WHAT’S NEW

Mad Swirl Open Mic : 06.05.19

Mad Swirl Open Mic : 06.05.19
In case you missed the scoop shared at this past Mad Swirl Open Mic, the Regal Room has closed its doors & left us once again, without a home... But if there is one thing Mad Swirl is, it's tenacious! The mad winds have once again guided us to our new home (our 5th in 15[read more]

The Best of Mad Swirl : 05.18.19

The Best of Mad Swirl : 05.18.19
“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art.” Margot Fonteyn ••• The Mad Gallery ••• Lobster Quadrille ~ Sharon O'Callaghan Shero Once again, it's been great to have Sharon O'Callaghan Shero featured in our Gallery. We look forward to what she delivers to us next time! Until then, stay tuned to see who Mad[read more]

The Best of Mad Swirl : 05.11.19

The Best of Mad Swirl : 05.11.19
“I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.” Frank Stella ••• The Mad Gallery ••• Lobster Quadrille ~ Sharon O'Callaghan Shero To see ALL of Sharon's wonderful Wonderland snaps, as well as our other featured artists (45 total!), visit our Mad Gallery! ••• The Poetry Forum ••• This[read more]

POETRY FORUM

The Age of Thunder Lizards

by PW Covington
The age of thunder lizards is over
Let songbirds take the air
Liars in Chief don’t apologize on the border
To soldiers banking on his yields

Let the frontier guards build their walls
Let the poets tear them down
Let the blood moon rise
and eclipse itself
With a twangy, country, sound

I’m alright; like the rest of us
Just a little stoned
And I’m okay on the right side
On the outside
Left behind
And, you’re okay
You’ve never believed

If time won’t tell, the weather will
Whether this lust will last
However this bust is cast

Would you rather be colonized or conquered
Absorbed or assimilated
Watered down or drowned
Served as soup or over rice?

The highway exits roll back upon themselves
Like the House of Eternal Return tends to do
Turning lanes and toll booths
Can go fuck the Catechism
As early morning greyness ensues

Liars in Chief cannot last forever
Reptile kinky sex can show us something deeper
And coffee waits in heaven on the dash

Recently Published

Down Under

by Robert L. Martin
After plunging into the cold, cold sea
From his merciful mission across the sky,
The man called the Sun all tired and worn,
Laboring with each mile upon[read more]

that old sad faceless

by Guest Poet
slim & glim
it glubbed right cool

the thin thune drop
roll down earth the copyway

chalk calendar on the wall
this is the now of the loud bell

– J.D.[read more]

THE SINKING

by John D Robinson
I have drowned in
your presence,
sunk way below
where you can
see me,
illuminating
flares and the
choirs of ghosts
wrap around me
like newspaper
headlines of
tragedy
but I know I’ll
surface in your
eyes when they
leak[read more]

SHORT STORIES

Fast Asleep

Fast Asleep

by Harley White
Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty The princess speared her palm on the spindle cusp of the spinning spinning wheel and fell down senseless in a death-like swoon. The old crone started in alarm and tried to undo the damage the spindle prick had done but all her qualms cries pat-a-caking rock-a-bye-babying rub-a-dub-dubbing Mother Goosing ring-around-a-roseying and hey-diddle-diddling failed to arouse the motionless Rosamond who seemed to be beyond revival… In the tower of the royal palace I Rosamond lay latent, alive in lifelessness. The legend of the Sleeping Beauty all dreamers dream and dread[read more]
Some Are Some Also

Some Are Some Also

by Jim Meirose
To Mrs. Johnson: Sort of knowing is not knowing but maybe it’s a start. Hazy black grey knowing warm knowing for sure but no knowing what. What’s the time, said the State Trooper who must have stopped you. Must have been it couldn’t have been me because I am asleep, or should be if not then well—nothing that comes out my mouth to myself which it must be directed to, if  no one’s there, can be trusted—but what if no one’s not there but just the same as no one[read more]
Prognostication

Prognostication

by Susie Gharib
Not everything in my childhood was forged with gold. We frequently stayed with our indulging grandparents and basked in their trustworthy hands, but I was occasionally entrusted to the care of the treacherous type, a few family friends with whose children I was accustomed to play. We were once driven to a steep cliff that overlooked a vast expanse of the sea. The boys descended down an easy track, girls adventurously following, while our young supervisor Reem was engaged in the usual theme: there was always some man on her mind[read more]