“You must thank the gods for art, those of us who have been fortunate enough to stumble onto this means of venting our craziness, our meanness, our towering disgust.”

Robert Crumb

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Together in the Matrix” 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 had something to say ’bout the condiment tray; we equaled to argue the theorems of value; we found no perfection in misdirection; we angled on to one was gone; we recalled better without that sweater; we saw a deceiver to make us believers; we rattled the rubric, how words describe music. We strive to use them well. ~ MH Clay

Live Jazz by Guest Poet Robert Wynne

for Swirve (6/3/26)

The notes argue with each other
in a way that suggests agreement
is for other styles of music. A cymbal

vibrates like a kitchen timer warning
something is about to be burning.
Notes fall out of the trumpet’s bell

in rapid succession, marching on
to a tight snare drum, as the guitar
walks a fret board’s plank, balancing

high above a roiling ocean of sound.
This trio is on a trip with suitcases
full of mixed metaphors. Even words

have put down their phones to listen.

August 29, 2026

editors note: This captures our monthly open mic with the best possible words. – mh clay

Red Sparrow by Mickey J. Corrigan

If you believe his story
he wooed and loved
a Belarusian
dental student
when she was 20
when he was 56
after his release
from prison
summer
2009
she arrived
in New York
lacking a degree
attending a dental school
he had funded
to provide access
to knockout drugs
to the import
of human teeth with potential
for forensic
misdirection
if planted near
skeletal remains.

If you believe
this girlfriend
who worked in his office
who used his address
who is in the files
some 40,000 times
and his last will
the recipient of
the bulk of his estate
then you know how
he transferred
his operations
to the person
so designated
to receive them
the last person
to speak to him
by phone

and the next day
he was dead.

August 28, 2026

editors note: Can you believe it? It might be someone you know (might be you). – mh clay

When I Think of Yellow, by Marianne Szlyk

I don’t think of you in that sweater,
color of a spring green crayon
I’ve always called yellow.

Mid-morning sun streaks neighbors’ lawns,
uncovers the yellow in green,
dissolves clamminess, dissolves fog.

Blooms long gone, catalpas’
heavy leaves turn light again.
Birds sing yellow, sing green.

Spiky blossom goldenrain trees
appear up and down Lincoln Street.
If I stand still, their scent will reach me.

I won’t think of you in that sweater.

August 27, 2026

editors note: The color of cooled recall. – mh clay

Tender Is The Loss by Guest Poet Mitchell Flanagan

Let’s try
From this
Narrow angle
Living in
The wreckage
We shared
Sunshine but
The memories
How cloudy
Scattered and
Tend to
Be shadowy
Look up
Stare down
Negative space
Cold metal
Hot flesh
Cooked food
Not eaten
Good forgotten
Bad remembering
Easter eggs
Brightly colored
Blue fire
Orange ice
Two of
One gone

August 26, 2026

editors note: The math of hard memories; a zero sum game. – mh clay

MISDIRECTIONS by John L. Yelavich

He’s been there and now he’s here,
thinking that he could find himself,
but he lost his way, got caught up in,
flighty fantasies hazy misdirection’s.

A reckless lovers’ heartbroken vows,
and stinging vibes needless anxieties,
swept regretful lies under the covers.
Her lair was the devil’s playground.

Like a gnawing larcenous scavenger,
she created a trancelike incidence,
disrupting his cognitive intentions,
concealing a soul stripped of reality.

He closed the door, needed to breathe,
the quickest way to set himself free.
No more frets of worry and doubt,
those faithless hazes now left behind.

August 25, 2026

editors note: It’s clear, time to escape from miss direction. – mh clay

Transmission Lines by Guest Poet Brian Builta

Sweet Engineer,

I want to whisper in your ear
(-2v)/2x ∆x = (Ri + L2i/2t)∆x, but between coffee and
the usual transgressions, my heart isn’t up to it.

In the vast array of gathered sadnesses,
solving for x
is a luxury we don’t have.

We don’t know each other’s paschal mystery
much less the pattern of transformation
such a throbbing would unleash.

So, I keep x to myself,

keep the Initial Value Theorem close to the vest
I’m not wearing, leaving you on your own
for the Final Value Theorem.

In my engineered heart,
limits exist.
A = 2A/2T leads to suffering.

What I’m trying to say is
with the right formula, a bit of elbow grease and good lighting,
we are all transformable.

August 24, 2026

editors note: A formula for high-tech attraction. – mh clay

Cambodian Condiment tray by Luke Ritta

An Ancient old lady hunched over with wrinkled skin sweeps dust away from her battered front door with a makeshift broom.

Aromas of fermented fish sauce hang in the air while tuk tuk drivers beep their horns which echo throughout your room.

Ruby red chili oil and cloves of picked garlic shine like pearls on a Cambodian Condiment tray.

Scruffy street dogs lay spread out and breathing heavily in the fierce heat while cats can’t be bothered to play.

South East Asia with its hectic, wild, exciting, eye opening street life and sweltering heat.

Months later at home on a Tuesday afternoon you will remember all this and smile as you feel it’s addictive beat.

August 23, 2026

editors note: Stay hungry and let life bring the spice. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If any body needs a read, “An étude in unforeseen anxiety“ by Guest Writer Liesl Jobson just might be the bein’ you been seekin’!

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

Give yourself to the image of yourself and love every inch.

Here’s how this one forms:

“Love Thyself” by Tyler Malone

The woman chooses the end cubicle with an open window that lets in fresh air. The strong air freshener makes her cough, worse than cigarette smoke does. She acknowledges that entertaining fears emboldens them. Allergies can be imagined. She holds her breath against the toxic fumes, determined to pee as fast as she can.

A breast cancer warning on the back of the cubicle door distracts her. When was her last breast examination… a year ago… or two? She will palpate her breast in all four quarters when she gets home tonight, pressing under her armpit with flat hands.

She lay in the dark this morning wondering about the low grade period pain she felt after using the toilet. She last menstruated three years ago, during the pandemic. In the time of the virus, the woman studied the six phases of infection: attachment, penetration, uncoating, gene expression and replication, assembly, and release.

A fortnight ago her GP explained that the virus doing the rounds now brings fever, joint aches and diarrhea. That information should have soothed her, but the woman can’t resist self-diagnosis. She still has pain in her spine and so imagines a rare and terrible form of cancer that mimics a common ailment that has invaded her while pretending to be an annoying but essentially innocuous infection. The woman recognises paranoia and reigns it in, hushing it as best she can. A sliver of sky is just visible through the high open window. She prays for common sense and calm…

Get the whole diagnosis right here!

•••

If you’re looking for a tail tale, then “Alpo Male“ by Contributing Writer Earl Sanders just might be the treat you seek!

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

Turf wars everywhere. Lock and load, and stock up on snacks.

Here’s how this trippy trip starts:

“Riot Scene” by Tyler Malone

Boy, that day, Dougie McWood didn’t expect anything like the test of his manhood he found. Practicing urban archaeology is complicated. Most men, Dougie assumed, can’t handle it.

Really? Urban archaeologist, self-described. Dig?

Excitement in the biz is ancient drainpipes; buried tunnel systems; 19th Century liquor bottles; wood fragments; old coins.

Dougie that day examined more of a lost City of Angels–as a deeply ripped, urbane space-case. The day ran high. What could go wrong? He was no tail-wag of a man.

What to do if, deep in enhanced concentration, you hear real voices, not hallucinated ones?

There.

Dougie looked: a trinity of shadows in hot light. Who? He didn’t know. Doggoneit, he silently-but-noisily uttered. He knew he might need to am-scray. Slow shadow saunters looked tough. Walked like confidence itself under new management.

Worse, as three faces materialized from the shade, ominousness stared…

Sniff out 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…

Ventin’…

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor