“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.”
Christian Morgenstern

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“pool party” (above) by featured artist Madelyn Olson.

To see more of Maddi’s mad canvases, as well as our other featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we unwrapped a present, dreamed from past; we randomized a cobbled a construct; we picked our way through a piece-full day; we watched lightning make boys run fast; we dreamed another dream for luck; we twirled two lovers’ life at play; we yearned for what would not be, yet. Words know how we do it. ~ MH Clay

Yet by Rachel Broadway

You are not my lover, yet
you trace my body with your pencil tip,
like making paper dolls, and promises:
the parody of kiss
without the kiss.
This must be what seduction is:
the heat that builds and builds,
the body’s angry fist.
Your words, like scissors, snip
and snip, along the lines we’ve drawn,
their eager sillhouette.

You are not my lover, yet
I stroke your stories with my finger tips,
like making pottery and statuettes:
the parody of flesh
without the flesh.
This must be what seduction is:
The cup that fills and fills,
the spill that’s always wet.
This need, like hot air, spins
and spins and spins. You
are not my lover, yet.

May 5, 2018

editors note: Hard to step back and take a breath, when breath has already been taken (away). Got to admire such restraint! – mh clay

Sixteen Excitement Bombs Kindly Vast Overtones of Fire Noise in the Sack to New York by Ash and Ray Pettibon

Marvelous magic feels like lollipop hurricanes, ingest in jest.
Masterful citizenry of the mighty blow torch bluish righteousness.
Noble peach cream gleams heated gashes in love and lust.
Quick powers dawn on our showers of love, vivid screams live.
Pick us up from the dust little prepared full of musty mustful must.
Shower on us with care fulfilling a love life in measurements vast.
Feeling comes back again where we were once numb, dumb, bummed.
Precious pleasing helpful hunter chasing down a pride of lions.

Dare be prepared for the sun bust as casual as our dusty garb in brown.
Burst the busted blank look of a follower in dreamscape Hell bound by fire.
I love my fucking husband, and he loves me with sparkle rainbow galore, Ash says.
Princess Prince was once a dusted ball remover of the Third Reich Retention.
He didn’t know left from right on a large scale kindly burning balls all around.
My husband is now a self-reliant dancer, crooning along the way, blazes arising.
He’s skillful, smashing in a grab-bag mish-mash fab fame, glorifying the game.
I’m smooth and sparkling with my right left jab at the moon, done and done, Ray says.

Reward my wife with a pounding grace that gives mercy to face hitting it down to waste.
Time rewind in a bind, and we are lime green mean, so satisfy bitches in a switch
Lest ye be like the rest we jest in jester outfits for two at the Festival of Shining Delight.
Glowing comes into the picture then our eyes meet and the meatiness of it all is a doll.
Fasten fascination to belt knotching in-between the gnawing down there, oh please.
Maybe goodness, maybe not, and your hatred, people out there in the world, is oh pleased.
We have the heart, park it in her rear after dark mister 16, and tonight we make love again.
Exquisite core pounding my wife is fine flattering the line of flourishing fences fenced-in.

Build the divide we never cherished and way us to New York, 16 Baby, all up in yas.
Free liberty upon us from the 70s where hubby dwells in a place laced up to bring us together.
Dine with 50 and 60 and get hot fine wine sex in a fucktastic equality bound and tight.
Delicious creative artistry is next on the list with desire of considerable blue overtones.
Dazzle to find my wife wound up where she is hidden, smiling that I’m looking for her from here.
Ray, the gay soldier, with tufts of gray everyday is a fight from the past gassed out burning.
Completely complete her cleverly clear in bright visions of circus freakdom in wonderful bursts.
We love each other fully knowing that it’s not always black or white but something in the middle.

May 4, 2018

editors note: Bring your partner to the Festival of Shining Delight and dance in this tongue. Yes! – mh clay

Come on Dream by Gregg Dotoli

crash through that dome
deep into dream space
where dreams march in peace
on roads of star
in the land
of Nottsofar

Come on Dream
any road will do
to get us there

Dream it’s
a land
governed by
astounding deeds done
love,
and goldensun

Come on Dream
We’ve some traveling to do

May 3, 2018

editors note: Would that we could map these journeys; trip tics delivered by the AAA. – mh clay

nonet #8 by James Rodehaver

mountainous jaws rending coral sky
talkin shit about a sunset
cumulonimbus cloud church
columns of creation
high priest barn owl shrieks
paper plane crash
heat lightning
field boys
run.

May 2, 2018

editors note: From nine to one, this nuanced nonet; nicely done. Run! – mh clay

Waiting for the Dna Test by Dan Raphael

Could i count the black dogs in the field if they stopped moving
or is it just 2 or 3 dogs displaying simultaneously all the places
they’ve been & will be there, chasing the ball of the sun,
playing tug of war with a hank of river

The crows near the homeless camp know me
breaking open a plastic bag of rain-soaked bagels & pastry
so more could eat, as more fly in

And what of our oak tormented by squirrels
strip-searched, gnawed, then expected to provide shelter
in a hole or crotch—who else is living there
not counting the moss machines, the insect processes

But i don’t mean bees, more functional & intelligent
than we could ever, no matter how we choose to miniaturize,
to export natural functions to devices we can never fix, only upgrade

Is there a mammal whose skin no one ever wore
a bird whose feathers didn’t decorate some body
the tree my door came from, the ice that became my window.

When a dogs tail is wagging. where are his teeth,
when i think it’s night but my windows are covered with crows,
as flesh is a veil, as clothes announce our sadness
at having so little fur and no feathers at all
just these thick bones to withstand small collisions
and keep us chained to the earth
we seldom rise from, seldom run across full speed
trailing slobber, dust and fleas of random memory.

I drive a mile to the Thirsty Dog; the bartender asks
if i’m a service animal, or might i be in season

May 1, 2018

editors note: To bee or not to be; not even the question when the answers are multiple choice. – mh clay

Welding by Bhargab Chatterjee

savagery
automation
solar eclipse

trauma
modals
the atomic structure

polytheism
grass
refraction of light

independent variables
proletariat
insomniac fog

justice
nightgown
war-game manuals

dust
Cezanne
mother board

blizzard
super ego
the alimentary canal

April 30, 2018

editors note: It all comes out in the end. – mh clay

ONE PAST YESTERDAY by Roger G. Singer

I pulled down a dream.
Opened like a present.
I feel a full sun warming me;
breezes reinforce the
moment.
Beach grass bends to rhythm.
Bicycles, open shirts,
uncombed hair. Faces without
voices. Water reflections.
Warm freshly tarred roads.
The fragrance of low tide.
Corners without
boundaries.
Each day writes its own menu.
Radios speak in concert over sand.
It was an open window.
Freedom not to return, except by
dreams.

April 29, 2018

editors note: Return, so sweet, when free to not. Next dream, please. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Need-a-Read? We know that “eventually” you will!

This week’s featured short-short, “Eventually” by Naushena, clocks in at a mere 330 words so we are going to hold off the preview & share Short Story Editor Tyler Malone​’s comment as a teaser instead:

“Revenge is a dish best served in your own kitchen, with your own hands, with your own cutlery.”

(photo “Load of Crock” by Tyler Malone aka The Second Shooter)

With a review like that, how can you resist? Get this read on NOW!

••• Mad Swirl Open Mic •••

Notes of Gratitude to the Mad Ones : 05.02.18

This past 1st Wednesday of May (aka 05.02.18) Mad Swirl​ stirred it up again! As always, we opened the mic up to all you mad poets, performers, artists and musicians and, as always, all y’all swirled up a mighty fine night!

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

(click to start the slideshow : photos courtesy of Dan “the MAN!” Rodriguez)

Hosts:

Johnny O
MH Clay

Music:

Swirve

Mad Mic Cast:

Johnny O
MH Clay
Tamitha Curiel
Carlos Salas
Opalina Salas
Chris Zimmerly
David Crandall
Victory Peaches
James Barrett
Victory
Christopher Calle
B. Randall
Jack Ritter
Suza Kanon
Rek

GREAT BIG thanks to Swirve (Chris Curiel​ ~ trumpet; Gerard Beniks ~ Skins; special guest Greg Prickett ~ guitar) for stirring the Swirl the best way in the world!

More HUGE thanks to City Tavern​’s Thad Kuiper & Noble Tse for makin’ our stay most righteous. HUGEST grats to friend & proprietor of the Tavern, Josh Florence!

And lastly, but never leastly, thanks to all who came out to the Tavern & shared this loving, laughing, lasting night of poetry and music with us!

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

Mad Love,

Johnny O

P.S. In case you missed the LIVE feed, it’s not too late to be a fly on the wall. Check it out in all its LIVE glory 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…

Understandin’,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor