A Poet Online.com: June 2019

To My Wife

So pretty when she turns sad,
Her eyes glisten like small, black stones
Washed and worn by the sea.

Her lean, fine-boned features,
Softening slowly,
Losing their distinction
Under the strain of marriage,
The demands of little children.

Hello,
She says,
Looking for the person I used to be,
Looking just long enough to see
A similar sadness in my eyes.

We go no further,
But smile in silent, solemn agreement.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

To My Son, Each One

Do not get stuck on death,
My son.
Though we are flowing fatefully toward it,
We are also blessed
With a thousand rebirths along the way.

Even when our bodies are only images
In forgotten photo albums,
And our lives are reduced to a few inaccurate anecdotes
Told by some kind of relative somewhere,
Trying to forge a link in the chain of being,
Even when the last of our once treasured possessions
Is reduced to dust and vapor,
You and I will persist,
Still connected,
Somehow.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

To Love Or Not To Love

All the reasons,
Why,
Why not,
All the emotions,
Why,
Why not,
All the confusion,
Yes,
No,
All the passion,
Yes,
No,
All the talking,
All the thinking,
The wishing,
The hoping,
The anxiety,
The fear,
The lust,
The guilt,
The despair,
The depression,
The dark,
The light,
The color of the sun,
The color of the sky,
Immortality,
Death,
Resignation,
Saturation,
Obsession,
Exhaustion,
Defeat,
Mourning,
Change,
Strategy,
Luck,
Fate,
Why,
Why not,
Yes,
No,
Yes,
No,
No,
No,
Absolutely no.

Yes.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Teacher

The mad rush for the classroom door
When the recess bell rang.
“Stop!” shouted our teacher,
Her large frame blocking the open door.
“Women and children first!” she commanded,
Stepping aside,
Allowing her puzzled students to file quietly out the door.
“Women and children first!”

After recess our new teacher told us about the Titanic,
The iceberg,
The wounded ship slowly sinking into the sea,
The sure knowledge of impending death,
Certain death coming for them all,
Yet even then,
The dignity of life preserved.
“Women and children first!”

If these imperiled souls could face mortality
With such nobility of spirit,
Then how small a thing for us
To file quietly out of the classroom,
Allowing the girls to exit first.

Those courageous men put wives and children into the lifeboats,
She told us in quivering voice,
Knowing there were not enough for all,
Knowing they would never again see their loved ones.
The mighty ship groaned and shifted
In the icy cold waters of the North Atlantic.
The ship’s musicians assembled in reverence to their art,
Playing “Nearer, My God to Thee,”
Accompanied by the cries of frightened children,
The exclamations of tearful women,
The panic rising as the ship lurched lower.

“Women and children first!”
Called out to the fleeing passengers
Over and over again.
“Women and children first!”
As the last of the lifeboats were filled.

Silence.

“Now,” our teacher said to her shocked and stunned students,
“Now, we will practice.”

“Women and children first!” she declared, guiding us quietly to the door.
“Women and children first!” her words now etched into our souls.
“Women and children first!” she repeated like a prayer,
A holy incantation,
A eulogy.
“Women and children first!”

Our hearts were scalded and beating fast
As we moved quietly toward the lifeboats,
Hoping there was still some room,
Suddenly aware of the weight of life and death,
All of us awakened by this magnificent woman,
This teacher.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

To Live Is To Long

To live is to long,
To long too long,
Until life is through.
What else can you do?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Matter Of Time

To you who suffer,
Please know I think of you
And pray for you
Every day
And I don’t understand
What it is in this world
That chooses you
And spares me
And it may only be a matter of time
Until I am chosen
And you are spared.

Yes,
I suppose that’s what it’s all about,
A matter of time.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Timenesia

If you could travel back in time,
You would forget how you got there.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Tiny

Just when they thought they had it nailed,
The smallest, irreducible thing,
The building block of all that matters,
They discovered it has parts.

Then they discovered the parts have parts,
Have parts,
And so on,
And so forth.

So I guess we’ve still got infinity,
Inside and out,
Micro and macro,
Beyond and within.

We are bound in a nutshell
Of infinite space.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Eternity

I can hear eternity
In the happy cries of playing children,
Hours left before the sun goes down.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Should I Not Rejoice?

So is despair
Just a chemical imbalance
After all?
The kind of despair
That strips the world of color
Long after its initial cause?
The kind of despair
That has no apparent cause at all?

O yes, I can sit in the sunshine
And give thanks for the beauty
Of a blue sky,
For what lives beneath,
For the thought.

I can wrestle with the inequities
And let them go,
Surrender to all that is good,
Embrace hope,
Trust in that which is eternal.

Yes,
I have known bliss,
But this world is filled with tragedy,
Tragedy beyond mere happenstance,
Tragedy produced by willful, human conniving,
And with it comes despair.

If I am so lucky to be spared
So much of this world’s misery,
Should I not rejoice?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Promise

Just when time was finally slowing,
When the world had no more use for me
And old friends with all their chattering
Slipped silently into the ether,
Just when I thought constant change was ceasing,
I was startled by the furious beating of wings,
A burst of birds racing close overhead,
A blur of gray,
Then,
Gone.

Were they chased by the coming clouds?
Or were they pulling the clouds over the path I’d taken,
Like a blanket pulled over the recently deceased?
I was willing to accept this grave omen
When the clouds suddenly thinned and evaporated,
The sunny, powder-blue sky restored,
Along with the promise of yet another spring.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Timeless

Looking back,
The necessity of suffering and sacrifice
Seems obvious.
Looking forward,
Inevitable.

But today,
You and I,
Enraptured,
Timeless.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Did You Try To Sing?

Did you try to sing?

Did you try to sing but the words caught
In the bottom of your throat
And someone sitting in the dark
Said “Next!”
Before you could summon
The clear, sweet song within.
Did you try to sing?

How old were you?

How old were you when the song was frightened
Back inside
Where no one would hear or criticize,
How old were you?

Do you still sing?

Do you still sing to yourself alone,
Bold and strong
When no one’s home,
Or is your singing gone?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Time As Yet

When you were three
I could tell you about this world,
What things were called,
What to do with a day.

I could read you a happy story
With pretty painted pictures
And watch you fall softly asleep,
Still innocent,
Still safe,
Time as yet but a gentle breeze.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Time Accelerates

Time accelerates
And we grow old,
Always intending to stop some day
And think it over.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Still Time

There was a day
When the balance between young and old
Shifted,
And what was strong
Began to weaken.

The day passed without notice
Until many years later
When I realized what happened.

Now,
All my ambitions,
All my aspirations,
Reduced to this single phrase:
“While there is still time.”

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Thought For Food

So many
In this
I could
And so forth
And so on
Until
No more.

Better to be
And see
Than so
Busy thinking
All those
We made
So clever
And blind.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We Call It Civilization

How curious,
Every little bird awakening each morning,
Imbued with an unquestionable sense of purpose,
With no confusion as to the required tasks of the day,
Proceeding with evolutionary confidence
And caution,
Innate senses and skills propelling action and reaction.

In this tumultuous human world
Where millions are stripped of their homes,
Their countries,
Of the most unremarkable aspects of everyday life,
Of survival,
Little birds make their orderly way
Through their tiny lives,
While we make refugees of our mothers and fathers,
Sisters and brothers,
Daughters and sons,
And we call it,
Civilization.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Trees Are People Too

Trees are people too,
Only too slow for us to witness
Their writhings.

To trees we seem confused,
Our kind a rootless blur
In transit.

We live in sovereign spaces,
Each only half aware
Of the sorrow
A sparrow
Can feel.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A New World

I am different today,
Changed by the passage of something other than time,
Something that resides in the mind,
Something that pushes forward,
Pushes back,
Something that transcends,
Something that forgets.

I would be washed clean someday,
Not by mental infirmity,
But by one life flowing into the next,
What some call heaven,
What some anticipate as a grand reunion,
All those lost loved ones,
Found again.

I have no special knowledge of the afterlife
Or whether the fervent hopes of the heart
Have any effect on the journey of the soul.
If my prayers would be granted,
I would become a child again,
In a new life,
In a new world where I could live awhile.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Rabbit

To look for the rabbit was why I came,
To find him again was my secret game.
I’d slowly edge near him, near as I could,
Near as he’d let me, as near as he should.

I had some strange dream of taming the wild.
It was my best dream, the dream of a child.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This World

Transition

Now that some time has passed without you,
Knowing you will not come back into my life,
I’ve decided I’m finally ready to let go,
All those letters and emails,
The little gifts and trinkets,
Photographs I can no longer bear to see,
Everything,
Shredded,
Burned,
Deleted,
Given away,
All discarded.

All except this single smooth stone,
A stone I found at ocean’s edge
That warm summer day when we were new,
When the enchantment was real.

I’ll put this stone in a little wooden box,
Perhaps never to open,
Or perhaps one day I will remove the stone
And hold it in my hand once again,
Someday when I am strong.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Little Nudge

The stench!
What an intolerable stench!

Awakened to the alarm of a foul, sulfurous odor,
I step outside.
The air is thick with decay,
Stinging the senses
As if I’d awakened in some extraterrestrial miasma,
Some netherworld.

People lining the street,
Looking to the sky for some kind of answer,
Grimacing to one another,
Holding their noses.

Talk on the radio,
On the television,
Speculations about accelerated decomposition
From climate change,
Solar radiation,
Polar shifting,
Oceanic reconstitution,
Tectonic deformation,
Apocalypse.

No one really knew anything.
Months later,
No one really knew much more
Except that the change was permanent.

We adjusted,
Redefining words such as:
Fragrant,
Sweet,
For there was no more sweet
As we had known it,
No more fragrant.

We changed our aesthetics,
Our taste buds,
Our culture,
Reprogramming old orientations.
Old ideas of pleasure and pain,
Changed now by our weary planet,
So weary of who we were,
Giving us a little nudge.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Clouds

No matter how hard I try to forget,
Some wounds are permanent,
Always threatening to cast a shadow
On some happy memory,
Like a stern parent,
A fundamentalist preacher
Who sees unchecked joy as a doorway to sin.

A cloud for every silver lining.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Wind

This Nothing

The Coming Of Rain

It is the coming of rain I love,
When sky-filled clouds shade harsh noon
And cushion the noise of the city.
Slim eucalyptus trees sway in anticipation,
Imitating the sound of showers
With the soft applause of leaves.

I alone have stopped here
In this abandoned parking lot
To see the rain come.
I am praying for a deluge,
Enough to make us stop
And for a while be still.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved