Haunting
Some call it haunting,
These visits I make
To the places I lived,
Where my life was made,
To my childhood home:
The sidewalks still here
Where I rode my bike.
I hear the voice of my grandmother
Calling me in from play
For a sandwich and a glass of milk.
That long summer day
Walking with my grandfather
And all the things he said
About the life that was coming,
Things I scarcely understood,
Things that have guided me,
Lifted me when I fell
So I could begin again
To be like him,
A decent man.
I will not reawaken childhood sorrows.
I have buried them here
After years of torment,
And questions,
And finally,
Resolution.
Yet,
There is a light breeze of melancholy
Blowing through this place,
Blowing through all the places of my life
Where joy and sorrow,
Anger and ecstasy once lived.
Some call it haunting,
These visits I make
To the places where my life took shape,
On my own in tiny rooms,
In anonymous cities:
The rooming house and it’s red-haired landlady,
Mothering the young and single men there
With morality, discipline and compassion,
Teaching us how to respect
What was once a grand hotel
Where dignified gentlemen and ladies
Gracefully ascended
The carpeted stairs of the seaside resort.
And how many lonely nights
Did I sit on the sand at ocean’s edge
Learning how to listen?
Without chronology I travel,
My haunting is outside of time,
Drawn to the passions,
The silly exclamations,
So silly and profound this human animal,
This creature that can love:
Love that girl who gave me her life.
We exchanged lives,
Awakening,
Awakening,
In passion and in play,
Keeping the outside world away.
There are sad and angry rooms
Where I will not return,
For my haunting is to be free of regret,
Except for a kind of regret that sends me back,
Back in time to where happiness began,
Where happiness had the power to overwhelm,
To overwhelm life’s myriad frustrations.
O my soul has traveled in dark haunts enough,
Finally worn out its punishments,
Deserved and undeserved,
My penance,
Paid.
Now my soul travels in light,
In melancholy radiance:
I see my young family,
Laughter in their voices,
Youth and electricity in every movement,
And the future is infinite,
Full of imagination,
Full of hope,
And the growing of my life
Becomes the growing of my family
And I am no longer a single being,
I am larger.
Some call it haunting,
These visits I make
To where my beginnings began,
But this too will end
When I begin again.
~ Russ Allison Loar
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A Lie

One of them said, “That’s my baseball. I hit it over here all the way from the park.”
The park was about three miles away, but I was seven years old and I believed him. I gave him the baseball. The two boys walked away laughing.
Lying in bed that night, thinking over the events of the day, I realized those boys were laughing because they had told me a lie and I believed them. They were laughing at me.
I decided I wouldn't be so stupid next time. Despite my decision, more than 50 years later I’m still surprised how skillfully people can lie and how easily I can be deceived.
~ by Russ Allison Loar
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My Revelation
For me, this existence, "This," is eternity.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Artwork by Maxine (aka Maxxximpact)
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Notable People I Have Met ~ Part Ten
Harlan Ellison ~ author & screenwriter
During my journalism studies at Cal State Long Beach, professor Larry Meyer arranged for several of his students to interview Harlan Ellison for the college magazine. It was the early eighties, 1981 or 1982 I believe. During our frenetic interview with this manic personality, Ellison felt the need to explain that his psychiatrist said he had a “distended ego,” but that it was not a serious problem.
No mere mortal would live long enough to read all those books or listen to all those albums, but they were necessary companions for this very intense man and his very intense mind.
~ by Russ Allison Loar
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The Music Of Sound
S ome people are more visual, some more audial. For me, it was always sound that penetrated my senses deeper than anything else.
Near the end
of the school year Mr. Westman asked me to meet with him at one of the outdoor
wooden lunch tables. “Russell, I’ll be giving you a grade of D on your report
card,” he gravely intoned. “I want you to know that this is a gift.” All I could
think to say was, “Thanks!”
Moon in all your splendor knows only my heart,
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone,
Lips so sweet and tender like petals fallin' apart,
Speak once again of my love, my own.
~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved