Tarbard

Thus came silence

This resplendent animation is a
racket, a Three-card Monte that flows as
a scarlet ribbon but always congeals
as a skeleton in the burial
soil, a cranium broken to let all
the milk doves free. This land of marrow is
a cankerous ruse of resurgence, a
slow dismantling of this concealed reach, like
parents taking down their kids Meccano
set. These bones are a magicians top hat,
you can grab at the rabbit’s ear of spring;
poof! It’ll disappear in a puff of smoke.
Beyond the sky of winter’s chill there lies
a clot of midnight and orchid sunset.

November 4, 2015

editors note: Poetic prestidigitators – we disappear; then come up here, there or god-knows-where. – mh clay

Bags of Sage Are Just for Cooking by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

She lights a candle
and I think she wants it
to imply wisdom

when all it means
is that the power has
gone out

but again
with the candle

holding it out
in ceremonial
fashion

dripping wax all over the carpet
which doesn’t seem wise
in the least.

November 3, 2015

editors note: One waxes wise while the other wonders. – mh clay

At Meridian Hill Park by Marianne Szlyk

Beneath the welcoming oak tree,
only a block from U Street,
we listen to cicada strings

as the ground pushes back
against our hip bones like suspicion.

Still Earth seems to forgive, her pulse fluttering.
She offers us water; instead, we drink
from tiny bottles we don’t recycle.

She will follow us home from the park;
we will be driving, listening to the old songs,

not thinking of her.

November 2, 2015

editors note: We think she’s a pushover; take what we want. One day, she’ll do the taking… – mh clay

Inside the House of Conundrums by Mel Waldman

I
sit with my puzzles
in
a
womb chair

&
kiss my coconut-scented tome,
a chimerical book of mysticism

&
slow-moving
sweet phantasmagoria – the ethereal Book of Paradoxes,

&
I taste impossibilities
&

swallow a sea of hallucinatory colors falling from the Heavens,
bathed
in lapis lazuli, the deep cobalt blue of the divine that opens the 3rd Eye
&
heals

&
suddenly,

a diamond and pink topaz necklace
sashays
into
my sanctum sanctorum and swirls around me
&
multicolored butterflies follow and encircle me
&

within
the holy ring of whirling butterflies
&

dancing necklace,
I
sit with my puzzles

in
a
womb chair

in
my sacred room
inside
the House of Conundrums
&

watch
the holy flow of butterflies

in
pink and gold and rose, wine red and white

&
the other-worldly sensuous diamond and pink topaz necklace
dancing around my puzzled face
for
eternity

November 1, 2015

editors note: From womb to questions, pretty questions, back to womb. (repeat…) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place!

This week's featured story comes Contributing Poet & Writer Harley White. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "The Robot":"I, human, robotically, we’re all just wired that way."

Here's a bit (or byte?) to get ya goin':

(photo: "Future Machine" by Peter Schwartz)

It may sound simple enough to go to your father’s house for Christmas dinner, but the fact is for me it wasn’t. I have tried over and over again to figure out what happens. I start out filled with the resolve to act natural— just be myself— talk to Father as though he were anyone else. But it’s always the same. As soon as I’m in his presence, I become so self-conscious that I can barely manage polite conversation. And I can’t look him in the eye.

I’ve been told I’m too analytical. Maybe I am, but I have to try to figure it out. It seems the more effort I make, the further apart I feel. How can you suddenly get close to a father you never saw while you were growing up? Maybe I’ve built a barrier of resentment that won’t come down. You see, when I was a child, my father was very real to me. I imagined him into the only person on earth who would truly understand me. Someday he would discover me— the daughter he could be proud of— the one who was just like him. I suppose that’s the problem right there. How could anybody compete with all that?

Anyway, I keep thinking that if I get to know him as an adult, my childhood fantasy will dissolve. Instead, I guess I always see him through the blur of disappointment. I can hardly even picture what he looks like. Except for one particular scene. I do have a life-size portrait of him that still shows up clearly.

I was eighteen. I had been invited for Christmas afternoon along with several other family members and friends. Dinner was over and we were gathered around to watch the opening of presents. My five-year-old half-brother had finished unwrapping all but one. The last package was the largest, and in his eyes I thought I could detect a glimmer of the stubborn hope that this time it would be something he wanted.

The present was a mechanical robot. Father intervened quickly before his son could open the box.

“Be careful! Don’t break it! I’ll put it together.”

Get the rest of this read on here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Oh what a night it was in the land of Swirl’n mic Mad-ness! Mad Swirl & Swirve parted ways and said our goodbyes to the only open mic home we’ve known, Absinthe Lounge. t’was a Mad Eulogy of sorts as we paid our respects, reminisced on the swirlin’ scenes we’ve seen, and shared what the drunken muses have gifted us these past 132 1st Wednesday’s at the Lounge…

(pssst… before we go on, we think we should say that Mad Swirl’s monthly mic madness isn’t goin’ away. we’re just gonna be swirlin’ our madness upon different stage at our new open mic home… The Underpass Bar located at 650 Exposition Ave in Dallas… starting the 1st Wednesday in December. and yes, Swirve will still be swirlin’ up the madness with us!)

Thanks to all who shared in the Mad Eulogy. What a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music! Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

(See who was who right here. Photos courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez)

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Mad Cast:
Desmene M. Statum
Carlos Salas
Opalina Salas
Vic Victory
Brett Ardoin aka BA aka Zipline Shazam
David Crandall
James “Bear the Poet” Barrett Rodehaver
Josh Weir
Lilly Penhall
Chris Zimmerly
•••
Konnichiwa Zach Schrotter
Eileen Simeonov
Cassidy Castillo-Wilson
Kristine Jessup
Daniel Evans
Jolee Davis
Becca
Zekiel

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris & Tamitha Curiel & Gerard Bendiks) for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

More HUGE thanks to fantastic photogs Dan Rodriguez (he captured these scenes) and Rosie Lindsey for sharing their mad eye and giving y’all a taste of the night’s mic madness.

And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin’ mic.

We look forward to ALL the m-adventures to come at The Underpass in December! Stay tuned…

•••••••

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 art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.” ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Lennon Peace Wall” (above) by featured artist David J. Thompson. To see more Mad works from David, as well as our other contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we embarked upon a mid-week crawl, sobriety's state too close to call; we wanted, wanted, wouldn't stop, till came up empty, gloppity-glop; we told the moon our idle wishes, devil passions amongst the fishes; we found a flower girl, second to one, who bends the best blossoms, second to none ; we saw her clearly through, deep and fragile, free and blue; we tried our hungry heart to please, obsessed with a new-named dream disease; we kept a curved infinity confined to a rhytidectomy. The ups and downs of words' arrangements written to wipe away estrangements. It's all uphill from here. ~ MH Clay

Elevator Tanka by Virginie Colline

cut-glass profile
black asymptotes
your eyes on an askew tie
Picasso’s geometry
in the elevator box

November 14, 2015

editors note: A cubist’s love line; ever approaching, never to meet. – mh clay

Somnosis by Hem Raj Bastola

Country
Where I lost,
I found again
In somnosis.

A make believe
In dreams, a disease
Did not flow with time
To stronghold of belief
And I live
In somnosis.

Perennial
Perfume flows
From her mouth.
A melody, a song I find
Listening to her
Addictive charm
A deep slumber
Brings me near.

To observe
Her dance
With waving hair
Her juicy apple cheeks
To bite.
From Mongolia or Tibet
By the effect of mountain air
She smiles among
Blooming buckwheat,
Inviting my lips
To her lips
As I employ in agreement.
I reach to drink
A current from her cheeks
And I awake
In somnosis.

Her
Involuntary presence
In my dream
Leaves unerasable imprints
Still a quest unremitting
A deep longing to see her again
A somnambulist asks
To cordon every corner
In somnosis.

November 13, 2015

editors note: A new condition is coined to describe this lover’s magnanimous malady. Voila; somnosis! – mh clay

She Is by Jen Bochenko

She is deep
But the water is as clear as the most perfectly formed piece of glass and I can see my feet stir everything up with every step I take

She is blue
But also yellow and purple and red and gray and all the colors of the spectrum that exist within our view, and some that do not

She is free
But held down by the heavy chains of doubt, fear, and societal judgment and her own critical eye

She is exposed
But hidden with coats and sweaters and long sleeves and t-shirts and hair and skin and muscles and bones

She is enough
But the dynamite is too much locked into too little with not enough in which to breathe

She is fragile
But steel has the strength to hold skyscrapers, bridges, and the weight of the world

She is vulnerable

She is deep
But the water is as clear as the most perfectly formed piece of glass and I can see my feet stir everything up with every step I take

November 12, 2015

editors note: Self reflection; or, a view from the shore? Yes, she is! – mh clay

Making sugar flowers by Maria Sheets

I like to play God
Sitting straight backed
At my old yellow formica
Kitchen table

Cleaning off the cosmos
Before
Picking the colors and cutters
Of all the leaves and flowers

As I decide what goes in this
Tiered
Trinity
Gum paste and buttercream
Garden

I think of Adam and Eve
“Naked and Afraid”
After the fall
And decide to leave out
The thorns

But they will come
For try as I may
I cannot compete with the sublime

Spending Hours
to roll out the petals
Of a single rose
Veining and curling each one

But His
Billions
Of perfect blooms
Formed at the speed of light

And not a single wire exposed

November 11, 2015

editors note: Puny petal pusher places second in creation; after god. – mh clay

HOUSE OF SOULS by Patty Dickson Pieczka

I wake one morning in a smoke-scented room
of windows and sparkling mirrors. Questions prism

through me in tangerine and rose while
people weave through my vision like fish. I ask

if anyone will burn a dream for me.
A woman with a stained bandage over her head

says, Our thoughts are right where we left them,
ready to melt into the mind of some passerby.

She plucks a translucent orchid from the vase.
The hanged man says, We never recognize

our own evils. Passion is the devil’s eye
and the source of life. No one can know

the difference. I ask him why my bones
have walked away from my body, why time

is moving sideways, but the moon slips
into his mouth and lights its candle.

November 10, 2015

editors note: In the mirror world, answers come to the reflection of questions. (Read another mad missive by Patty on her page; a light in the darkness – check it out.) – mh clay

Feel Sorry For Yourself by Addie Soaraki

Monster bells and cheap bubblegum-dazed
Teeny-boppers slamming locker doors after no
Valentines on a junior high February day, tripping
On oversized pants and Sears mock-ups
In paisley: You smoke at recess? Cool. Why
Don’t you like me? She liked the older guys, stoners
Off pretending to fight the draft, while he
Sloshed a can of Pabst he’d hidden in his too-big
Flak jacket. Oh, don’t feel sorry for yourself. Look at
That 13-year-old. She’s a slut. She’ll put-out.

Peace and love peace and love peace and love.
See that Jesus freak? All strung-out on the Lord,
Got a crease in his blue jeans, points at the sky
And says, one way one way one way. What’s
Jesus save? Green Stamps? Pull them in, throw
Them out. Look, man, I shut-out my light
With this. Holds a matchbox in his hand, nothing
In the lid. Feel sorry for yourself. The rapture

You want and want and want and want ain’t
Coming. Suck it in. Join the Army. Become
A Marine, kill gooks in the Mekong, kid. Rapture
Hides in gunpowder and sunshine. Please,
Feel sorry for yourself. Hang it out like laundry.
She’s not coming for something inside that will
Kill a man. Sing a mean tune. Pull the trigger.
Put your want in the gloppity-glop machine, seal it
Like cement.

November 9, 2015

editors note: Is this tough love or, just tough life? Gloppity-glop… – mh clay

FUCK IT, I’M GOING TO THE PUB by Bradford Middleton

My compadre in chaos has dropped word he’s drunk already
It’s 7.15 on a Tuesday evening, I’m speechless, where are you?

I had a thirst running all day at work from the moment I discovered tomorrow I don’t start until 6 in the evening
So that gives me plenty of time to build up a head of beer before I have to stop, knowing more may harm me and I can’t be dealing with that
Not now, not in this town at those prices even with those barmaids who scintillate and oscillate and make us hand over our money
And then break our hearts when they ignore us in the street after we’ve spent all our money watching her from our stool at the end of the bar
So far just 10 minutes have passed but I know he’s now out for the count, there’ll be no more word from him
Just deafening drunken silence as I decide, fuck it, I’m going out for a beer tonight
Got some money in my pocket and some smoke in my packet so you know what I say?

Fuck it!

November 8, 2015

editors note: Knowing more is more than a bar stool can bear. Sit up and straight and fuck it, indeed! – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place! Stray cat strut this-a-way...

This week's featured story comes Contributing Writer/Poet Ruth Z. Deming. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "A Mother’s Sorrow":"Hold a heart when it falls to pieces, see something die and then carry on loving it, still. Then you’ll know what it’s like to live."

Here's a few nips to get ya purrin':

(photo by Tyler Malone)

I floated on golden cloud from place to place. All I had was my soft brown and white fur, my tiny pink tongue, my piercing blue eyes that melted the hearts of everyone who saw me. Meow! Meeee-ow! There were so many ways to express myself. But no meow could capture the way I felt when they cut me open.

Yes, they numbed me, but Siamese cats are not dumb. I’m not one of those arrogant cats who think our breed is at the top of the hierarchy. All cats are created equal. That’s why I was attracted to Bosch, the tomcat of an artist here in downtown Philadelphia. Manisha would let me out at night after my aggressive door-scratching. The two of us – she still wearing her blue mail delivery uniform – and I would run down the wooden stairs, me softly padding down while her black shoes tapped lightly on each step.

At last I was outside!

Out into the excitement of downtown Philadelphia. Winter was upon us, but nature had seen to it that my fur had thickened. Ah, the glorious smells of garbage, or “garbaggio” as I heard tavern owners call it. Dumpsters everywhere. With two leaps, I was inside the green one from an Italian restaurant. Heaps and heaps of pasta – ravioli, angel hair spaghetti, lime-green tortellini – lay on top. I helped myself. What was that squeaking sound? Backed into a corner was a furry brown mouse who saw me and was shitting himself with fear. Fear no more, little mousie, I thought, as I made a delightful meal out of him.

Good protein for my brood who stirred inside me. It was here at the dumpster I met my handsome Bosch, the kits’ father. I peered at his owner’s apartment three stories above. Bright-colored abstracts lined the walls. And there he was. Bosch in his accustomed place. Stretched out like a movie star on the window sill, noble ears pointing to the stars.

Meow, I cried. Did he hear me? Or see me?

Get the rest of this 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...

Mirrorin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” ~ Rene Magritte

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Tatum” (above) by featured artist David J. Thompson. With this one we close out David's second romp in our Gallery (with more Mad visuals to come from him as we Swirl on down the road, we hope!) To view all of David's works, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we tipped in the balance of a writer's condolence; we questioned words of prevarication, exposed a liar's motivation; we lapped a lover's lenience, unhappy as convenience; we saw how an elder's angst went on the tale of youngling years misspent; we bore the break of love to take; we heard the word of child beseeching clarity in father's teaching; we conjured from our clamor a fantasy in amber. Rose-colored, prose-colored verses; forward leaps or wrenched reverses. We power through... ~ MH Clay

Tonight is for the Amber by James 'Bear' Rodehaver

Suppose her eyes were wet,
and the moon was blue, and

fish laid coins at our bare feet.
Terrifying mystery, wondering

how fast a boat tomorrow
rides in, gliding forever across

a glass sea of drowned yesterdays.
We stood at the shore and waved

at thin cranes dark against the horizon,
like music notes on a purple staff.

Some memories are trapped in amber,
others in broken glass, and I can’t recall

those days, and I shouldn’t, because I
put them there. Sometimes we cut our

feet looking for gold. Suppose love is a memory
of unity, and some of us cannot remember.

Suppose her eyes were blue, and the fish
were wet, and the moon laid bright coins

at our bare feet. Fantasy is just reality on its
head. But either way, tonight is for the amber.

November 21, 2015

editors note: A fish for a fantasy; a look at the world through amber-colored glasses. (We welcome James – we call him Bear – to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Anyhow by Russ Cope

My children want to know
how and I tell them
any how, they want to know
truth and I tell them I have
none, they ask why I leave
when it gets touchy, I tell
them I did not know I did
that, they ask about their
mother and I say too much
or too little, depending on
the day, they want to know
if they look like me and I
say look again.

November 20, 2015

editors note: If we want them to find the right answers, best to teach them to ask the question for themselves. – mh clay

A part of me! by Gurpreet Singh Rana

The infinite lines
you drew
on my bare back
nailing your way
into my heart
still remain there
unscrubbed and unwashed
embedded into my skin
a part of me.

A part of me
you now ask to part
how could one
give away his own self
come and do erase
those resilient lines
come and take away some
of me and find
some of you in that.

November 19, 2015

editors note: From every encounter, we carry each others’ imprints; impossible to remove. How could, indeed? – mh clay

Youth is Wasted on the Young by Harley White

We heard it said repeatedly,
in adage olden and far-flung,
through springs misspent too heatedly,
that youth is wasted on the young.

Our ‘salad days’ of judgment green
found life a song to still be sung,
a wanton time when slate seemed clean.
Ah, youth is wasted on the young.

If mad pursuits of senseless aims
left us ‘at sea’, burned-out, unstrung,
from revelry in ‘fun and games’,
then youth is wasted on the young.

When ages past maturity
those words oft heard have freshly stung,
we see with blinding surety
that youth is wasted on the young.

Yet, wiser than we were before,
we heed the chimes at midnight rung
and anchor vagaries ashore.
Aye, youth is wasted on the young.

We seek enlightened paths to know
and glory just to dwell among
the blossoms of an inner glow.
Oh, youth is wasted on the young.

And golden years bring different dream,
when passion’s lost her silver tongue,
for lasting peace to reign supreme.
Yes, youth is wasted on the young.

November 18, 2015

editors note: Now’s the turn for youth to write; so far, it’s never yet been told. Turnabout, be sharp, not trite; how age is wasted on the old. – mh clay

Convenient by Tempest Brew

I’m convenient
like a phone by
the bed
like a small man
handing you
toilet tissue when
the roll runs out
and that’s why
this is just not
working well.

November 17, 2015

editors note: The best love is a delightful inconvenience. Keep looking. – mh clay

Birth place by Sam Rapth

The shadow of your swollen words
always falls over my past…

However it is,
why your words bother?…

just because,
they can?…

Trespassing is what you do
unconditionally…
forgiving is what I do
unconditionally…

I now am getting to know
what gives birth to lies…

November 16, 2015

editors note: From one’s desire to manipulate to another’s willingness to believe; who is the bigger fool? – mh clay

stealing from hank moody by Ben Newell

I recently found myself
in
one of those uniquely writerly situations
in which I was introduced
as a writer
to
another writer—

“My condolences,” I said
to the writer.

My condolences…

There you go,
I thought. Stealing from Hank Moody,
slinging his words
as if they were your own.

The writer
didn’t seem to catch
my plagiarism

Or perhaps
she just didn’t want to acknowledge
the allusion
as that would mean
she
like me
watches Californication
when
she should be doing
this.

November 15, 2015

editors note: Condolences all around! Now… where’s the remote? (We welcome Ben to the outrageous ranks of 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 •••

Need-a-Read? If you're as addicted to the stacked lines of words like we are, you gotta be gettin' the jones feelin' like we do when we need a read! Well we got just the fix for that!

This week's featured story comes from Gilbert Franco. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "Boundaries":"We are God, all of us. We carry it in ourselves. God is humanity, the only drug you need."

Here's a few lines to get the readin' buzz goin':

("Cornhill" by Tyler Malone)

It is 7:35 in the afternoon and Kris is sitting in the middle of a row of kids at church. She is sweating and her leg is shaking and her heart is beating fast and the back of her eyes hurt. She is the most awake that she has ever been in her entire life. She has a lot of Ritalin and caffeine in her system.

Kris got the Ritalin from her friend, Julie, who has attention deficit disorder and takes Ritalin once a day as prescribed by her doctor. Ritalin has a reverse effect on people without attention deficit disorder. Julie said that it is often compared to cocaine. She said this because Kris wanted to experience drugs, but didn’t want to smoke marijuana because she didn’t want to cough. Kris is afraid of coughing because she is afraid of gagging because she is afraid of vomiting.

Kris bought three Ritalin 54mg pills. The pills are labeled “extended-release.”

Kris read online that the best way to feel high from extended-release Ritalin pills is to peel the two layers of coating from the actual substance. First the thick, red coating, then the thin, clear coating. Then crush the pill into powder and inhale the powder nasally. Within ten minutes, you will experience a light feeling of numbness in your head. This is normal. This numbness will be followed by gentle shaking of your body. This is normal. Next, your heart rate will increase and you will feel very awake and energetic. This is normal. Ritalin peaks when you feel the surge of energy. After it peaks, you will start to feel distant from yourself and the world around you. This is normal.

Oh yeah, feel this one coursing thru your bloodstream already? (it's OK, this is normal) Get the rest of your read fix on right here!

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

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 new online store! This merch will be available for purchase until November 29th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you one... or two, you know, for the mad ones in your swirlin' world!

We here at Mad Swirl have been tossing around the idea of selling all kinds of merch but we aren't sure what the demand would be. We are dippin' our toe in the swirlin' waters with this lil store we set up. If all goes good, we will continue selling our madness and start offering up all kinds of crazy designs!

•••••••

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

Seein',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.” ~ William Blake

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Sheffield’s old and new” (above) by featured artist Eleanor Leonne Bennett. To view all of Eleanor's works, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery.

You may recognize the works of Eleanor Leonne Bennett from her feature here at Mad Swirl a couple years ago… or maybe the myriad of other places this gifted photog’s work has been featured. Bennett has created quite a name for herself and that ain’t a surprise. Her latest works of high contrast photographs create quite a strange stir within us – and we’re sure they’ll do the same for you. If you aren’t familiar with Eleanor’s works, we highly suggest that you do get familiar. If you already are, re-familiarize… your eyes will thank you.– Madelyn Olson

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we worried the whelp of a cry for help; we rued romance in a flower dance; we drowned love's dreams in silenced screams; we lost love's soft nuzzle in a lover's mother's crossword puzzle; we thought of house and car (with tank full), counted lucky stars (while thankful); we watched cig smoke curls, high and higher, engage a lazed cloud classifier; we sat aboard an asylum bus, the mystery girl with all of us. "I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together..." ~ MH Clay

The Cold War by Quinten Collier

I don’t know if we were spies
or just fugitives.
We were on a bus.
I was fleeing again
but confident this time
I would attain liberation,
insoluble levity,
ascent.
Everyone on the bus felt the same;
we could see ourselves gliding across the map from above
through a country of weightless gold.

Sitting next to me was an Indian girl–
Hindu, Aztec, Iroquois…
I couldn’t discern her origin–
I thought she had the power to heal.

I knew I would never escape my native land,
though it seemed the journey itself was a sanctuary.

The girl asked me where I was going
and if I’d taken this route before.
I answered then asked her the same,
here eyes a window to the foot hills behind,
the desert a mask for the forest
absolved of all duration.
She had a baby in her arms.
I asked her its name.
Her lips turned ocher like herbs
and she was silent:

This child was a gift.
Our destination cannot be determined.
Her name is October
and she must never awake from her dream.

We entered a territory of wind and sand
and wheat.
This was America.

The girl pointed out the window,

We call this place Russia, she said

November 28, 2015

editors note: Ascendance becomes destination; place names are irrelevant. – mh clay

The Weather in my Head by John Saunders

is such a cliché to describe mood.
I stand at the gate of a ploughed field,
scavenger birds exploit rows of newly turned ground.

Above me a soufflé of clouds with mottled contours;
the common Cumulonimbus like a head of cauliflower,
a rare Undulatus Asperatus like rough furrows.

I light up another cigarette, watch its contrails rise,
wonder if I will ever witness Lenticularis – Pile d’assiettes,
think cloud watching is an acceptable form of doing nothing.

November 27, 2015

editors note: This much ado is about all sides of nothing… Nothing wrong with that! – mh clay

HAPPY THANKSGIVING by Ruth Z. Deming

I don’t care much what other folks
think, but at my age – pushing
seven-oh, I still can’t believe

I own my own house and my own car.
Yawning, though engaged, during the
film Age of Adaline, my mind jumped

ship to that favorite thought. I – see
me jumping up and down? – own my
own house and my own car.

Own! The sweetest song in
America. Listen to its verses
Property owner. Homeowner.

Homeowner’s insurance. Buy
both car and home for a
“buyer’s discount.” I am doing

cartwheels on the carpeted floor.
Though I speak with the royal “we”
I live alone. Solicitor’s come by.

Before we slam the door in their faces – a red door
I painted myself – I put them through
paces. A black guy named Dwayne

sat on the red couch and listened to
my poetry. Two Jehovah’s Witnesses
dressed in black, heard a tirade about

The God of Israel. Sammy put in the
storm window on my side door. Please,
dear God, I pray, let me not think

who will live here when I’m gone.
Roasted, while dead, like this week’s
Thanksgiving turkey.

November 26, 2015

editors note: Reason to be thankful, no matter how you slice your dream… – mh clay

charlie watts by John Grochalski

she had me
sweating bullets
she had me
not wanting to hear her voice
i swear to christ
she was trying to drown me
in her petty jealousies
but she was right about everything
i was out there looking
for her replacement
day after day
night after night
but i found no takers
other than the hip line
of a tanned stripper’s g-string
our dinner money
our movie money
going against that sweet flesh curve
she had me
on the line for a week
without calling
going mad
getting mad
drunk joyous at the thought that we were over
every time the phone rang
jumping at my own shadows
she had me
finally
on the other line
giggling and laughing like a schoolgirl
like nothing happened
the way we’d left it
and all she wanted to know
was the name of the rolling stones drummer
for her mother’s
fucking crossword puzzle.

November 25, 2015

editors note: We dangle on the line, searching for a clue; a four letter word, “v” the third letter; crossword is “vile.” Hmm… – mh clay

once upon our love by Ayoola Goodness Olanrewaju

the cries and smiles we shared in love and dreams
was once a bliss of life enjoyed and gone
our passions drowned unseen in silenced screams…

in graceful dance of feet and fun
we held so close and lipped a kiss so fine
our hands, with mine on yours was two as one…

we loved and promised, ever yours and mine
in stills, in storms until our deaths and ends
to cherish, keep, to love for life in twain…

our love faded soon on stormy beds
we etched the this and that that wrecked our love
and left our lives, our hearts embittered shreds…

it was a love once rained on us from above.

November 24, 2015

editors note: Another, once held tightly; now, taken, though not lightly, in terza rima. – mh clay

Unbearable Affliction by Amy Barry

Two hundred and one flowers
fill the room,
incensed flames flicker.
An aching stillness hangs.
She longs to be elsewhere.

Warm breath creeps,
Intoxicated
like the first time she danced
with her lover-
her soul ignites,
she pirouettes,
across the scuffed wooden floor.

Sweat on brow,
feverish perfumed passion,
fingers trace as if
unsighted and unsure.

Storm-tossed,
she is peeled;
a promise to the night,
she arrives.
The Flower Duet ends.

Love fades…

But memories linger
like watchful ghosts.

November 23, 2015

editors note: Dancing to the memory of love… – mh clay

WINDY SPACES TRANQUIL YET STORMY by John Najjar

The day is racked and tortured
Its windy spaces tranquil yet stormy;
My silent heart cries out
And I breath deep
To prevent tears
From falling down my cheeks;
For only tears
Can articulate these inner silences
That tear at my being;
Tears only can make sense
Of these longings
That remain illusive and inexpressible.

My heart cries out
And I breath deep
To prevent tears
Welling up into my eyes;
Locked in silence
Each of us must hold
This loneliness to the chest;
I hunger for something
That I am unable to grasp.

My heart cries out
And I breath deep
To prevent tears
Falling down my cheeks;

I yearn for a woman’s embrace
To feel the arms of another
Wrapped around me;
There is no-one.

My heart cries out
And I breath deep
To fight back tears
That threaten
To roll down my cheeks;

I long for that which I have never had:
Knowing that all desire
Must be ship-wrecked by an alien world;
Knowing dreams and defeat form a singularity;
While windy spaces remain tranquil yet stormy.

November 22, 2015

editors note: Alone, we enter. Alone, we exit. All seek “together” in between. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Good, 'cos we Gotta-a-Read! This week's featured story comes from Contributing Writer/Poet Beth DeSeelhorst. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "The Case of the Cross-Country Skier":"Tis the season for magic and myths, the deepest, whitest parts of us as people."

Here's a few lines to get ya goin':

(photo by Johnny Olson)

At last, at last, Wendell rests his skis at the other side of the lake in sunset, exhausted, satiated. He senses the water conscious and raucous down under the lake, glaring, straining upward, knocking against the depths of the ice again and again, enraged at his escape. He’s unwilling to look away, but does not want to cross the lake again. He’s done that, and doesn’t want to undo it. In twilight, he turns to see what lay behind him to see what lay ahead. The old horizon is here, silhouettes anchored in cold and quiet curiosity. He slides into the clear moon’s orbit, drifts into the white woodlands with silent, unrehearsed control. There is no hurry, no destination.

He journeys on and on for a long time or short time whereupon he encounters two small mounds of snow. He picks one up and holds it out in his palm. It moves. Startled, his hand jerks and it slips back onto the snow. He bends down, gently pokes it with wonder. He turns to the other mound, but it scampers out of reach.

“What are you?” Wendell asks.

The one he had held answers: “Snowlink”.

“Snowlink? What’s a Snowlink?”

“That’s my name.”

“Right,” Wendell says.

“That’s Snowslippery,” it says. “We’re twins, but you can tell us apart.”

“Right,” he says, and again reaches for Snowslippery.

“Why won’t this one stay still?” Wendell turns to Snowlink, who doesn’t answer.

Wendell thinks aloud, “Well, what now?”

“Well, wanna come along?” Snowlink asks. “I’m going to … I’m going… “

“Sure. I’d like to go… I’d like…”

He places Snowlink on the tip of one ski, and then glances at Snowslippery, who doesn’t move. The two of them begin, leaving Snowslippery behind.

They happen on the rhythm soon. They share the scenery, the splendor of the white trees and white rocks and every thing white resting whitely in whiteness.

Get the rest of your read on right here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve the 1st Wednesday of December (aka 12.02.15) as we kick things off at our NEW Open Mic home, The Underpass Bar (located at 650 Exposition Ave in Dallas)…

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

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

LAST CALL!... 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 new online store! This merch will be available for purchase until November 29th. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you one... or two, you know, for the mad ones in your swirlin' world!

We here at Mad Swirl have been tossing around the idea of selling all kinds of merch but we aren't sure what the demand would be. We are dippin' our toe in the swirlin' waters with this lil store we set up. If all goes good, we will continue selling our madness and start offering up all kinds of crazy designs!

•••••••

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...

Displayin' It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” ~ Walt Disney

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“viewpoint-two ” (above) by featured artist Eleanor Leonne Bennett. To see more Mad works from Eleanor, and our other diverse contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we dried bards on branches, versified chances; we pined over a postal inefficiency; we plundered and killed in the name of god's will; we tried to cull the bad men from delightfully mad men (hard to find and hold); we witnessed the blanch of rainbow color, strove for the strength of doomsday valor; we sought out the zen of the lord through our pen; we fumbled in fancy free on what is supposed to be. Full is as full can be. ~ MH Clay

perfection by Carl Kavadlo

this poem’s not going down
the way it’s supposed to be.

your reaction will probably
not be
the way it’s supposed to be.

my life is not
the way
it’s supposed to be.

my job…

the moment is not
the way
it’s supposed
to be.

my meditation is never
the way

it’s supposed to be.
every rule i read in a
book. they never apply to me –

they’re not the way they’re
supposed to be.

the food,
the drink,
the air
are not the way
they’re supposed to be.

agreements are not the way
they’re supposed to be.

expectations are
never, never, never the way
they’re supposed to be.

vacations,
recreations,
anticipated fun – they’re

not the way they’re supposed to be.

whoever made up these pictures
sure didn’t do it
the way
he’s supposed to be.

and yet
everything’s perfect
because nothing is the way
it’s supposed to be.

and THAT’S the way
it’s supposed to be

December 5, 2015

editors note: We suppose so… – mh clay

seek out the lord by J.J. Campbell

i learned as a child
the monsters under
my bed were there
to protect me

they failed

much like everyone
else in my childhood

they never explained
in therapy how i was
to move on from that

one asshole said just
get over it and seek
out the lord

i grabbed a pen and
decided to take up
drinking instead

most of my former
friends think of me
as a sociopath now

i almost think
about taking the
time to care but
i’m running low
on vodka

more important
matters are at
hand

December 4, 2015

editors note: For some, there’s victory in vodka. – mh clay

DOOMSDAY by Ajise Vincent

I.
Soon, we shall witness
the bleaching of the rainbow,
perhaps the bittering of hopes
by pregnant, yet barren enigmas,
that seek the brew of our tomorrow, today.

II.
Then, we shall see
Impoverished cadavers
scamper over spilt morphines
to nurse the conundrum of their woes. Dutch disease.

III.
Then, dreams shall wear
the shame of sack clothes to
cover the nudity of their sagging breasts.

IV.
Then, elders shall break kola nuts
to behold the molars of maggots
feasting on the endocarp of decorum.

V.
Wirra! We shall cry for peace
but it shall be scarce like perpetuity.

VI.
Call me a prophet of doom
Lo! I don’t give a damn.

December 3, 2015

editors note: Prophecy from poetry; life will tell the difference. – mh clay

It’s 1 am by Peggy Flora

Time to think
About men
Why they
Follow me around
Fix my car
Fill me up
Fight and bore
They pretend
Then go to war
Show up no more
Smile and grin
Rape a friend
Rule and run
Stand in my sun
Ask for more
Give less
Yell and hit
Bruise my lip
Shut me out
Shut me in
Tie my hands
Break my back
Leave their kin
Screw and fuck
Display their nuts
Lie about their cut
Keep me up
Love me
Hate me
Drive me insane
Make me wait
Say nice things
Compliment a tart
Play with my heart
spend
Spend
Spend
Work at night
Cheat and steal
Make illegal deals
Spread disease
Drink some more
Do it again

Its 1 am

December 2, 2015

editors note: If you’re gonna wash this one right out of your hair – lather, rinse and DON’T repeat. – mh clay

Crusader (iv) by Michael Corrigan

Conquest now, rather than crusade, the captains and nobles march out to subdue and colonise as much of Northern Syria as they can. Terrible slaughters at Albara and Marrat, the populations massacred, survivors sold in to slavery.

Towns garrisoned to control the region but then a fiercesome winter, food runs short, garrisons starve, cannibalism is recorded as the Soldiers of God reach a new low and still the golden city of Jerusalem, the wellspring of their faith, lies waiting, away down the southern road.

Anchored,
war dogs chained,
moved so far

then not at all,

at Albara and Marrat
we brought
red slaughter and slavery,

before the hunkerdown
of garrison.

In our hellscape
of that northern winter
truths told, never forgotten,
sights seen, better forgotten,

when the food ran out
Marrat began
to eat its dead.

The holy ones told us
we would know
life eternal in the gaze of God,

neglecting to mention
hell is also forever

and Jerusalem a dream,
slowly fading in the gloom.

Gods Will, Gods Will, Gods Will.

December 1, 2015

editors note: Mr. Corrigan revisits us with another installment of his Crusader series; historical poetry about a region ravished still today. An ancient narrative, yet so timely – thanks, Mick! – mh clay

Autumn by Peycho Kanev

You are waiting for a letter to arrive,
but who still writes letters these days anyway?
The trees on the street are deader than dead,
their branches stretch out like black skeletons,
strips of fading sunlight stream through
the yellow curtains and time pours in slower
than the air in an empty hourglass.
It gets dark, difficult to see through the window.
You are anxious and confused.
The street is empty.
Everything else is now and now.
And then the wind starts to blow violently
and opens your mailbox
without putting anything in it.

November 30, 2015

editors note: Leaves, unlike letters, turn and fall. Letters, unlike leaves, don’t turn at all. – mh clay

Intergalactic Hitch by Tom Pescatore

hollow skeleton hobo
poets hang on branches
in the sun, weightless
like bird’s wings
flapping old toothless
jaws, readin’ with
archaic sounds,
swinging torn shoes,
biting tin collars,

up on the wire
handkerchief to break
impending fall, over
all beady heads
singing songs,

tweed jackets like
lightning spark up
a breeze, a fantasy
shower, there’s not much
left in this dimension gate
they gotta be going
no one listening no one
believing,

there, out there,
beyond that golden orb
is another gal-
axy far gone

ears and eyes
to turn on

flowers to give
gardens to sow.

November 29, 2015

editors note: After the poets conquer this world, there’s always the next one… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? Well then you’ve come to the right place!

This week's featured story comes Contributing Poet & Writer Chuck Taylor. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about "If Dog is God Spelled Back Ways, What is Cat?":"We need to talk about ourselves, see ourselves and our desires and the blood we might want to spill. After all that, then we can talk about what everyone needs to talk about: the value of life. Human life. Humanity, the only religion anyone needs to believe in."

Here's a few a few nibbles to get you meowin' for more:

When Markie was a freshman at Irving High, he used to lie in bed and think about murdering his parents. He did not think about getting caught. He did not think about what he’d do with the bodies. He merely thought of getting rid of their unendurable pressure. Markie planned to do it in the dead of night, when his parents would be dead asleep.

It would be easy.

Mark did not mention his plans to his sister Linda or to his school buds Isaac and Lorie. Markie planned use the sharp Buck knife he’d bought at a downtown Irving hunting store a month ago, to quickly and efficiently slit their throats, one at a time. They would have no opportunity to make a sound and alert each other or his sister.

He wished to kill his parents because they fought all the time. His father drank and cursed. His mother was a shut-in, although no one acknowledged the fact. They’d lived in the Irving ten years, but his mother had no friends and rarely left the house. Father wanted to move closer to his job in south Dallas. He was sick of his long commute to work and back, but mother would not listen to his pleas. She told them they could not move because it would disrupt the children’s educations, but Markie knew that was a lie. Mother was too afraid to live anywhere else.

His parents would fight late into the night. When they finally went to bed—his father sometimes on the couch—Markie would lie in his bed as stiff as a Prussian military officer. Thinking of putting his parents out of their misery seemed an act of mercy and a blessed chance to sleep again for him and his sister...

To get the rest of your meow on you gotta case that mouse right over here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Oh what a night it was in the land of Swirl’n mic Mad-ness! This past 1st Wednesday Mad Swirl-abrated our new open mic home at The Underpass. As much as we’re going to miss our old stomping grounds, we really dig the vibe of our new home! Our inaugural blast-off was proof that this swirl’n we be doin’ isn’t even close to stoppin’!

Thanks to all who came out to help share in the Cool-Tide Swirl-a-brations. What a night of the beat-utifullest poetry and music and comedy it was! Here’s a shout out to all who graced us with their words, their songs, their divine madnesses…

(See who was who right here. Photos courtesy of Dan “the man” Rodriguez)

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Mad Cast:
Chris Zimmerly
Opalina Salas
L Boogie
Carlos Salas
Maggie Smith
Brett “BA” Ardoin
Cj Critt
•••
James “Bear the Poet” Rodehaver
Crystal Fulbright
Daniel Evans
Josh Weir
Vic Victory
Euan Figg
Bekah Caldwell
Jennifer
Lindsey
Chris Sykes

HUGE thanks to Swirve (Chris & Tamitha Curiel, along with special guest drummer, Clark from KRUDE) for keeping the beat til the wee hours of the night. We got taken to another dimension of time and space on the wings of their jazzy madness!

More HUGE thanks to fantastic photogs Dan Rodriguez (he captured these scenes) and Scott Wayne McDaniel for sharing their mad eye and giving y’all a taste of the night’s mic madness.

Thanks to Mike at The Underpass for opening up his establishment to us mad ones and making us feel right at home.

And finally we would like to thank ALL of you who freely shared their hand claps, finger-snaps, hoots and howls with all the mad ones who got up on this sacred mad swirlin’ mic.

We look forward to ALL the m-adventures to come at The Underpass in 2016! Stay tuned…

•••••••

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' Curious,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“Of all lies, art is the least untrue.” ~ Gustave Flaubert

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“The canals and barges” (above) by featured artist Eleanor Leonne Bennett. To see more Mad works from Eleanor, and our other diverse contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we caught the cost of kisses lost; we felt the shine of hope in sunrise fine; we sought comfort in cranberries carried through calamity; we shook off lover-friend, a languoring loose end; we stuck in spider spill, estranged from self will; we saw a past love in light of last love; we muscled out the middle man to stand as empty little man. Kiss shine chaos, loosely tangled, disappointed greed in life newfangled - so many words. Always, words... ~ MH Clay

Muscling by Robert L. Martin

Man the throttle, full speed ahead
Fire up all systems to the max
Take the devil aboard and go
Hammer down, wait for nobody
Ram the hell out of whatever
And whoever gets in the way
Don’t take heed to danger ahead
Don’t listen to nobody or nothin’
Throw yourself into the fire
Savor the sweet aroma of burning flesh
Fill your nostrils with black embers
Then ride across the blackened skies

Keep going ‘til hell freezes over
Keep going ‘til the devil gets tired
Keep going ‘til black angels sing
Keep going ‘til the seasons run out
Keep going ‘til matter goes back to nothing
Keep going ‘til apocalypses close down
Keep going ‘til there is no more
Charge ye renegades, ride across the sky

Muscle your way into another’s dream
Throw him aside and laugh at him
Take his wife, his treasure, and his goats
Burn down his house and build your own
Stand affixed until the moss grows about
Stick out your chest and wave your banners
Tell the rain when to fall and the sky to clear
Tell the oceans to part for you
And tell the seasons when to stop
Keep muscling away until
There’s no more to muscle into
Then what are you going to do?

December 12, 2015

editors note: So much ado about an accumulation of goats; more than anyone else. (With this third accepted submission, we welcome Robert to our crazy conclave of Contributing Poets. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Sick of Being a Solivagant by Paul Tristram

He took two planes first,
then caught a train taking him
from one country to the next
and finally rode a bus
up into the mountains
where his native folk dwell.
Twenty five years away travelling
it had been, he reminisced
as he traversed tenderly
his childhood greens and streets,
then took two back lanes around
to where Maisie’s mother lived.
M-A-I-S-I-E, he repeated
over and over in his head,
savouring each letter as it rolled
across his pining mind.
She had been his Sweetheart,
right up until the week he had left
and she was the only thing
about this place that a photograph
could not cure nor yearn-balm.
He nervously knocked thrice
upon the dark green front door
with cap in hand, spat and fingered
hair to the side and tried in vain
not to smile in greeting too weirdly.
She answered, gasping in shock,
stuttered “You’re far too late!”
And with a grandchild bouncing
in her right arm and a wedding
ringed left hand, she ‘shooo-ed’
him quickly off the doorstep
and backwards dizzy into the past.

December 11, 2015

editors note: Can’t see what everyone else does. Reality blinded by his sense of past. – mh clay

Breakthrough by Anthony Ward

He was so wrapped up in himself he couldn’t fight his way out
Clung to himself like cling-film
Cocooned as a spider’s prey
Waiting to be devoured by the arachnid conscience of self realisation

December 10, 2015

editors note: Succumb to that inner spider; empty the old self to fill the new. – mh clay

Loose End by Andrea Bonaccorsi

I don’t like you.
But
the inside of your head
that we both get lost in
is another story

It’s over.
And
I don’t want the wrong idea growing
in those contorted dark folds
tangled like sheets

I’m done.
Also
too exhausted
to play games (I don’t want you to win)

I’m tired.
I want to curl up and have my whole head
smoothed in those sheets
by you

If…

No.
I mean it.

December 9, 2015

editors note: Body caught in the brain bed; so hard to mean it when you don’t. – mh clay

In a Moment’s Time: A Memoir of the 1947 Partition by Trivarna Hariharan

An unearthly silence permeates the room

blue clouds of unease float around

and we sit there for hours, waiting for them to pass

***

when Nahid asks for cranberries, I tell her to wait till
Rafia chachi
comes/ afraid to tell her she might not/

***

If chachi was here
she would comfort us with stories/
and tell us we would come out of this rubble safe/ very safe
she would smile/ make us smile/

and then I am interrupted, suddenly, yet unsurprisingly
by the sounds of the bells
outside
signalling us to go,
telling us to unlearn the names of
the places whose names we’ve grown up loving all our lives

in a moment’s time.

December 8, 2015

editors note: Changing name and border won’t change place and people; still, we force it, “for the greater good.” (Wiki “the Partition of India” for context; compare to events today.) – mh clay

OH! LITTLE JOURNEYERS by Saurav Karki

Hello, Traveler!
Why are you frustrated these days?
Is it because your dream is swept away?
You will be alone in the future,
Your journey is halted,
Scared of a lone wolf future.

Hello, Traveler!
Disasters are temporary,
Be patient for sometimes
This is the fun from Nature,
There are dancing Earthquakes
and singing Thunders in
romantic moods,
One day they will try
And hope will shine
With the sunrise.

Be patient, Focus!
With your heart and mind target
The mountain of faith,
When the beams of sunrise
finally come calling at dawn
We will get new hopes of life.

In that moment
You should also
Paint in different colors
With your immortal hands,
In these tragic moments
Don’t be overwhelmed,
We should spend some nights
In the open sky,
We should spend some days
In the hunger stomach,
I think you are well-known,
We should lose something
To get something,
We should be patient
For a bright future.

December 7, 2015

editors note: A new voice from Nepal to offer encouraging words. We can use some “new hopes of life” about now; how about you? – mh clay

The Summer Breeze by Paul Smith

As summer winds down
The wind blows really hard
Right around Labor Day
After dinner
The trees get all breezy
You can feel the wind’s strength
It’s trying to say something
It’s the summer saying good-bye to fall
Or the fall saying goodbye to summer
Someone’s saying good-bye to someone else
I’m not sure
Who’s blowing a kiss to whom
But it is a hot kiss
Good-bye kisses can be hot
I got one once
From a girl I betrayed
For another
I was a wretch
And that last kiss was a doozy
She opened her mouth all the way
Inviting my tongue in there
Which I said ‘no’ to
Thinking she might lop it off
In spite
But she wouldn’t have
She really loved me
Her mouth said so
Wordlessly
She let me know
The next time I want her smoldering lips
They will not be there
The next time I want someone to listen to me
It won’t be her ears listening
The next time I want the comfort
Of her arms
They’d be gone
But I wouldn’t listen
I was a wretch
And a week later the girl
I dumped her for
Dumped me
That should have made me philosophical
But it made me hard inside
Wanting to take vengeance on every woman
On earth
But that didn’t happen
Because all the women I met
Found me unattractive
Being wretched and
Loathing yourself
Will do that
And it deprived me getting to know
Girls I could have
At least talked to
So this makes me philosophical
Thinking again about the trees and the wind and summer
And everything
Is the fall kissing the summer good-bye
With a smile on its smoldering lips
Saying, ‘Adios, motherfucker
Your time’s up?’
Or is it the summer bidding adieu to
The fall
With a pithy riposte like
‘See you in the funny papers’?
Either way
There will be a rendezvous
Between the fall and winter
The winter and spring
Spring and summer
Each one thinking they got the better of
The one in front or back
Don’t they realize there is this thing
Called payback?
And whenever you think you’re
One up on someone else
Next time it’s your turn
In the box
Summer doesn’t know
Fall doesn’t know
Winter doesn’t know
Spring hath not a clue
But the wind knows
When the wind blows
And the wind blows
All year long

December 6, 2015

editors note: Summer breeze with Fall between a Winter freeze to bring an allergic introspective sneeze. ‘Tis an ill wind… – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week we are delivering you a story from Contributing Writer & Poet KJ Hannah Greenberg that's outta this world.

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick'o'the week tale, Trade Relations in the Horseshoe Galaxy Cluster:"We mean what we say. We know what we’re talking about when we know what we’re talking about. That’s all true until our mouths speak for our brains."

Here's a bit to help the take-off:

Reid was optimistic. The latest sales forecast located his zone in improved prosperity. Other leading economic indicators, too, looked rosy. There was a sharp increase in building permits in his region. As well, the dollar exchange rate had climbed, and unemployment claims had dropped. Whereas Reid wasn’t yet ready to invite Deidra to sample Champaign in his apartment, he was feeling fly.

What’s more, Tony had been noising off about possible trade partners in another galaxy. Reid was neither a speculative fiction fan nor a connoisseur of astrophysics, but it had been engraved on his profit-hungry heart that new markets were what “the journey” was all about. Only the fiercest beat the competition.

Reid called Abalina McMann, a friend of his from UCLA, to discuss the possibility that giant sentient lobsters lived in Jupiter’s clouds and that an outworlder culture reigned over the whole of the Horseshoe Galaxy Cluster. Although Abalina, who focused on phonon mediated microwave kinetic inductance detectors, as part of UC Berkeley’s team, tittered at Reid’s malformed ideas, she suggested they meet for drinks, naming San Francisco’s Terroir as their destination.

Albina had read about Reid’s divorce in their alumni magazine. All she said, though, was she was eager to try organic wines. After “neutrino oscillation,” “Old River Vintners’ cabernet sauvignon” was one of the sexiest phrases in her mental filing cabinet.

“Cosmic ray spectrum.”

“Oh, stop!”

“Gamma radiation.”

“You know how to quick-fire a girl.”

“I thought that was the Adastra N’Oak Chardonnay talking.”

“Not sure. Didn’t we have a flight of eight?”

“I mostly sniffed. I prefer Anderson Valley Brewing and Russian River’s offerings.”

“Microbreweries?”

“Active galactic nucleus.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I’m wooing you, as is your pleasure, but I’m running out of cute words.”

“You want me for my legs.”

“Actually, I want your brain.”

“You’re good.”

“I know.”...

Get the rest of your surreal-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...

Tellin' the Truth-ish, the whole Truth-ish, & nothin' but the Truth-ish,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“I want to make people cry even when they don't understand my words.” ~ Edith Piaf

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Chester Historic” (above) by featured artist Eleanor Leonne Bennett. To see more Mad works from Eleanor, and our other diverse contributing artists, please visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we named names of rescue; we watched the passage of two precarious perches; we risked tranquility and trust for the return of hope; we dallied with a doll, her catchphrase, couldn't hear; we encountered an unemployable elf, placed in a pitiful Pan-demic; we gave up gravity's grip on newborn captains of destiny; we played craps with mistuned maps. It's the journey not the way. It's the "What" of the "Why. ~ MH Clay

Strayling by Chris Zimmerly

For many sunsets I went out
Into the fields of my home’s
Longitude and latitude,
Desiderium heavy on my heart
Wondering why the winds encourage
Wings casting shadows brushing lips
And then blow them on their way
The gentle fingertips speaking in Braille language
I do not know
My maps are turned upside down
Which way to go?
Strayling when They showed me the suicide room
I refused to pull the trigger
So, I fell out of the window, window
The breeze was delicious
There I was wing walking on a bi-plane
Buzzing the State Fair of Texas, 1936
The sky a blue bonnet meadow
The wind and I making out
She kissing back my scarf
Like I was, Fancy
She touches with her tongue
Vibrating carillon of thoughts
Turning atoms to Yes
Witness the altitude
From the edge of a silver wing
Velocity angling me away
I was a fish made of butter in a hot hand
A smile memory melts me
Smearing the seams
Shaking out the stuffing animal
The buttons were unbuttoning
The zippers were unzipping
Shoe laces were untying
A eulogy burdened by desiderium
All was strayling in the wake
I was a comet hat scarecrow
Losing bit by bit the splattering birds
Were taking away my straw
To weave their nidified nests
I was becoming less and less of a real thing
Until I was just fluttering fabric
A flag eaten by the wind
My hat caught in the briar

What.

What?

What
Have I become?

December 19, 2015

editors note: What? What ever, what not, what gives? What, ye merry! What, indeed! – mh clay

Reincarnate by D.A. Moulton

We hit the high line on the horizon
passing pines and oaks
with tattered arms outstretched.
A tragic trajectory.
And the stars winced while the moon rolled over
out of sight and mind.
We crashed through leaves upon fingertips
too wooden to break from their ache
and snatch a shirttail or sleeve.
Gravity bound as we were.
And then there was the ground
scattering us, shattering us
into a million different people and places.
We never knew we could be
so proud and desperate,
so separate from who we were.
Now beneath the trees
beating the dust from our hats,
gathering up our skirts to knees.
Striking out, newborn captains of destiny.

December 18, 2015

editors note: While some celebrate a particular birth, let’s all celebrate our own rebirth with every dawn. – mh clay

Written while in a circa 60’s decor waiting room down at the state unemployment office by Phillip Quotient

Out on lonely-daily job searches
witness men and women unhappily
stuffed in emotionless square spaces
boxed away–Kafka or Gogol
dreamt bureaucratic ensembles
typing notes and obscurantist memos
from the CEO on high…

Admittedly I’m going nowhere
…no concern for my own future
knowing well my drug addled middle
age will arrive homeless and unstable;
ill thoughts, lost in wild imagination
where rests a sad Pan overgrown
with hair and beard turning into a myth.

December 17, 2015

editors note: The true story of how an old nobody got his job as a holiday hipster with a red suit and big bag of toys. – mh clay

Plastic fucking fantastic by Katie Lewington

I’m a doll
Bend me, in which position do you want me

You can’t bite me
I’m plastic
Don’t hurt me

I’m a doll
I have no feelings

I have a catchphrase

I have a catchphrase

Plus accessories

I’m a doll
Bend me, in which position do you want me

Lets party in the pool
Its hot

Ew! I’m horny
Have me, I’m plastic
Bend me, in which position do you want me
I’m a doll
I have a catchphrase

I have a catchphrase

Can you hear me

December 16, 2015

editors note: From plastic intentions come plastic results. Listen up, Kens. – mh clay

December Weeping Willow (2015 Paris) by Gregg Dotoli

sage graceful composed
wistful for tranquil joyous years
streaming green tears of reverie
for the return of good will
and respect for all beliefs
evening moonlight and stars
ease the pain of observing
waxing terror and mistrust
a cosmic peacebreeze magnifies hope
igniting the promise of harmony among all humans

December 15, 2015

editors note: In the face of current dissonances, let that peacebreeze blow. Amen. – mh clay

City Lights by Terry Severhill

The ice cream cone perched precariously near the edge of the bench.
It didn’t have the look or feel of an abandoned thing.
Around the corner the old woman lay with her treasures, her home.
The cone was starting to drip over its waffled surface.
Her bottle, wrapped in brown paper was carefully perched in the nest of her arm.
Drool was dripping down her waffled face.
She had the look of something long ago abandoned.
Around the corner, someone had rescued the cone.
It was in the sun.
She lay in the shadowed alley.
Dreamless.

December 14, 2015

editors note: One lost, not abandoned; the other abandoned, not lost. – mh clay

Charlie Idaho by Lucinda L. Flanary

Charlie Idaho
The name that could be given to adventurers
Mercenaries
And super heroes
But there is no rescue here
If it could have been anything
Then it really would have been something
A case of distance standing in the way
Of undiscovered kismet
Days have turned into years
Life has happened to us both
The uncorked bottles of sparkling conversation
Long emptied, with no plan to open more

But Charlie Idaho is not the name of a genie
He can’t live in bottles
Or grant wishes
Charlie Idaho is a super hero
But there is no rescue here
The mundane and the monotony overtake us
A border of unseen Kryptonite between us
And we become another name in a newsfeed
Another text that almost got sent
Maybe never to be anything more than a moment of Auld Lang Syne

But sometimes Charlie Idaho wears a cape
And he flies through my mind
At traffic lights
On swing sets in near empty parks
Sometimes at night
Just before sleep erases the day
And I know
That if it could have been anything
Then it really would have been something
Taking on the world
And facing the mundane and the monotony
Together

I look to the skies sometimes
And I wonder if he believes that Cindy Indiana
Might also be the name of a super hero
And that those borders of Kryptonite
Will become nothing more
Than lines on a map
A road trip
A bus ticket not yet purchased
And that maybe someday
There could be a rescue here

December 13, 2015

editors note: All possibilities present in the naming of names; Idaho, Indiana. So much can happen in such states. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read Day! This week we bring you a darker shade of Contributing Writer/Poet/Artist Mike Fiorito.

Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick'o'the week tale, \"The Twilight’s Last Gleaming"::"We have ourselves, always. Know that and love that. It'll be all you can love when no one else is around. When everyone is taken not by gods, but by devils--other people."

Here's a glimpse of the gleamin':

photo by Tyler Malone

The thing he missed most was the sound of birdsong.

After the change, you no longer heard birds. You might see birds high in the sky, now and again, far from humans, as if too frightened to come near. But you didn’t hear them. You couldn’t hear anything. There was a ringing that droned in his ears but he wasn’t sure if that was the after effect of the noise the explosion made or if was just something he heard. There weren’t any trees, either. The sky was barren, a stark grey pallor filled the sky.

He walked along the shore. The ocean water didn’t come in great crashing waves like before. The water moved like thick petroleum. He drank the water. Even if he killed him, he had to drink it so as not to die anyway.

He’d been walking alone for at least a year. He’d seen a few people. He met one man a few months ago who was looking for his wife. He spent a night with the man. They ate a raccoon together on a spit, cooking above a great fire. The man’s eyes were streaked red. He spoke in whispers.

“I used to be farmer,” he said. “Before the change.” No one referred to what happened.

“She can’t be far from here,” the farmer said.

“Do you think she made it out alive?”

“My wife made it out,” the farmer replied sternly. “She’d called me the night before and said she was taking a plane back from the Midwest to the coast.”

The man imagined the plan evaporating in the sky, turning into a splotch of water in midair...

Get the rest of your gleam-read on right here!

••• Mad Swirl Merch •••

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... 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 new online store! This merch will be available for purchase until December 21st. They come in all sizes for men and woman and a variety of colors. Come get you one... or two, you know, for the mad ones in your swirlin' world!

We here at Mad Swirl have been tossing around the idea of selling all kinds of merch but we aren't sure what the demand would be. We are dippin' our toe in the swirlin' waters with this lil store we set up. If all goes good, we will continue selling our madness and start offering up all kinds of crazy designs!

•••••••

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...

Cryin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“We're all moving, moving, moving. Isn't it nice?” ~ Charles Olson

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Bordering Moorland” (above) by featured artist Eleanor Leonne Bennett. To view all of Eleanor's works, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we hied the hype of haiku happenstance; we linked to lazy wish manipulation; we powered through to the peak of candy kisses; we stood in a stream of stolid star talk; we stalled adrift, in river, stream and sea (we see); we grabbed our ghosts in depths of Yuletide greetings; we needled twig on branch on trunk, tree eternal, life from loam. We grow, we glean, we grapple with the issues of the Season. Eternal stirs the Swirl! ~ MH Clay

Sound of Trees by Sheighle Birdthistle

I listen to trees.
There are sounds
Living within roots
Knowledge and knowing
Spreading like fingers.
My mortality hit me
As I awaited sleep
I made a prayer…
To see next morning
To see and hear
My tree of choice.
It grows in my garden.
A French tree
That unites me.
To the earth and sky.
I listen, laugh and cry
When my tree whispers.
Poetry allows me freedom
To vent my difference
I hate the chopping down
Of trees, it stills a voice.
A voice that I still crave
It is the call of a universe
I knew long ago
In the land of sighe.
Dancing in circles
Trees gilding silence
Of dance and Druids
As tresses guide the
Fairy longing for life.
Birds come for wisdom
Red squirrel exercises
Sun plays with shadows
As raindrops cry.
The French tree unites
With roots outstretched
To a myriad of forest.
The whispering continues
It transmits to home
It transmits from home
Scattering leaves
And nourishing earth
With longing, stretching
To the sky in jubilation
At being alive.

December 26, 2015

editors note: When the Day of days is past, this is the tree for all seasons. Yes! – mh clay

Sentimental Snowcapped Romance, Seasonally by Tyler Malone

Winter’s a season to carry in a pocket,
hoping it’s as pretty as remembered.

Holy ghosts of Christmas pasts, futures and presents
wish our world ices under heels.

Some search for angels in snow,
expect gifts they know they’ll love,
or will explain what a life feels like.

Find what’s built, don’t crumble with it.
Grow experiences outlasting heartbeats.

Every night’s holy. Drain glasses, always feel full.
Sing simple carols as loud as favorite swears.
All hallways wear mistletoe as years become old loves.

Be lucky stomachs are as knotted as lights
before kissing, breathing out ghosts goodnight.

December 25, 2015

editors note: An eternal Season’s Greeting from our Short Story Editor (also a poet in his own write) for all who would keep their ghosts alive. (Read two more from Tyler on his page; greetings, for contrast, from a brief season in hell.) – mh clay

Off the shore by Haris Adhikari

The oars are stuck
and so the boat
in this exotic high land
far away from the shore.

But no, no problem!
I’ll see to it, fix it
and go on with
rowing, rowing, rowing

to places unknown
from where I was
or where I am. There, too,
I’ll be off the shore

though far and beyond
I can see, I can see
many a river
and many a sea.

December 24, 2015

editors note: On this, of all eves, wherever we can be, defined by whatever we can see. – mh clay

I Can Hear the Stars by A.J. Huffman

counting me, as if I were something
backwards that would eventually disappear
like morning. They giggle, check me
off their points, a not-too-human to-do list
that doesn’t really need tending,
just attention from a blind(ing) audience
as temporary as dream.

December 23, 2015

editors note: One hell of a lag time; our answers won’t reach them before they’re gone in a flash of nova we’ll never see. – mh clay

Circus love by Elissa Landrigan

On a carousel at dusk
we shared
a sticky pink cloud
from a cardboard cone
and I loved your sugar coated words
that lingered
on your lips
swirls of powered sweetness
round and round and round
dizzy with confection love

December 22, 2015

editors note: Add the red suit with that tricked-out sleigh and it’s a candyland of romance for the season. – mh clay

Falling Stars by Noel Negele

I am tired of imagining a life where
I’m the best version of myself
While all the rest are the same

It used to take hold of me for hours
This wonderful reverie
Where I luxuriated in jolly scenarios
Of good loving
Of noble money-making
Saving children
Giving good speeches
And drinking very little
And snorting even less

But I’m tired of it
I daydream in the night for too long
Until the sun shines a pale glow
Through the autumn clouds
And the rays never seem to reach me

I have some living to do
Some people manage to delay it
With university and all
But that didn’t work out well for me

I am greedy by nature
And terribly lazy

For example
Yesterday I saw a falling star
And I wished I’d see five more
So I have five wishes
Instead of one.

December 21, 2015

editors note: Not lazy! Focused energy; five is better than one. Not lazy at all. – mh clay

HAIKUS by Nicolas Grenier

empty sentence
in the middle of a haiku
final punctuation

on the next page
between minuscule letters
a comma

appointment
on a white sheet
with a semicolon

sooner or later
my life in poetry
a slash

December 20, 2015

editors note: All our random words, strung together, punctuated by life; a period, an exclamation point or a slash. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? This rowdy tale, "Headbang", comes to us from writer Gary Hewitt. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about it:"Sometimes, what we want the most is bigger than us. It’s timeless. It’ll eat us whole and leave piles of bones behind after it drags us for miles and allows us to limp away as we praise grace."

Here's a few slaps to wake ya' up:

The jukebox dared to play New Moon.

“Charlie, who put this on?”

“Weren’t me, it’s one of those tossers over there,” shrugged Charlie.

Tony cast a fury glance at Soulboy, Dollop, who wore his muscles under his belly and Library Lad.

“They come in our pub and stick their crap on, it ain’t right is it, Sid?”

Sid followed Tony’s gaze. Soulboy was trying his best to ignore the unwarranted hostility.

“You behave yourselves. Any trouble, you’re barred.”

Tony shook his head. He liked Buster yet the landlord worried too much.

“I ain’t gonna ‘ave a pop. I don’t like it though when mugs swan in here and think they own the place.”

Dollop dared to glare at Tony.

“Is he staring me out?”

“Come on, mate, let’s just have a couple of jars.”

“All right, but I ain’t happy.”

“You got a problem?” said Dollop.

The adipose drinker moved towards the bar. Tony grabbed the neck of his bottle. He’d used the strategy enough times in the past.

“You what?”

“Why do you keep slagging off our music?”

Dollop’s words were too much...

Get the rest of your raucous read on right here!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve the 1st Wednesday of January (aka 01.06.16) as we kick things off for the NEW year at our NEW Open Mic home, The Underpass Bar (located at 650 Exposition Ave in Dallas). If you haven't experienced the poetic prowess of Jolee, you're in for quite the movin' set. If you have seen Jolee, you know this will be quite the show!

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

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

•••••••

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...

Movin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

“No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Early January Optimism” (above) by one of our featured artists (and short story editor) Tyler Malone. To view all of Tyler's works, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery.

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week in Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum... we scribed a survival list for holiday survivalists; we sliced thin similes with a finely honed pome; we gave up the cover of a back-up lover (it's headliner or nothing for us); we tallied the charge for a year lived large; we wound down the old year with time taking a drag; we greeted the new year with monkey shines and perfect lines to refill our spent pens; we made a map to steer us clear of treasons and tactless passions, to land smack in the middle of oblivion. The New Year beckons! "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile..." ~ MH Clay

The World Map by Walter Ruhlmann

Those remote places swell
unlike the rest of the land
to dwell, or rest forever
in a shell shocked state

The falling skies thundered,
slowing the risky leaps, although
not killing it, she sings.

The wall in front of me as I’m watching over them,
white as purity, brightens the day, yet, ruthlessly,
the fantasies come back in a dash of hanger,
or desire to push me against higher ramparts.

She sings still,
sitting on a dark stool of thorns;
no bruises left on her thighs though.

More islands to visit,
more continents to conquer,
even more men to undo,
cheers, and greetings, and hi’s on a screen of mercy,
a monitor of lust, typing short text messages to arouse them,
then showing off in front of the camera:
a blinking eye like the map pinned on this white wall,
another hole into nothingness,
another window on the outside,
another world to possess
sucking me into the most terrible acts of treason,
tactless passions leading once more to lands of oblivion.

January 2, 2016

editors note: Plug this into your smart map to navigate this new year. Let’s all meet in oblivion! – mh clay

Resolution by Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

In the year of the monkey
you will write elegies
on dark windowpanes with shuttered ears
and cobblestones in dark narrow streets
will catch rain’s grievance in puddles lit

in the year of the monkey
acuity of exiled heels
will erase bolstered mockery on chapped lips

they think you don’t know
who lurks in your sleep paralysis
as rats in corner bars gnaw spun memories
toasting a New Year refurbished

this city sprawls on thin skin
this city slurps remorse in straws rolled green
dreams drool from its carnal pierced and jeweled chin

red poppies will again kiss
blades of fresh grass on highways’ edge
and on a billboard your name
once flicked like scream of insects on city’s shin
will hang loosely from a nail

yet under your eyelids you will let them breathe
as they refill your veins with ink

January 1, 2016

editors note: This New Year will be Happy if we make it so! Reverse those fortunes; when in with the bad air, (go) out with the good. – mh clay

Time by J.K. Durick

Time weighs us down
like too many lunches would
or your grandmother’s quilt
on a summer day.

It fills us to the brim
like champagne glasses
misshapen balloons
or punctured tires.

Dances us around
like a reluctant suitor
a poorly trained bear
a badly played tune.

Runs us down
like a herd of small dogs
a pride of house cats
or the four o’clock bus.

It collides with us all
like a blind prizefighter
two inbound flights
the twain finally meeting.

Time, all by itself, weighs us,
fills us, dances, runs,
and we collide.
Then time stands by a lamppost
Smokes herself a long lazy smoke
Watches us all go by
And heaves a great sigh.

December 31, 2015

editors note: This year has come an’ gone. A great spectacle of human endeavors; some for good, some for other. Let’s give’em one more; see what they do… – mh clay

The Tab by Scott Thomas Outlar

Everyone pays in the end,
one way or another,
for better or for worse,
until death do us part.

Everyone gets stuck with a tab
they cannot afford
while at the bar, alone,
dead in their seat,
dead on their feet,
dead in the gutter,
sleeping in the street,
drowning in the puddles,
freezing in the cold,
shaking, starving, strung out
from fasting, dizzy,
delirious, down on their luck,
left for dead, walked over,
danced upon, forgotten
by the future that never came –
in the end, everyone will pay.

December 30, 2015

editors note: As we enter a New Year, let’s review the bill so far; naked we come, naked we go… – mh clay

Backup Lover by Stephanie Mojica

Like the dancers behind Shakira or Christina Aguilera
on stage, shimmying in living color but not truly acknowledged.

Like the wallpaper that covers the dark spots,
necessary, but bland compared to what caused the marks.

Like the country doctor who calls right back when you page him,
even though it’s probably something mild and he’ll be forgotten again
in a moment.

Always there, always serving, always yearning,
but never seen, never treasured, never found.

December 29, 2015

editors note: Sad truth; better to have one than to be one. (Originally published in Calliope Nerve, 2009) – mh clay

A POEM RESURRECTED: from the lost book of Evangeline, chapter VI, verse IX by Joey Da'rrell Cloudy

I can say without ego this is my finest sword. -Hattori Hanzo

After the last manic pixie dream girl with bad boy and daddy issues
is gone gone gone. And all that remains undulating in the toxic wake
of our banal debauchery is suicidal depression.
When all her glitter on my tee shirts
finally falls away, slowly fading with the sensual
musk of her little deaths on empty silk sheets,
until I alone lay within
the molten core of the meat house
of unsated desires. A humble public servant’s
announcement to all humanity, my confession if you will,
as I bleed out while you read on the inside
ensanguined lines slid over a soul faceless and eternal
and I and eye ironically live
in mental terror of lost time, mortal errors.

The slashed flesh heals, we wear our warrior’s self inflicted wounded
memories with all of the solemn pride of a holocaust survivor’s guilt.
The scarred soul festers and boils until it erupts in
random acts of senseless violence. Time
devoured wasting away trapped in a spiraling
repression confined to wither in this room
as days become weeks become months become years
six years sitting sedated on synthetic sorrows.
I stopped writing as I lay plans within plans… dying.

Is a poem fermented in penis envy, canonical insecurities
and the inept pontifications of a boozed up philistine
spewing impotent rage. Chalk it up to the game.
Face the new paradigm, the long pigs on the soft parade
feast well on sloppy second comeuppance.
Short changed, dangling deftly as a participle
in the Muses breezeway, a delicate reign falling
before it can rise to one on her knees
for the nectar of Eros drought.
A dry well rusted pipes busted the succubus pumps
ashes, ashes, dust, dust.

No controlled hallelujah from Calliopes lips
or primal sway of her hips. This busted oar dangles limp,
hobbled Baracus drunkenly weeps, foundered upon the rocky shore.
The dip a useless tool moves neither maidens head
habitually failing to bottle the ship once more nor
to rise even to the occasional poem.
Morpheus whispers,
“Is karma gonna hafta slap a bitch?”
“Take the blue pill”.

Is this a poem for all the people
“who are no longer diving but sinking.”
I do not want to write anymore.
I am afraid. But, I will
not allow this thing to infect me, invisibly
fueling subliminal anger to blind rages.
Secrecy is control.
Those who abuse use our fear
to shame us into a Stockholm syndrome silence,
powerless we cover their sin with our muted amnesia
no escape cowering beneath their greater power,
usually for life.

But, this is not a poem these are just the desperate words
of a bard trying to stay alive in a deaf, mute and blind
to human suffering world drowning in a sychophant
sea, polluted with primordial sorrow a man-made madness
satellite HD beamed into our flat screen skulls.
I scream, you scream, liked, pinned, shared, memed.
Everyday we witness another epic little atrocity. Forgotten.
What if this is a poem? Who gives a pity’s fuck?

Eventually, we begin the impossible
transformation of becoming, human, being.
Together we breached the ancient walls within
the prison of the mind, abandoned
our necro-nihilistic despair and unburdened,
without the gaslight beast on our backs,
freedom, freedom is just a line away.

Read poems with stranger friends and lovers.
Wherever the people gather to share good poetry
I am with you.
I am with you in wonderland.
I am with you in neverland.
I am with you in Disneyland.
I am with you in Zombieland.
I am with you in Armageddon!
I am with you. I am with you. I am with you.
I am with you
forever. I am

with you.

December 28, 2015

editors note: Is this a poem? I can’t say, but someone help me find the top o’ my head! – mh clay

TEOTWAWKI by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Without having to understand mechanisms,
TEOTWAWKI could be a time of killing
Cherished bunkmates, delivering “love notes”
Filled with anthrax, gifting solace via
Suicide squads, government thugs, Big
Brother organizations, or, maybe, the seeding
Of highway meridians with oxeye daisies.

Mass graves won’t be dug at family
Gatherings, picnics, walks in the park.
When making compote rich in wine,
It’ll still okay to drizzle cinnamon, chop
In grapes, add toasted coconut. Many
Buildings yet standing will source safe
Comestibles, offer culinary consolation.

Like erstwhile friends, we won’t brook:
Expecting money back guarantees, the
Resurrection of half-dead creatures, old
School morality, well-intended sharing.
They’ll be no privacy of rented spaces,
No teatime biscuits steeped ‘til ready,
Just navy seals skulking among copses.

Woodlands won’t be playgrounds. No
Orchards will stay unclaimed. Vast fields
Will get marked as boot reflex provisions.
Enforcers, not extermination camps, will
Determine seasoned park workers’ strength.
Well-armed others will survive by pulling
Stuff, ransacking chosen, assaulted bodies.

Despite earlier celebrated mutual norms,
It will be laughable to hike out from cities.
Abruptly, alliances will seem less vital
Than signal mirrors, whistles, magnetic
Compasses, lighters, boots, lead pencils,
Multi-tools, radios, smoke grenades,
No one will bother learning calculus.

Having jumped across torn limbs, scouts
Will view upright trees as principled allies.
Singular persons, if perspicacious, will auction
Pets for tourniquets and purification tablets.
Dear hearts will search mag-lights and rifles.
(The rest of us will limit interviews to select
Prisoners, after stealing all handy bashas.)

December 27, 2015

editors note: With the New Year looming, “tourniquets and purification tablets” will go a long way toward surviving the post-holiday apocalypse. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Happy Need-a-Read, v2016! We are very happy to swirl Brooklyn writer Hannah Frishberg back into our madness. We think you will be happy too. Here is what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone had to say about this pick-of-the-week tale:"We’ve bled out last year and now all we have left is the world around us, always new no matter how old it is. The year is a city, the city is our world, our world is us, right to the marrow."

But don't take our word for it, take a few of Hannah's words from "Stoop Dreams" and we are sure you'll wanna keep reading:

(photo by Tyler Malone)

We used to lay together on days so hot the hydrants spewed water with firefighter’s blessings and I’d throw off all but my big girl’s panties and feel your holy brown stone on my bare stomach as you cooed the hum of air conditioning units into my soul

“Do you mind?” I’d ask, smothering you with chalk till you breathed pink dust and spoke in hopscotch. And the rain would wash it all away

We sat together on the edge of the century and watched the millennia change in a sky high explosion of human life with the entire borough counting down from a billion like a never ending rocket ship of immemorial beginnings and I stood in the flower pot to get a better look at eternity and its infinite fireworks...

How dare we stop right there?! What teases we be! But we only tease because we want you to move your mighty mouse right here and visit MadSwirl.com to get the rest of your read on!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl & Swirve the 1st Wednesday of January (aka 01.06.16) as we kick things off for the NEW year at our NEW Open Mic home, The Underpass Bar (located at 650 Exposition Ave in Dallas). This month we will be featuring Dallas poet Jolee Davis. If you haven’t yet experienced the poetic prowess of Jolee, you’re in for quite the treat. If you have seen Jolee, then you know this will be one show you do not want to miss!

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

P.S. If you can’t be here LIVE, you can view the whole show via our Mad Swirl UStream Channel! Just click here at 8:00pm (CST) and watch the mic madness swirlin’ live.

•••••••

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...

Unflinchin',

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

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