“You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.”

Henry Rollins

••• The Mad Gallery •••

Notice ~ Thomas Riesner

To see all Thomas’ wicked squiggles, as well as our other resident artists (50 and counting!) take a virtual stroll thru Mad Swirl’s Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This past week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we ambled amazely, preserved in paisley; we wound a whirl for the perfect girl; we danced in the bliss of a new found kiss; we mastered alone in the elder’s drone; we sang aloud in a cosmic cloud; we giants addressed in our body dress; we numb hummed luck in a rhyme that stuck. The nib of pen dislodges them. ~ MH Clay

Nearly by MH Clay

A hand gone numb
Soon to tingle

A lover’s hum
A crowd at play

The click of a latch
A cipher deciphered
All variations factored

Music

A dried blister
An inside joke
The place before sleep
The place before waking

Rainfall

The stutter of days
A rhyme at the end

February 12, 2022

editors note: Sometimes phenomena remain in the waiting state. – Mike Fiorito

Giant’s Poem by Hongri Yuan

The body is just a dress of your soul and the world is a picture of time.
You can’t find yourself even if you go all over the world,
because the temple of the soul is in a garden beyond time.
Those smiles of the prehistoric giants are in a bright mirror of the quiet spirit
and the interstellar words are a giant’s poem.

(Translated by Yuanbing Zhang)

February 11, 2022

editors note: We seek to be so big as (at least) one word in a verse. – mh clay

Tiny Vessel by Mike Fiorito

A tiny vessel streaks thru the dark of space

racing forward to the

unknown

The capsule’s surface sprays beams of light

into the void

Its lonely glimmer like a lamp

on an empty street

As the little humans busy themselves with gadgets and dials

back on Earth

a song is hummed by a child

her eyes wet with anticipation

as she dances around the rosy

a pocket full of flowers

Her sweet melody

bound with the thoughts and cries of every person that ever lived

hurls across galaxies

moving

like breath

like fire

its steady sound splicing space

like a million tiny diamonds

to the farthest reaches

February 10, 2022

editors note: We’re just a song in space, searching for a cosmic ear. – mh clay

Journaling by Sanjeev Sethi

There is peace in pebbles. They rest
until reallocated. For the most part,
normal is a no-no. It is an invention
of the antinome lobby.

Hazing comes readily to teenyboppers.
If you hop six schools in six cities in
as many years there is reason to be
remonstrative.

While the elders click their flutes
and chime: it is about adjusting and
making friends we stow away the
warps in our secret-sloop.

February 9, 2022

editors note: Survival by wresting wonder from those warps. – mh clay

LOVE IS STRIPPED TO SHARING BREAD by Strider Marcus Jones

we were kissing
and dancing
to a kitchen song,
talking with our wine
and smoking bong;
then you pushed your pierced pin
of forged fire
further in
the groove of my desire
with your tongue.

later,
up the creaking wooden escalator-

“let me do you” i said
peeling back your petals
with my voice:

love is stripped to sharing bread
abroad-in plain rooms-where Nora and Joyce
reject precious metals.

it brings to craggy green cliffs
that still talk-
of two minds, in the seaborn mist
of one thought-
why should four legs walk
under clouds adrift.
glum damp rock moss cups
when we go to ground
under body musk
and pagan sound-

the meaning of the hour
when lit lusts flower
fills the air
everywhere
at last
and the future does not imitate the past.

February 8, 2022

editors note: Here’s to now and again when again makes a new now. Yes! – mh clay

Boho Honey by Ivan Jenson

I like quirky individuals
of the female persuasion
who wear Diane Keaton hats
sport funky boots
have dimple indentations
shoulders inked with tats
and who own
black cats
and a vintage vinyl
record player
where you can hear
the needle scratch
I consider them
with their hoop earrings
and smokey mascara
to be the best catch
because they can
adore Plath
yet still know
how to laugh
at an offhand remark
and they often
show great originality
as well as ingenuity
when we are
naked in the dark

February 7, 2022

editors note: Sounds like every bobo’s dream. – mh clay

Hoopla by Fay L. Loomis

hot pink joggers
hotter pink tee

orange and fuchsia paisley
cardigan, navy squiggles

tangerine flowers
grow on pale pink socks

two-tone sneakers
robin’s egg and navy blue

eighty-something dressed
to trot, nowhere to go

nap
perhaps

February 6, 2022

editors note: Prepared or preserved? With paisley, it’s both. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you Need-a-Read, get a sniff of this week’s featured read at Mad Swirl, “Old Spice“ by Contributing Writer & Poet Susie Gharib!

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

What we leave behind is what we want to leave behind for all to find. And maybe they’ll keep it close.

Here’s a splash of “Old Spice“ to get your read need goin’:

(photo “Old Town Times” by Tyler Malone)

He records the weight and breadth of her censorious words every night in his notebook. He keeps a chart of his tears, another of her screams, and a few tick boxes for the scarcity of halcyon days. His face has become a topography of his ill-hidden fears of displeasing a woman who had hijacked the best of his years. He had contemplated erupting like the volcanoes that fascinated his teens but tied was the tongue that could only beat against the roof of his mouth in any form but speech. He decides to resort to letters but finds dictionaries deficient in conveying his meanings. He believes a naked word that is unclothed by the human voice is impoverished, semantically speaking. He investigates every physiognomic feature noted for its efficacy in eliciting response from the human species and tries them all, hoping to encompass himself within the scope of his wife’s vision since she only looks into but never at him, leaving on his inward and rawest spots a handful of her slimy derision. His visibility further dwindles with every aborted effort to express his grievance at her perennial indifference. He becomes a mere presence that makes itself felt by the fragrance with which it has been adorned since its wedding day, for a bottle of Old Spice has ever been an integral part of his shaving kit…

Get the rest of this olfactorius read 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’…

Just a lil bit…

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor

Mike Fiorito
Associate Editor