Check Out Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum...

We have collected poetry from the maddest poets from the maddest corners of the world and have showcased the latest Mad Ones in the forum just for you. Currently the forum's gots lots of words from some of our seasoned mad ones mixed with brand-spanking-new mad ones: Misti Rainwater-Lites, Zachary C. Bush, Zoe Alexandra, Ra! Gabriel, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal & Cabe Lindsay. But remember, this page is in flux, living and breathing, evolving and changing constantly...so please come and come often for the latest submissions.

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Mother May I

barer of breasts
bearer of bad tidings
baby born to teenage mom
a year after her abortion
beauty pageant guinea pig
topless dancer at nineteen
here is the truth, mom
the truth that does not jibe with
your How Great Thou Art Old Rugged Cross mantra
you ask me to bring back my innocence
dust my purity off in time for my son’s birth
be the lover of God
the example to him
the conduit
the conductor
of the glory train
you have seen me fall and crawl and bawl for peace
you have seen me with messy hissing medusa hair
face bleeding from self-inflicted scratches
hiding in closets
defacing white walls with scented rainbow markers
bouncing off walls from prozac
writing poems about checking into a cheap motel room
and checking out
before life could really fuck me up the ass
loving men who didn’t love me back
wailing in the dark swigging from a bottle of vodka
puking up cheap wine with billie holiday on the stereo
and your favorite ceramic angel
broken into pink and gold shards at my feet
whore, mom
i am
wanting the most return
for the least effort
tired, mom
exhausted
but God is not my naptime
the angels are not lulling me to sleep
I’m not standing in that line
begging for blessings
holy, mom
you are
you have no idea
i sing hymns to you
memorize verses in your name
tell whatever special fucking invisible holy powerful thing
is listening
Her Life Will Not
Be My Life.
I Will Not Go
Down Like That.
Nailed To Anybody’s Cross.
A Waterfall Of A Woman.
Flowing Blood And Tears And Regret
Dying Some Asshole’s Martyr
While A Sad Dolly Parton Song Plays.

- misti rainwater-lites


& then I inhaled a lungful of sweet-cream when

Your left hand’s sandpaper tongue
Woke me curiously
From a dream
Where I did odd things
Like still-sitting behind a desk
In a bright room
[Like our Court of Moral Questioning]
In front of a man
With hair missing leaning
Over a dust-grey book pressing
His wrinkled finger against the middle split-
Open reciting lines blurred to me
To others listening surrounding me Darling

They were like nothing we have ever seen

I watched
As they were quick
Scribbling
Down
The sounds coming
Out of his mouth

An alarm-bell rang
The others dissolved
Before me
The mumbling man hunched
Over his desk waving
Me out from the room crying

- zachary c. bush


Today on the F-Train

Today on the F train
You said
Baby, you don't write anymore
You said
When I met you,
You were a writer
Now, you don't write
And I couldn't fault you there
Maybe sometimes you do see
Me better than I see myself

Inside my head there is always
A little whisper
A tiny slightly breathy whisper
Saying you're way too fucking fat
You talk way too much
You are such a pain in the ass
to everyone you know
and I know it's selfish to even feel that way
to take up that much space
even in my own head

space which could be used to build
linear equations, to conceal alien life,
to make a shelter for homeless animals
and yet I am always inside this small space

digging my heel into my own leg
stepping on the backs of my own shoes
tripping myself in the street
I want to tell you
I do write
I do
All the scribbles
All the cross outs
On scraps of paper
I do write my own name
Over and over in loopy cursive
And sometimes yours
But I loose track of time
And all of a sudden the bulk of it
Is gone.

- zoe alexandra


The Go-Go Swim Show

I'm so tired poolside, what now?
Don't you think so?
She flirts drippingly with no shame
No? Show me no.

She so flirts drippingly with no shame
Just me, not any so-and-so
Hysterically sexy girl
Ho CEO!

Hello hysterically sexy girl
Dodo. Let go--
Some girls pull the guava insides
From your ego. Let go.

Some girls pull the guava insides
she knows you know, even so
she's the CEO of the strip show
bro'. Flow aglow.

She's so the CEO of the strip show
so-so, sitting drinking green tea
in that short skirt, cup in front of the brie
she scowls, yet it's kind of sexy
No? Show me no!

She's so crazy, lazy
flirts drippingly with no shame
dumps on you all the blame
I'm so tired at the table, what now?
So slow we grow!

It's a go-go strip show, swim show
In bikini she's, whoa!
Even in Tagalog: gusto mo ho
I want no, let whims flow, a-
go-go swim show

- ra! gabriel


SOME OTHER FACE

Look at my face.
Does it look like
a face at all?

I don’t know who
I am. I don’t
know who I was.

Bring me photos.
Remind me of
the better days.

I don’t recall
if I ever
smiled at all.

Outside I hear
birds singing my
death song. I look

in the mirror
and I look in
my eyes. There is

no life there. I
sigh and hope with
all my might that

this could be a
dream, a nightmare,
some other face.

- luis cuauhtemoc berriozabal


Larry's Birthday Present

Both of them belonged, at first
to worlds of loneliness or worse
on separate mountains
on different islands
on distant oceans
without notions
of their other half's existence

Larry was one-of-a-kind
his mother was a platypus
his dad a hippopotamus
her labor was laborious
the birth, of course, victorious

Similarly squirrelly,
Lori was the hairy daughter
of a lion and an otter
nature hadn't ever seen
a comparably keen
and fiery
queenly being

These two future mates
shared two common traits:
their unprecedented strangeness
yes, foreign derangeness
as well as peculiar palpitation
of offbeat cardiovascular tempo
as a result of a unique heart condition
their primary organs of affection
were bursting with treasures
so immeasurable
so pleasurable
the overflow spilled onto others
unknowingly blessing these people
in their presences
with lovely loving lovejuice

Larry was hilarious
Lori was hilorious

Their paths were misaligned
until the day they intertwined

Larry was hilarious
Lori was hilorious
together they were merrious
the days they shared were glorious

Many planets wined and dined them
when their two fine minds combined, then
suns shined divinely
from their kiss-induced sparks
comets crossed asteroid belts
moons collided with moons
one colossal black hole swallowed them up
with an emotionally
explosionally
stellar gulp
the after taste of which
refreshed the universe

Space licked its lips and smiled.

- cabe lindsay