The Arrow Of Time

Scientists are scratching their heads
Over the arrow of time,
Why things persistently move forward,
This journey from the womb,
Where along the way
We learn what the word “forward” means,
A word we made up
To describe this perception of progression.

“Why always forward?”
The aged scientist asks,
As the repression of his regression
Slowly reverses everything.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Trash Day

I hear the truck lumbering down my street,
Creeping around the cul-de-sac,
Transmission torquing,
Short bursts of brakes screeching.

The side loader clamps and lifts
And shakes empty the black containers,
Metal clanging,
Hydraulics hissing,
The packer compacting trash in the hopper.

The diesel engine groans toward my house
And I run outside.

I invite the garbage man in for coffee and coffee cake
And we talk about his family:
Aging parents from Slovakia
Who still call themselves Czechoslovakians.
“It is from where we were born!”
A tattooed son who will not go to college,
A daughter still young enough to play with dolls
But pretty enough to cause him worry,
A wife who works at the hospital.
“No more night shifts!”

Driving the big truck
“Is a good job now.”
Sitting sky high in the cab.
No more lifting like the old days.

He goes to church each Sunday.
The stained-glass windows are midnight blue and apple red
And fill the air with color.

I offer to warm up his coffee
While my next-door neighbor looks out his window,
Wonders what in the hell is going on.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Metamorphic

A rock
Is an idea,

You say.

Hold on just a minute!
I say,
A rock is a real, tangible thing.

But right now
You do not hold a rock in your hand,

You say.
You hold it in your mind.

It’s the idea of a rock,

You say,

That gives it a name,
That suggests a use.

Yes,
I say,
Such as hurling it at you
So you will stop talking
And go away!


~ 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

Yippy

It is the time of baby birds and lizards,
Of pollination and persistent sun,
Of rebirth and renewal.

I can hear the tug of Spring
In the spirited barking of Yippy,
The dingy, bedraggled cocker spaniel next door,
Aroused now by every passing dog,
Every wandering cat,
Each exploring squirrel,
Each backyard human.

I remember last year
When Yippy was so full of Spring,
Barking throughout the night at every rustling leaf,
It seemed to Al,
Big Al, we called my neighbor,
A large man bedeviled by barking
As he revisited the ritual of the backyard barbecue.

“God damn that dog!”
I heard him flare across the fence,
Stopping short of formal complaint,
Not one to be outwardly unneighborly.

Perhaps it was all that barbecued red meat that felled Big Al,
Dropping dead at work one chilly day last winter.

Spring has returned
And though old Yippy is clearly a canine in decline,
His barking still carries loud and clear,
And somehow I sense Big Al is near,
Cursing this aged dog who still survives
While human beings drop like flies.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Artist

O what reward
For lifelong labor
To make a beautiful sound,
To see the man in the front row
Fall asleep
While you so delicately evoke
Bach’s most ethereal passages
From your cello,
The instrument of your breathing,
The whisper of your bow
Across the strings.

Respiration from the front row
Works against the composition,
Keeping time in some asynchronous meter,
Growing steadily louder,
Until,
You have lost the reverie Bach intended
And your playing becomes rote,
Labored,
While the man in the front row
Snores,
While the stone-faced woman four rows back
Unwraps a peppermint candy,
Filling the hallowed air
With the crackle of cellophane.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

People Are

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


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Politician

He's said so much
To so many,
He's almost convinced himself.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Second Cup?

If I awoke some morning and you were dead . . .

Pardon my indelicacy my darling,
I will begin again.

If I awakened early one morning,
Tiptoeing out of the bedroom
So as not to disturb,
Knowing how you like to sleep late,
Being retired and elderly,
Like me,
Having no need for early morning hours . . .

If I put on my slippers,
Padding quietly down the hall,
Into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee . . .

If I did these things and settled into my favorite chair,
Sipping the sugary sweet yet bitter hot coffee,
Easing into an awakening that only fully comes
After a second cup . . .

If I had finished my first cup
And still heard no stirring from bed or bath . . .

If I returned to our bedroom and found you undisturbed,
If I placed my hand on your shoulder and called your name,
If you did not respond to my vigorous shaking,
If you were without breath,
If you had slipped silently away sometime during the night . . .

If I contemplated all that now lay before me,
The myriad heartsick obligations . . .

Before it all began,
Before it was all set in motion,
Before engaging with the somber day’s duties,
Would I make a second cup of coffee?
Would you?


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Too Much Work

Too much work
Strips everyday life
Of love
And serendipitous happenstance,
Oh yeah.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Bedtime

Josh who is growing older says,

“Good night Dad,”

And I say,

“Hittin’ the hay?”

And Josh who is growing older says,

“Guess so,”

And I say,

“Sweet dreams buddy,”

And Josh who is growing older says,

“See you in the morning,”

And I say,

“Not if I see you first!”

And Josh who is already quite the young man indeed says,

“Yeah, right dad.”


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Kitty Up A Tree

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

At One

The longer I live
The more I realize
How much I don’t know,
How much I thought I knew
And just how wrong I was,
How arrogant I was,
How certain I was
About what I didn’t know.

The longer I live
The less I say.

I’ve learned to leave out,
Delete,
Expunge
So much that leaves my brain
Before it gets to my mouth.

I’m saying so much less every day
That by the time I’m an old man
I’ll just sit quietly,
Nodding and smiling,
Finally at one with my inner idiot.


~ 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

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

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

Don't Take This Literally

I’ve been way too coherent lately,
Too literal.
Some of my more artistic friends
Blush
At my naive,
Prosaic,
Poetry.

I actually use the words
“Love,”
And “heart,”
Even “God,” for “Pete’s sake.”

I “dream”
And sometimes I am “sad,”
Sometimes full of “hope” and “joy.”

I apologize to my more sophisticated friends
For my unadorned simple-mindedness
And would deconstruct coherence with obfuscation
But alas,
I am “too far gone.”


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Books

Books on my shelves,
So meticulously bought
And placed according to thought.
The lines of their spines
Reproach me
For ignoring them so.
In false phrases of praises
My bookstore ambitions go.

What would I know
If I’d read them all
And with total recall
Could bring forth their voices?
Who would I be with such choices,
With such knowledge tamed
And insights gained?

Would I really be changed
If rearranged
By the genius of my age
And of ages before?
Would I be an amazing sage
Or just another incredible bore?


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Sacred

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

Cats

Why am I not a god to these cats?
They sit, long-pawed on my driveway
As I approach in the fearsome monster of steel,
Growling and hissing.
But they watch my advance with disinterest,
Half-closed eyes revealing scant concern.
They are used to my comings and goings
And will not move until the last possible moment,
When a tire threatens to brush a whisker,
When I race the engine to give them a start.
They are becoming accustomed to these things as well.

I step from the roughly idling four-door sedan
And pull open the great wall of aluminum garage door,
Letting it fly upward and crash against the frame.
A few furry heads turn in slumberous response,
Then mechanically turn away.
O what will roust them from this languor?

It is the clack and pop of punctured metal,
The grinding drone of the kitchen can opener
That does the trick.
In an instant they have gathered,
A felonious mob at the back-door stoop,
Meowing in feigned, pitiful supplication,
And God will walk among them once more.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Indifference

O the unclipped nose hair,
The unchecked gluttony,
The wrinkled plaid Bermuda shorts,
The black socks and penny loafers.

O the pasty white skin,
The mounting corpulence,
The open-mouthed unconscious stare,
The arrogant indifference.

O what have you surrendered?
And why?


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Our Waitress Exploded

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood . . . .

~ The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Late one evening of joviality

With our favorite coffee shop waitress,

She remarked: “You’re here more than I am.”

How could she know?

Only if she were actually in two different places

At the same time,

Home watching television

While simultaneously working the night shift.

“How could you know?” I queried.

A sudden realization washed over her

Like a subatomic particle

Racing around the Large Hadron Collider.

The two waitresses became aware of each other’s existence

And sought to unite the matter and antimatter of their beings.

A mistake.

The waitresses’ subatomic particles and antiparticles

Touched and exploded.

They were annihilated,

Thrust into a Parallel Universe

Where they emerged from a Black Hole,

Transformed into Hawking Radiation.

One minute she was here,

Standing behind the cash register

In front of the display case of assorted pies and cookies,

The next zeptosecond—Gone!

While ravenous coffee shop patrons searched for her in vain.

That was the last anyone ever saw of her,

Except for the developmentally challenged busboy

Who swept her leftover protons into a corner.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

If

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