I Hate Poetry.Com

Sacred

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

What do you hold sacred?

Not in your places of worship,
Your churches,
Your temples,
Your mosques.

Not in your ceremonies,
Your practices,
Your prayers.

It is no real test
When you are harnessed with the obligations
Of pious behavior.

Show me what you hold sacred
In a crowded parking lot,
When the hunger is upon you
For a really good parking space.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Cure

2012-01-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

I am used to distress
I will not take the cure
Of the even-tempered life
Lobotomized and pure.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Deus Ex Machina

2012-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

They’ve read all the big fat important books
And they want you to know,
You ain’t nobody
Until you know what they know.

Here on planet Earth
They think there are rules about these things,
And they want you to know,
You ain’t nobody
Until you follow the rules.

I say to hell with the whole damn bunch of ‘em.
Let ‘em stew in their own pot.
After all,
We ain’t talkin’ about somethin’
That you could fit inside a test tube
Anyhow.

And just who was it exactly who appointed them
To tell me what to think?

You can give ‘em all Pulitzer prizes
‘Til you’re blue in the face
But that don’t mean nothin’ to me.

I don’t have to spend my entire life in the library
To know they just made it all up.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Peace And Quiet

2012-01-08T00:01:00.001-08:00

I had almost reached some eternal state of bliss
When my reverie was rudely interrupted
By my birth.

I need not tell you of the emotional quagmire
That is life.

I have suffered less than many.

Yet just when things began to settle down
My reverie was rudely interrupted
By my death.

Perhaps now I can finally get some peace and quiet.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

What It Is

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is,
What it is.

Now I know.

I said it was something else,
Way back then,
When I was ignorant
And thought I knew.

This is,
What it is.

Now I know.

And I've decided
It’s up to me
To tell you so.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

If

2011-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

If life were a metaphor
Then the incandescent epiphany
Could rise,
Bloom,
An evening cactus flower,
Jesus alone in the desert
Wrestling with demons.

I awaken,
Late for work.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Question and Answer

2011-12-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Are the rigorous fish screaming?
No, I’m dreaming.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Put A Pat

2011-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

When this world feels too rough
For my lamb and honey soul,
I put a pat of butter
On my lovely cinnamon roll.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

There Are Reasons

2011-11-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

My young cat bit through the skin on my hand,
Playfully,
And now the weather’s turned cold.

Rain is on the way
And there are two circular puncture wounds
Where little bitty kitty bit me.

I’d better get up on the roof before the rain starts.

I have my reasons.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Plotless

2011-11-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

Someone is telling my story,
Moving my life from chapter to chapter,
But my storyteller is raw and unskilled.
He labors on and on,
Weaving the most complex and intricate details
Through the most uneventful scenes.

You will wake up early this morning
And drive to work in heavy traffic.
Yes, you will drive to work every day,
Except for the weekends.

Many of us are displeased with our storytellers.
Will our plots ever take some meaningful shape?
I wonder.
These lives are poor fiction.

He wakes up early and takes a cold shower,
Trying to shake off the fatigue
From working late every day this week
In his colorless fluorescent cubicle.
He reties his tie for the third time,
Finds his car keys,
Grabs his half-empty cup of coffee
And begins the long, difficult drive to work.
He listens to the news
And thinks about the many phone calls he must make
When he gets to the office.

It’s a puzzle to me
Why we put up with this at all.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Music Everywhere

2011-11-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I once imagined heaven was full of music,
Every part of it,
But here on Earth
Everywhere I go there is music playing,
All of our public places
Saturated with this saccharine sound
That feels more like hell
Than heaven.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Got No

2011-11-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

I ain’t got no,
Ain’t got no
I ain’t got no,
Ain’t got no.

I ain’t got no
Got no
No no no.

Got no
Got no
No no no.

No no no.
Ain’t got no.
No got no:
Grammar.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Critique

2011-10-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

I think I am,
Therefore,
I have to get up in the morning
And drive to work.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Stuff

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hunting,
Gathering,
Acquiring,
Perfectly natural instincts,
Especially considering the vagaries
Of our primordial environments.

But now,
Knee-deep in storage containers,
The mechanism runs wild.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Testing

2011-10-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Testing,
Testing.
Testing one, two, three,
Testing.
Onetwo, Onetwo,
Check onetwo.
Can you hear me back there in the cheap seats?
Am I coming through?
Testing,
Testing.
One, two, three,
Testing.
Should I turn it up?
Can you hear me?
Should I turn it up?
Give me a little more juice here.
Testing testing onetwo onetwo.
Refuse to comply with your capitalistic masters.
Testing onetwo,
Onetwo.
Louder?
You want it louder?
REFUSE TO COMPLY WITH YOUR CAPITALISTIC MASTERS!
Testing onetwothreefour,
Testing.
Tear down the system.
TEAR DOWN THE SYSTEM!
Testing.
Checkin’ one two,
Check, check,
Onetwothreefour.
A little louder please.
Revolution.
Revolution now!
REVOLUTION NOW!
Testing,
Onetwo,
Threefour,
Testing,
Testing.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Very Busy

2011-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

God sent an angel to speak to you
But you’ve been very busy lately,
Even on Sundays,
Hurrying off to church,
Reading and reciting,
Praising the Lord
And all that.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Death And Love

2011-10-10T10:56:00.001-07:00

O majestic death,
Rattling around in my bedsprings
Like an old man’s cough,
You are too easy and obvious
For poetry.

O mercurial love,
Rising in my chest
Like opening night stage fright,
You are too easy and obvious
For poetry.

Yet somehow,
After all this writing,
Death is,
Still profound,
Love is,
Still precious.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Dear Children

2011-10-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

Dear children,
We encourage you to try
What we never tried,
But we must caution you
About what we have done.

That is,
We would warn you about trying
What we tried in vain.

You see,
Dear children,
We want you to succeed where we failed,
But we also want you to avoid our mistakes
And be safe,
Though as the years wander by
We must confess some regret
About being a little too safe.

We want you to be successful,
But do remember what seems like success
May turn out to be failure in disguise.

So,
Go boldly ahead,
We advise,
But do be careful.
You will regret never having taken a chance,
But if you risk everything
You may be throwing your lives away.

In other words,
This is the real world
And there is absolutely nothing
Your parents can do
About it.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Hangin' Onto The Ozone

2011-10-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

My feet don’t seem to stick
No more to the floor,
They don’t.

Oh sure,
I can walk down the street,
But I’m hangin’ on for dear life.

Any minute now
That street come slippin’ out from under,
Me hangin’ onto the ozone
So I don’t fall
All the way
To the moon.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Is This Pain?

2011-10-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

High expectations from uninspired egomaniacs
Encourage my apathy,
My appetite.

I will eat my way to heaven
Until at last
I am bloated in paradise.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Killer Angels

2011-09-25T10:29:00.001-07:00

I can see it now,
Heaven on Earth,
Finally,
Humankind evolved,
Enlightened beings,
Killer angels
Executing sinners,
Just like we do now.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Art

2011-09-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

It is a half-filled aquarium
With three basketballs floating inside,
On a pedestal,
Next to a young man in uniform,
A museum guard
Staring with scarcely disguised disdain
At the museumgoers
Who stare with scarcely disguised bemusement
At the exhibit.

Some laugh and shake their heads,
Cast a lingering glance at the guard as if to ask:
Is this a joke?

But most give indifferent deference
To the buoyant rubber orbs,
Assuming the exhibit must be fraught with meaning,
Seeing as how it’s on a pedestal,
In an art museum.

The young museum guard who never went to college
Directs his dispassionate gaze
From observers to the observed,
Certain he could make something,
Anything,
Better.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Just Wonderin'

2011-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was sittin’ up late last night
Wonderin’ if I was Jesus
When a black cat walked slowly through the door.
I looked at him and asked,
Am I?

If you was, he said,
You ain’t no more.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Storytelling

2011-09-04T00:01:00.001-07:00

When I tell someone the story of my life,
Even if only a chapter or two,
It has a certain logical symmetry,
A wise, knowing narrative,
A purposeful ordering of events,
So unlike the real life I have lived
Where in spite of my best intentions,
Things happen.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Façade

2011-09-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

I am wary of posh restaurants,
The thin atmosphere of haute cuisine,
The nagging suspicion that behind
Those tiny plated portions
Are some very clever accountants.

I stand in front of the urinal
And notice the thin yellow puddle,
Left because of intoxication,
Poor eyesight or bad breeding.

Yes, I am standing on a layer
Of some epicurean’s urine,
Repulsed but unsure what I can do.
The soles of my shoes are wet
As I return to the dining room.

It is an evening full of romance
In the eyes of my stylish lover,
Entranced by the sophistication
Of this exquisite façade.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Shedding

2011-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

They say a leopard
Cannot change its spots,
But a snake can shed its skin,
And so if you begin
To bring your old life to an end
You may have to shed a friend,
Or two.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Waiting For The Call

2011-08-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Moment by moment we check for messages,
As if we were all heart transplant surgeons
Waiting for the call.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Cliché Examination

2011-08-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

In thought,
Yes.

Lost,
No.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Greatest Ever

2011-08-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

Before the greatest ever,
There was the greatest ever.

Now, what was the greatest ever
Does not seem so great,
Compared to the most recent greatest ever.

Oh yes, it was great for its time,
And still so much better than most,
But the new greatest ever has opened our eyes
To a whole new world.

Yet if the most recent greatest ever
Had never been,
If it had died in the womb,
We would still have the greatest ever
And not know the difference.

So now we celebrate the greatest ever,
Unaware of what could have been,
How far short we’ve fallen.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Animal Again

2011-08-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

O the noise,
The fire,
The mad multitudes,
Armed,
Dangerous.

This new society,
So sick of civilization,
Animal again.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

When?

2011-08-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Where did you go?
What did you do?
How many voices are talking to you?

When do you stop?
When do you say:
Now I must put all these voices away.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Appreciation

2011-08-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sure, modern life has its problems
And I can line up as many complaints as the next guy,
But on the other hand,
There is my indoor plumbing to consider.

I can’t help but appreciate the fact that every time I flush,
Somebody else takes care of the rest.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

People Are

2011-07-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

People are
The most dangerous things I know,
Just wind them up
And watch them go.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Speak To Me Now!

2011-07-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

I will not pretend to admire
The esteemed poets of my day.
I do not understand
What they are trying not to say.

My life is too short for such pretense,
I’m growing older every day.
Poets speak to me now!
Or I will cast your words away.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Dictionary

2011-07-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

A word
Silently waits.

Pages are turning,
Closer.

Blazing white light,
Sweet warm breath,
Blinking blue eyes.

Finger!

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

God's Little Figures

2011-07-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

And it was said,
Let us make God in our image,
After our likeness,
And He shall have dominion over all the Earth,
And God we created he Him,
In our image,
From our spirit,
And we so exalted God
We came to believe He created us,
In His image,
Individual and separate,
God’s little figures,
Made out of clay.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Everything I Say Is A Lie

2011-07-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

We’re all pretty much the same
Except for those who are different,
But then most of us are different once in a while,
Which makes us all pretty much the same,
Except for those who are only sometimes the same
And mostly different,
Along with those who will be different most of the time
After years and years of being mostly the same.

Some of the others will be the same as they were
And continue to shift back and forth,
While still others among them
Will sometimes be different and the same simultaneously.

Some will think they’re different yet remain the same,
While others will think they’re the same,
Not realizing how different they truly are.

Many will hardly think about these things at all.

As for me,
I guess I’m pretty much like everybody else,
Trying in vain to be the same,
Yet not really that much different at all.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Unemployment

2011-07-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

The clock strikes one,
My lunch is done,
I lost my job,
I load my gun.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Lighten Up

2011-07-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Finding fault,
Our national pastime.

Blame,
Judgment,
Condemnation,
Punishment.

We are good,
They are bad.

Yes, intentional evil exists
And there are saints among us
And sure,
Your brother-in-law is a jerk,
But life is short,
Give him a break.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Inner Child

2011-06-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

for Yolanda

We were talking about the inner child,
How it never goes away,
How it’s always there,
Waiting for a chance to surface,
Looking for an opening.

O yes, we were definitely bonding,
Reaching back in time,
Shedding inhibitions.

So I spit my gum out at her
And she slapped me across the face.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Saints In Waiting

2011-06-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

If we were saints
Living the lives of abandoned insects
Under parked cars
With our antennae finely tuned
Into God’s frequency,
We would praise the glories
Of our tiny lives,
The stray fast-food crumbs,
A patch of dew-laden crabgrass.

Behold this mighty river of asphalt,
My children,
And fear not the larger beasts.
We are the chosen,
And through our selfless purity
We shall inherit this earth.

Not long now,
Our time to come.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Oh Yeah Sure

2011-06-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah sure,
Easy for you to say
It was just a joke,
Now that my head is unattached
To my body.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Ready At Last

2011-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

O the young years of literature,
Reading “David Copperfield” all the way through
While home from school with the flu,
Wrestling with e.e. cummings
In a musty room at the Avalon Hotel,
A creaky cockroach rooming house for men only,
Converted from a once fashionable seaside establishment.

O the timeless hours
Consuming every extant word, phrase, sentence, paragraph,
Chapter, story, novel,
Letter and biography of renowned literary luminaries,
In-between and in place of university studies,
Earnestly seeking the intellectual armor of being “well read.”

O the stolen moments
Cannibalizing the contents of the canon
During long lunches,
Dimly lit late evenings in a frayed recliner,
Finally free of neighborhood noise
In dusty, paint-peeled rented houses.

O the lost years
Seeking out the esoteric, the hidden and the unsung,
Dutifully sampling the momentarily celebrated
While the demands of job and family
Multiplied like rabbits.

O the accumulation of time,
No longer able to keep up.
The gifts and recommendations,
The purchases,
Filling my bookshelves unread,
Overflowing my bookshelves,
Wedged on top sideways until at last
Placed into boxes,
Into storage.

O this uneventful spring morning.
The weight of all I will never read
Threatens to crush me
As I sit in my most comfortable chair
Listening to the chattering of busy sparrows,
Sipping my second cup of coffee,
Ready at last
To give up.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Give Me The Passing Stranger

2011-06-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Friends are delicate creatures
And require delicate care.
Give me the passing stranger,
My middle finger in the air.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Little Sheep

2011-06-12T00:02:00.000-07:00

I am a little sheep
With headlights and a beep,
A horn and a job,
I am corn on the cob.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Money Train

2011-06-05T00:01:00.001-07:00

Every mornin’
Climb on board,
You climb on board
That money train.

You be rich
Or you be poor
But you climb on board
That money train.

Hear that whistle,
Hear it blow,
The train’s a’ comin’,
You gotta go.

You be rich
Or you be poor
But you climb on board
And they shut the door.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Dead

2011-05-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

How often has it been said
Of the dead,
They would not have the dearly undeparted
Suffer undue grief.

They would have us renewed with joy,
After an appropriate mourning,
Reaffirming the gift of our daily existence
With fond reminiscences.

Will the dead never let us go?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Am Dog

2011-05-22T00:35:00.000-07:00

I’ll always be a dog,
God alone knows why,
Not cat, not horse, not snail,
I’ll never open mail,
Though I sometimes try.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Reality

2011-05-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

For a while,
It looked like it might be dark
All day,
So few actually taking the time
To believe in the sun anymore.

But familiarity breeds belief,
So the sun again appeared
And filled the sky with light.

It is a lesson to be relearned each morning,
That we must never,
Ever,
Take reality for granted,
As if it would continue on its own,
In a vacuum.

Reality depends on us all.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

But Then

2011-05-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

After all the years of trial and error
My memories are stained with embarrassment.
Even the most exquisite chapters of my life
Contain paragraphs that can still make me wince.

And so this morning I am resolved,
Resolved to fast from the feast of self-absorption.

But then,
There are these words.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Devolution

2011-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was bored,
So bored with routine,
Every morning,
Brushing his teeth,
Making coffee,
Slogging off to work,
To predictable employments.

Then,
Weekend chores,
Social obligations,
So encumbered by family, friends and finance.

The half-slumbering supplicant,
Longing for escape,
His earnest entreaties
Finally heard,
Heard and granted.

Now,
As the first light warms the earth
He drags himself out from under a stone,
Eager to feel the sun against his scales,
The taste of yesterday’s grasshopper still lingering on the tongue.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Kitty Up A Tree

2011-04-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Kitty up a tree,
Glad it isn’t me,
‘Cause if it were
I’d have no fur,
And speak English.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

God Dog

2011-04-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Once there was a small brown dog who loved God.
He loved God so much
He decided to change his name
To God,
God Dog,
The 1st.

Then,
He began to pee on the furniture
Without restraint.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Another Day At The Office

2011-04-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

The black-winged fungus of death
Would like to have a word with you
And is holding on Line 2.

Take a message,
Say I,
For the splintering semen of rebirth
Is Miss Ledger’s hand on my thigh.

Encountering my limitless nonself
I give her nothing but love,
Baby.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My House

2011-04-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

It was barely sprinkling
After several hours of light rain
Early Sunday morning
When I heard the coughing,
The retching,
And looked out my breakfast nook window
To see a young man with his car door open,
Vomiting on the street in front of my house.

My house.

How lucky I am
That I can say the words:
My house,
While aimless young men
Wander through this city,
Regurgitating at will.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Call It Poetry

2011-04-01T00:50:00.000-07:00

Go ahead,
Call it poetry,
I suppose you’ve got to call it something,
But I’m just talking,
Talking to you,
Telling you as sincerely as I can
What is in my heart
And in my mind,
Trying to strip these words and thoughts
Of pretense,
As best I can,
Not concerned about literary theory,
Just concerned about this life,
This life we are actually living,
Day by day.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

O Poets

2011-03-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

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

Stir

2011-03-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

If you use the wrong words,
In the wrong place,
At the wrong time,
You could go to jail.

And that first day in stir
When they ask,
Whaddya in fer?
You give ‘em a low, mean stare
And say:
Vocabulary.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Exercise Day

2011-02-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

There he goes,
This pasty glob of goo,
Jogging a little,
Now walking,
His shorts too tight,
His T-shirt too small,
His head bowed and dripping with sweat.

It’s early Saturday morning,
Exercise day,
And he trudges down the street
In this quiet, upper-middle-class burb
Listening to music
Through tiny earphones,
The same exact music
He listened to thirty years ago.

It’s exercise day
And by God he’s going to make it
All the way around the misshapen loop
That belts his neighborhood.
He restarts a slow jog,
His floppy white hat is damp
From his sweaty, hair-challenged head.

It’s exercise day
And he is determined to run
The rest of the way home
Where he will reward his valor
With a piece of cake
In a bowl of milk.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Life Went On

2011-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

It was Sunday,
And many millions
Living in the most powerful nation on Earth
Spent most of the day
Watching the big football game on television,
Cheering,
Moaning,
Screaming
At the electronic moving pictures of football players
Running back and forth and sideways,
Trying desperately,
Valiantly to get hold of the football
And take it to one end,
Or another,
Of the green plastic space
Some still call a field.

The next day,
Life went on,
Much as it had before.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Agony Of Ecstasy

2011-01-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

The older I get the more I wonder
Why I’ve been spared from so much,
So much of the suffering of this world.
Why, why, why?

O the agony of this incessant good fortune,
This ecstasy,
Will it never cease?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

What Comes Next

2011-01-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes
It seems like
Everything’s going wrong,
Then,
Everything gets worse
And you realize
Just how good you had it
Before everything got worse,
Then,
You get sick
And you realize
Just how lucky you were
When you were not sick,
Even though
Things were not going that well,
Then,
You die
And you think,
Oh great,
Here I am,
Dead.
You never made it to retirement,
Everything you ever worked for,
Gone,
And you’re stuck
In some kind of undefinable limbo,
Then,
You hear a voice that says:
You’re not stuck at all,
Come with me.
The next thing you know
You’re in some kind of eternal infinite agony
That must be hell
And you realize
Just how lucky you were
Right before you woke up this morning,
And you don’t even want to think about
What comes next.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Game

2011-01-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

It takes a lot of luck
And money
To afford the opportunity 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

Looking Forward

2011-01-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

“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

Definitions

2011-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

We believe in definitions
Of definitions
Ad nauseum,
Alas.

We must have words,
But we layer our meanings
Like a hero sandwich,
Too big to get into the brain.

We forget the essential fact,
While labeling the labels
With the contrived clichés
Of the moment.

We have all become
So incredibly clever
We no longer know
How to tie our shoes.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Tiny

2010-12-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

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

Without

2010-12-19T00:50:00.000-08:00

Without thinking,
I write these words.

A lie.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Cricket In Paris

2010-12-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

It is a sultry summer night
And the chirp of a cricket in my garage
Reminds me of Paris,
Where I’ve never been,
And despite my sedentary life,
How lucky I am
I was not born a cricket,
Although I suppose being a cricket in Paris
Is quite a different thing altogether.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Morning Calculation

2010-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

The difference between six
And nine
Equals the difference between rise
And shine.

{If 9-x = rise-shine, then x = Zzzs}

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Dark Age

2010-11-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

Can I do anything with a word when the world is sparking through wires and cables and atmosphere crackling on screens drawing current from electrochemical Homo sapiens?

Can I do anything with a word when the chemicals come so easy and hit so hard and run so fast and shoot so high and last so long?

Can I do anything with a word when art is for intellectuals and commoners are jettisoned to their easy pulp?

Can I find a word that will cut through meanness and shame power lust and inspire the meek and disable the unjust and pull the disguise off everyday life?

What can I do when I am tortured by the mind and bleeding from the heart and enslaved by the logical and brainwashed by the desirable and distracted by discourse and people are dying in droves and killing is a political option and this is the real world and Jesus has already come and gone and the kind-hearted are cheated and the vicious are prosperous and I am honest by accident and duplicitous by nature and into the night I lie awake searching for a word.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Zero

2010-11-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

Zero,
Ever been there?
I hear the weather’s nice
This time of year.

I was there last fall,
Just in time to see no leaves changing no colors on no trees.
So beautiful,
Like nothing I’d ever seen before.

The trip was a little rough,
And long.
Just when it seemed like Zero was in sight,
Along came something else
And my curiosity would get the better of me,
Stopping to explore one thing after another.

But finally,
After a very long day full of starts and stops,
After I was completely worn out,
After I’d had just about enough of everything,
There it was:
Zero.

So beautiful,
Like nothing I’d ever seen before.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Balzac In Paris

2010-11-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

This pretentious, unbridled egotism,
Bridled by academic sycophancy,
Shackled by erudite nonconformity,
Eruditely enforced by the last living literati
Hanging onto the endangered species list
By his and/or her precarious pedicured pedigrees.

This turgid landscape bleeds sour
For want of a coat of arms
Worthy of such shame,
Such intrepid debasement,
Oh yes,
Here in de basement
I goo goo too,
This awful-god game,
La comédie humaine.

Some call it poetry.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Self-Serving Altruism

2010-10-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

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

I Am Older Now

2010-10-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

It used to be fun
To see how long I could hold my breath.

My sister and I had contests
And we’d try to make each other laugh
To break our concentration,
Our determination.

Now,
It just feels like death.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

God's Little Figures

2010-10-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Heaven And Hell

2010-10-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes this peaceful suburban landscape
Seems like heaven.

I am momentarily reprieved
And the people in my tiny town glow,
Translucent arcs of light
Moving about their daily tasks.

We stop and talk a while.

Hell returns.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Over My Dead Body

2010-10-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

If you happen to stumble over my dead body
Someday,
Do not grieve,
Unless it’s mayhem,
And yet you may then
Envy
The way I have taken
My leave.

For if you happen to stumble over my dead body
Someday,
Know I preferred death that way,
Like the swatting of a fly,
In the blink of an eye.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Politics

2010-09-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

O simple-minded hardworking soul,
Crushed by need
And greed,
I mourn for you
And I celebrate you
As I assemble these thoughts
From the refuge of my comfortable chair
In my comfortable house,
Comfortable neighborhood,
Comfortable life.

Just when you thought your hardscrabble life
Could be exploited no further,
I am here to mourn you,
To celebrate you,
To employ you as an illustration
Of my humanity,
Of my selfless dedication to your well-being,
For which I expect ample praise and admiration.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Anniversary

2010-09-20T14:10:00.001-07:00

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

Contestants

2010-09-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

Just another species
We are
The manipulators,
The malcontents
We are
The controllers of an uncontrollable world,
A world that will rise up against us someday
And end all this tinkering,
Making room for the next
Contestants.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I've Changed

2010-09-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

Oh my darling,
I was so foolish,
Such a selfish, weak and unfeeling bastard.
Can you ever forgive me?

I’ll do anything to make it up to you.

I hope you can find it in your heart to understand.
I never meant to hurt you.

Oh my love,
I’ve made so many mistakes,
Won’t you give me another chance,
Now that I’m pretending to be apologetic, contrite and sincere?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Can We Still Be Friends?

2010-08-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Please don’t misunderstand
When I say I hate you
And think you are a stupid jerk
Who should have never been born.

You should know me better than that!

Just because I will not speak to you
And burn your unopened letters,
Just because I never want to see you again
Doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In The Wilderness

2010-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

The plaintive cry of the jackalope
Echoes
Through my open motel window,
I cannot sleep.

Who?
Who will lube my aging motor home
Way out here where I wander
In this desolate land without movie rentals?

I wonder,
Not much.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Anguished Soul

2010-08-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

Your anguished soul cries out
Because your dreams of fame and fortune
Are only dreams
And evaporate like dew at sunrise,
Just a little daylight
And the real world takes over.

But you persevere,
You work on those dreams
In all your spare moments
Until one day
You finally get a break
And the Company decides
Your Anguished Soul
Is the next big thing
And it happens:
T-shirts and coffee mugs,
The Anguished Soul Tour,
Television talk shows.

You become the voice for all those anguished souls
Who watch television late into the night
And dream of being you,
Not realizing
They already are.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Wolf, Wolf

2010-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes When I Sleep

2010-08-02T00:13:00.000-07:00

If I Were A Little Badger

2010-07-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

If I were a little badger
I tell you what I'd do
I'd help all the other badgers
Escape from the L.A. Zoo.

We'd go downtown for coffee
And chat the night away
Around the sidewalk tables
At the badger espresso cafe.

We'd have existential rages
And geopolitical despair
Then we'd sneak back to our cages
And pull out all our hair.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Mysterious Ways

2010-07-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

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.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

For Schopenhauer

2010-07-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Show me your sun-drenched sprigs of winter,
The juniper bug as he howls,
The rise and fall of oatmeal
In the misty dawn of a burgeoning wahoo!

Show me these things,
My sweet, bare-faced darling,
And I shall inherit your property
With the gay abandon
Of love’s lost moth at eventide.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The News

2010-07-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Like Emily

2010-06-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

She has decided to be an artist,
A sculptress of words,
A poetess.

Her tribute "To the Hungry Children of Planet Earth,”
Read in somber tones to her reluctant friends,
Such a moving expression of television-inspired grief.

But what do they know of art?
They are lost in contemplation
Of the rise and fall of her breasts,
So invitingly ripe,
While they feign appreciation of her nobler qualities.

She knows they only half listen to her words
And her thoughts are drawn back to Emily Dickinson.
She prepares herself
For the many years of indifference
That will most certainly come.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Over My Dead Body

2010-06-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

If you happen to stumble over my dead body
Someday,
Do not grieve,
Unless it’s mayhem,
And yet you may then
Envy
The way I have taken
My leave.

For if you happen to stumble over my dead body
Someday,
Know I preferred death that way,
Like the swatting of a fly
In the blink of an eye.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Without

2010-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Heidi Ho

2010-06-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

There is a little dog I know
His name is Heidi Ho,
He lives where red grapes
Rot on the vines,
Where gypsy used car dealers
Moan low
With their squishy gypsy missies.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

As If

2010-06-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

O this revolving world,
I am dizzy with all this spinning,
Cumulative now in my later years.
I feel the solar winds
Tugging at my sleeves
As we hurtle through space,
Madly erecting shopping centers
As if there were no tomorrow.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Lost And Found

2010-05-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was upset,
I was angry,
I was afraid,
The sound of children playing was threatening,
The sunlight tired me,
The darkness worried me.

A man rang my doorbell,
A Jesus salesman,
Sent to my house by God
With the answers to my torments.

He read some Bible verses,
We got down on our knees and prayed,
I purchased a ninety-day, no obligation, trial subscription.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Snake

2010-05-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

Snake on a parking lot curb,
Looking for water in the fourth drought year,
Stares blank-eyed at rows of stove-hot steel automobiles,
Shoots his rubber tongue out and in a few quivers
Then inch-glides his black and tan, rug-patterned self
Over the curb,
His tongue sniffing like a dog nose.

He slides into the gutter and angles toward me.

I’m safe in my car
But I can hear my dead grandmother scream
As he slips underneath my front bumper.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Like A Rhino

2010-05-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

for Christopher

How like a rhinoceros,
My dissatisfaction,
My petulance.
A rhino in a sushi bar,
All thumbs.
A meadowlark in a turbine,
All feathers.
A guy writing this stuff down,
On paper,
Trying to fabricate meaning,
Watching the tip of his pen
Carefully outline letters, words,
Incomplete phrases whole,
Hoping some great dark muse
Will speak.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Wearing Thin

2010-05-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

Some folks say
They want to live
Forever,
But as for me,
This particular person
I am
Is wearing thin.
I can think of few things
Worse
Than an eternity
Chained to this one particular person
I am,
This soul attached,
Forever beset
By this particular concoction
Of insecurities and doubts,
Addictions, duplicities
And genetic happenstance.
Gotta wipe the slate clean,
Someday.

Be somebody else for a while.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We, The Creative

2010-05-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

We of the large-brained variety
Are the creative animals.
Survival is not enough,
We must have reasons to survive,
Philosophies,
Theologies.

And just to prove
How creative we really are,
We pretend our imaginings
Are the work of God.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved