Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.

Pablo Picasso

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“The 16th Chapel” by Resident Artist & Contributing Poet Colleen Boueil

To see all of Colleen’s rhythmically & extraordinary ordinary scenes, 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 heard from Juan, his rage goes on; we saw how life ran for a poor peasant man; we went island seeking in search of good speaking; we turned scarecrow nation toward automation; we had an important thing to bring; we lyricked fastness on mass crassness; we’d not be inept, old shoes on new steps; we sang along to a blunder song. When we stumble, we look like we meant to. ~ MH Clay

Blunder Song by Jeff Grimshaw

Plant a garden in the quarry
– To enrage the quarry rocks
Watch a wombat crap out cubes
– & build a tower with the blocks
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

Call yourself in desperation
– Leave a message on your phone
Wait until you hear the beep,
– & tell yourself: “Leave me alone!”
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

Trim and paint your severed hand
– Plant it like an apple seed
Very soon the tree will give you
– All the fingers that you need
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

Reach into the Milky Way:
– You can read the stars like braille
Or: you can taste them on my tongue
– The flavor’s just like ginger ale
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

We carve our days from chunks of nothing;
– The instant that the days begin,
They fill with light, they breathe, they shake…
– Then liquefy like gelatin
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

This day did not begin (you know)
– With brains & hearts in disarray
Even if it did, perhaps
– It doesn’t need to end that way.
Worlds of madness, worlds of wonder!
– Jokes & songs in every blunder!

October 25, 2025

editors note: Sung to the tune of… (Oh, make up your own. Let’s have some fun!) – mh clay

Ghost Stories and Beers by Guest Poet Mitchell Flanagan

I keep old shoes to remind myself where my feet have been
Tragic missteps.
My mom keeps one old pair of shoes of one of her four sons
Tragically missed steps.
I open a cold one in remembrance of a brother
Click.
Hiss.
Bubbles on and then gone from my wet lips
Childhoods that ended as quickly
Whispering voices.
I talk to Dad all the time
He’s no longer here.
I dance, pick my bass strings, and sing when I can
At some point, the flashing lights and beating heart will stop.
Then I’ll walk out into the early hours and think of my choices
The sun blazes into view, causing a skip in the rhythm of the star.
Careful not to trip and fall and fracture into a kaleidoscope of grief
I tell myself where my feet haven’t been.
To the store for more beer
Old shoes on for new steps.

October 24, 2025

editors note: Stride or stumble, step forward newly. – mh clay

Mass Not Class by Wayne F. Burke

Still writing poetry for the masses
only the masses do not seem to care
for poetry, only stock-car racing and
creamies and wrastling on Friday Night
Smack-Down and, oh yes, smack too
some of them, ones with pictures in the
local rag newspaper; fresh-faced, twenty-two
forever, dying unexpectedly…Move a hell of
a lot more drugs and guns than poetry in
this town.

October 23, 2025

editors note: Apparently, the mass is crass. (At least we can make that rhyme.) – mh clay

Self-portrait with ravens, clatter and mother’s forgiveness by Guest Poet Valy Steverlynck

to my mother

You reached for my hand
I pulled it away. You
sweating with cancer in the
waiting room, me chafing
and gritting why the long wait
I paced the length of the room
wall to wall. Dark flurry of
ravens screeching the sky
your grey skin your black bones
exhaling their pain, splitting my
head the cacophony caw
harsh croak sharp rattle
jarring my days. “I want to
quit band,” my own daughter
says, “the trumpets the oboes
the clarinets flutes– it feels like
they’re sawing my ears off.”
If only I could quit too.
And yet in this racket there’s one
clear note that rang for one breath-
mother’s last breath- like flicker of
crystal in mud. It’s telling me
something. Something important.

October 22, 2025

editors note: Seeking silence to hear the important thing. – mh clay

ARTFUL CONCESSIONS by Ken Poyner

The scarecrows are not happy that, in the garden beside the house, we have tied pie-pans to the fence, let the air and shattered sunlight make enough commotion to scatter the birds. Whether it does a better job than would a scarecrow, or whether the garden plot – huge by city standards, but minuscule in a land of multi-acre farms – is simply too small to merit the ministrations of a scarecrow, is immaterial. The garden is yet another example of scarecrows losing relevance. If this loss drives them to form a union, we could be constrained. Perhaps we should voluntarily relent.

October 21, 2025

editors note: Don’t let automation (or cheap foreign labor) take over. Scarecrows, unite! – mh clay

The Stars over Hawai’i Descend Like a Cascade of Jewels on My Aloha Shirt by Guest Poet Michael Brockley

Humpback whales shoot the Banzai Pipeline before birthing their new calves. And green sea turtles dig their nests in the sands of Lalo Shoals. I cover my chest with yellow hibiscus and the tuberose of lei welcomes in remembrance of the extinct grosbeaks from Kona, Kaua’i, and Maui. As a requiem for the Hawaiian crow. And I decorate myself with volcanoes to honor Mauna Kilauea and Mauna Loa. As a gratitude to any friend who returns to my landlocked home with a tale of hiking across lava beds to witness the night fires that flow into the ocean of peace. I drape myself in the hues of the coral beaches where manta rays glide among butterflyfish and Achilles tangs. IZ baritones “Over the Rainbow,” and the Pacific tide drums in time with his ukelele. The most curious of my friends promises the stars above Hawai’i resemble the chakras. The wise say Let the singer select the song, and I’m learning to speak mahalo and e’olu’olu and aloha. Knowing I have not uttered thank you and please and peace enough.

October 21, 2025

editors note: Go where you must to speak words you trust. – mh clay

I AM A PEASANT MAN by Uchechukwu Onyedikam

Of noble conduct, grace and will
never will I supplicate for alms at your gate
never will I bow my knees at the foot
of your throne, seeking prayers for
tomorrow’s blessings

I am a peasant man —
you are Lord of the knights, lofty placed
seated high above all clouds, ranking
all affairs/things under the voice of your
command — Oh Lord, you reign…
but not in the world of this rebel who
nurtures the wounds/pain/struggles of his
ancestors, that died pouring light on the
freedom that never shone through the
dark days — still our present day reality

I am a peasant man —
living on the edge of my country
I break “Rock” in pieces for a living
my hands are toughened
my palms are hardened
my daily bread & tea
comes from the rock
to my family, I have
great repugnance
for servitude

I am a peasant man —
I have 2 adopted kids and a woman
for them I rise each day to go break
rocks, rocks, and more rocks; I always
bring back home the smiles of my labour
and toil from the rocks

I am a peasant man —
in my abode where sunflower abides and
where the beauty of nature finds dwelling
you’d find no skeleton in my cabinet —
nothing but blessings from the Rock!

October 20, 2025

editors note: Break your rock; yours, and no one else’s. – mh clay

Juan Nation [Under God, Clearly Divisible; Look Around] by Guest Poet Steve Maitlen

Witness half pop less a handful
brazenly jerking us to the far Right
blowing past enthusiastic consent
& tumbling toward whole milk similitude.
One aye for all; that’s all.
Freedom reigns attainable – atoneable –
unbridled illusory autonomy; always
a man behind the scenes
adjusting strings.

Witness güerita, trademark
American made. Sandals resorts, salt life,
jean shorts, Jesus on bumper
& en tow, when life hands
lemons or extra mouths –
NIMBY. FB Ts & Ps.
hashtagNeverForget. She offers
el hombre THE LOOK
suggesting my toys, my daughters,
my pearls, my land, savage –
not yours; away you
go now! Git! Bless your heart!
Testify! Can I get a witness?

Witness, Domingo.
Calloused & chiseled & blissfully
blistered – family first, god-fearing –
just like you and yours, lady.
Took the jobs your kin refused,
creating new frontiers for bottom rung
middle managers across
America. Divided
he stands while whites take aim.

Witness resistance,
reform, reunited.
Let’s do this right.
My heart goes out to you,
mi hermano.
Fight. Fight. Fight!

October 19, 2025

editors note: Easy to ignore, if you’re not Juan. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Breaker one nine, put the hammer down & get your eyeballs on “Truck Driving Woman“ by Contributing Writer Angela Kubinec, come on!

Here’s what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about our featured weekend read:

Let’s hit the road!

Here’s some pedal to the metal to get you movin’:

Home on the Road by Tyler Malone

I used to teach math, and I was good at it. Those kids drove me crazy, so March 18, 2024, I picked up my bag and walked out in the middle of second period geometry. After a week of rotting in bed, I decided to get my commercial driver’s license. Freedom of the road. In a month I was on South 95. They can all kiss my ass, including the administration and the school board. My disdain extends to the South Carolina Secretary of Education. Now I’m a truck driving lady. I changed my name to Sheila, bought some cowboy boots and a pair of tight pink jeans; started wearing a blue bandana on my head and invested in some good sunglasses…

Get the rest of this big rig read on right here.

•••

If you need a read that’ll bowl you over, “Spare Us All“ by Contributing Writer James Joaquin Brewer just might be the strike you need!

Here’s what Short Story Editor Tyler Malone has to say about our weekday featured read:

Words, time, and games, all change, but the confusion of joy until death stays the same.

Here’s how this ball starts rolling:

Pin Pals by Tyler Malone

Back in the early 1840s, the “Nutmeg State” (nicknamed also “The Land of Steady Habits”) passed a law forbidding the operation of “nine-pin parlors.” Some ultra-conservative Connecticut politicians whose perceptions of “Puritanical” principles were amazingly misplaced had charged that nine-pin parlors were dens of iniquity—business establishments allowing unbridled drinking, gambling, and sometimes other kinds of behaviors sanctioned by the sorts of bowlers who congregated at the parlors for reasons beyond trying to topple nine pins with a wicked toss of an object resembling some sort of cannon ball. Many policemen serving Connecticut’s mostly upright citizens had made an increasing number of arrests at the noisy sites of these more than merely recreational activities. So it came to pass in 1846, in calm and clever defiance of that absurd bit of legislation, when the abolitionist newspaper editor Mr. Henry Chandler Bowen drew up plans to build a one-lane bowling “alley” on the grounds of his magnificent and historically significant home known as “Roseland Cottage,” he was wise enough in the ways of gamesmanship to set a precedent that would ratify a new standard for his favorite sport: he added another pin to the mix of targets—meaning that he and his bowling friends in Woodstock, Connecticut were not in violation of the nine-pin prohibition.

What makes the story deliciously near-ironic to me is that Mr. Bowen refused to allow smoking in his little ten-pin parlor! Perhaps he was presciently ahead of his time—in comparison with, I mean, some of the first- and second-hand smoke clouds my non-smoking father coughed through during his many years of league bowling.

I was not there on a snowy night in 1963—nor was my mother or sister—to see Dad take his well-known and characteristic “stooping stance” as he gazed down the lane at ten pins to start the ninth frame of the second game of that night’s league match. No, none of his family was there to witness his stooping and staring for the final time…

Hear how the final pins fell right here!

•••••••

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…

Workin’ Away,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor