The St. Bonaventure Archive site has pdf files of one of Lax’s works - The Peacemaker’s Handbook. Peacemaker’s Handbook was first published by Pendo Verlag of Zurich Switzerland in 2001. Most of Lax's poetry was published by European book companies in English with facing German translated pages. I could find many of them on Amazon.de, but not the U.S. site.
The reproduced text on the pdf's linked to below is a digital copy of the original typescript/printout submitted for that publication. It differs from the published version in regards to the arrangement of some portions of the text. But it gives you a good idea of how Lax’s poetry should look on a page. (I would love to see this book reproduced in America.)
Here is a little snippet from the Peacemaking part:
fight
fire
with
what
?
water
---
(seriously, though, you need to read the whole thing to get the breadth and depth of Lax's simple wisdom)
And here is a little snippet from the Contemplation part:
con
tem
pla
tion
is
watch
ing
---
what
hap
pens
if
you
watch
?
you
be
gin
to
see
---
Here's a poem by Bob Lax that I found while trying to bring order to a corner of our home office. This was sent by Lax from Patmos on the 14th of December 1988. The layout is more than I can reproduce by e-mail -- seven columns with about 15-16 lines per column.
ReplyDeleteJim
* * *
it
came
to
be
known
as
a
friend
ly
plan
et
as
tro
vis
i
tors
land
ing
there
were
al
ways
treat
ed
like
prin
ces
&
those
who
lived
on
it
took
care
of
each
oth
er
like
the
kind
est
of
broth
ers
&
sis
ters
"if
one
of
us
is
un
hap
py,
all
of
us
are,"
they
said
but
few
of
them
were
un
hap
py
&
none
without
help
the
grass
es
were
hap
py
too
&
so
were
the
birds
it
was
all
one
net
work:
a
small
liv
ing
be
ing
that
sang
night
&
day
for
joy
-
* * *
Thanks, Jim! This is another wonderful Lax poem.
ReplyDeleteI read Lax's poetry at night before I go to bed and it stays with me through my dreams! It really is special, in ways that I can't even fathom.
William Stringfellow and Robert Lax in pantomime are eating cotton candy and watching Christ on a trapeze in heaven.
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