“The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.”

Caspar David Friedrich

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Disasterous” by Featured Artist Thomas Riesner

Mad Swirl is delighted to welcome back Thomas Riesner with another batch of his wild and wonderfully offbeat creations. Riesner has a real knack for making his figures feel like they have personalities all of their own, each one with strange and wild eyes. With their peculiar expressions and wonderful, oddball energy, these characters seem to have wandered in from a world that operates by its own bizarre little rules, inviting you to wander in after them. But beware: the longer you look, the more lost you become. ~ Madelyn Olson

To see ALL of Thomas’ wild and wonderfully offbeat creations, 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 the moon were thanking for a starlight spanking; we went to the mat, understanding and that; we drank in a zone with signs on stone; we felt interstate stealing our wilderness feeling; we relieved the strain, conversing with rain; we pictured in kind the metrics of mind; we biked through strife, extended by life. Our extensions, our inventions. ~ MH Clay

RUNS BLUE WRITES BLACK by Ken Edward Rutkowski

Every day starts out innocently I suppose at least unsuspecting of its unerring details life starts out alarmingly but we don’t remember it only glimpses into ideas and death well no one really knows except that it comes at different speeds can we control our pace as we fight for air and peace in a world in which we are not in control and here is my will the extension of circumstance adherent to my capacities of life not a religious word left God has already been mentioned he comes often when I have been seen a black beast travels as light faster than I can perceive a glance of the eye so it hit me with a blast and then no light no feed coming in to some locals looking after me a watchful eye in black dust sweeping up the mystery of this year crashing down on this earth was I so fit that I survived? did I have anything to do with myself? are you supposed to catch it witness it realize the denomination of your existence I did in a flash a sharpening light reeling in on my bike as I rode around so casually without a fright why would I the answer to my own persistence don’t toil on this Earth there’s not enough time life is busy with other people so talk to other people help other people others helped me lying on a road horizontally to die peacefully is anywhere but mine I see stars I see birds in an ordinary life take my breath and leave me be the travails inside the traps of immutability life be as it be life leave me as it is seemingly unharmed on hand a perpetual snap of adherence no villain I deceive nobody only myself when it matters the most the black night seems to dissolve and then it hits you like a truck like a car and you are left mesmerized exhausted extended by life the reflection but blurry was she in a hurry not at all yourself but of time when I saw the emblem come rushing back into me I had no recollection that it had chosen me I am not the only one only a feeling of what I’m supposed to be for I have many eyes feeding on the light of intermittent Glory.

September 5, 2026

editors note: And so we go, from black to light to black again. – mh clay

Foreshadow by Sanjeev Sethi

At the edge of the alley
I met my smile.
Like the restlessness
in a poem
you were waiting
to be unwrapped.
If one were to believe
graphology
you wouldn’t be you
through the metrics
of my mind.
Assays have their ambiguities.
It’s like the smell
hidden in a photograph.

September 4, 2026

editors note: We need our photos to true up the pictures we have in our minds. – mh clay

Converse With the Rain by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

I converse with the rain
when no one else will give
me an audience; when no
one will listen to my rambling.
I converse with fire if I am
drunk or with a stone when
I am bored. Let’s have a word
in any language I say to the
master translator of humans
and all things. I ambush the
stealthy fox with a sound
like an alarm. I had to do it
to prevent it from tearing
apart the hens. I always wait
for the rain. I like how it seems
to respond to my rambling.
I watch what I say not to offend
it with a word it hates to hear.

September 3, 2026

editors note: Don’t rattle with your prattle. – mh clay

Gasconade Conundrum by Agnes Vojta

We launch our kayaks
under the I-44 bridge.
Above us, semis thunder,
cars rumble
on their way to Tulsa
or St. Louis.

We float downstream,
into the woods, paddle
for half an hour and still
hear the freeway traffic
droning in the distance.

No wilderness feeling.
I want to be angry
at them. But I drove
here, too.

September 2, 2026

editors note: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Walt Kelly, 1972) – mh clay

Stonehenge by Guest Poet Paul Bavister

On my first day working at the warehouse,
I made a good friend obsessed
with Stonehenge. He’d just bought

a tattoo gun and showed me the outline
of the stones on one arm, and GⒶZ
on the other. Soon enough,

we’d trekked out to Stonehenge
and drank a couple of ciders
between the picnicking families.

As the sun set, he chalked
GⒶZ on a stone. He said he felt
trapped in the warehouse, and within

a couple of months, he was off
in a van with some posh hippy
friends. When I popped round

to his mum’s, she wasn’t sure
where he’d gone. Then, a couple
of breaths later, I was forty

years in the future, hoping
to find him online,
but he didn’t exist.

The past weighed heavy
on me, so I trekked the same
path across the fields

to the information centre,
which was closing.
But the steward waved

me through, and I sat
and raised a can
to my old friend

as the moon aligned
just right to light
the magical symbol

of GⒶZ on the largest stone.

September 1, 2026

editors note: A monumental memory. – mh clay

Wrest Pin by KJ Hannah Greenberg

When securing/adjusting tensions, persons are advised to weigh
Carefully considerations of all parties’ needs. In the end, what
Matters most remains the glue that binds.

Small irritants nearly always surface from human interactions.
Key is seeing beyond frictions, remembering how our views
Of others can bring about peace.

Overall, concord entails sussing out means to salvage links,
Finding new ways amid old affiliations to reconcile our
Many differences.

August 31, 2026

editors note: Seems a lost skill, these days. – mh clay

The Last Laugh by Casey Renee Kiser

The moon and stars
are dripping tonight
with perversion; her version
A slight obsession to shine
disintegration

They want to tie me up;
spank me, torture me
with half-light, and silly
twinkling

The moon cracks the whip
as the gutter glitters
for the stars, a masterclass
The witching hour shows up
and pours a glass of me
on the rocks

August 30, 2026

editors note: A moon maiden, moon made. – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

If you’re needing to connect with a read, “Disconnected“ by Contributing Writer & Poet Linda Sacco just might be the reconnecting read you need!

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

Is it your favorite song because you *need* it to be, or because you love that it’s in your life?

Here’s how this buzzin’ read begins:

“Cold Beer” by Tyler Malone

The March Hare Bar is a popular nightspot in Melbourne, hidden in an alleyway of surrealist street art. If Jenna wasn’t always so busy studying psychology, doing work experience at a hospital and taking shifts in a restaurant, maybe she would have visited this place sooner. Her Maps app tells her she has arrived at her destination. As she takes the step to the entrance, her phone dings with a text message from Renai.

Sorry, Jenna. Staying off my leg. Gym messed me up again. =(

“Again?” Jenna mutters out loud. The AI suggested response appears.

OK. Thanks for letting me know.

Jenna voluntarily adds a sad face emoji for guilt. Send!

Jenna enters the bar, scans for a seat and pauses next to an empty stool. “Can I sit here? There’s only one stool left at the bar. You waiting for someone?” Jenna asks a dark haired twenty something woman.

Dark-Haired waves the half empty drink around. “Came and gone.”

Jenna takes the stool. “Right,” she says sympathetically.

Dark-Haired leans over to show Jenna a photo on her phone. “I was supposed to meet this man.”

“Oh no, he didn’t show?” Jenna hopes she has conveyed the right amount of curiosity and empathy.

Dark-Haired rolls her eyes, sending her unnaturally long lashes sky high. “I’d need a time machine to meet that man.”

Jenna nods knowingly. “The old bait and switch routine?”

“It’s a bait and what?” Dark-Haired scrunches her well-moisturized face up.

Jenna offers a thin smile. “Never mind. Psych talk.”

Dark-Haired waves the empty glass around. “I could use a good therapist.”

Jenna nods enthusiastically. “Couldn’t we all? I was supposed to meet a friend of mine but she cancelled at the last minute.”

A young bartender greets her. “What are you having?”…

Raise your glass and slide on over here to chug the rest of this read!

•••

If you need a read, grab “One in Life, the Other in Death“ by Kim Farleigh by the horns!

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

Great commentary is the result of great performance.

Here’s how this stand-off starts:

Photo by Tyler Malone

Morante didn’t have to jolt his cape-holding hands and huff to make this bull charge. Six harpoon banderillas in the beast’s flanks only magnified its willingness to fight. It straight-line charged, head steady, perfect for skillful killers.

Morante had already received official recognition from the bullfight’s president for a fine performance on his first bull. Two such recognitions in Madrid on the same day only happened about every two thousand bullfights. It meant being carried from the ring amid admirers. Morante had never received that homage in Madrid.

Now, he thought, is the time…

…to get the rest of this bull of a story 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…

Seein’ inside…

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor