“Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.”

Philip Guston

••• The Mad Gallery •••

Buried – Bleak Teeth

To see all of Bleak Teeth’s gritty and creepy cast of characters (yet oh so attractive), as well as our other former featured artists (over 50 in total), take a virtual stroll thru Mad Swirl’s Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This past week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we got into a spat with a closeted hat; we sat in light for the will to write; we found elation in obligation; we fancies tossed in fire and frost; we risked all on a pub crawl; we hosted the ghosted; we broadcasted, baiting, on aliens waiting. To communicate needs give and take; like writers need readers. Say what? ~ MH Clay

Reality Lines by S. A. Gerber

Android reality
pulses through
our lines
of life.
Give news
take news
false news
fake news.
We are
hard-wired
to receive
the noise
of what
we have
discarded into
the entire
space universe.
In a
cosmic way,
we have
reaped what
we’ve sown.
The fowl
have returned
to roost.
Our machines
have sputtered
mundane data
across lightyears
of the
modern era.
The great
age of
communication…
where no
one talks,
and worse,
fewer listen.
We have
morphed into
an age
of abeyance.

June 26, 2021

editors note: Listening for any voices except our own. (But, if I were them, I wouldn’t talk to us either.) – mh clay

The Closest I’ll Get to an Afterlife by Richard LeDue

He lived in a morgue
that was renovated into a house
(an old friend of mine
I haven’t seen in years),
and the spirits would come out
at night, poking you in your sleep,
or so I was told
because I’m yet to meet a ghost
who wasn’t still alive.

June 25, 2021

editors note: Still, would rather meet than be one. – mh clay

Mariner Verve On by Anabell Donovan

Banal poured and populated,
crated towns mottle a sheer ocean shore
with bustling sounds of ample women
darting in their saucy tea hive.

Weathered men gather at sunset,
single file they enter
the “Mariner Verve On” pub
for white-knuckled drinking
and songs of A Garlic Orca
whose meaning they forgot
on a sea orgy long ago.

A maid clothed in stubborn hope
candies apples with dark desire,
tastes carnal moons and shadows
awaiting the Betrothal Ferry.

A worried father feeds
Kielbasa Bark Ruts
to the town’s chat felon,
who spreads milky thighs
in the tresses of his mind.

And the mural painter
observes the required silence
to collect fig barks
for the Coda Oven to temper
with words gnashing in the wind.

June 24, 2021

editors note: At any bar; cloaked hope, stolen chats, and gnashing for the perfect pick-up line. – mh clay

Time Has It Hands In The Fire and On The Frost by Kushal Poddar

The bird, I imagine,
asks how long the bard’ll
go on scrivening
about those stolen kisses he missed
as a young man.

From the street beneath
my verandah, a vagrant
upturns his palms. Money?
No, he shows his scald.
Time has touched
both the fire and the frost;
does the man feel
the veins swelled with the pride
for his battle marks?

Almost spring, the bipolar wind
inoculates two minds
I think with, and I think about
the bird of the morning
and the man without a home,
and those two minds fight
against the starry starry night
and chasing crows inside.

Time feeds two serpents.
Some rumours of the summer
lures you to open the curtains.
A flyer flies in. Don’t pick up.
I scream. We didn’t discover
any vaccine for belief.

June 23, 2021

editors note: A kiss or a kiss-off being handed the cold truth. – mh clay

My Daughter’s Doll by Paul Hellweg

My daughter’s cloth doll
Raggedy Ann, yellow yarn hair
Lies face down on my home office floor
Alone, abandoned, neglected
A sad remnant of yesterday’s ecstasy
As daddy was distracted from a life of obligation
By a 4-year-old who doesn’t know what the word means
And I pray she never does

June 22, 2021

editors note: Make every act a gift, yes. Much obliged! – mh clay

Aftermath of a Rejection Letter II by Carl Kavadlo

i guess the payoff
at any level
is still worth
the effort.

and the outcome
when the editors
shun you
while encouraging.

it’s just that hit!
the addicts
search and seek
thieves risk
returned gunfire.

all you’ve got to do
is sit in early
morning light
uncertain, alone
and go on.

i used to pile
glass ashtrays high
with cigarette buts
of various kinds.

now i just wait
for the sun
and some light
inside.

June 21, 2021

editors note: Just a little light to write… right. – mh clay

Hat by Robert L. Martin

My hat, my own,
My possession, my slave,
My rain repellentthinger,
My object, my dummy,
My lumpa’ felt, felted lump,
Closet dweller, room taker upper,
Piece of junk, no named nothin’,
Lower than the lowest,
Dunce in the closet,
Closeted junk, nitwit, nincompoop,
Waiting for me to come alive,
To be worn by me,
To gain prominence,
To take over, gain control,
To become the wearerer,
The one who wears me,
Me the wearee,
Me the nitwit in the closet,
To doff me and
Smile at the ladies,
That no-good piece of crap
That became my slaver daddy,
That *%#%* son of a *&$#&%.

June 20, 2021

editors note: When self-control loses to hat-control. Doff or be doffed. (Congrats to Robert on the release of his new collection, “Rhymes of the Joke Machine,” just released on Amazon, June 8th. Get your copy here.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Here’s what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about this pick’o the week:

“Want to go as hard as I do? That’s a road meant to be fucked up on all alone.”

Here’s an excerpt of the excerpt to get you goin’:

(photo “Broke but Still Here” by Tyler Malone)

•••••••

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’…

Hocus-Pocus’n,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

Mike Fiorito
Associate Editor