“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

T. S. Eliot

••• The Mad Gallery •••

“Doom” by Featured Artist Thomas Riesner

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 were phone call makin’ with banjos and bacon; we dressed up funny in the color of money; we took love turns where everything burns; we witnessed hell at the old motel; we toasted “he” for R. I. P.; we heart walked ‘round from dream ropes bound; we prepped new hipsters, apocalypse-sters. Now and later, we’ll be greater. ~ MH Clay

A Primer for Post-Apocalyptic Living by MH Clay

Do not huddle behind your hide, propped and weighted with your fears of an approaching end

Do not darken your view with an opaque understanding of your eventualities

Nor gloss over your grit with the doom that you see, a clouding sky to hail down defeat upon your hope

Be not swept, unwound, prone to headlong rushes to ground to dodge the adversaries who would wound you, add another notch to the stock of their agenda

Instead, draw your bead on that far line, the rim of a world ablaze with possibility

Look beyond your singular scope of meager energies to perceive a shared outcome

Align with like minds, flush with plans, plotting for joint survival and prosperity

Be confident in the point of your defiance, to stand against the feints of feeble blades

Your trepidations melt into a new metallurgy with which to bronze your shield, to fend off every stuttered stroke

Freely roam, resplendent in your resolve that this time is but the base of all you will achieve and not the zenith

September 26, 2026

editors note: Do ALL that you can to hold your head high in spite of ALL the happenings happening around us trying to pull us down! ~ Johnny Olson

PORTLAND BOUND by Willie Smith

Tank cars black in the night,
clackety-clack down the track,
Portland bound; under the Dog Star;
under Orion; under the Bull;
clackety-clack, Portland bound.
Me, I am to say to no one bound,
save the Bull, the Hunter,
the Dog and the cold:
The head lives upstairs
in the house of the heart.
And when to bed goes the head,
and the head lies in dream ropes bound,
the heart steps outside to the street, looks
back at the house, to see, behind the drapes,
shadows trade shapes; till the heart, staring
at the shades dance, fades to nothing;
save brilliant stars above black tank cars,
clackety-clack down the track,
Portland bound.

September 25, 2026

editors note: Now we know where dreamers go. – mh clay

In Memory Of by Guest Poet Ryan Stephens

Some faded remembrance
Sits folded and crumpled
Warped from steam
from a barista’s wand
“In memory of…”
A twenty something
With trendy glasses
An auto accident? Early disease?
Self-inflicted?
Certainly immortal,
Even as the details fade
Who was he?
A friend, a brother,
A skin that will never touch another’s
Even as the building fades,
That framed photo
Will sit in a curio
With drinks raised in their honor

September 24, 2026

editors note: R.I.P., whome’er you be. – mh clay

No Tell Motel by Rosie Lindsey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The no tell motel
a dangerous place
full of illicit activities
Watch your step for needles or condoms
Mold and bed bugs?
That’s the least of your worries

Fascinated
sitting in my car
Looking at the shabby exterior
Neon flickering
When traveling I sometimes stay here
Becoming Gladys Kravitz
Ear to the door
A parking lot argument
Heading upstairs
She yells that he does nothing
Except suck on that glass dick
All damn day

I look around the room’s perimeter
Push button land line phone
Disconnected
Empty bed side drawer
The Gideons with their bibles
Don’t bother with this place
multi colored bedspread to hide the evidence
I drag it off and put it in the corner
They ought to just burn that

This trip I’m in room 125
At midnight a knock at 126.
5 minutes of headboard banging
1 AM another knock
More banging
Knock bang repeat

Sleepily I wonder about her
Sex work is valid work
she’s providing a service
But How tiresome and repetitive
Being the assembly line

At dawn
From my car
I see her
Thin blond
An 80’s era shoulder padded blazer
Resembling a linebacker
Thrown
Over a black bra
Her quote unquote manager
Stops to talk to a friend
She shrugs exhausted
Pleading, Can’t we just go home?

September 23, 2026

editors note: Much to tell when there’s no telling. – mh clay

Cigarette burns by Mike Zone

(for Britt)

Bushido cowboys- out in the open
Smoking opium long pipe-dreams
Dangerous configurations
Mystic transition
Blowing smoke rings across a body in outer-space fantasy while waxing poetic nightmare-esque sequences in a Saigon jail…
Transfixed by the glowing cherry of a cigarette
Nicotine sweat makes skin glow like cotton candy
Be kind
Rewind
It’s an analog mutant madness kind of way
Where nothing is at it seems
Reality but shards- fragmented recollections
Elvis mugshot from DEA agent daze under Vegas lights
Nocturnal hawks descend
Wet copper descent
Ash pressed into red skin
Encircled
Blood moon eyes
Long night goodbyes
How I wish
Keeping windows shut
Could prevent us
You and I
With our smoky sensual ventures
From going out
Everything burns…

September 22, 2026

editors note: The habit you hate to love. – mh clay

Alternating Currency by Dan Raphael

in countries other than the US the different denominations
are different sizes and colors, but don’t know if any places
go up to vermillion. ones the color of onions,
fives silvery like fish, tens fluorescent as tennis balls

unlike mick jagger’s girl I don’t come in colors.
when the day’s pants and shirt are the same hue
I change one. Would be handy to have a shirt
that was a different color inside out. Transparent pants
would put too much pressure on what’s beneath them
neither white nor tight

these days I buy new clothes where I bought the current ones
so no need or chance to try on ahead, unless the sizes
shrink or I expand. despite all this talk of inflation,
my wallet never grows

the government’s mandating me a national debt card
and cancelling the rest of my plastic. my ID looks less
and less like me the further I get from home;
far enough away, I won’t know my own voice,
asking in a new language for I’m not sure what

September 21, 2026

editors note: Too far behind to stay current. (Dan’s got a new chapbook out, How’d this Tree Get In, from Ravenna Press. Congrats, Dan!- mh clay

Celestial Phone-booth by David Gross

guess the weight of the moon
whose pocket it came from
its destination somewhere in your backyard

it’s party time
& the tide is in reverse
flotsam & jetsam walking to the liquor-store

the event horizon picks up its toys
& runs home crying
leaving us with banjos & bacon
flux with fire & flow
flush with baptism

too bad the hatch is locked
& the transmission is garbled

September 20, 2026

editors note: Oh, well… but, bacon! (We welcome David to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay

••• Short Stories •••

This weekend’s featured read, “The Way We Were“ by Guest Writer Ashley Mangtani, is a tale that is as old as time!

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

Galaxies and bodies are meant for touching. What happens next is when creation is chaos.

Here’s how this celestial love tryst begins:

Photo by Tyler Malone

Later, when our stars were already threading through each other like fingers, I couldn’t help but wonder. When your ex comes back into your life at a hundred and ten kilometers per second, is that romance, or is it just gravity with better lighting?

I want it on record that I was thriving.

A figure that photographed well from any angle, a rotation of satellites, bachelors, who never asked where the night was going, and an address eighty galaxies would kill for.

Four billion years of not needing anybody. Andromeda wasn’t just big. He was Big.

That’s the thing about Big. He doesn’t arrive. He looms. Every astronomer alive covered his approach like Fashion Week, and I’d been pretending not to read a word of it.

“You look good, kid,” he said, when his halo touched mine…

Fly high into the rest of this starry read right here!

•••

If you’re lookin’ for a reminiscent read, “Jack’s Lad“ by Guest Writer Paul Goodwin is sure to feed that need!

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

Here we are right now, as we are right now, in the middle of so much we can’t forget, and so much we don’t know yet.

Here’s how this nostalgic flashback begins:

Photo by Tyler Malone

Alice feels tears welling, but she must not cry. She stares at her husband, Jack, sucking on his pipe and chuckling at the comedian’s jokes on the twelve-inch monochrome TV. His scalp is flaky. His cheeks are blotched red. Tufts of grey hair stick out between his ears and the arms of his glasses.

He turns to her, puts his hands on hers and smiles.

“A cup of tea, miss?” he asks and gets to his feet with a groan.

In the kitchen, the kettle hisses. She chews her nails, squeezes her handkerchief and looks at her son Bert smiling from a photo frame, smart in his army beret and uniform. The smile seems forced. He hated national service, hated taking orders, complained incessantly and was often confined to quarters. But Jack has always been proud of him, calling him a free spirit–said he wished he’d had his lad’s independent will.

She bites her lip hard and forces herself to look at their wedding photograph on the wall. It’s 1918, Jack’s still in his sapper’s uniform, a wound stripe on his arm, but she can’t recall him ever complaining. After their wedding, he’d worked nights at the copper factory for a wage they’d reduced again, but he said it was better than the dole queue. At dawn, he’d come home to the smell of bacon, exhausted but smiling, and head for bed soon after…

Get the rest of this wistful read right here!

••• Open Mic •••

Join Mad Swirl this 1st Wednesday of October (aka 10.07.26) when we’ll be doin’ the open mic voodoo that we do at Barbara’s Pavillion!

We will get things started with some musical grooves brought to you by our mad musical house band, Swirve” Chris Curiel on trumpet, Gerard Bendiks on skins, Tamitha Curiel on vocals and special guest Rick Eye on guitar! Then, starting at 8pm(ish), hosts Johnny O & MH Clay will set the stage for some open mic madness!

This month’s feature is Contributing Poet Trier Ward! Here’s a bit about Trier:

Trier Ward is a mother, poet, and wildlife caretaker. She was an Air Force brat, grew up around the world, and currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She owns cats, practices yoga, and plays the lyre. She identifies as a queer feminist, anarchist, and anti-racist. Her poetry has appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, The Stygian Lepus, Chachalaca Review, and Mad Swirl. Her latest collections of poetry are: The Hollowscape (Penhall Publishing, 2016) and The Art of Escape (Hercules Publishing, 2024). Find her on YouTube at The Poetry Factory where she has a channel dedicated to the visual expression of poetry.

Come one. Come all.

Come to participate…

(preRSVP HERE on this Facebook event page ~OR~ send a message to openmic@madswirl.com)

Come to swirlabrate…

(join us LIVE at Barbara’s Pavillion- located at 323 Centre St, Dallas OR watch us on Facebook LIVE)

Come to be a part of this collective creative love child we affectionately call… Mad Swirl Open Mic!

Here’s the remaining 2026 features:

November: 22 Years of Mad Swirl Open Mic Swirlabration
December: Holidaze Hijinx

•••••••

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…

…explorin’

Johnny O
Chief Editor

MH Clay
Poetry Editor

Tyler Malone
Short Story Editor

Madelyn Olson
Visual Editor