The Daily Growler Poet's Nook

The Poet's Nook
Hello, my name is Helen Highman-Klein LaCloos and I'm The Daily Growler's first-ever poetry editor. Hell, I'm a graduate of a fabulously famous girl's high-brow Ivy-League-counterpart college--and trust me, I've had my share of Ivy Leaguer boys and girls--I married two of them, Izzy Highman-Klein and Robert "Look Sharp" LaCloos, who lied to me about being a Gillette Company heir--lyin' bastard; I took him to the cleaners during our divorce--it made all the Boston papers, let me tell you. So, don't sweat it, I'm overqualified as a poetry editor.

Now to serious business. I'd like to introduce you to my first out-of-The-Daily-Growler-poetry-grab-bag poet, Jeffrey Gustavson--if the name sounds familiar, please, I never heard of this guy; I did just reach into a barrel and pull up a couple of his poems--

Jetlag

              for Eiko 

I've spent this morning watching television
And watching the snow fall past the window
And accumulate on the wet street
And on the roofs, hoods, and trunks of firemen's cars
Parked in front of the bicycle shop.
Already the firemen have gone out twice
Since I sat down in this canvas chair,
But both times were only false alarms.
Now a stout girl wearing a plastic bag
On her head walks carefully past, hugging
a book or package inside her pink ski jacket.
Snow falls like lint shaken from a lint trap.
Lucy and Ethel suspect each other
Of being the neighborhood cat burglar,
But now Lucy's wrestling with the real
Burglar, thinking it's only Ethel. Yikes!
Softly as mosquitoes the snowflakes fall.
My eyes will shrivel to dust, but Hayama,
And the harsh-voiced tobi flying above the steep ridges there,
Will outlast the emperor's compound there,
And lovers will always gather shells there,
Whenever the sea there is still or in motion,
Even in the middle of the winter.

---

Jay Jay Ram

Psychologically unkemp extremely
Just now, with
Half my wits

Jeering at the
Other half, the
Mizzle balanced out

By the lithograph
Of Shakespeare in
A lace collar,

Slightly elevating his
Eyebrows and pursing
His thin ripe

Lips, as if
To draw back
From any too

Tentative sentences -- which
Is to say,
From nearly all

Of them -- staring
At me from
The white plaster

Wall. He almost
Seems to wince
With sympathy when

I stop writing
And look up
At him. "Don't

Stop on my
Account," he seems
To say, anything

But afraid yet
Willing to be
My friend. He

Looks out with
An all-sufficient
Certainty that he

Will never be
Invisible. Accorded the
Sweet honor of

Being ignored most
Of the time,
He is the

Friend of everybody
Who speaks ever
From the heart.

copyright 1995, The Silence: a Literary Journal and the author (Jeff Gustavson).

These poems can be found on the following Website:

http://www.altx.com/silence/jgus.htm

Hey, come on, you have to like this guy--he uses the word "mizzle"--I've heard of "pizzle" but never "mizzle." Anyway, I'd appreciate (or depreciate if needs be) your comments on this young poetry turk--on second thought, I have no idea how old this dude is; he may be too old to be a "young poetry turk"--he may not even be a "poetry turk"--WEV.

helenhighman-kleinlacloosdailygrowlerpoetryeditor
for The Daily Growler