This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.

David Lynch

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“L.A Love Story: Street Light” by Larena Nellies-Ortiz

(In the wake of recent fires that have irreversibly altered parts of Los Angeles, it felt appropriate to feature photos that celebrate and honor the beauty of the city in all her glory.)

In her photo series titled ‘L.A. Love Story’, Larena Nellies-Ortiz captures Los Angeles in its most colorful and dynamic form, each image radiating the city’s energy, from the street vendors bustling with life to the old businesses that have anchored its ever-changing landscape. It’s clear through these photos that Nellies-Ortiz has a profound love for the city in all of its imperfect beauty, and through her eyes, we can’t help but love it too. As L.A. heals from this recent loss, this work takes on even greater significance, serving as a poignant reminder of the beauty in places that will never be the same. It serves as both a tribute to the cultural richness of Los Angeles and an enduring record of its fragile, fleeting moments. ~ Madelyn Olson

To see more of Larena’s colorfully dynamic photos inspired by the city of angels, as well as our other resident artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we traced the space in a world of face; we fixed what’s broken when nothing’s spoken; we praised the pickle of tickle non-tickle; we sought for a swami of making umami; we spun up spine in the grocery line; we went near insane from writers’ bane; we harmony hung on a common tongue; we walked away from piano play. But we’re game for everything else (and maybe that piano thing later). ~ MH Clay

Playing the Pantoum on the Piano, Left-Handed by Nolcha Fox

Watch me as I make this up.
I’m not a music prodigy.
My left hand wants to stray to right.
My right hand has no say.

I’m not a music prodigy.
Arthritis makes my left hand hurt.
My right hand aches too much to romp.
No wonder I can’t play.

Arthritis makes my left hand hurt.
My right hand’s bones are in decay.
No wonder I can’t play.
Perhaps I should just soak my head.

My right hand’s bones are in decay.
I drop my notes and casseroles.
Perhaps I should just soak my head.
Piano may not be for me.

I drop my notes and casseroles.
My left hand wants to slap my right.
Piano may not be for me.
Watch me as I walk away.

January 18, 2025

editors note: Picking through a pantoum for a chance at chopsticks. – mh clay

COUSINS by John L. Stanizzi

They land in blackness
outside my window.
I cannot see them.
I hear wind,
then I sense them.
The flurry only lasts a moment.
From the gloom where they’ve perched
invisible, I expect to hear at least
one of the more than 20 calls
owls make snapping their beaks.

Is conversation possible?
I attempt to mimic their syllables
into the Cimmerian night,
trying foolishly
to make contact,
but my imagination
becomes translator, decoder,
and gets the better of me.

In response I hear
hyena, chimp, owl.
It’s an entangled, perplexing sound,
vibrations disparate
except for their low frequencies of fear.

I eavesdrop a moment more
on their foreign language,
wondering if there would ever
come a time
when we all stumble onto the same
cryptical syllables,
finally finding a way
to say what we mean,
a way that comes closer
to what we’ve been trying
to tell each other
from the very beginning?

January 17, 2025

editors note: Making sense of our noise? Gotta be murder for them, too. – mh clay

Afflicted by Guest Poet Emily Jones

What do you do when words aren’t enough?
When feelings try to claw their way out of your hands
They twitch restlessly beside you, desperate to express their torment
But your fingers are as useless as the words that won’t come
Can’t taste destruction, can’t summon silence
Left alone to cry and thrash and hate the things inside of you
If you can’t set fire to the world, rip the paint off its flesh
Piece by jagged piece until it’s powder white and bare
Destroy what you can’t create until you can scream
Writing in a tongue that has lost its sense
Strike the page until your fingers bleed black
Your heart won’t know peace if you can’t carve out the pain
And to exist without peace is to exist without sanity
Your bones blind and broken, too deaf to drink the cure

January 16, 2025

editors note: Thirsty? Drink up! – mh clay

traffic accident by John Grochalski

there they are
the young mexican couple
with a baby stroller and grocery cart
parked in the middle
of every aisle i’m trying to get down
in this goddamned store
there they are
when i’m trying to get coffee
trying to get canned peas
trying to get pasta and spaghetti sauce
parked in the middle of the aisle
like a traffic accident
you can’t get around
there they are
in the dairy aisle
clogging up the ice cream
cock blocking the soap
a chattering impediment to movement
in the checkout line
with a wailing red-faced baby to boot
there they are
outside the grocery store
crooked and calamitous
on the sidewalk
a bloody mess of babble
with a line of us backed up behind them
and when my phone rings
i shout into it without looking
goddamn it, what do you want?
it’s my wife
she shouts back
how dare you talk to me like that!
then she hangs up
while i stand there waiting
in this carnage
thinking
she just doesn’t know
she has no clue
how bad it is out here today.

January 15, 2025

editors note: It’s every day. Carry cones, or just stay home. – mh clay

LiFE by Kleio B

It started with a pinch of salt,
A shocking cooling
Followed by a warm hug.

It proceeded with some tang,
Childhood, adolescence
Breezy, dizzy, losing command.

Then came the chills
Of expectations, society,
Job, money, stress.

Seldom umami
Mostly acidic, messy,
Trappings at the best!

No matter the flavour
The aftertaste gets sweet
A platter complete!

January 14, 2025

editors note: If aftertaste is all we get, best savor that flavor. – mh clay

Tickling of the Non-Ticklishable by Robert L. Martin

Tickling the non-ticklishable is like
tickling the humor haters, or a
hater who loves haters of lovers,
or tickling those non-laughers
at a barrel of laughing monkeys show,
or those tsetse fly mourners
crying at his pet tsetse fly funeral,
or those who murder all humor bugs
that land in their soup,

or the anti-humor idiots who
go to sleep at a clown assembly,
or those who serenade a corpse
with a song about a lunatic
in love with a spoon,
or a young maiden with three arms,
or a foot model with seven toes,
or a beauty queen that farted,
then shit on the stage,

or a crying hippopotamus at a hippo funeral,
or a gnat who landed in a pile of skunk funk
who thought it was something to drink,
or a funk diver that had to take a shower,
or a fire fly who doesn’t know
how to light a fire,
or a hyena that only laughs at funerals,
or a mouse in love with a killer cat,

or a laugher who laughs
with the above anti-laughers,
or those analyzers that
analyze the air of humor.

If one can get even a chuckle out of one
of the above mentioned humor haters,
he is really funny.
He deserves a blue ribbon
and a kewpie doll for his
tickling of the non-ticklishable.
Hoorah, hoorah for him! Amen.

January 14, 2025

editors note: To spite a side-splitter’s no hitter. – mh clay

Observations by Joseph Farley

There are nights when it seems
The madness is all there is.

Other nights cause you to think
That there may be something else:

An owl on the mailbox,
A young possum staring in

Through the basement window,
Or a breeze,

When there should be none
Blowing against your skin,

Warm and friendly,
Saying nothing.

January 13, 2025

editors note: The more nothing said, the better. – mh clay

A History of Wrinkles by Michael Brownstein

She translated the language of flesh,
explained how a canal creased her forehead,
the way streams crested to form a river near her ears,
pointed out the palisades that pocked her skin,
a moraine, then a shallow valley, crevices,
a roadway under construction, erosion by the eyes.
“I worked hard everyday,” she said,
“raised five children and a husband who passed.
This darkness near my nose, when war came to our village
and this long sag, when we ate lemon grass due to famine.
Now I live with my children, grand children,
great grand children in their compound.
I work harder than I ever worked before.”
Her eyes began to glow noon sunshine,
and when she smiled, her face relaxed
into a calm pond of red blossoming lily pads.

January 12, 2025

editors note: May such topology shape every smile. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you’re needing a breather from your usual feed, this weekend’s featured read, “The Long Breath“ by Contributing Writer James Lawless just might be the need you seek.

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

How do horizons meet? In the middle, somehow.

Here’s how this long exhale begins:

“Writer X?” by Tyler Malone

It’s a mild winter in Italy’s Lake Como near George Clooney’s villa – the air scents of pine trees, fresh flowers, and lake water. The charming outdoor fragrance accompanies the words of a dialog in the woods between two closely knit characters sitting on the same log overlooking a breathless view of the lake. Soon, sunset will descend.

•••

(He says.)

We need to voice new topics like the concept of the long breath. I practiced it this morning during yoga, and my mind flashed on to the readers.

(The answer follows.)

They’re not interested in that stuff.

But they might be with the proper introduction.

Which is?

The Indian concept of life’s length is different from ours. In the West, we measure it in time.

Yeah, so what, Socrates?

The Indian says life doesn’t measure in time but rather in breaths.

Are sneezes included?

Yes, it’s all tallied up, and when the number of breaths is over, it’s curtains. By breathing long and slow, one lives longer…

Meditate on the rest of this read right here!

•••

Our featured weekday story, “Frankie Leaves the Desert, 2004“ read comes to us from Contributing Writer & Poet Marianne Szlyk!

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

The magic trick, slowed down, and in reverse, still doesn’t create magic. There is no magic but what we can create in another’s life. But is it just a trick?

Here’s a few notes to get this tune started:

“A Song for Anyone” by Tyler Malone

Kristy’s brother calls every Sunday at 10 pm. Sometimes he gets the answering machine. Sometimes he gets Frankie. Tonight it’s Frankie, his ex-band mate, ex-friend, and ex-brother-in-law, the ex-rock star in exile in a furnished apartment in Blythe, CA, the desert.

“Hey, Joey.” Frankie knows who it is by the time: one or two am back east, long after his stepmother’s bedtime. His stepbrother is probably at a downtown jam session. “What’s up?”

“Yeah, it’s Joseph.” The other man’s voice seems slow, hesitant. “You know, my mom died today.”

“Sorry, man. She was a great lady. How’s Kristy?” Frankie leans back against the wall, stunned even though Kristy’s mom has been sick for a good long time, since before Kristy left him. To take care of her mom, he reminds himself. But he knows that Kristy’s dad made her leave him. He said Frankie was a pothead and wasn’t really watching their son while she worked. He was abusive and neglectful. Lazy, too.

“She’s okay, considering. She wants you to come to the funeral this Friday. She might even want to go back with you.”

“We’re divorced.”

“I’m just relaying what she said.”

Joey—he can’t call his friend Joseph—explains where the funeral will be then hangs up. Frankie clutches his forehead as if he has a headache. He can’t believe it…

Pick up the rest of this tune right here!

••• Podcast •••

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