A Poet Online.com: November 2018

In My Mind

Perhaps it’s all in my mind.

So much of this life is idea:
Our cities and houses,
The clock,
The kind of work we do,
Money,
How we choose friends and enemies,
What brings us joy,
What brings us sorrow.

Even love,
Yes, even love is an idea,
Contained in the heart,
Contained in the mind,
Wherever such a preposterous notion as the mind resides.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

O Poets

O poets,
While you are busy being so clever,
So imaginative in your reconstruction of language,
So worthy of literary praise,
An aging woman returns home late from work
And finds no joy in the things she owns,
The things that own her,
The husband who does not really love her.

O poets,
While you are busy being so clever,
A young man rises early and fights traffic
To be on time at a job that means nothing to him,
Working all day long without meaning.

O poets,
While you are busy being so clever,
Thousands upon thousands suffer quietly,
Quietly suffocating and not knowing why.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Now I Know

When it was raining,
Raining hard and the wind was blowing,
Blowing fast and cold,
I thought the rest of my life would be
Rainy, windy and cold.

Today it is clear, calm and warm,
And now I know
The rest of my life will be bathed in sunshine.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Novel And The Banana

He won the Nobel Prize for this novel,
This portrait of a picaresque hero,
This inexhaustible flow of invention,
This paperback book I begin to read.
Oh yes,
It has the unmistakable gloss
Of the master craftsman,
But my banana sits so invitingly on my armrest,
So firm and waxy yellow,
Not yet tinged with brown,
A blush of green near the stem.
I put the award-winning, death-defying novel down
And seize the banana.
I split open the side
For the skin is still too tough
To open by pulling on the stem,
And inside the fruit is perfect,
Almost white,
So well-protected by its thick skin,
All the way from Ecuador
Where the whole of someone’s life
Is all about bananas,
Knowing so many will end up brown
And uneaten.

I bite off a chunk.
It is firm,
Not too ripe,
Yet it still dissolves without much chewing.
I set the banana down,
Making sure the skin covers the fruit
So it will not make sticky contact
With the arm of my chair.

I look over at the novel.
I am older now
And have read so many important novels
That I no longer expect great revelations.
The fictional dream of this great work beckons,
But this banana is so beautiful somehow,
So perfect
That I must take it in hand once again
And savor every bite.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Not One

In this large world,
Everything,
All at once,
All possible eventualities,
Over and over again,
Yet,
None of us can walk on water,
Not one.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

All The King's Horses

Where are those children
Who wanted to play?
Where are their toys,
Have they put them away?

Where is my son,
Has he grown up and gone?
My little daughter,
A child of her own?

All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Cannot put childhood
Together again.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Not Hats

The teacups of time are filling,
Spilling,
While we mad hatters make haste,
Not hats.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Nowhere At Last

Now that I’ve arrived at my destination,
Now I realize where I’ve been headed
All these years.
Now I see where this seemingly unintelligible road was leading.
Now I know where the journey ends.

All these years,
I was on my way to nowhere.

Now the only question left,
Now that I’m here,
Now what?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

An Angel's Plight

I cannot tell you the nature of my birth.
My countenance is but a mirror,
Reflecting your imagination,
Without human substance.

To say I am born of God
Is less than Adam’s rib,
Without lineage.

In my mind there is only being.

There was no infancy,
No cradling,
No mother’s soft cooing.

I am filled with envy
And my desire is insatiable,
The desire for love,
Love that must be earned by good works,
By intercession.

So I listen and I am called
And I answer as best I can,
Only able to influence,
Not change,
The course of any human event.

I hunger for that connection,
That bond with a grieving heart,
A heart so wounded that at last I am called,
Yet so often abandoned after healing has begun,
After joy has returned,
After the Earthly distractions come flooding back,
Severing the connection,
Casting me out once again,
Lonely winged messenger that I am.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Dance

I woke up this morning determined,
Absolutely determined to pursue love,
To sneak up on it,
To flatter,
To entice this love,
This beautiful girl,
This vessel of my desire.

I will buy flowers,
Write heartfelt words,
Compliment and then be silent with compassionate gaze,
Listening to the stirrings of her soul,
Nodding in moist-eyed agreement,
Exuding empathy and understanding from every pore,
Waiting, waiting,
Waiting for the door to open,
Waiting for the moment I can take her hand
And press it to my lips.

Of all life’s occupations and employments,
Of all life’s ambitions,
How intangible and delicate is the dance of love.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Remember

I remember that place,
Where Peter never loses the enchantment of youth,
Where Goldilocks is taught to respect the privacy of bears,
Where little pigs learn the value of foresight and diligence,
Where Dorothy realizes there’s no place like home.

I remember that place,
Where I was innocent,
Where I was safe,
Where the world was full of wonder,
Where life had no end.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Words

There are no words,
Nothing I say or write
Can contain the loss
Of your arms around me,
Your body pressed close to mine,
The touch of a dream made flesh
Against my skin.

There are no words,
Not even these,
That can contain the loss
Of who I thought you were,
Who you turned out to be.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Closer

It’s hard to achieve tranquility
When I hear the sirens,
Closer,
Closer.

Who is in peril this time?
Why?

It’s hard to achieve a state of bliss
When this world is full of sirens,
Closer,
Closer.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Now, Lost

She had worked assiduously on her shopping list,
Trying to anticipate every need for the week ahead,
But as she entered the store and selected a shopping cart
She could not find her list,
Not in her pockets,
Not in her purse.

She tried to forge ahead without it
But she could not recall a single item.
Instinctively, she looked to her husband for help,
But her husband was not there.
Why had he not come with her?
Then she remembered,
He had died.
How long ago?

Wandering haplessly through the supermarket maze
She finally gave up and abandoned her shopping cart,
Returning to the parking lot which looked so different in the dark,
Now that the sun had set.
She would search her car for the shopping list,
Her car,
Parked somewhere among this vast landscape,
But the glare of headlights blinded her,
Erasing whatever fleeting sense of direction she had left.
Now,
Absolutely,
Lost.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Witness

When at last it dies within,
No one is bedside witnessing
The floating mist
Of hope extinguished.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Small Thing

I have tried being realistic,
Accepting the fact
You probably do not love me,
But I fail to see the benefit
Of discarding my beautiful dream.

Some other, more possible love
May appear,
But my only choice at present
Is unrequited love
Or no love at all.

When faced with this reality
And this illusion,
I must hold on to my illusion,
For to possess a beautiful dream
Is no small thing.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Longer Young

In moments of great pain
I think of you so young,
The first time our unclothed bodies touched,
Pressed and rubbed together
In the satin sea of my small bed,
A secret in my parents’ house.

It was the first time I felt
The length, the breadth, the depth,
The full measure of myself,
Alive, awake and rippling through every pore.

Look, look what time has done!
I awoke this morning,
No longer young.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The News

Mysterious Ways

Thinking about the mysterious ways of the Lord
And all,
I came upon a squashed bug,
Some kind of beetle,
Swarmed by ants,
And realized
I was standing on the line of ants
That led from the dirt
To the hot cement sidewalk
Where I stood,
Doing the Lord’s bidding,
Somehow.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Weight Of Memory

As the years accumulate
Those of us who do not repress
Remember too much,
The personal tragedies,
The pain,
The simple act of being a fool
And defending one’s foolishness
With the arrogance of ignorance
And pride.

What is past
Is past,
But my heart remembers and suffers anew,
Even as details fade and outlines blur.
And in my low moments
The weight of memory
Is almost too much to bear.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Pedestrian

Being new to the big city
I sometimes stop and stare,
Uncertain of my direction,
Stop and stare,
Standing still in inconvenient places,
Inconvenient to the sardines swimming swiftly uptown.
Or is it downtown?

The red light turned off and the green light turned on
But the crowd had already pushed forward in anticipation
While I alone paused,
Creating an obstacle due to my confused consternation,
Blocking the preselected path of the old man,
The old man impatiently pushing an older man in a wheelchair.

“Watch where you’re going!” he shouted,
Having no horn to honk,
Selflessly guiding the disabled old man
Safely through congested city sidewalks,
So angry at a world so uncooperative,
A world that would allow someone like me to stand in his way.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Part Of Me

I love you,
She said.

But I know what she really loves.

She loves the part of me that loves her,
The part of me that becomes the whole of me
When I am with her.

Yes,
I do indeed love her love of the love I too love to love.
Yes.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My Secret

Plain, ordinary people
Sometimes fall in love,
Something that feels like love,
However brief.

It feels like love when it happens
To plain, ordinary people like me,
Who are not what you might call,
Good looking.

I go through life’s errands
Mostly unnoticed,
And then it happens.
I fall in love with a face,
With the gentle curl of her hair,
The liquid flow of her neck,
The sculpture of her fingers,
With something I cannot describe.

She notices me noticing her,
So I pretend not to notice
While I imagine she sees through
My plain appearance
Into my unclaimed heart.

Introductions are made,
We speak.
She shows no sign of knowing
That it is my wandering spirit
That has lingered here
To absorb the sound of her voice,
The light in her eyes.

She is formal and polite,
Quick to withdraw.

My secret is safe.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My Love Turns Off

My love turns off the radio
She doesn’t watch TV,
She will not listen to the news,
She doesn’t want to see
The awful things that people do,
Depraved humanity,
That’s why she’s smiling all day long,
She leaves the world to me.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved