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The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.19.20

The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.19.20
Some of you here on FB knew him as David Parham. I first knew him as Rob Dyer. Whatever name you knew him by, as cliché as it is, to know him was to love him. He was easy with his contagious laugh, sharp with his brilliant mind, a true blue-eyed soul and one of[read more]

The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.12.20

The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.12.20
“Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love.” Robert Indiana ••• The Mad Gallery ••• "The Litany of Deceptions" – Bill Wolak With this one we say "‘til we again" for Bill’s feature run. But don’t you fret, stay tuned for our next featured artist coming soon! See all of Bill’s wild and hallucinated canvases, as well[read more]

The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.05.20

The Best of Mad Swirl : 09.05.20
“The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.” Caspar David Friedrich ••• The Mad Gallery ••• "Surprised by Melting Eyelids" – Bill Wolak See all of Bill’s wild and hallucinated canvases, as well as our other former featured artists (50 in total) at Mad Swirl’s Mad Gallery! ••• The[read more]

POETRY FORUM

WHILE WATCHING ICE MELT

by Guest Poet
the mustache hair grows up into the nostril
gray hairs sprouting everywhere
how irritating

as usual the snake-skin itches
like a brush fire across the surface
of centrifuge earth

my problems, minuscule,
trivial
it’s not like I’m getting impeached

I’m just going for the Walt Whitman look
or maybe Monet
and what about Brancusi

the beard hair alights out of the brush
Joan of Arc on fire
orphans every damn where

turn on the cable news streaming vitriol
the viruses will gang up against
the mouth breeders

drunk at the airport bar
you’re gonna miss your flight
best miss it
just so you can live an hour longer

– Jay Passer

Recently Published

fragmented no. 22

by Dah
beneath a dead body there is,
also, a dead shadow. the dead
are broken. to go underground
is obedience. to not remember
is to say somebody forgot to
speak. there[read more]

The Red Grasshopper

by Guest Poet
One Day
You heard
your name
in the midst of the crowd:
Somebody was calling you

You turned back
There was neither the crowd
nor the sound

An old woman
with a doll[read more]

HE WANTS HOME IMPROVEMENT, I WANT DEATH

by Bradford Middleton
There’s some damn rich type
Undertaking some home improvements
In the mews house behind
The terrace on which i live
And every damn morning of late
He’s been waking earlier[read more]

SHORT STORIES

Firsts

Firsts

by Alan Gann
twenty-four hours eggs and grits and hot coffee small shared silences Too old for milk and sugar, I was 12 when I drank my first cup of black coffee. We were at the diner where Old 54 runs into Trinity Mills. No sign, no name, just the diner where Dad and I always ate breakfast before heading to the lake. Mostly we’d cast for large mouth or troll for stripers, but this morning, leaving the bass boat home, we strapped a borrowed canoe onto the roof. When we pulled up to the dock,[read more]
Dear Mother,

Dear Mother,

by John Lane
Dear Mother, You promised that you would never leave me, and you promised that you would always love me by speaking those three words, “ I love you,” and you promised that you would give me the sugar water whenever I felt the anxiety, and you promised to teach me how to count in Japanese, and you promised that you would learn not to put one pair of panty hose in the washer to make it a full load, and you promised that you would learn to stay awake with a[read more]
Another Sequel

Another Sequel

by Leroy Vaughn
Maxxon Studios decided to make a sequel to Vanishing Point. The original movie was made in 1970 using a white Dodge Challenger, and the star was named Kowalski. Kowalski was a Vietnam veteran. He’s delivering the Challenger from Denver to San Francisco, and a chase starts after he has a run in with the cops in Denver. There’s a black radio disc jockey called Super Soul that guides him through the car radio. A sequel was done in 1997 using a white Dodge Challenger also, but a newer model. The star’s[read more]