How little can you say and still call it a poem? Or are you just being a little nuts -- a tad squirrelly? Marin explores the limits in these funny and often moving short poems that capture the crazy moments that make up a life. Selected from Herzog's Pig, Knee Driving, and new work.

Published as a paperback book (not a chapbook).
ISBN 978-0-9820140-0-4

Little Nuts
by Alden Marin (2008)

"Sadness"

Sometimes we just gloss
over the recurrent
sadness of life, as
though it doesn't really
exist, but it does exist in
a big way.

 

Idlers of the Bamboo Grove:
Poetry from Lower Topanga Canyon
by Pablo Capra (ed.) & James Mathers (illus.) (2002)

 

From "Colophon"
by Herb Bermann

I remember the '60s, '70s, '80s, Vietnam, Nixon, Reagan,
Manson n' his girls, all those drugs, co-caine,
hallucinogens, pot turned into acid into speed into
ecstasy into rehab. After I'd sworn I'd seen
a 15-foot-high Chumash Indian chief standing on the hillside
in my backyard. That was "Purple Owsley" acid tabs from
San Francisco, before "Windowpane," for you historians.
Trippin', I'd write a note to myself, n' put it in my
jeans pocket. An' when I was peaking, all lit up,
bursting with atoms, a cosmic commando on hazardous
duty patrol, I'd take out the note. It read: "You'll be fine
in the morning."

From "Rodeo Grounds Last Spark of Eden"
by Robert Campbell

Rodeo Grounds stands
on the edge so fair
even the smog circumambulates
her garden fresh air
a lush green mansion
just east of Malibu
that abbreviates those palaces there...

From "Never Again"
by Michele Capra

I will never again feel the wind blowing up my back and against my neck with that special feeling that whispers in my ear, "This is where you belong."

From "Rodeo Grounds Poem"
by Pablo Capra

I walk through bamboo tunnel bulldozed because arundo non-native I hate that, once when I was a kid mom said, "There's a present hidden here somewhere for you!" suddenly every green leaf concealed a beautiful mystery I searched and searched full of joy but can't remember what I found the real present is that everything has remained mysterious.

From "Two Different Worlds"
by David Hayward

"We don't have a category, Mr. Hayward, for
sitting on your bathroom floor at 3:30 a.m. for
27 out of 41 years and resonating with woods,
books, music, a raccoon roof, and rats
and snakes under your ass."

"Virginity"
by Catherine Holliss

I lost my virginity here
the first time I picked up a dead rat
by the tail and calmly threw
him in the trash. After that,
tiny pale green frogs in
my shower, slugs on the kitchen
floor, and delicate swags
of cobweb became grace notes
to the damp canyon song
which each dash of coyote, deer,
raccoon, bob cat, and black racer
drove deep into me.
And as I walk away my song
is an elegy. I am a child
no more.

From "Finding a Home"
by Bond Johnson

I asked at the Feed Bin,
There at the bottom of Topanga,
If they knew of a place close by.
Just a ways up the creek,
King, they told me,
Had lost his horse a year ago.
Half Moon he was called.
He fell in a storm
And died with his head
In King's lap.
Maybe he was ready now
To have another horse in his corral.

From "The Malibu Song"
by Frank Lamonea

Well tonight that old full moon is out shining bright
And it's eighty degrees in the winter
It's a typical dream for the Malibu scene
Confusion along with the glitter
This is the life if there's any at all
From January clear to December
So let's have a toast as we cruise down the coast
'Cause these are the days to remember.

From "A Village on Cracking Stilts"
by James Mathers

"The rangers are lurking, seething with hatred
For the holdouts," sez Baretta our watch-out.
"Fuck them!" sez I. "Let's not generate that reality -
Let's fuck while Rome burns!"

"In the Canyon"
by Daisy Duck McCrackin

In the canyon
Do anything you deem worth tryin'.
You may run into the Man,
But the canyon fought the law
And guess who won?
Well it's not yet done,
But good over evil is a good rule of thumb.
Meanwhile if you're hungry, come get some.
If Baretta doesn't cook for you
Someone else will surely like to.
What will we do with the cats
When the bulldozers come?
We don't like to think of it
But we have to some.
Do what you want while we have the canyon,
Each day is a dreamy memory one.

 

Posthumous collection of Campbell's "Real Fantasy" rock and roll songs.

Magic Woman: Rock Songs
by Robert Campbell & Pablo Capra (ed.) (2005)

From "Magic Woman"

(Am, G, Am F G)

You fly around this canyon town
on a windswept magic broom
cleverly disguised as a black Ferrari
the day’s been great, the sun is high
birds have been singing there all morning
and I’ve been standing here, my thumb in the air
I was being cool
I saw you cruising over there
midnight’s golden crown lay across your hair.

CHORUS:
Oooh, Magic Woman, which way are you going?
Oooh, Magic Woman, I’d like to hitch a ride with you!

 

Posthumous collection of Campbell's "Real Fantasy" poems.

Rut Weaver
by Robert Campbell & Pablo Capra (ed.) (2008)

From "So I saw you run away..."

How can you let one grain of thought
make smoke and ash of your day?
That mood ring you wear on your finger
should be shining of violet rays.

 

A "best of" selection from Campbell's 3 poetry books: Anesthesia Lake, Magic Woman, and Rut Weaver.

Camp Bell: Selected Poems
by Robert Campbell & Pablo Capra (ed.) (2008)

From "Camp Bell"

And out on a distant horizon
hear a camp bell ring
there beneath the sky and sunlight
listen to it sing
calling out to the young at heart
enraptured in innocence
you can hear it on a moonlit night
when the wind chants
and be blown away.

Poems about growing up in Modesto, living in downtown LA, and re-interpreting popular fairtytales.

Suburbs and Canticles
by Ramón García (2005)

From "The Frog Refuses to be Prince"

I don’t want to be the male mirror of the princesses’ pulchritude,
Brother to her prettiness,
I am all green and wet with lust, dripping with the natural
Offspring of roots, leaves, darkness and water.
Hear my croaking and the brotherhood it becomes –
That’s who I am, a frog among frogs,
Tenors of a perpetual orgy in the puddles.

Hayward's poems are playful, critical, astrological, concrete, and nostalgic for the days when he played trumpet with Stan Kenton, Janis Joplin, and Sonny Rollins.

The Lowered Bucket
by David Hayward (2003)

From "Poems for Refrigerators"

lust cranks our essential eternity
as angel fluff rains poetry
and flowers soar
always smelling of tiny
caramel universes smeared
on translucent porcelain sausage

Hayward's poems are playful, critical, astrological, concrete, and nostalgic for the days when he played trumpet with Stan Kenton, Janis Joplin, and Sonny Rollins.

Hoisted Water
by David Hayward (2004)

From "Tangiers with Ray Charles in my Head"
by David Hayward

It wasn’t so extraordinary that I was alone
in Tangiers that night in ‘61
on the hunt for Moroccan musicians
to play with – the same as at home except

mint tea replaced wine, hash grass, and the
minor tonality of mid-eastern tunes
replaced the major/minor mix of western:
The pursuit of audible grace made brothers of us all.

 

Hayward's poems are playful, critical, astrological, concrete, and nostalgic for the days when he played trumpet with Stan Kenton, Janis Joplin, and Sonny Rollins.

Compensation
by David Hayward (2006)

From "The Zanzibar"

Then there was Alma, the cocktail waitress in her late 20s,
who might sing "A Train" on her break.
She called me once at home and my square New England father said,
"A high yeller called for you." After closing, we would drive
to Latimer Road in the darkest part of Santa Monica Canyon
with a bottle and a Meerschaum pipe full of Topanga Green.
What she taught me about playing jazz wasn't taught in college.

Keyboardist for The Screamers, Nina Hagen, 45 Grave and many others writes about an eight-year long drug addiction.

Eight Years
by Paul Roessler (2006)

From "Giving Birth"

Each sound carefully considered
One side of the beat box
Through the Seymour Duncan
Bass on the Moog, filtered and fat
Sample a cassette of a piano note
Apply it to an unexpected progression
A three-part harmony
Distorted till the whole mess whites out for a second
Slide guitar actually an overdriven DX7
Now take the drums and turn them inside out
Recycle sounds again and again
Till I can't remember the original source
Distill these feelings, this yearning
This loss, this loneliness, this anger
Till it's something of beauty
Nothing that can hurt me
A heart so broken anyone can feel it
Words that grow like algae on the music...

Crap Poetry Toilet Paper
by Log & Toilet (2006)

"One for the Goddess"

Kali kuntorts outside my yacht
Moaning like she’s giving birth
Blood is pouring from her twat
I drink a hundred dollars worth
So place my heart and all I got
Upon the stone of sacrifice
May all illusions fade and rot
And sacrifice this paradise
This lonesome bag of piss and shit
Loves only the Destroyer
There’s no escaping, this is it
You better call your lawyer

Crap Poetry Manifesto
by Log, Toilet, & Two (2006)

 

"Crap Poetry Manifesto"

Crap poetry is what happens to good poetry after you eat it and you’re left with nothing but a sack of appealing gelatinous goop swelling in a storm of indecision. There’s no place for conclusion, destination, evolution. Just beginnings of turds, partially formed words, badly drawn birds, half-eaten curds, and YOU. What is the redeeming value of the dying screams of an animal except to inspire guilt and make children cry? The Dadaists abandoned reason. We abandon hygiene. Farts for forever!

The world is devolving into the raw sewage slush of a psychological maelstrom. Classicism is the faggy flower of culture, fragrant formalism for fidgety fags. Decadence is the dykish fruit of culture, faggier still and addicted to painkillers. Crap is what’s left of the fruit of culture after all the nutrition has been sucked out of it and it’s been ejected out the anus. If money is the sexuality of the dead and your hair is a tunnel into the past then we have more poetry up our asses than exists in the entire Puniverse.

We are the mighty poetic proctologists, the conquistadors of the mighty brown-out of civilization. As crap poets, our biggest job is to not be watching television. As long as we’re not watching television, we’re winning. We want to poison our own minds, thank you very much. Because poetry is the least important thing, it’s the most important thing. Like the Taoists say, “Know the big, but stick to the small.” Similarly, “Know talent, but stick to the crap.”

Cough. Catastrophe. Christ-Consciousness. Retards. Raunchiness. Rage. Apathy. Androgynes. Astroglide. Prickle. Prosthetic. Pucker up!

To say that a poem stinks is to make the synesthetic leap from words on paper to a sensual experience. In crap poetry there's no such thing as writer's block. Our motto is "Just push through." There’s nowhere left except failure. Our only regret is our failure to destroy all our talent.

Why wheedle the approval from some fucking intellectual asshole? We’re the shit!

DryJerkHeartbreakNitwit
by Andy Comess (2008)

"Untitled"

selfish shellfish swim
Slim rocks
cocks are dicks
hicks lick balls
in the hall of fame
I came.

black sluts
have a knack for my nuts.

I write every day
I don't fight
no way.

Alien Sex Bullet
by Log (2008)

"Zombie Clown Parade"

If you’re Lucky you Die
A Little Each Day-
Shedding Snake Skin of the Past-
In a Zombie Clown Parade.
Our Makers Won’t Deny Us-
the Thrill of Love’s Sweet Kill.
The Animals are Restless,
Close your Mouth to Pop this Pill.
Fledgling Pharmacy of Forgotten Prescriptions
The Drugs are in your Head!
Try to Tame the Animal-
Join the March of the Living Dead!

 

The Last Nowhere
by Log & Toilet (2005)

 

"Intentional Splooge"

Failure is not Random
The Drool of the Sputtering
Nympho Retard Lubricates
The Barf of the Beaten
Addict Decorates
The Endless Processing
PLART PLART SPLURT
of the Insatiate Lesbian Interrogates
and so Love and Poetics
Can Only be Measured in Loss.
Dental Floss. I’m the Boss
of Gently Laying my Scrotum
on Your Eye Socket.

Craplexity
by Log & Toylit (2006)

 

From "Puffy the Clampire Slayer"

I am a Soldier,
I am a Sexually Transmitted Disease,
Like Language or Syphilis
I Only Aim to Please
My Maker My Destroyer
My Star-Spangled Dracula.
Here They Come to Scrape Me off the Street
The Brides of Count Spatula

The Ruins of My Realm of Art
Lie Smoldering like Rwanda
I Still Sleep Beneath the Bushes
When I Got Some Kawabunga.

5 Poèmes CRAP de Los Angeles
by Log & Toylit / translated by Mao Thing Awf (2006)

"Splooge Intentional"

L'Echec n'est pas au Hasard
La Bave de Baigue
De Nympho-Arrière Lubrifiée
Degueulie de Perdant
Addict Décore
Procédé sans Fin
PLART PLART SPLURT
de la Lesbienne Insatiable Interroger
et donc L'Amour et La Poésie
Ne Peuvent Qu'être Mesures en Pèrte.
File Dentaire. Je suis le Maître
de Gentillement Assoire mon Scrotum
sur la Prunelle de tes Yeux

Crap Poetry at Beyond Baroque
by Log & Toylit / directed by Mr. Baer (2006)

 

The Crapture
by Mao Thing Awf (2008)

 

"21st Sensory"

Shakespeare was a Catholic
Rimbaud was a fag
Homer blind and
Sappho on the rag.

Hemingway a redneck
Proust was really sick
and Henry Miller couldn't write
enough about his dick.

Whenever we pick up the pen
they make us look like crap.
The 21st century is eight years old
and sitting on your lap.

Obliterature
by Toylit (2008)

 

"I am Toylit"

I am Toylit
Your ass is mine
Just keep me working
Everything comes out just fine
You know I don't got nothing
I know that's what you need
You need me to make you empty
So you can go out and feed –
I see you gotta go
But before you doo
Reflect upon my plight
As you spew
I am Toylit
You're all just using me
I must be out of my mind
But I am here for you
So let's get this over with quick.

Herzog's Pig
by Tushy (2008)

"Lamp"

If you think about it,
this word is almost a
girl's name spelled
backwards: Pamela.

 

Knee Driving
by Tushy (2008)

"LSD Insight"

I once saw through a
man's head while on
LSD at a town fair; for a
moment he became
completely transparent
and it was so scary I
went and hid in my room.

Pennies in the Parking Meter
by Tushy (2009)

"She Kept Making Coffee"

At the Coffee Bean this
morning I spilled a full
cup of hot tea all over the
place and said loudly, "I
spilled my tea –
somebody please get a
mop over here, right
away!" The lady making
coffee just smiled, said,
"Okay," and kept on
making coffee.

Nothing Next to Nothing
by Two (2006)

"Untitled"

My clothes are piling
up on my chair.
I like the color
of that yellow shirt
at the bottom.
I'm not a poet.

Nichts Neben Nichts
by Two / translated by Boris Kruse (2007)

"Ohne Titel"

Meine Kleider häufen sich
auf meinem Stuhl.
Ich mag die Farbe
des gelben Hemdes
ganz unten.
Ich bin kein Dichter.

FOOP!
by Two (2007)

"Untitled"

It sprinkles. What does?
It's dumb. I disagree. I'm
going somewhere. I want
to go but I don't want to
travel. I wait. I walked up
a hill in the middle of the
night. I like the lights. It's
hot for some reason. I
miss you.

Happy Poems
by Two (2007)

"Untitled"

The Kino Babylon is my
hangout. The first film I
saw there was Fassbinder's
Germany in Autumn.
There were only four
other people in the
theater, and the film
ripped 10 minutes in. I
couldn't stay away after that.