Thanks to ALL who have already donated to the Mad cause! You’ve brought us 15% closer to our goal! For those who still might wanna lend a hand, it’s not too late…

EVERY dollar donated will go towards growing our collective creative outlet… and you can say you helped!

Grats in advance!
The Mad Swirl Staffers

•••••••

Find the good—and praise it.

Alex Haley

••• The Mad Gallery •••

Run for your Life ~ Sharon O’Callaghan Shero

To see all of Sharon’s Alice-in-Wonderland-esque dreamy landscapes, as well as our other resident artists, take a virtual stroll thru Mad Swirl’s Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we drew near to god in a lustful bod; we wrote lost and unwashed; we free finessed an emptiness; we memory walked through whiskey talk; we dropped our charge o’er an unmoored barge; we got the best of a modern pest; we paupers blessed in eternal rest. We’ll write what we said and sleep when we’re dead. ~ MH Clay

PAUPERS’ CEMETERY by Lorri Ventura

Turkey vultures
Venture beyond a nearby landfill
Circling evocatively above the paupers’ graves
On Mayflower Hill.
Grave markers resemble key heads
Bearing not names, but numerals
A potter’s field
Stretches from a trash-strewn roadside to a forest
Unnamed graves embrace the insane
Forced to sew their own burial shrouds
While hunched on cots
In the nearby state hospital
Alongside them are infants and children
Resting eternally with strangers
In group plots
To conserve space
The earth comforts the nameless poor
Their dreams curtailed by monsters
Bearing melodic names—
Diphtheria, Dropsy, Dysentery, Dementia, Despair
Beneath numbered iron markers
Lie the forgotten, abandoned, and lost
Lives perhaps un-noted
But not without value

August 10, 2024

editors note: Even after, it’s “take a number” and wait for no call. (We welcome Lorri to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

My days are not over yet! by Susie Gharib

My days are not over yet!
This modern pest
that has infested my chest
is wriggling in and out of my brain
like a worm recently intoxicated
with the smell of death.
I heave my breast,
and ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse my breath
of the fetid smell of humanity’s manufactured, bacterial wealth.

My days are not over yet!
I spew out the phlegm that is strangulating my health.
I cough out the pestilence
that glues itself to the walls of my blood cells,
then renew my supply of oxygen,
which is not filtered through your masks
or widespread myths.

August 9, 2024

editors note: COVID, or not COVID; what’s the congestion? – mh clay

Youth by Andrea Damic

like an unmoored barge
you drift away from me
my subconscious mind sees it coming
reflected in the lost pockets of time
relentless mothballing
knowing it to be irrevocable

like an unmoored barge
you drift away from me
I wish to time-machine myself
my bygone age, my vagrant persona but
once departed
I become your bemoaned relict

like an unmoored barge
you drift away from me
I try to catch you
knowing it to be inane
still… imagining the possibilities,
undying hope of trapping a dream

like an unmoored barge
you drift away from me
I’d always known you were merely
passing through, so
I capture you, in a melody
in that one remnant pocket
hidden deep within

a syllable…

August 8, 2024

editors note: When we can’t keep it close, we must remember it well. (We welcome Andrea to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay

To My Muse Long Gone by Roderick Richardson

I was amongst a
Circle of poets
When I thought
Of you.

We were performing
Writing exercises
In order to keep
The Madness
In our tanks.

Our task?

Describe the
Taste of your
Favorite treat.

My answer was whiskey.

Surprise!

I wrote a line
About you.

“Whiskey is like
Cigarettes, pillow talk
And The New York Dolls.”

After all this time, I guess
You’re still not being my muse.

I wish you the best of lives.
I hope this moment of
Inspiration reached you
In some fashion,

Whether it’s by wind or
Or a touch by someone
You love.

Until the next time your
Face, voice, smile, legs,
Or soul appear on a page
Written by me,

Take care.

August 7, 2024

editors note: How we write from muse to muse. – mh clay

The Emptiness by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

After Alfonso Brezmes

I tore up
the emptiness
you left inside me
because I could not
stand it anymore.
I had to get it off me.
I had to take it out.
The emptiness
was like a bad weed.
It served no purpose,
other than a sad
silence devouring
every word.

August 6, 2024

editors note: How best to fill your wasted space. – mh clay

Grey by Goirick Brahmachari

These cold, black
white mornings
Unwashed
delayed daybreaks
Stolen interruptions
of mellowed laziness,
White pages,
Expectation of thought:

Save them,
Sink them in.

August 5, 2024

editors note: Wool gathering for writers. – mh clay

Answering the Call, 1924 by Rita Moe

Church Youth Summer Camp, Silver Lake, Minnesota
My father, age 17

How to be nearer, my God, to Thee…

—when six girls in bathing suits
are standing on the dock
wringing ropes of water
from their hair.

—when the camp counselor says,
“Tighter, taughter. Feel the tension
in the bow; set the arrow true…
and release.”

—when the youth minister
takes you aside, urges you
to come
into service for the Lord.

—when a girl’s hand touches
yours in the dark
as flames leap hot and high.

And the quiet waters of Silver Lake
giving you not one clue
how to choose
between the feverish song of the body
and the fervent call of the spirit.

August 4, 2024

editors note: If it’s what you feel, it must be real. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you feel like you might be missin’ something, perhaps “Silver“ by Contributing Writer & Poet Susie Gharib is what you’re lookin’ for.

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

What can we lock up tight forever that no one, not even us, can touch, just so no eyes or hands can misplace (malicious or not) the things we cherish from time to time?

Here’s a clue or two to help in your search:

Bearing Gifts ~ Tyler Malone

He is crouching at the entrance of a building, where he probably resides, his eyes absorbed in something he hoards around his wrist. Children excite my attention, especially the lonely cast, because with his quiet mien and black-framed glasses, he looks like the docile type. I have the leash of my dog in one hand and the other is adjusting our purchased allowance of bread. Rita gives me trouble since some of our streets are so littered not even the most behaved of dogs can help sniffing leftovers flung from kitchen windows and balconies. I keep my eyes fixed on his busy fingers. He seems to be assessing the value of a silver plaque bracelet, probably a congratulation gift because exam results have been recently published. I view his features which capture the glow of silver with unsurpassable joy. Averting my face, I think of my own silver when I was his age: the silver ounce with the word Suisse on its back, a ring with a beautiful red stone, and a torque magnetic bracelet, my father’s present from France. I kept them in a keepsake box that disappeared from my wardrobe. Very few people had access to my bedroom, yet I could not cast a shadow of suspicion on a single person…

Find the rest of Susie’s story right here!

••• Open Mic •••

This past 1st Wednesday of August (aka 08.07.24) Mad Swirl Open Mic whirl’d up the Swirl at our OC home, Barbara’s Pavillion, getting the Mad mic opened for ALL you Mad ones out there!

This month we featured local Mad One & Contributing Poet Roderick Richardson!

Grats to ALL the participators & appreciators who rode the Mad wave live at Barbara’s:

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Musical Overture:
Swirve (Chris & Tamitha Curiel, Gerard Bendiks)

Open Mic:
Desmene Statum (September’s FEATURE!)
Carlos Salas
Laura Traynor

••• FEATURE •••

Alan Gann
Tony Robinson
Kevin O’Neill
Lance
Brian Duran-Fuentes
Michael Elmer
Uncle T

We know you have a choices of what to do with your Wednesday night & we’re thrilled you picked lil ol’ us to hang out with!

Stay tuned ’til next 1st Wednesday (aka 09.04.24) when we will be featuring Poet Desmene Statum!

Peace,
Johnny O

P.S. Here is the full line-up of remaining features for 2024:

September: Desmene Statum
October: PW Covington
November: Mad Swirl Open Mic 20th Anniversary
December: Holiday Special

P.P.S. In case you missed the LIVE feed, your eye can spy on the whole virtual Swirl’n scenes right here…