We Start Out Mad

We don’t go mad,
We start out mad.

Screaming,
Crying,
Full of fear,
Irrational,
Superstitious,
Baby barbarians.

Then,
The anarchy of adolescence,
Gateway to adult temptation,
Free of consequential regard.

We don’t go mad,
We start out mad.

Some of us get better,
On and off,
Off and on.
Some of us get worse.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We Suffer

At this level of incarnation
I suppose our suffering has purpose.
I have learned much from suffering,
Lessons I apparently could not have learned
Had my life been free from suffering,
Had my life been easy.
Lessons I apparently could not have learned
From joy.

Yet how can I condone suffering?
How can I countenance its merciless, random aim?
How can I find reason in the suffering of children?
In the suffering caused by villainy?
In the suffering caused by the collapse of civilization,
When whole countries suffer
From the corruption of a single man?

We are spurred to action and reform by suffering,
The best of us dreaming of a world
Where the last remnants of suffering are accidental
And soon extinguished.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Recently Born

So new,
So young,
So ignorant of devious motives,
So free from self-imposed orthodoxies.

So new,
So young.

We race to fill our recently born
With our individual truths,
Our tribal truths,
Our instructions and conclusions,
As if we had no need of change.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We Come From The Sun

We come from the sun,
Shine from the sun
As individual rays of light.
We are the stuff and essence of the sun,
Cast and extended into individuality,
Single lives,
Still connected,
Fueled by the sun.

The barriers we place
Between ourselves and the sun
Dim our light,
Weaken the connection,
And we lose our way.

When we let go of the illusion
Of single, separate lives,
Apart from one another,
Apart from this planet,
When we let go,
Barriers fall away
And darkness is illuminated.

When our individuality ends,
When our physical selves fall away,
Our light will return to the sun,
But the light cast by each life
While dwelling in this place of time
Will remain.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved