I am an unpopular electric eel in a pool of catfish.
Edith Sitwell
••• The Mad Gallery •••
“Dangerous Suns – 2” by featured artist Thomas Riesner
Mad Swirl is excited to welcome back a new batch from a personal favorite, Thomas Riesner, with more of his chaotic, nightmarish little figures. Riesner’s pieces feel both playful and unsettling at once, with a nervous energy that spills off the page, intensely wide, unblinking eyes looking right at you, hypnotic. The result is work that feels at once strangely grotesque and magic, inviting viewers into a feverish dreamscape they can’t turn away from. Can you? ~ Madelyn Olson
Slip into Thomas’ playfully hypnotic dreamscapes, as well as our other past featured artists, at our Mad Gallery!
••• The Poetry Forum •••
This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we wanted to hover ‘round an unlikely lover; we watched a chap as he rail tapped; we were confused to “c” an eulogy; we spared no charities just for verities; we were lifetime farers like red hat wearers; we wept to be setting on what we’re forgetting; we hoped on the need to receive a new seed; we would daily truth keep, neither wolf nor a sheep. The words we say are new to the day. ~ MH Clay
Another Day by Beate Sigriddaughter
Gray sky today, accentuating lilacs.
Here I am. The things I dream of
dream of me, too. I am certain.
I want to be back where I don’t insult
God by complaining about the world.
I wish I would believe in God.
It is too cold for lizards,
but the flowers are committed.
I do not want to be a sheep.
I do not want to be wolf either.
I guess I am lucky. I am neither,
though the jungle of anxiety has grown.
How did it ever grow so tall?
I do not want to hurt
anyone. They warn me the truth
will hurt someone, so I withdraw
into silence. A fervent tenderness
has taken hold of me.
I wish God would believe in me.
Life comes at me in fragments
and I love that, yes. A rose,
a piece of bread, another day.
September 6, 2025
editors note: Everyone wants another. (That’s true. Does it hurt?). Congrats to Beate on the release of her new collection, Circus Dancer. You can get your copy here. – mh clay
New seed/Old soil by Dale Cottingham
Like a windstorm I’ve ravaged a body
and it is mine, sometimes
words soak in me like rain,
sometimes I use them with another
but after small talk on the piazza,
we went separate ways.
O, booths, lanes, empty houses,
I cannot hold the wind that goes by,
as I wade into emails
then ads saying
I should take a cruise.
Silly, I’m already on a cruise.
Aren’t we made for trying,
all the pent-up dreams released,
don’t I want more of that,
meaning I have hope that somewhere
over the horizon a new wind is building,
germinates an idiom, with all the forging
forward, then stepping back,
the wandering and wondering,
a new idiom implies,
like new seed in old soil.
September 5, 2025
editors note: Can’t lie fallow too long. – mh clay
A wave of feelings by Hem Raj Bastola
Did you think of it:
Where you were born?
Where the food is grown?
Where you are standing?
While the world is:
Teaching to be detached.
I weep for the past.
That peace is
Stolen now!
Humans are doomed,
To live in dreams and stress.
I am assured that:
Whose true human is lost,
instead looking for peace,
They are running for dreams:
Animated and invested.
Don’t you know?
The easy access of it is:
When you have;
A peaceful sleep.
We’re forgetting the roots!
We’re forgetting the source!
We’re forgetting the earth!
We’re forgetting a home!
Where we are living.
There is unrest and
Anarchy here.
Justice is being bought,
And sold today!
I am arranging words
With emotions, where!
A wave of feelings!
Captured in a thought.
September 4, 2025
editors note: Seek your true human. Have peaceful sleep. – mh clay
Fires, green fields, red hats by Guest Poet Eric Chiles
The texts zipped among my siblings.
Our California sister posted pics
of orange skies, an ash covered yard.
Within days she had flown East
house hunting in upstate New York.
She complained of torrid days, oceanic
water bills, and climate change.
She apologized for the haze she
trailed behind her but worried
she might stumble into another
type of atmosphere as she drove
around New York’s green fields
and woods. Driving through one
small town, the number of red
hats alarmed her. A proliferation
of banners seemed a barometer
of an unwelcoming environment.
She said something to the realtor
who observed all that clutter
would blow away in a few months,
but my sister wondered if she’d
be trading one heat for another.
She came here certain of change
but now she was confused, so
I mentioned seeing hundreds
of red-hatted demonstrators
waving those same flags coming
to see her, pointing out those
neighbors had always been
there brushing elbows with
us in grocery aisles, their kids
trudging the sidewalk to school,
during the winter we’re all out
shoveling the snow, all of us
seeing the same world just
a little differently which is okay
and why a secret ballot is good
but yard signs aren’t. Not sure
that cleared any smoke for her.
September 3, 2025
editors note: It’s hard to make change if you don’t want to spend the money. – mh clay
My Alter Ego by Pete Mladinic
My alter ego turns up
at parties and in late night bars,
screaming, ranting about how
the United States is just like
post-Nazi Germany. Someone
a little crazier than myself,
here she is. It’s values.
Look at the Reagan machine values.
Make money, go to school
to make money and who cares
how and there’s robot education
and basket weaving degrees
and greed like never before.
Violence in sports and on TV
and mostly in the minds
of the very young with their
killer dolls, killer three-wheelers.
Slam dance, child abuse.
You can see it in the love
of speed at the airports,
on the highways. We’re hurried
to meet the quotas, to be
on time for the committee
meeting on book burning,
on banning Lady Chatterley
to uphold family values.
Champagne corks pop
just outside the electric chair.
They leave no room for
anyone who differs slightly,
these sawdust heads with
their sadist thoughts on how
one should live with their
crop dust-pick-up truck-
gun rack-ball cap-star wars
mentality. I believe in
Hiroshima, in Nixon over Cambodia,
the U.S. is capable, the evil
yet to come. At this point
everyone at the party or in the bar
gets tired of my alter ego,
They throw her out. Another
takes her place. What will
save us is what Faulkner
was talking about—verities,
which means Beethoven, Shakespeare,
Milton are as good tomorrow
as they are today, even if
there’s only one Beethoven cassette
left and one listener.
September 2, 2025
editors note: Yes, veritably! – mh clay
Superior Correct Modern Surprise Speakers by Guest Poet LB Sedlacek
Go ahead
spell with a “c”
no an “s”
they both can
sound the same
kind of like
when you order
at a restaurant
or speak at
a funeral
it’s all the
same good
food good
person wish
they were not
– gone
no surprise
speakers, listeners
could be confused
though
about how easy
it is to
speak from one
side of the mouth
then the other
at the same
time.
September 2, 2025
editors note: They speak lots of words with nothing to say. – mh clay
SHAPES OF THE DISAPPEARED (48) by Christopher Barnes
Murky tobacco rings.
Gee Gee shoes clomp.
Anchor-minted fasteners
On navy alpaca peacoat
Tap grandstand railing.
September 1, 2025
editors note: Dressed for success (excess?). – mh clay
ROMANCE by Guest Poet Moe Shapiro
In the republic of love
– you’re illegal
In the kingdom of imagination
– you’re behind bars
From the united states of empathy
– you’ve been banished
Pareidolia is the only reason
– you look human
Do you want to get coffee?
August 31, 2025
editors note: A put down that’s actually a pick up. – mh clay
••• Short Stories •••
If you got a feelin’ for some healin’, “Poisoned“ by Contributing Writer & Poet, Harley White just might be the read you’re needin’!
Here’s what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about our featured weekend read:
Artist, heal thyself!
Here’s how Harley’s melodic medicinal story starts:
Reflections of Self by Tyler Malone
There was once a doctor with understanding keen, unparalleled in medical skill, to be sure, so wise that he could make an elixir to cure each and every sickness the healing arts could glean.
His medicine with special properties galore was treatment guaranteed to bring about relief. This excellent physician, sage beyond belief, also was a father with children by the score.
Because of urgent matters that had come to pass, the doctor had to journey far away one day. Soon after his departure from his offspring, they drank a poison they thought was a potion first-class.
Rather than assuaging their sufferings, they found that the remedy so-called took a ghastly toll, producing convulsions, which made them writhe and roll in excruciating pain, around on the ground.
On returning, the discerning doctor could see that many of his children were in agony. Some had lost the sense of their true identity. All had been affected to a certain degree.
When the children in the distance their father saw, they greeted him with joyfulness on bended knees. After welcoming him fondly, they begged him please to help them— for the doctor they held in great awe.
The father viewed their anguish sadly with dismay and then researched the treatises so as to find the finest medicinal herbs to be combined. First he pounded and sifted them without delay…
Get the whole dosage right here.
•••
If you’re looking for a read that smacks ya, “Change Redux“ by Contributing Writer Scott C. Holstad packs a wallop!
Here’s what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about our weekday featured read:
Gotta get your hands dirty (and bloody) from time to time.
Here’s how this smackdown begins:
Don’t What?! by Tyler Malone
I was in a bit of a surly mood and I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I didn’t get any of those wonderful checks I’d been expecting for three new stories, four poems and one article. Why bother signing contracts with these publishers because these days not too many seem to give a shit and there’s nothing you can really do. Naturally, I did get lots of bills and spam though.
I thought about downing a new bottle of Jack but instead I walked into a coffee shop and proceeded to sit down with my cup of raspberry chocolate coffee. I then noticed a tall mussy man seemingly intent on hassling the young brunette waitress up at the counter. The one who’d just labored to make me such a fine caffeinated libation.
Dude was clutching a bag to his chest frantically, had hair straight out of The Clash’s London Calling period, had some mag stuffed in his jeans’ pocket and he wouldn’t shut up. It wasn’t long before the poor waitress looked like she was about to go insane. He kept asking whether the chairs were medium or large, large or small, rented or owned. In this public coffee shop where who really gave a shit, eh? Fucking asshole. This then went on for 20 full minutes. The girl was stuttering and seemed nearly in tears while I myself felt a bit crazed. I don’t like most people and I hate obnoxious assholes who hassle others. Finally, she said “Look, I’m sorry but I have to work. There’s a line.” He went to a nearby table and sat down on one of the matching, basic chairs found at the table…
Grab a seat and get the rest of this read right here!
••• Open Mic •••
This past 1st Wednesday of September (aka 09.03.25) Mad Swirl Open Mic was found whirling up the Swirl at Barbara’s Pavillion, getting the Mad mic opened for ALL you Mad ones out there!
This month we featured Dallas Slam Poet & longtime friend of the Swirl, Zach “Konnichiwa” Schrotter!
Grats to ALL the participators & appreciators who graced our stage:
Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Musical Overture:
Swirve (Chris & Tamitha Curiel, Gerard Bendiks)
Open Mic:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Opalina Salas
Tim Cloward
Kasey Jones
Michael Lagocki
Roderick Richardson
Harry McNabb
Alan Gann
David Shannon
SR Gilbert
Kevin Lee Hitchings
Rusty Jones
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 10.01.25) when we will be featuring Carlos Salas!
Peace,
Johnny O
P.S. Spy with your mad eye these LIVE videos from last nights mic madness:
P.P.S. Huge GRATS to Kasey Jones for capturing these swirlin’ scenes:
•••••••
The whole Mad Swirl of everything to come keeps on keepin’ on… NOW! Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every EVERY there is! Wanna join in the mad conversations going on in our Mad Swirl world? Then come by whenever the mood strikes! We’ll be here…
Electrifyin’,
Johnny O
Chief Editor
MH Clay
Poetry Editor
Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor
Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor