The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

Henry Miller

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Knowledge engineering an incubating egg” by Resident Artist Mitchell Pluto

To see all of Mitchell’s cosmically trippy & chaotically gorgeous canvases, as well as our other past featured artists, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum…  we kindled a burn on karmic return; we were all too alone to talk on the phone; we sang through a tale of respect for a whale; we had holiday fits over beavery bits; we familied the fray of a Christmas Day; we strung an expression of deep depression; we had a retort for a weather report. Cloudy or clear, distant or near, madness is here. ~ MH Clay

America the Doomed by John P. Drudge

It isn’t a headline
It’s a weather report
Rolling black clouds
Of greed and guns
A ghost nation
With a serpent tongue
Dancing
In gasoline rain
A Republic staggering
On pharmaceuticals and denial
Wrapped in a flag
That smells like oil and disdain
And billboards
Vomiting Jesus and hamburgers
With gunmetal sermons on loop
Consume
Confess
Reload
Cities melting
Into chrome hallucinations
Hands
Grasping empty cups
A junk-sick nation
Shaking in the alley
Veins collapsed
Still whispering the word freedom
Through clenched teeth

December 27, 2025

editors note: Gee, Mister! Say it ain’t so! – mh clay

Old Strings by Guest Poet Shirley Obitz

The light’s on
I don’t know why
The sun is up – so who needs it?
but it’s on
The wind is blowing
I like to watch the tree
Trying to stay still
The wind pushing
against its branches
The leaves waving
We’re just here
That’s it
The light is off
It seems darker now
There’s no sun
It’s gray
A bird flew up to my window
I felt a pang of hope
And maybe a sign?
Then it flew away
It’s not supposed to stay
It’s not meant to
When am I ever going
to string that guitar?
It just sits there — old strings
slack
Why don’t I change them?
take them off and put on new
Then there would be music again, right?
Write that down
I don’t want to write that down
I don’t want to say that
I don’t want this to be about music
Music!
So exhausting
I don’t want to say it
I don’t want to talk
I just want to watch the wind
Watch something else move
I think I will go back to sleep now
The light’s off
It’s dim in here
I’m tired

December 26, 2025

editors note: Just string the thing; you’ll feel better. – mh clay

Life on Hallmark Channel by Tyler Malone

History’s living end in a motel room is a dying Christmas tree, leaning
as a spotty cow on a fence blaming iced-over wire barbs for stealing
the horizon.

The executive director of a small town exhibit in the museum
of bruised embarrassments of bent shins against bed frames
is at the opposite of birth, saying he hasn’t showered

in months. This ain’t Christmastime, an AC drips manila mud
as curtain dust dreams of freezer-burn houses
& loves a good fight of children against fists.

The hot world froze in place for a tiny bit of molecular destruction
of god stopping the sun for one last fight. I lost the trees I carry
in armpits as we hugged.

I held my breath as he asked to use the hotel shower.
It’s been months since he’s felt water, smell
my stripped father in front of his son like a front road room bride.

Bad guy roaches lift antennas to this great dying white tree body
of Christmas flock-sprayed Hallmark canvas, ornamental bruises
fish-hooked into forearms.

This is what life does, a corpse caked to his chest, where he held
newly-made infant me as we watched an Oklahoma storm relume clouds
& crown unlit trees with light & sound, I fit in a man’s hands

who lifted me to the window of thunder & sharp light spikes
but now I count ribs so god can make us both more ex-wives,
name new dogs the same name, never a new day’s sun.

At the end of each year, I forgot summer would feel like this
& graced a star on a whittled pine tip bent against the ceiling,
as it died in our home for the rest of the year & star-shine leaked under doors

of those who held me to sharp skies to name another celebration
on someone else’s birthday, ascending as a sunrise in soft eyes
every Christmas morning so my family knew they weren’t dead.

December 25, 2025

editors note: Come alive, it’s a special day, they said so! – mh clay

Christmas Shopping at Buc-ee’s by Alan Gann

Everyone gets a beaver T—
classic or tie-dye or breast cancer pink?
and a This house runs on Coffee and Jesus
apron for the chef. Grandpa would love
one of those ninety-nine-dollar oil paintings
of cow pokes and longhorns.
Goat milk skin softener for Grandma
and some beaver logo wine glasses
for Aunt Beth. Nobody needs
the forty-nine-dollar stone wine tap;
our box vino comes with its own.

Nothing puts Daddy me in the Christmas spirit
like cheap gas and Mom celebrates any
spotless restrooms she didn’t have to clean
plus the scent of cinnamon, fried dough,
and barbeque. Jenny will look so cute in that
Wash your hands and pray shirt. The red ruffles
will go with her hair. Now do you think Daddy
would prefer fifty pounds of deer corn
or a four-hundred-dollar fire pit. You’re right
let’s get him both.

You want those beaver Christmas lights
to frame your bedroom window.
I don’t think so, that would be just too
too tacky. Now go back and get those eight-dollar
streak brands. They’ll make excellent
stocking stuffers. Everyone gets their own bag
of beaver nuggets because none of us like to share.
A twelve pack of Miller Lite and sixty pounds of ice
for only three dollars. We’ll be mixing drinks
late and you can forget about any silent night.

December 24, 2025

editors note: It’s a holly, jolly time at the ole homestead, filled with gifts from your favorite truck stop. Pass the nuggets! – mh clay

Vertical Half-Rise by Guest Poet Salvatore Difalco

Blipping and chirping in aquamarine jelly,
I esteem purpose over beauty.

The barnacles, yes, disturb— I rub them off
with raspy seaweed clods.

Little fishes float around me.
They wish to be like me.

Antarctic krill in the Bay of Whales
highlights my day.

At night I dream of dreadnoughts
and luxury yachts.

Boats in the water, men in the boats,
their silver spear guns spring-loaded:

I start singing, out of the blue,
free fanning my flukes.

The little fishes wish to sound like me,
to lay it down like me.

Mercifully, the men are there
not to furnish my despair.

Perhaps they’ve come to hear
me sing before, ineluctably, I disappear.

December 23, 2025

editors note: Yes! Let’s listen but leave ’em alone. – mh clay

I’m Counting to 11 by Peycho Kanev

The impossibility of this life is hidden in
its beauty;
the beauty is a flower in
the cemetery –

new life
and ancient death:
dung-beetle pushing his own
little treasure,
and sunshine, always sunshine.
Why?

I hit the window
and my phone starts to ring,
I count to 11
and it stops.
Somebody wants to speak to me,
to listen to my voice, somebody needs me,
Why?

I want to set on fire all the pigeons on
the square,
I want to drive my index finger on
the edge of the knife
I will send my love in a package
to Africa

The phone is silent

I water the flowers.

December 22, 2025

editors note: Flowers, not phones. Keep the mailbox full. – mh clay

Inadmissible imaginings by Guest Poet Sonam Chhoki

When the pyre is lit,
the bones, flesh and organs
burst, crackle and sizzle
in the juniper-infused flames.

We mourn
this palpable sundering
from a parent, a sibling,
a lover, a friend.

Gather their ashes
for tsa-tsa offerings
in sacred caves, ravines,
rivers and lakes.

Offer
a hundred-and-eight prayer flags,
thousands of butter lamps
and endless prayers
to the deities of the realms.

Yet, what it is like for the Dead?
What form of karmic return
And when?
Is it an unending Bar-do
or a quick eternal bliss
and a joyous tryst?

in the Copper-coloured-Mountain Paradise?

Tsa-tsa: votive offerings
Bar-do: In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the bar-do is an intermediate stage between death and a new rebirth.
Copper-coloured-Mountain Paradise (Zang-do-pal-ri): the abode of the Lotus-born Guru, Padmasambhava

December 21, 2025

editors note: Which is it? Can you imagine? – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you have a hunger for a read “Dust-Up at Aunt Millie’s Diner“ by Contributing Writer Edward N McConnell is sure to fill that need!

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

When something is special, who the hell are you to ignore it?

Here’s a few bites to get you started:

What’s So Special? by Tyler Malone

Every Wednesday, I go to Aunt Millie’s Diner in Dubuque, Iowa for the Blue Plate Special. Recently, while there, I encountered an older gentleman, Doc Stevens, and two younger men, Mango and Ceeda. We didn’t interact, but this is what I overheard and saw.

Doc entered first. “Come on guys, it’s Wednesday. This place is gonna fill up quickly. Hurry.”

Grabbing a table overlooking the Mississippi River, as they sat down, Doc said, “Remember, rules one and two and always keep an eye on the truck.”

Curious, I looked out the window, and saw an unremarkable, 2018 box Freightliner sitting in the parking lot with the name Iowa Corn Silk Express. I wondered, What’s in that truck that it needs watching?

After a few minutes, a waitress approached their table with three glasses of what looked like muddy Mississippi River water. The way she held them, Ceeda was positive her thumb was in the one he got.

Doc, also noticing the hygienic faux paux, said, “Young lady, we don’t need water, just a Diet Coke for me and two Coke Classics for my young friends. This time please leave your digits out of the drinks.”

“Digits?” the waitress asked. “I ain’t even taken your order and got no digits on this here pad cuz I ain’t ciphered up the bill yet.”

Realizing he needed to clarify, Doc said, “Just keep your fingers out of the drinks, okay?”

“Oh. Okay. Is that what happened? I wondered how my thumb got wet.” The waitress, jotting down the drink order, then said, “Hungry? I hope so. Aunt Millie’s Blue Plate Special is good today.”

Mango, looking up from the menu, asked, “Is it not good on other days?” Baffled by the question, the waitress shrugged.

Ceeda asked, “What’s a Blue Plate Special?”…

Keep eatin’ up the rest of this read right here!

•••

Get you a cup of “Joe“ by Contributing Writer & Poet Susie Gharib to start your day!

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

What we know and who we know are bones, will be bones, have always been bones.

Here’s a few sips to get you movin’:

Let’s Go for Joe by Tyler Malone

He crept into my room, but not on four, every time I visited the loo, simply because it had a little fridge with the leftovers of yesterday’s meal, an intact pint of milk, some cheddar cheese, and a single pancake that I usually kept for very lonely evenings, as a treat. He did not tamper with the impoverished shelves, but only regaled his eyes with what he called my fitness mysteries. I caught him twice in the act. He only mumbled something that I half-comprehended and in a pair of blue moccasins made his way out of my violated room with ill-hidden gloom.

He did not have a single friend in the world, possessed no phone, and received no mail simply because all our bills were paid by our landlord. He only called himself Joe, and I had been eager to know his surname since I had got into the habit of checking ancestry in old books, hoping to unearth some coat of arms or any possible traces of medieval roots, for despite his idiosyncrasies, there was something genteel about his looks…

Grab your cup of joe & get the rest of this read 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…

Joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor