The Daily Growler Poetry Issue

Poets, Are They Warped Fools or Geniuses?
Poems fall like the leaves of the trees in fall but in spring they spring back to leafy full lushness again. In summer they brown and in October they fall again. A cycle. Here's a raw poem submitted by a man who says he's sailing on the oceans of the moon these days.

Broken...but

I am broken...
but broke?
Not yet,
Though surely...
Yes, surely...
Surely soon.

Nothing's working
And all tills
Are falling into
Empty spaces
When groped for.

I am broken
And breaking,
Yes, O.K.,
Breaking more,
Yes, I agree,
But like the
Flowers in winter,
You know they'll
fill out again
Come spring again,
That same spring
When the
Spring is back
In your step
And you walk
As though on
Waters flowing free
Though nothing
Is free
When you're broke.
___________________________
I capitulate. It isn't a bad poem as though it is no poem at all but just a jest. Jesting is certainly poetry. Like Hip-Hoppers--yes, they are seriously jesting, but as though written in graffiti on the walls of space, what they are babbling and rambling through and rhyming heartily is afterall poetry. Are all wild statements the statements of poets?

Here's another little diddy from the same moon-sailing-dreaming dude.

Can Can-Can

I can't cant
like trotters
trottin' like tots,
but I can can-can,
can't I?,
or may I?,
or deed I do
that hoodoo
that boohoo
That how-to-do
Howdy do,
do, do, or don't
do if you can't,
but do if you
can can-can.
_____________________________________________________
Ooo, a justly just poem of tidbit thinking--of jotted notations on current thinking and verbal actions unionized. Any words that have to be deciphered are ah wilderness words.

Here's another from this moon-ocean sailor boy:

After Reading Toni Morrison

Stunned!
Unable to be cognitive,
a cog in a tiff,
a hum from a spliff,
a waxing of the floor,
the parquet floor of the mind
that minds the store
that sells to miners
or minors or
minions, and still
stays stale,
the same old
same, sure, same.
Unable to be cognitive
in such a grinding
of every motion, totally,
during same everyday days.
Just plain stunned.
___________________________________________
Otro mas, por favor?

When Was...Then Is Now

When was;
Then is now;
Which was once
But isn't
Anymore there.
Because when it
Knows exactly where
Today is now,
Then yesterday
Was when you
And tomorrow
Were forever.
_________________________________________
Reads like "Barnacle Bill the Sailor." Well, after all, this poet is a moon-sea sailor. Hasn't been writing poetry long? Long enough, I would hazard a guess. Not Longfellow enough; oh no! I hope I'm trying not to be too harsh on this harsh "little" poet?

Shall we give him (or her) one more shot?

Including ME

I try,
I crunch,
I scribble.
I will
Write my will,
I will,
Leaving nothing
But a will...(breathe).
I did try though;
I did stall, yes, but
I lengthened my scribble
And I wrote a novel
Called My Will.
Still I will
Leave nothing
In my will or
My Will
But words
Upon words
Upon words
That express
What WE all are,
Including ME.
______________________________________________
I'm not into definitions of poetry. Poetry is wide open, isn't it? What's a poem? Aram Saroyan publishing a book of blank pages? He called that poetry. Robert Creeley called his one-word slammer-jammers poetry. This "unknown" poet, me thinks, studied with Robert Creeley at the University of New Mexico--where he met Lenore Kandel while she was reading her poem "Fucking With Love." And he fell for Lenore, but then, what man who ever met her and heard her read "Fucking With Love" didn't fall in love with her?

For a true mad-male appreciation of Lenore, he's a link for you studs and brilliant ladies to enjoy--pleasure and peace, all we women are after:

www.divineanimal.com/yates_article_on_kandel.htm

Men sometimes are disgustingly historical; remembering a time when they were the masters and their women were their slaves. Lenore Kandel seems to enjoy throwing sexual objects at men, especially men who she knows are putty in her "perverted" hands.

Here's a quote from Lenore Kandel:

“Those who read modern poetry do so for pleasure, for insight, sometimes for counsel. The least they can expect is that the poet who shares his visions and experiences with them does so with no hypocrisy. To compromise poetry through fear is to atrophy the psyche. To compromise poetry through expediency is the soft, small murder of the soul.”

Once is enough. Have we all forgotten Jacqueline Suzanne?

helenhighman-klein-lacloos--poetrix
for The Daily Growler

Note: The above poems are by "The Unknown Poet," or "Tup," as he would like to be known. One could call his poems "Tupperware."