“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.”

Philip Larkin

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Butterfly” by Featured Artist Andrea Damic

To see ALL of Andrea’s delightfully disorientating & psychedelically precise works, as well as the rest of our Resident Artist’s works, visit our Mad Gallery!

••• The Poetry Forum •••

This last week on Mad Swirl’s Poetry Forum… we followed the norms to prep for a storm; we washed mind in car shine; we suffered the slings of worthless things; we moved enthralled in a cockroach crawl; we slipped our souls through doughnut holes; we flew further in a murder; we got the heart of a throb in the turn of a knob; we rooted best by hand on chest. We root by chance, with words enhanced. ~ MH Clay

Paper and Stone by Desmene M. Statum

I am at peace
with my contradictions.
My heart
is a fist
wrapped
around riverstone.
I long
to place my palm
against your chest
You,
a stoic oak,
as I
soften
to a tender root.
Your name,
a love letter
in my mouth,
I can’t stop
eating paper.
I love you
the way
a mountain moves:
slow,
deliberate,
unyielding.

August 8, 2026

editors note: Can you receive a mountain like this? (OK, but will you?)- mh clay

Love in a language by Jayanta Bhaumik

Can’t really love you in a simple language,
trust me.
An unknown catalogue brought in the bargain.
I put your killing sweetness in the words that
look like lovely holsters.
Can’t jot down how once a moon – once a gecko
skinned in sharp terrain – once a violet sleeping pill,
with a faux pas unused – once a problem to finally
behave like your hugs rich in clueless dark dews,
plus a number of hearts maybe with strange decimals.
In this blowhard, can’t assure you of a moment
I’d found for you,
– plus a moment its owner, hesitant,
sort of wriggling, desperately searching – hands
groping again, if the unknown knob at all found,
anywhere, just to unmute the radio,
long silenced –
long dropped, and left in the fathom of the unreachable.

August 7, 2026

editors note: Listening for love3? Turn your radio on. – mh clay

3 Haiku: A Murder and More… by Tracey Foster

Crack of dawn
Crows peel off the road
Before us

•

Spiraling
Forever upwards
Screaming skies

•

Sweet hawthorn scent
And yet and yet
The smell of death.

editors note: It’s an omen! Or maybe just a murder. – mh clay

We, Matter by Tyler Malone

“god died & his death was the life of the world” – Philipp Mainländer

All we know is god’s suicide note
read in the language of a love letter.

Babbling us is a dead god’s vision,
so good, it blew its mind,
the face of you touched in a mirror.

But a mirror isn’t a face & you didn’t kill god.

It was billions staring at forevermore with the shrug
of trees in morning liberation of dew’s routine burn
after hydrogen & helium seeped through an open head wound.

4.5 billion years of one idea/ god’s heard it all
so we can say it all—catcall butterflies,
say the past & future & are fucking tense.

Speak to the dead to say we know now is good

If you love something, give it space,
give it hands
to touch themselves & others for warmth.

Entropy is gifted black brain matter 62 miles above
our eyes always on the body as time curves back
around to feed us civilizations going dark tonight,

bleed in-between zig-zag honeybees, bags of weed,
spearmint, guitar strings, zinc,
comets dressed in sand & untouched ice,

photosynthesis & your last name spoken at weddings
& a funeral given to the mood of the void
as god’s death bullet slips as glass through a lip.

In all this open space to find ourselves
words.

We, matter.
So if all you offer
is a death stare into the empty hole,
you miss
the whole doughnut.

August 5, 2026

editors note: Reach for that doughnut, hole and all. (This poem opens Tyler’s latest collection, Son of a Chicken Killer, published by your friends here at Mad Swirl Press. Get one for yourself.) – mh clay

DEATH ROOM by Mel Waldman

Inside the tiny room,
I listen
to
my comatose friend’s
furious, frenzied breaths.

A cockroach
crawls
toward
him.

Is it the Grand Magus in disguise?
Is
He
here?

August 5, 2026

editors note: Isn’t He everywhere? – mh clay

The End of Several Things Hardly Worth Noting by Guest Poet Scott H. Urban

A camouflaged elbow on the edge
of the Ford’s open window.

A road that looks as if it became tired
of fighting the Joe-Pye weed and simply gave up.

The coal of a cigarette flicked to the asphalt
bursts into a miniature nova.

The echo of a shotgun blast
like a ruler slapped against a student’s desk.

A turkey buzzard crouched over roadkill,
stooped like an old man poking through litter
in hopes of finding a nickel or a muffler.

Virga in the western sky at dusk
as grey and flimsy as a wedding veil
pulled out of a county trash dump.

August 4, 2026

editors note: And a poem with impact like that thing you heard yesterday but didn’t understand until today. – mh clay

The Car Wash by Joe Garvey

The brushes are blue.
Plastic fingers
slapping the glass.

The soap is pink.
Chemical cherries
filling the vents.

Inside the cabin
a muffled riot.

I sit in neutral.
Feet on the floor.

The track pulls me
through the dark
one click
at a time.

Outside
a guy with a vacuum
has a standoff
with a single french fry.

He is winning.
But he looks
exhausted by the victory.

We lock eyes
through the foam.

He doesn’t blink.
I don’t wave.

The blowers scream.
The water flees.

I roll out
into the glare.

The car is shining.
The grime
is only rearranged.

I tip the man
because we both know
the wax is a lie.

August 3, 2026

editors note: The ultimate ride; every summer’s dream. (We welcome Joe to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

Prepared by Jim Bates

Storm on the horizon
Clouds building
Nature’s fury
Hurtling
Across the barren land
Snow building
Winds gusting
Birds and animals
Find protection
Amid the evergreens
And windward trees
Inside the tiny home
Two old people
Hunker down
Wood laid by the fireplace
Water bottles filled
Candles and flashlights handy
Time to ride out the storm
They are old hands
Battling the elements
Bring it on they say
Bring it on.

August 2, 2026

editors note: Metaphor or media monitions; best hunker down, either way. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

Take a trip back in time with this weekend’s read, “Adapt or Die“ by Jenean McBrearty!

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

Grow into the world around you, because that covers the basics before the basics cover you.

Here’s how this story starts rolling:

“Adapt” by Tyler Malone

The day you saw your parents squished by a dinosaur’s foot, you rolled yourself into the fetal position and pretended to be a stone. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it, like many things, was good enough. You weren’t white, like marble, or gray like granite, but you managed to escape the notice of Tyrannosaurus Rex, king of the Mesozoic Era when other dinosaurs were larger but not fiercer than ‘the one with the big head and jagged teeth.’

All those years lodged in the hillside of an Anatolia hillside, it was only a matter of time, sand, shifting winds, and plate tectonics before your rough edges became smooth enough for you to dislodge. Having nothing to hold on to, neither rope nor root, nor vine or visitor. You began to roll down the hillside. Once again, distinguished from the safety of dirt and real stones, you were vulnerable. But, once again, you adapted, rolling into the sea, buffeted by currents but ignored by water creatures, some of whom crawled onto the land…

Kick it on over here to get the kicker at the end of this read!

•••

If you’re seeking a reflective read, then check out the reflection you see when you read “Loss“ by Contributing Writer & Poet Susie Gharib!

Here’s what MH Clay has to say about this weekday read:

If your life is wrung, find a friendly ring of folks… who act.

Here’s how this casting call begins:

Photo by Tyler Malone

“What has your life amounted to?” asked the woman that led the ring.

“I am separated from my wife, but I do have offspring, four children, of whom I am very proud,” answered the sixty-year-old.

“And how often do you see your offspring?” she inquired.

“One is abroad,” he responded apologetically, “and he occasionally phones, when he is free, of course.”

“The remaining three?!” the leader exclaimed after a long spell of silence.

“Another is a successful businessman, but he cannot afford the time for a single visit. The youngest is a rebel and he resents any patriarchal interference in his household. We are estranged because of his selfish wife, whom I abhor. My most affectionate son has become a monk of the silent order, and he lives in a monastery, quite far-off,” he calmly divulged…

Roll on over here and see how this play plays on…

••• Open Mic •••

This past 1st Wednesday of August (aka 08.05.26) 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 Mad Swirl Press launched “Son of a Chicken Killer” by Tyler Malone! If you didn’t get at our August open mic, you can still get a copy at Amazon!

Grats to ALL the participators & swirlabrators who swirled up some mic madness with us:

Hosts:
Johnny O
MH Clay

Musical Overture:
Tocayo (starring Carlos Salas)

Open Mic:
Johnny O
MH Clay
Desmene Statum
Michael Lagocki
Opalina Salas
David Shannon & Cynthia Miro
Kasey Jones
Harry McNabb
Brett “BA” Ardoin
Rosie Lindsey
Alan Gann
Sharon Flatte
Brigham
Isaiah Nelson

•••

Kat
Rahel
Opalina Salas
Martin
David Shannon
Brigham

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 09.02.26) when we will be featuring Tejana Cósmica!

Peace,
Johnny O & MH Clay

P.S. Here is what you might spied with your lil eye if you tuned into our LIVE feed:

P.S. Here is what Kasey Jones & Alan Gann spied with their photog eyes:

•••••••

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…

Feelin’ It,

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor