Shared

I was in a sunny summer meadow
Filled with extravagantly colored butterflies
Moving too fast to catch,
Streaking rainbow colors in their wake,
Yet still I tried.
 
Crows came,
Perched just out of reach,
Taunting me with head-bobbing caw, caw, caws.
Triplets.
 
I hunkered down in the tall grass,
Spying,
Chirping in imitation of the sparrows
Alighting on the grass,
Probing the damp soil.
They saw me and burst into flight.
 
The warm sunlight felt good on my back,
Such a long winter.
I stretched every muscle,
Watched the pulsing shadows of wind-tossed leaves,
And awoke,
Stirring the calico cat on my lap from sleep
Who chirped awake from the dream we shared.

~ Russ Allison Loar

© All Rights Reserved

Coming Home

Early one evening
After another long day,
I could not turn down the street where I live,
Where my life deposits itself,
Where I always do what must be done,
Work or play,
Every day.

I drove right past without hesitation,
Past the street,
Past the gray blanket of familiarity.

I took the long way around,
Pondering the pathways of my life,
Watching the sky turn dark,
The porch lights blinking on.

Having nowhere else to go,
I came home.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Still Human

Sometimes I can go nearly a week
Inflating my illusion of self-importance,
Transcendent benefactor to mankind that I am.

My uninterrupted enlightenment,
Liberated at last from the squalor of human ignorance.

Then one afternoon,
Walking down a busy city sidewalk,
My nose begins to tickle.

I am seized by a sneeze
And I’ve forgotten my handkerchief.

I quickly cover my nose with my hand
Which becomes coated with mucous
Dripping from my nostrils.

Wondering what to do next,
I feel another sneeze coming on.

Ah yes, still human.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Suburban Twilight

Suburban twilight,
Punctuated by porch lights
Welcoming weary workers home.

“Hello darling,”
She says,
“I missed you,”
Her bare shoulders
Framed by the thin straps,
Too loose,
Of her tiny, translucent dress.

This never happened to me.

A bunch of soccer ball boys,
Too young to go on a date,
Stand together in a jagged circle
On a grass-dirt field
While their parents lie to each other
About nothing in particular,
Waiting for the game to begin.

Back on the boulevard
Commuters swim upstream,
Fighting their way back
To the suburban spawning grounds
For a few hours of fun
Before it all shuts down in sleep,
And regret.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved