I Knew A Young Man

I knew a young man
Who drank warm water
Right from the faucet,
From his cupped hand.

Everything he did,
An act of defiance,
An act of strength,
His way through the world.

They sent him to the war
And he didn’t last a week.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We Call It Civilization

How curious,
Every little bird awakening each morning,
Imbued with an unquestionable sense of purpose,
With no confusion as to the required tasks of the day,
Proceeding with evolutionary confidence
And caution,
Innate senses and skills propelling action and reaction.

In this tumultuous human world
Where millions are stripped of their homes,
Their countries,
Of the most unremarkable aspects of everyday life,
Of survival,
Little birds make their orderly way
Through their tiny lives,
While we make refugees of our mothers and fathers,
Sisters and brothers,
Daughters and sons,
And we call it,
Civilization.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Evolution

Feeling the hot breath of the baboon
On the back of the neck,
We overindulged in the refuge of civilization,
Denied being animal at all,
As if inseminated, incubated and initiated
In a place somehow apart from this Earth.

Now we live in a disillusioned age,
Tired of manners, morals and inhibitions,
Tired of orderly existence
In ghettos of steel, cement, glass and plastic.

The restless stirrings of things within us
That have no mind
Scare us no longer.
They lead us,
And our children hunger for raw meat,
Animal again.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Exceptional

Whatever your ambitions,
The Guardians will say,
You Must!

Their years of experience,
Their successes,
Their failures,
All coalesce into certainty
About what Must be done.

Our libraries are full of certainty,
Centuries of prescriptive certainty,
Countless pages full of advice and warnings
You Must accept,

As if there were only a single path to each destination,
As if anyone could confine free will,
As if life were not,
At its very core,
Exceptional.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved