Writing About Love.com: 2018

All This Absence

If she were angry with me,
That would be quite another thing,
But this friendly indifference,
Her cold, controlled smile,
Her appropriate words
Kept at the appropriate distance,
Her brief eye contact
Signifying nothing.

No anger,
No joy,
Not even a little curiosity.

If she were angry with me,
Then,
Something to hope for,
But all this absence . . .

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Why Men Lie

Because she wore a spring dress
With a long open back,
Revealing the graceful arch of her spine,
The soft cut of her shoulder blades
Beneath the supple silken blanket
Of her burnished bronze skin,
Because she wanted to be admired
And so she smiled,
Because youth has not left her,
Because youth has left him
And the pleasures of aging
Have yet to reveal themselves,
Because at every turn old age is advancing
And he is not ready,
Because he does not want to die:

This is why men lie.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The First Time

Here,
This is the spot,
Beneath this ancient oak,
A perfect climbing tree
With low, outstretched limbs,
Welcoming.

Here,
Beneath this ancient oak
Is where you spread out your blanket
On the cool shaded grass.

A swaying patch of filtered sunlight illuminated us,
Lying so close together on the blanket’s gentle cushion,
Your name sewn in fancy script across the top
By some Chinese factory worker
Who will never know how lovely you lay
Beneath your beautiful name,
A name so beautiful to me
In the fading light of that passing summer afternoon,
When you first wanted me.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Fire

However much I love you,
You do not
Hang upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.

You do,
However,
Glow in the illumination of the street light
Where you wait for me,
Not yet noticing my approach,
Eager to burn
In this fire we have ignited.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Stone Age

How long has it been?
Not long since the days of the cave.
Seems like only yesterday
We were bringing down bison,
That old gang of mine.

All this was savanna,
And,
Over there,
Near that big boulder,
The barbecue pit.

Ah, the feasting,
The fermented berries,
The grunting.

I took a girl
And our bodies worked well together
Making many children.
We lived a while.

On my last day
My oldest son told me
He would bring me back,
And that I would bring him back,
In turn,
For we are all fathers and mothers,
Sisters and brothers,
Since the beginning of everything,
When every stone could sing.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Small Price

My sweetheart is angry with me.

I was relentless,
Her debating skills weaker than mine,
Mine,
Driven by a kind of egocentric obsessiveness.
I surrounded her with a great wall of logic,
Stone by stone,
Until at last she could take no more.

“Enough,” she said,
Unwilling to surrender.
“Enough,” she said,
Closing the door of her heart against me,
Withdrawing that sweet vulnerability
Which she had so delicately, tentatively, entrusted,
For which I shall soon recant all my assertions,
Agreeing that planet Earth is indeed flat,
If need be.

A small price to pay for love.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Real Love Is Not Clever

Real love is not clever.

Real love is clumsy,
Awkward,
Unsynchronized,
Inappropriate,
Embarrassing,
Stumbling,
Falling,
Grasping,
Letting go,
Giving up,
Miserable,
Necessary.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Wishing

A fountain sparkling with pennies,
A wishing well
Catches your eye
And for a moment
You consider finding a penny
And making a wish,
An impulse you quickly dismiss.

All those shiny pennies
Magnified by the rippling water,
Shimmering.
An illusion for children,
You think.
Too old for such foolishness,
You think,
No longer remembering what wishing is for.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Ocean

Some of us stand at the edge of the shore,
At a safe distance,
While others come closer,
Getting their feet wet,
Racing away from any sudden surge.
Some wade in deeper,
Yet still careful to avoid strong currents.

I am reckless.
I go in deep,
Enveloped and submerged,
Helplessly swept out to sea.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Never Knew

I found my high school yearbook,
The one from my senior year,
Filled with photos of friends,
Some I would see again at periodic reunions,
Some I would never see again
Due to circumstance,
Due to death.

I looked through the pages,
Looking for girlfriends,
Looking for the popular girls,
The pretty girls,
The bold and the shy.

I read the inscriptions,
Silly and sincere,
And in a corner of the back, inside cover,
A simple French phrase,
A simple greeting, I assumed at the time,
Not bothering to translate.

I found the photo of the girl who wrote it,
A pretty young girl I barely knew,
A shy young girl
Who summoned her courage that last day of school
And wrote in flowing, immaculate script:
“Je t'aime.”

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I See Them

There was a rabbit
Loose in the grove.
She taught me how to enter
The silence of its fear
So it would know
My innocence.

There was an old clock
Whose tic and toc
Was heard by those
Who could only imagine me.
She taught me how to travel
Through the sound
Into their hearts.

In spring her orchard was full
Of birds and butterflies.
She pressed her warm fingers
Over my eyes and said:
See from where
All pretty things come.

Her old Siamese
Loved his pie-pan milk
Steaming on the back porch.
One winter he was gone.
I remembered how still he sat
With folded paws
And cloud-blue eyes.

Looking into heaven
He finally found his way,
She whispered,
Close your eyes
And see him.

I see them.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

What Else Can I Call It?

Once in a while
I catch a sideways glimpse of her
In awkward profile
And see her anew,
As one not in love might see her:
Plain,
Ordinary.
And for a moment I wonder,
Am I really in love with her,
This ordinary girl?

Then she turns to me and speaks,
Her eyes full of surprise and laughter,
She says my name
And the sound of myself upon her lips
Fills me with joy.

If this is not love,
What else can I call it?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Hate

If you are taught to hate,
If you embrace hate,
If you carry hate in your heart,
Then you will awaken each morning with hate,
Sleep each evening with hate,
Dream of hate.

Such a heavy burden,
This all-embracing anger,
This desire for violence,
This vengeance.

But when you dream of a perfect world,
When you imagine yourself in paradise,
Where is hate?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Will Remember

If I am cremated,
Give a small portion of the ashes from my body
To each of those I love
So they may scatter them
Over the ocean.

If I am buried,
Give a small portion of the earth from my grave
To each of those I love
So they may scatter it
In a garden.

When I am no longer in this body,
Perhaps you should just give a copy of this poem
To each of those I love
So I may say one last time:

I will remember you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Words And Meanings

I could say,
What a beautiful day,
And mean it,
And yet be imprisoned
Within the idea of it,
That beautiful day,
Out there,
Outside,
Somewhere.

I could say,
I love you,
And mean it,
Like a weapon
Or a shield,
This love,
Superior,
Disarming,
Untouchable.

Without the heart,
Words and meanings
Fall apart.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Knowledge

In this information age
I have the Library of Alexandria
At my fingertips,
And more.
Almost anything I want to know,
Instantly accessible,
Almost anything,
Except that which I long to know
Above all other knowledge:

The length of your spine beneath my fingers,
The feel of every silken vertebra,
The ripple of pleasure as it spreads
Through every sinew of your naked body,
The action and reaction of desire,
The union of our beings,
The electricity of ecstasy,
Your eyes filled with love,
My heart filled with light.

This knowledge I crave above all,
This knowledge of you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Dance

I woke up this morning determined,
Absolutely determined to pursue love,
To sneak up on it,
To flatter,
To entice this love,
This beautiful girl,
This vessel of my desire.

I will buy flowers,
Write heartfelt words,
Compliment and then be silent with compassionate gaze,
Listening to the stirrings of her soul,
Nodding in moist-eyed agreement,
Exuding empathy and understanding from every pore,
Waiting, waiting,
Waiting for the door to open,
Waiting for the moment I can take her hand
And press it to my lips.

Of all life’s occupations and employments,
Of all life’s ambitions,
How intangible and delicate is the dance of love.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Light Burning

My secret love comes home,
I see her from my window.
She parks her car and opens her trunk,
Unloading,
Bags of things
For her secret life.

I walk by and say hello.
She says hi and smiles,
A long smile,
Watching me slowly walk away.

My secret love leaves a light burning,
Late, late into the night.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I've Changed

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

Another Cold Day

The weather report,
Another cold day
In the city where you live,
Without me,
And it breaks my heart
I cannot be there
To hold you,
Keep you warm.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Words

There are no words,
Nothing I say or write
Can contain the loss
Of your arms around me,
Your body pressed close to mine,
The touch of a dream made flesh
Against my skin.

There are no words,
Not even these,
That can contain the loss
Of who I thought you were,
Who you turned out to be.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In The Waiting Room

It started with a pain in the stomach,
Digestive problems,
Then a sporadic cough,
Sudden headaches,
Fatigue,
Insomnia,
Anxiety attacks,
Depression,
And here she sits in the waiting room,
Waiting for the doctor to review her test results,
When she already knows,
She knows what’s really wrong,
Just as certainly as she knows
There is no pill she can take
For not being in love.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

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

The Heart Of The World

I give you my heart,
Which is the heart of the world.

It was yours before I gave it to you,
Yours when you were lost,
Yours when you loved,
Yours when you cried.

I give you my heart,
Which is the heart of the world.

It is yours without my giving,
Yours when you are strong,
Yours when you are weak,
Yours awakening in you.

I give you my heart,
Which is the heart of the world.

Look!
Within your hearing,
Within your sight,
Within and without,
Everywhere,
It is the heart of the world,
And I give it to you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Because You Love

So worried,
About money,
About accomplishment,
About failure.

So overwhelmed,
By work,
By family,
By modern life.

Sometimes,
Late at night,
Early in the morning,
In the middle of the day,
You wonder who you are,
Why your life turned out this way,
So uneventful.

Love,
Love is all you have left,
Mad unrestrained love,
For your family,
For movie stars,
For your friends,
For total strangers,
For babies,
For dogs and cats and birds
And all living things,
Every tree and flower,
For even the sky-darkening clouds
And the rain,
The individual drops of rain
That fall on your cheek
Like tears of forgiveness,
And you realize
You are forgiven,
All is forgiven
Because you love,
And that is enough.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Satisfied As I Am

Satisfied as I am
With the life I’ve lived,
Marriage and family,
Work and income,
Responsibilities and accomplishments,
Satisfied as I am,
Last night I dreamed.

I am a young artist
Living in a little house overlooking the ocean,
Lying awake in a moonlit room
Next to a dark-skinned girl who loves me,
Listening to the sound of the sea
While she moves her fingers across my shoulder blade,
Slows her breathing,
Then gently kisses my neck.

Satisfied as I am,
Last night I dreamed.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Yes

Yes,
You can fall in love,
Even though it is inappropriate,
Inconvenient,
Impossible to do anything about it.

Yes,
You can fall in love,
Carry it around all day long,
Day after day,
Year after year.

Yes,
You can fall in love,
Though you may despair
Nothing will come of it,
Something already has.

Yes.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Yet Living Still

I have awakened with joy,
Delivered from care and concern
By some undeserved grace.
It fades.

I have been torn from sleep by dread,
Weighed down with fearful expectation
By some unrelenting pessimism.
It fades.

Today,
A soft choir embraces me.

This joy arose slowly,
Crept softly,
Disguised as contentment,
Permeating my daily obligations with pangs of pleasure
Yet giving no bold announcement of the spontaneous euphoria
Now made flesh as I walk along this hillside path,
My chores accomplished and forgotten.

Though tomorrow is uncertain,
Today and tomorrow fall away,
For the blue-washed sky is brushed with colored clouds
And the leafy soil is strong-scented from this morning’s rain.

O this painted circumference,
O these careful colors and textures of thawed winter,
And here, this ancient tree,
Lightning-burned, split and scarred,
Yet living still.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Phantom Pain

I never quite understood
The stories of amputees,
How they still felt the presence
Of a missing limb.

I never quite understood,
Until I lost you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Almost Enough

O circumstance,
Enemy of dreams,
Unyielding wall
That keeps us apart.

Circumstance like science
Cannot be wished away,
Will not be denied,
Only overcome by those
Who allow desire to overcome reason,
A perilous course,
Full of grave consequence.

You and I weighed such consequences
And turned away from love’s unreasoning madness,
Wounded,
Scarred,
Yet saved from eternal sorrow by the words:
I will always love you.

It's almost enough.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Hardest Part

The beautiful place in my heart
I never knew,
Filled with the light of you,
The blinding joy . . .

The hardest part,
When the light turned off.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Think Of You

When I grow weary of you,
Thinking of you,
Longing for you,
Resigned to exhaustion and defeat,
I think of you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Think Of Me

Years from now
When your hair begins to gray,
Think of me.

Remember the sound of our laughter,
The color of my eyes,
The warmth of my hand.

Years from now
When your cheeks are wrinkled,
Think of me.

Remember my awkward mistakes,
My overzealous pronouncements,
My prayers.

Years from now
When time has washed all the hurt away,
When you no longer understand old age,
Be young and unblemished again
And think of me.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Enshrined

The light in her eyes when she sees her love
Illuminated beneath a streetlight,
Knowing their evening of romance has just begun,
Believing it has no end . . .

How quickly they come together,
So tightly embrace,
Looking deep into each other’s eyes,
A long kiss without caring who sees . . .

Their fingers entwine,
Their bodies stay close walking down the sidewalk
Into the enchanted night,
Arm in arm,
Heart in heart . . .

When I see them I think of you,
Of our eternal moments together,
Alive within me still,
Enshrined.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Professorial

He may actually believe in philosophy,
That a systematic philosophical argument can prove God exists,
That the mysteries of the heart are susceptible to reason,
That he will awaken from distress by way of intellectual inquiry.

So much to consider as he continues his search,
Wandering through the labyrinth of postulation
So late into the night,
Alone and wide awake,
Missing her.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

No Small Thing

I have tried being realistic,
Accepting the fact
You probably do not love me,
But I fail to see the benefit
Of discarding my beautiful dream.

Some other, more possible love
May appear,
But my only choice at present
Is unrequited love
Or no love at all.

When faced with this reality
And this illusion,
I must hold on to my illusion,
For to possess a beautiful dream
Is no small thing.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Love Is A Vibration

His pocket is vibrating,
On and off all day long
With messages of love
From his eager new girlfriend,
Vibrating with urgency
On his cell phone.

But he is at work
And cannot stop.
Besides,
The words don’t matter.
The vibration is enough.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Smothered

O my love you are constant
Yet incorporeal.
You have inhabited those I’ve loved
But their wills proved too strong,
Smothering you with petty practicalities.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Remember Me

Love Is Not Like

My love is not like anything,
For “like” lacks the arrow of truth
That strikes the heart,
Sending electric pain through every synapse,
Pain that is not the love.

My love is not like anything,
For “like” lacks the chemistry of truth
That spikes giddy euphoria in the brain,
Euphoria that is not the love.

My love is the cause of effect,
Love which is not like anything,
But itself.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Filling

When at last the lover leaves intensive care,
All is a fragile balance on the edge of relapse.
One must re-learn the enjoyment of simple things:

The bitter spark from a cup of coffee,
The sweetness of sugar on the tip of the tongue,
The penetrating warmth of the sun
Shimmering through the crisp afternoon breeze,
The pleasure of another hour,
Another day,
Filling, filling, filling
That dark and dangerous place
Where love was.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Beautiful

Today Is Her Birthday

Wounds Of The Heart

In The Eyes Of A Beautiful Stranger

In the eyes of a beautiful stranger
There is a kind of paradise,
A release
From a life full of things
Too familiar,
Worn out from overuse,
Exhausted by constancy.

In the eyes of a beautiful stranger
There is another life,
Different,
Fresh,
Unknown.

Ah, to awaken one morning
And not know
What the new day will bring.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In Winter I Scarcely Remember

In winter I scarcely remember
The long and languid days of summer,
The delicate yellow dress
And how its straps fell
From your thin, sculptured shoulders,
How it melted away
From your golden body.

We were perfect together,
Naked,
Unashamed,
Bathed in sunlight,
Love and lust.

We had all day,
All summer,
And the days were long and languid,
Without end,
Without consequence,
So long ago,
Those summer days I scarcely remember.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Giving Up

Animal Force

There is an animal force
That moves me toward you
But I resist,
For there is no heart in it.
It is all accident,
An accident of time,
Circumstance,
Genetics.

I admit all manner of impulse
For honesty’s sake,
And for the same reason
Withdraw consent.

Conditioning and confinement,
So much to blame
For our transgressions.
We look to all available drugs
To ease what cannot be so quickly cured.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Exposed

It's not in the words,
All the words we say to each other.
It's not in the obligations,
All the obligations we place on each other.
It's not in the memories,
All the memories we keep of each other.

It's not in the past,
Not in the future.
It's here,
In this moment,
In this embrace,
Exposed.

~ 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

Published in the anthology Heart Of A Man, August 2019

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
© All Rights Reserved

Love Songs

You’re way too sophisticated for love songs
And roll your eyes at all the familiar phrases,
The clichéd expressions of romantic euphoria,
The saccharin melodies of longing and desolation.

It’s been a long time since you fell in love,
If ever,
The kind of falling that has no end,
No reason,
No control.

You think yourself too mature for such adolescence,
Such fairy tales.

But if you’ve loved a princess
And lost a princess,
Only the inarticulate language of a love song
Can speak to your broken heart,
And every word rings true.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved