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Best Poems Written by James Moore

Below are the all-time best James Moore poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Just Another Door

("Portal of Souls", 2019, original encaustic)

Just Another Door

Our society is sick
Spiritually sick
Because it has lost religion
Or transferred it to hollow
Shallow faiths – such as Scientism,
Environmentalism, Feminism, Marxism
Which can give us literally nothing
At death’s door.

Death should be the big day
What our lives have been not only heading to
But aiming for, preparing for
As our BIG day – THE day –
D-Day.

People prepare for other big days;
Prom nights, graduations, weddings, births
But curiously
Not death.

How do you want to die?
Or put another way,
Do you want to die randomly,
And without direction
Or with intention and vision?

Either way, it’s just another door.

(9/19/23)

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The Myth of Yesterday

("Depth Psychology Merit Badge, aka The Myth of Being", 2015, original oil)

The Myth of Yesterday

“Yesterday, today was tomorrow
and tomorrow, today will be yesterday”

So say the sages,
and so say us, groping in the dark
following the trailing sparks
of fireflies dancing in the night.

But the fact remains
it’s all a myth,
the myth of being and becoming,
the myth of yesterday and tomorrow,
the myth as a story
we tell ourselves
to make sense of it all.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery 
inside an enigma
told to the blind ones
safe and sound within their cave.

(2/15/24)

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Sanity at Last

Sanity is in fact the default setting
When dust settles
And dawn rises on a new day
Sober minds and eyes
Waking to see what needs being done
The hard and often dirty work of life
And not the wishful wistful dreams
Of hope and change

(11/7/24)

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Hate Speech

("Howling Rock", City of Rocks, 2016)

Hate Speech

My dogs bark into the night
scared and excited about something in the dark
coyotes or deer or maybe just their own shadows.

It makes me think of ‘Hate Speech’
laying in bed wishing I could get back to sleep.

I think how I may not like what they have to say,
but will defend their right to say it.
Except in this case, Not! 
as I know, being just dogs I can control their speech.
All it takes is letting them in,
distracting them with a little comfort and security.

I think about the absurdity of ‘Hate Speech’ in humanity
the criminalization of thoughts and feelings 
expressed as passionate, desperate, fearful cries in the dark.

The absurdity of the arbitrariness of it all,
just like with the dogs, 
regardless if their cries are justified or not
it all comes down to if I want to hear it or not.
And right now I don’t.

It used to be you couldn’t speak badly about the powerful,
the lords and priests and those above your station.
Today the tides have changed
and you can’t speak badly about those without power,
the persecuted, weak, unwashed, unwanted and apparently so inferior 
they need protection, even from mere words.

But of course this will change 
as today’s powerful become tomorrow's persecuted
and vice a versa, so on, and so forth, ad nauseam.

In the night the dogs are quiet
settled now into their beds.

It’s a peaceful silent night
with snow all around, just how I like it.
And even if I’m still not getting any sleep
it’s some consolation to be the one in power 
controlling the kind of violent speech I hate
imposing the kind of peaceful silence I want.

Of course, nobody cares what I think,
Lord of all I survey,
except the dogs.

And thank goodness for the dogs.

(12/4/23)

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The Meaning of Life

("Meaning of Life Merit Badge" #13, 2010, original oil)

The Meaning of Life 

Monty Python got it right:
The meaning of life
Has nothing to do with hats.

It has to do with a conscious appreciation
Cultivated in this life, for this life
With all the particulars it offers.

It’s not a given,
Which is why it must be found,
And once found cherished.

The essence is simple,
That while we have and depend on things
We are not a thing.

And yet over and over we lose this focus,
But in the act of losing
Find once again, the meaning.

(2/17/25)

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Nourishing Soul

("Honeybee on Apple Blossom", 2020, original pen and ink)

Nourishing Soul

Like a bee to the flower
Holding pollen and nectar
What is it we seek at play in the fields of the Lord
If not nourishment of the soul?

All the basics (food, water, sex and shelter)
Being just that,
The basis for what the soul actually incarnates for;
Knowledge, wisdom, truth, beauty, love and music!

And so the eternal Way
Continually arises as a forking path
Between true and false, good and evil, love and fear
Each step a test of our discernment and resolution.

The soul by nature is just and true
And yet, like a clear mountain spring
Subject to contamination as the influences of this life, 
This world, leave a mark; in short the karmic debts we accrue.

And so comes the practical necessity of purifying, 
Nipping the inevitable distortion and perversion in the bud,
The stains – pure and impure - that remain, 
From each choice and challenge met.

The king of purifiers of course being forgiveness
Based in simple gratitude for the simple fact of simply being 
Alive and able to learn, grow and forgive anew
Traveling the open path in confidence with an open mind.

Thus we gain the keys to the High-way, hidden in our pocket all along,
The kingdom, ever-present Here and Now, 
To walk alert, head up, eyes and heart wide open - to it all, 
Knowing with resolution and discernment we’ll be just fine.

(12/26/25)

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Lessons From a Cat

(Oso on a Purrrsian rug) 

Lessons From a Cat

It’s okay to be independent
It’s okay to expect the best
It’s okay to simply sit and watch
Clear eyed, without emotion
As all around others judge you
As selfish or aloof or just plain lazy
As they project
Onto your purrrfect equanimity

(11/30/24)

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Haunted

Living one foot in the past
Yes, okay, sometimes two
Is not by choice
When it’s a past that holds you
By a tether
To your core.

Could it be any other way
When you love
With all your heart
In youth
In innocence
In foolishness?

(8/27/24)

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Good Girl

(Lada, 2020)

“Good Girl”

The archetypal relationship 
Of man and dog
Shows the depths of our unity
Philosophy, religion, politics
Who cares, in the face
Of such relationship!?

(3/13/24)

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Lipstick On a Pig

No matter what you do in samsara 
in the effort to improve samsara, 
improve yourself, improve others, 
it’s still samsara.

All effort, all improvement, never leaves the wheel, 
but that doesn’t mean there’s only the wheel. 

The wheel is what spins, ever-changing,
the embodiment of impermanence, 
but what it spins in
spins around, 
spins for,
is another story altogether.

(8/19/23)