Collects Campbell's poems from Life as a Poet: Vols. 1, 2, 3, & 5 as well as from Idlers of the Bamboo Grove.

LAP presents:
Anesthesia Lake
by Robert Campbell (2004)

From "The Halfwit Lament"

I don’t know but
One things for sure
The books you read
And the people you learn about
Make for good kindling
When you burn out....
he wonders where his memory went
held in suspense of the next moment
the gods took it out to play frisbee
Snap! Crackle! Pop!
Rice Krispies!

 

OUT OF PRINT!

Collects Capra's poems from Life as a Poet: Vols. 1, 2, 3, & 5 as well as from Idlers of the Bamboo Grove.

LAP presents:
Death Eats the Words that I Don't Write
by Pablo Capra (2004)

"Ghazal"

(My final exam for Professor Stephen Yenser)

I don't know what to say in poetry,
Or how to find my way in poetry.

It's very difficult to know just what
To write about today in poetry.

Professor, the poets you made me read
Only led me astray in poetry.

I'll take a moment to address each one
Individually in poetry.

Bishop, your "awful but cheerful" is an
Awful philosophy in poetry.

Merrill, why write without passion if you
Were going to be so gay in poetry?

Plath, some lines are good but you're writing prose,
Which is hardly okay in poetry.

Ashbery, the "loose and dispiriting wind"
Is you, you will not stay in poetry.

Seidel, you're "going fast" back to the dust -
No wonder that you pray in poetry!

McHugh, you're no more than a humorous
Talking dictionary in poetry.

My diatribe is over and it's time
To focus inwardly in poetry.

For all my arrogant condemning talk
I'm no better than they in poetry.

I see how, like with morning light, the world
Is smothered everyday in poetry;

But when I try to jot the colors down
They always turn to gray in poetry,

And all the brilliant dreams I dreamt in fire
Are transformed into clay in poetry.

The things I can't articulate greatly
Outweigh the things I may in poetry.

Pablo, hope that your voice will learn to sing,
Though now you only bray in poetry.

 

LAP presents:
Pyramids without Points
by Pablo Capra (2005)

"Remembering how I used to turn the bulbs…"

Remembering how I used to turn the bulbs
to give you more light.
When I went back to your room,
it was unusually bright.
How did you write in that constant night?
You needed a window.
A moment mellow and hollow,
packed with detail.
Richard eats ice cream and apple pie.
He wants a simpler life.
Is it true that all snakes bite?
Yes, that's right.
Avoid Tigers.
Rats and Dragons are fine.
Grinning strangers gather,
throwing snow to pass the time.
Lucian Freud's dead bird on the table
whets the appetite.
I lay you down on a bed of tears
in a dirty night.
We look at the galaxies with a galaxy's eye.
To understand this gives voice to the silent stars.
Our cosmic questions boil down to
the whispering of star parts.
Are we asking a question or speaking the answer?
Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.
Deep questions have lame answers.
Robert.

 

Collects "Downtown LA Poet Laureate" McDowell's poems from Life as a Poet: Vols. 1, 2, & 3. Also includes a section of McDowell's "not poetry." Intro by Crybear.

LAP presents:
My Mind is Blank
by Richard McDowell (2007)

From "The Raspberry Tea Poem"

And I go on and on. Try not to sing a song. Try not to sing along. Try not to think about nothin'. Like a piece of plywood. Which reminds me of glue. Somethin's gotta hold us together.

You say that you love me. You say that you need me. You said that you'd meet me at half past three. I waited an hour until I was lonely, so I ordered a cup of raspberry tea.

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 1
(2002)

From "The Thread of Joy and Sorrow "
by Robert Campbell

silk stockings, socks, and shoes
magic nets float into your room
floating around like a balloon
tying you up in a cocoon
leaving you breathless, you dream
magic nets are falling down in the mist
rainbows are steaming on the ground
a conscious thought left streaming on your brow
assures you another tomorrow...

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 2
(2002)

From "In Times of Pain, like Strange Days"
by Richard McDowell

Sometimes
I feel
like a landfill I’m in,
like a service I fulfill,
like a memorial I give,
like a monument I build,
like a
blind man
in a bear’s cave
I must pretend to be dead...

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 3
(2003)

From "a two seater threepeat of depleted uranium"
by David Mark Patterson

i run from rust
and combustible energized
synergetic symptomatic effects
of timespace anchors.
a canker sore, chore of discipline,
a disciple in discovery,
hovering just to listen in.
a pretty thought glistens when
to my surprise i realize
my tailbone is a missing fin....

i’m not venting, i’m inventing.
sending symbols in syllables
in the attempt of denting definition.

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 4
(2003)

From "Rimbaud's Consecration"
by Saint-Pol Roux, translated by D. J. Carlile

You passed by like a ruffian, we say, not like a sower of parables.
Imagination is not only the trajectory of genius: at the point of drop-off there is a masterpiece.
RIMBAUD JUGGLES WITH THE STARS.
It is time we saw you as a god of Destiny, as a giant of the Absolute, and NOT such a hoodlum of Immortality.

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 5
(2003)

From "Daisy Went Crazy"
by Pablo Capra

The party was almost over
And the last of the partygoers
Were sitting outside around the fire –
The warm Santa Ana air
Had put most of them to sleep –
When Daisy came over, put her head on my shoulder,
And said, “‘Hear melodies are sweet
But those unheard are sweeter!’
And God knows the things I think of and forget
Are a hundred times better
Than any of the things that I keep.
The best poetry is lost like my breath on the wind:
Spoken once, then you can’t find it again.
The real poetry is right in front of your face,
But when you try to grab it, it vanishes
Like the fruit of Tantalus.
Don’t believe me? Watch this!”

Then Daisy went crazy
And screamed at the moon,
Listing off the months of the year,
“January, February, March, April, May, June.”
She danced around the fire,
Shouting verses too fast for the poetry to last,
Lifting her dress higher and higher
For the guy across the fire to see.
He smiled, and she spread her legs wider,
And told him to keep looking
Because everyone was asleep...

She screamed at Time, Fame, Life, and Death,
Demanding that we recognize the Truth in our youth,
Then sat down and whispered her poems in my ear
Like someone in love,
Rubbing her face against mine, and coming so near
That I shivered with desire
Every time her soft lips got closer.
Suddenly she pulled my hair out with her teeth,
And when I screamed
She patted my head and smelled my shampoo,
Saying, “What are we going to do, Pablo?
What are we going to do?”...

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 6
(2004)

"Mattress Medium"
by The Mormons

communicate with the spirits of the dead
by creaking the springs in your bed
i exist only in repetition
re-treading ever tile in the kitchen
graft my body to your back
to absorb the nutrients that i lack

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 7
(2004)

From "Seating Arrangements"
by Robert Kelly

chair = conversation
conversation = love affair
love affair = supposed to be in heaven
(she came through the door at first light to wake me her filmy white peignoir flowing around her the water I swam through to wake)
was I awake yet = was it Italy or here
she came to wake me
heaven = the habit of being happy no matter what
(being accurate without rhyme)
loveseat = approximation
hill in Germany = lyre
remembering = telling lies…

From "Petit Testament"
by Ern Malley

In the twenty-fifth year of my age
I find myself to be a dromedary
That has run short of water between
One oasis and the next mirage
And having despaired of ever
Making my obsessions intelligible
I am content at last to be
The sole clerk of my metamorphoses.

 

Life as a Poet: Volume 8
(2005)

From "Interesting Results"
by Ariel Pink

Every time I pick up a pen, I get
interesting results.
Every time I sit down and try, I get
extraterrestrial results.
I get these
interesting results.

I'm not gonna try.
I'm not gonna try anymore.

THIS IS NOT TRYING!
THIS IS NOT TRYING!