Very Busy
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
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Death And Love
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
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The Killer Asteroid
When we knew the asteroid was coming,
The killer asteroid,
We knew it would be the end of us,
All of us,
Even the inhabitants of the space station,
Although they would be the last to go.
What a vision they would behold,
The exploding Earth,
The smothering black clouds
Enveloping all.
The fragmented debris
Hurtling through space,
Sounding like hailstones inside the space station,
Sporadic,
Intensifying,
Exploding,
Then,
Nothing.
The last humans,
Gone.
I’ve always felt sorry for the dinosaurs,
Their terrible majesty vanquished,
Extinguished,
Survived by cockroaches.
Now,
As the killer asteroid accelerates,
Now,
As the end of the human experience draws near,
I wonder,
What manner of life will survive?
What will replace us?
It is said the meek shall inherit the Earth,
But cockroaches?
Still?
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Dear Children
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
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?
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
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
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
Storytelling
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
Her Best Lesson
My fifth grade teacher was angry.
She thought I was hopeless,
Making the class erupt in laughter with some odd remark
Only a twelve-year-old boy could concoct
While she attempted to pass on some measure of insight
About the War of 1812.
It was but one of a long line of transgressions
I’d committed that school year,
Dedicated as I was to the disruption of order,
So militantly enforced at my small, private school.
Perhaps because she was newly transplanted from England
Where boarding school boys were more compliant,
Her distress at my behavior was so inflamed,
Inspired, even.
After the classroom laughter subsided,
After a measured silence,
With grave solemnity she declared:
Pearls before swine. Pearls before swine!
She was not the first teacher I’d driven to extremes,
But one of the most memorable,
Thanks to her vivid condemnation.
I can still see her, flinging strings of exquisite pearls into the mud
Where corpulent pigs, grunting and snorting,
Trample them beneath their hooves.
It was her best lesson,
Her only lesson I remember,
Something about saying what you really mean,
Something about honesty.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Façade
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
Allergic
If I could choose how death will come
I’d like it to come as a sneeze,
One really big, sudden sneeze.
It would begin with an itching sensation,
Something advancing,
Growing,
Multiplying,
A tsunami,
Then,
One massive, uncontrollable sneeze
Seizing my entire body and soul.
The lights go out.
“What happened?”
Some would ask my wife,
My witness.
“He had an allergic reaction,”
She would explain,
“To life.”
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Third Banana
This morning I had two bananas,
Brought home from the market,
Placed in an empty bowl,
The same bowl where I always put my bananas.
Two bananas.
Then,
Just for a moment,
A vision from a parallel universe
Slipped through that cosmic boundary
That separates multiverses.
Then,
Just for a moment,
I saw another, older banana in the bowl,
Next to those two new bananas.
Three bananas.
So vivid was this inconsequential vision
That I examined the bowl more closely,
Expecting to see the third banana,
Perhaps lying sideways along the inside curve of the bowl,
Initially obscured from view,
But there were only two.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Shedding
They say a leopard
Can't 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
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
Waiting For The Call
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
The Greatest Ever
Before the greatest ever,
There was the greatest ever.
Now, what was previously 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
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
Appreciation
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
Speak To Me Now!
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
The New Version
Not long after you’d pretty much figured it out,
Pretty much,
Sort of,
You were prompted to download the new version,
No doubt enhanced for improved functionality and security,
Better,
No doubt,
Better than what you already had,
Now referred to as the old version,
Practically obsolete,
So you comply,
And each time you do,
Each new version takes another little slice of user autonomy,
Another little nugget of user control,
Away.
Enriched personal data collection,
Upgraded monetization cloud,
The steady trespass of technology
Past all those surrendered boundaries,
Now removed,
Disabled,
Discontinued,
Deleted,
In return for improved functionality
And security.
The new version.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Just Wonderin'
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
God's Little Figures
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
Parallel Lust
There may be an infinite number of alternate realities,
According to some theories.
For each of us,
An infinite number of individual existences,
One for each possible action,
Each possible outcome.
And so my love,
Despite your current disinterest in my affections,
You may be my ardent lover in some other life
Where I am the reluctant one,
Though I suspect my eagerness will persist
With all the beautiful yet reluctant women I know,
Each destined to become my consummated soul mate
In some of my more salacious autobiographies.
Meanwhile,
In this particular lifespan,
The unremarkable aspects of my love life,
Continue.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Procreation
Yes,
Your parents were in love.
Well,
At least in lust.
Believe it.
No matter how ugly and ill-suited to romance they now seem,
There is a reason you were born.
Well,
Perhaps not so much a reason
As an emotion,
Drawing them together,
Fulfilling their destiny to create a new human being,
The latest version of evolution,
You,
The dream made flesh,
You,
You snot-nosed ungrateful twerp!
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
What Men Want
When I see her
I hold myself a little tighter,
A little straighter,
Appearing more attractive,
Flexing all appropriate muscles,
Contracting all inappropriate flab,
Making myself desirable,
For she is my sweetheart heartthrob
Honeybunch sex machine
And I want her,
This girlish saint whore
Athletic fashion model intellectual.
I want her.
Now.
I am enraptured by her thin boyish
Sharp-shoulder-bladed frame,
Her overexposed unashamed voluptuous fantastic flesh,
Her long short medium-length hair,
So glossy black chestnut brown honey blonde pumpkin red
Curling straight.
I am lost in her mysterious bold naive uninhibited forbidden
Eyes of swimming pool blue chocolate bar brown
Charcoal briquette black London fog gray
Emerald chameleon green banana tree hazel.
She walks toward me away not moving,
This short long-legged tall small woman girl,
So delicate and strong.
She sees me and smiles
And I am hers,
All over town.
~ 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
Unemployment
The clock strikes one,
My lunch is done,
I lost my job,
I load my gun.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Future Past
Our past was once the future,
Many years away from the melancholy glaze of reverence,
Many years away from the hallowed ground of institutionalization,
Feared by some,
Despised by others,
A threat to sacred rituals,
The demonized specter of change.
Those comfortable now in sameness,
Defenders of static conformity,
They might be hailed as visionaries
Were they catapulted back into antiquity
With beliefs and convictions intact,
Or perhaps burned at the stake.
~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved
Everything I Say Is A Lie
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
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