Someday I Will Begin

Always another task at hand,
Superseding vague ambitions of transcendence
With immediacy,
The immediacy of earning money,
Of maintenance demanded by inanimate objects,
Then the hungry pursuit of well-deserved reward,
Focused on the more corporeal aspects of existence.

Yet,
That misty, translucent cloud of angelic eternity still hovers,
Just beyond reach,
Beckoning.

Someday,
(I try to assuage my neglected nobility)
Someday,
(I earnestly promise)
I will begin.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Bliss

You will not let yourself fall in love,
Considering the complete impracticality of the situation.
You will be self-disciplined and wise
And never know bliss,
So brief and troublesome.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Consciousness

Ninety-nine percent of all brain function
Is controlled by the subconscious,
Some scientist recently said.
Only one percent,
Awake.
Only one percent,
Consciously aware.

I suspect his findings are the product of his subconscious.
Who knows what demons linger there,
Concocting their devious formulas,
Their sinister yet consciously undetectable little pranks?
How can I hope to make much sense of it
If my perception is mostly governed by my subconscious?

I ponder this conundrum
As I walk to the library,
My head full of conjecture
As I try in vain to open the library door,
Pulling then pushing,
Exasperated,
Momentarily unaware of the bright red letters:
CLOSED


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My First Book of Poets

Who are these people?
Who are these fearsome souls
Whose stern and somber portraits
Grace this slim compilation of poetry?
What place is this?
On what planet are humans exalted so,
Enshrined,
For a few lines of artfully arranged vocabulary?

I was too young to know much about poetry
Beyond the garden and the goose,
But just old enough to be lightning-struck
By the realization that thought,
Apart from action,
Could be so revered.

O those lofty words of those inspired souls,
So tangled and torn in my child mind,
A foreign language driving me to despair
Over my exclusion,
My denial,
My inability.

Then,
A small shaft of light shone through a window.
Then,
I kicked open a door.
Then,
I stumbled upon the words:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

Next to this poem a faded photograph,
Sergeant Joyce Kilmer,
Wearing a steel Army helmet,
A doughboy,
“Killed in action, July 30, 1918.”

Compared to the regal majesty of Longfellow,
The bookish bespectacled gaze of Kipling,
This young man with the feminine first name,
With the shadow of death in his last name,
Looked so peaceful and calm in his uniform,
So compassionate, yet resolute.

He was 31 years old when he died
On a barren French battlefield,
A sniper’s bullet in his brain,
Famous for this poem,
“Trees,”
This poem about the limits of poetry,
About the difference between an idea and a living thing.

So many years and poets later,
He has been called too simplistic,
Too sentimental,
Yet so many years and poets later,
It is he,
He who first taught me,
The difference between a poem
And a tree.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Game

It takes a lot of luck,
And money,
To discover
That life is just a game.

It seems much more serious
When you’re unlucky
And broke.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Life Of The Mind

The dream remains a dream for most of us
Who gather together in darkened theaters
To experience the dream made flesh,
Who watch television late into the night
To transfuse contemplation,
Who read best-sellers to absorb meaning into memory,
Memory that overshadows,
Muffles our disappointment with the everyday.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Looking Forward

“When hell freezes over!”
My dearly beloved intoned,
Responding to my request for a hot buttered cinnamon roll.

Not an unpleasant thought,
Not at all.
Free of matrimonial bonds
In the realm of human weakness,
Bundled up against the sudden change in climate,
Sipping hot chocolate
While the scent of warm cinnamon
Drifts lazily into my nostrils
From the buffet of frosted pastries.

O yes, when hell freezes over,
Now there’s something to look forward to.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This

The profound question:
What happens after we die?

What a surprise it would be,
If this,
Were it.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Into The Heart

When we meet,
Something awakens in her,
Something glows.
She is translucent.

Her smile comes easy and lingers.
She feels the urge to stretch and arches her back,
Tossing her long, curly black hair to one side
Of her bare, sculptured shoulders,
Flashing her dark, penetrating eyes,
Looking long and deep into mine,
Weaving her articulate fingers through the coils of her hair,
Inviting me.

She ties a blue and white scarf around her forehead
And becomes someone else,
Showing she can be beautiful in so many ways.

Her burnished olive skin filters the light
And I touch her cheek.

Something ancient and eternal now guides us
Into the heart of night.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Blinding White Light

This blinding white light
Is paralyzing.
I’ve forgotten who I am.
I don’t know what I want.
I’m filled with a wistful panging of pleasure.
I’m wracked with uncertainty.

What is right?
What is wrong?

Only in the beginning
This tempest.
Before things are settled.
Before decisions are made.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Blinded

Walking along the hillside path,
My love knows the name of almost every plant,
A gathering of white alders
On either side of this cold and clear mountain stream,
A lone black willow,
Dusted with cottony catkins,
Fallen leaves and forgotten stones
Painted with tiny white bouquets of sweet alyssum,
An elderberry embroidered
With the orange stringy stems of witch’s hair.

My love can see health and history
In every flower leaf twig and trunk
While I walk ignorantly along,
Blinded by spring.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In This Place

This is all we know,
These caffeinated mornings
And crowded freeway commutes,
These peopled places,
Marked,
Altered.

Scheduled repose,
Manufactured entertainments,
The occasional exodus to nature
With the proper reservations,
Row 32,
Space 6.

But doesn’t it all seem a little strange sometimes,
This concoction of paradise and purgatory?
And how blurred their boundaries,
How blurred within our limitless eternal selves,
Living out this highly contrived finite physical existence.

Do you long to resolve contradictions
And in so doing,
Increase their numbers?

We believe what we want to believe
Until belief itself is finally exhausted,
A small, hard thing,
So difficult to discard.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Pain Song

Pain song singing
In a black sky.

No stars.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Vigilance

When I was young,
The flame burned brightly,
For no matter how bleak the passing days,
The future contained more years than I could imagine.

It would take many years to learn
About involuntary psychological templates,
About the reverberation of abuse,
About how deep and permanent wounds can be.

It would take many years to realize
The demons are always near,
Patient,
Waiting.

If life is about anything at all,
It is about vigilance.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My Refrigerator

Nine years
After my grandparents bought a new refrigerator
My grandmother died.
Two years later
My grandfather died.
Thirty-two years now
And their refrigerator is still running,
Through all the years of my marriage,
My career,
All the places I’ve lived,
By the sea,
Now in the desert.
Once it was filled with baby food,
Then leftover pizza and soft drinks,
Now frozen low-calorie meals,
My children grown and gone.
I sit in the dark and ponder it all
While my refrigerator,
Whirring, whirring,
Goes on.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Craft

You’ve learned so much about the methods,
The craft of attraction,
The skillful application of color and blush,
A certain tilt of your head combined with a certain expression,
How the light catches flecks of jade in your eyes,
The cut, curl and fall of your auburn hair,
Muscular with elasticity,
Casually filtering but not completely concealing
Your expertly-timed penetrating glance,
Lingering just long enough to send the message:
“I am full of mystery.”

Oh if he knew how much time you’ve spent on your nails,
Let alone your cuticles,
Each individual eyelash,
The selection and strategic application of scent,
Your shoes,
The golden ring with the prismatic amber glass,
The balance of accessories,
A level of detail beyond his conscious awareness.

He’s more interested in the revealing cut of your clothes,
The shape and texture of your skin,
Your similarity to the lovely young women on magazine covers,
The effectiveness of his charm,
His ability to make you laugh,
The image of himself he wants you to believe,
He wants to believe,
Verification.

You’ve learned that the magic lies beneath awareness,
In the poking and the prodding of subconscious stimuli.

I watch your performance with awe and inspiration,
Experienced enough,
Old enough now to catch a flashing glimpse of the child,
Still there,
Wondering if anyone can see the uncertainty behind the mask.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In A Coffee Shop

In a coffee shop

I stop

And sip

And watch.

A mother and her young son,

Helping him with homework.

A college girl and her laptop,

Two high school boys glancing,

Laughing at their imaginary scenarios,

Glancing.

A boy with earbuds inserted

Fingers a portable computer game.

An attractive woman in her forties enters,

Turning the head of a lonely man

Disinterestedly reading a newspaper

To keep from staring.

The attractive woman orders a regular coffee of the day

From the aproned young man behind the counter

With his stylishly close-cropped facial hair.

Because she is mad at her husband

She smiles at the skinny young coffee vendor

And puts a five dollar bill into his tip jar.

The mother opens a wide, brightly illustrated picture book,

“The Magic Flute,”

And tells her son about Mozart.

“Oh yeah. Mozart!” says the nine-year-old boy,

“I love that guy!”

The mother, who looks dark and Italian, smiles.

Her light-skinned, fair-haired boy

Looks more like his father,

A happy, enthusiastic, silly boy,

His arms and legs animated by the hits of the eighties

Playing in the background.

The college girl looks up from her laptop

To see if anyone is watching her,

So I try not to be noticed,

Middle-aged man that I am,

Too old to be admiring such a pretty young girl,

Not beautiful,

But pretty with the gloss of untarnished youth.

She sees the high school boys glancing at her

And turns her attention back to her laptop screen.

They are too young and silly.

She will know him when she sees him,

The one she is waiting for.

The lonely man, comfortable in his well-worn suit and tie,

Watches the attractive woman with the faded gold hair

And imagines her whispering:

“I love you,”

But he will not speak.

He is also in his forties but still waiting,

Waiting for an invitation.

The earbud boy chugs his coffee,

Picks at the acne on his chin,

Swings his backpack over one shoulder

And walks out the door.

He doesn’t want to say anything to anybody.

The dark-skinned mother says:

“This is my son who will love me forever.”

Her young son says:

“Let’s have fun all the time!”

The college girl says:

“Can you hear me O secret love? I am here.”

The lonely man is afraid to speak,

He expects disappointment.

The attractive woman says:

“My husband has fallen asleep and will not wake.

I am not ordinary.”

The two young men say:

“What a joke. People are so stupid!”

The skinny coffee vendor says:

“Why can’t I be like you? Why am I the servant?”

And I say:

“Here in this small coffee shop,

All the constellations of the universe.”

None of us say these things out loud.

One by one we finish our coffee and leave,

Pretending we are separate.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Leaving For Work

Leaving for work I see my little cat
Streaked in morning light,
White, orange and yellow,
Sitting still with paws folded
On back of an easy chair
Watching circling sea gulls
Flown inland from the storm
As what’s left of the rain
Drips curiously from the eaves.
A slight amusement.

The street scrubbed slick and clean
Refracts radiant points of light,
Myriad tiny suns
Spread across thin wet skin on black asphalt bone,
Black as bare tree trunks
Against cloud-white sky.

Most of the workers are gone from these streets,
I am late,
Most are gone
Yet I cannot help but linger
To taste this forbidden time,
Forbidden to me,
This absence of time.

On my way once more
The chilled air snaps
Little leaves falling as branches blow
The song of some little bird
In some neighboring tree
Singing quietly,
Calling me.

The sound of a passing car also calls.
It calls me as I stand
Transfixed by birdsong,
Beckoned by the world,
Called by my ambitions
And by no ambition at all.

There is so much to see here,
So much not to do,
For the mountains in this valley
Are streaked with virgin snow
Among silent solitary clouds
Frayed and twisted by wind.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Self-Serving Altruism

Let us,
The stupid inhabitants of a dying culture,
Dedicate ourselves to a new generation,
Let them stand upon our shoulders
To see what we cannot see,
So they may solve our problems,
Right our wrongs,
And not kill us
When we’re too old to take care of ourselves.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Temporality

Sometimes the body is weak
And the spirit sags
And I contemplate mortality,
Questioning again the specific location of the soul,
And the old fear returns:

What if the body is all?
What if all my spiritual perceptions are imaginary?

I am rudely interrupted.

My young calico cat Sally jumps into my lap,
Crying for something that is not food,
For the temporality of my attention.

I stroke her tongue-washed fur
And she ripples with pleasure,
Chirping with tuna-scented breath.

She pulls at my pajamas with sharp claws
And together we abandon all hypothetical considerations.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Before I Barely Knew Anything

Before I barely knew anything
I awakened each summer morning
To the cawing of crows
And thought,
How very tall these trees
In which they gather to ruffle their feathers
In the morning breeze,
How tall these trees
And how much these crows must see.

I climbed an orange tree,
So frightened by the height,
So amazed at the sight of neighboring houses
And city streets
And thought about what the crows must see
From the tops of the sycamore trees
And from higher still
As they rise into the sky,
Knowing I would never know
What they know,
Before I barely knew anything.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Bedtime

Josh who is growing older says,

“Good night Dad,”

And I say,

“Hittin’ the hay?”

And Josh who is growing older says,

“Guess so,”

And I say,

“Sweet dreams buddy,”

And Josh who is growing older says,

“See you in the morning,”

And I say,

“Not if I see you first!”

And Josh who is already quite the young man indeed says,

“Yeah, right dad.”


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Thumbs

There will never be a shortage of self-anointed critics,
Self-appointed judges of all manner of things,
Of people and events,
Large and small,
Those who educate,
Those who obfuscate,
Those with knowledge,
Those without,
Those who somehow believe it is their mission,
Their responsibility,
Their calling to point a thumb up or down.

We are blanketed with critics whose only qualification is ego,
Whose pronouncements are so soon forgotten
After scholars and historians assemble research and knowledge,
Honest intellectual inquiry,
To illuminate the past.

Do our media-created, ill-informed, knee-jerk commentators
Believe they are changing hearts and minds,
Guiding the course of a nation,
By unveiling the certain, unquestionable truth?

We are cooperative.

These pontificators give voice to our a priori conclusions,
Assuring us that even the most complex issues of our time
Can be measured by the masquerade of mass hysteria,
By the illusion of popular opinion,
That all we really need do is vote,
One way or another,
Thumbs up or thumbs down.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Becoming

Somewhere,
I suppose,
There may be that perfect person,
Or two,
Who has never sinned,
Though through the eyes of the world’s religions
Nearly everything is a sin to someone,
I suppose.

Somewhere,
I suppose,
There may be that perfect person,
Or two,
But for the rest of us,
Our life’s work is laid out before us,
Day by day,
Hour by hour,
Moment by moment,
The work of becoming.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Here, In This Place

When the darkened room is suddenly filled with light,
When the unexpected wave rises and crashes upon you,
When you cannot find the precise metaphor to describe,
To express the overwhelming emotion
Bursting from your heart and spreading to every sinew,
Awakening,
Awakening,
Awakening your body to its purpose,
Awakening your mind to the joy of existence,
To the bliss of knowing,
Knowing you are desired,
Knowing you are loved,
Then,
It’s more than individual passion,
More than momentary infatuation,
It’s a place you have discovered,
A place in the mind,
In the heart,
In the universe,
A place where angels dwell,
Where inspiration is born,
A place permanently imprinted in memory
No matter how circumstances change,
Always and forever a place you’ve inhabited,
A place you know,
A place of joy and pain,
An eternal place,
Always there,
Waiting for your return.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Beautiful

When we touch,
Illusion enfolds
Our naked bodies,
Erases our imperfections,
And within our bliss
We become
Beautiful.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

They Speak Unceasing

The spirits speak
Too much.

My head is filled with the incessant clatter
Of their most insightful observations.
I am hounded by visions
In the most startling detail.
They crowd my sleep
And spill over into the day,
Beseeching me.

I long for the life of simple stupidity,
Ignorant of the twisted motives
That lie behind the desires of the human heart.
Show me no more
O uninvited spirits who whisper secrets
So casually in my ear.

It does me no good.

This busy world has no interest
In what you reveal.
They think me a deranged fool
In need of medical attention,
And for all I really know,
You may indeed be demons.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Anniversary

What is the secret
Of your long and happy marriage?
They ask.

I stop and reflect for a moment,
Furtively glancing at my watch,
Counting down the minutes
Until I will again meet with her,
My rosy-breasted, eager young mistress.

I am too old for her,
But we both have found a momentary bliss
In the forbidden.

What is your secret?
They ask again.

My mind races to find a suitable reply.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In The Game

Have you ever suddenly stopped,
A grocery bag half empty on the kitchen counter,
And thought your life was without purpose,
Wondering if you should commit suicide
And be done with the whole inane farce,
When the phone rings,
And you answer,
Called back into the game again.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved