Just Poems

By Larry Logan

This book, these poems, were written during four confusing and painful years that began with the end of a 30-year marriage then sudden loss of a 17-year career due to a mental breakdown and the result of destructive addictions. It depicts a search for meaning in the interaction of self, life, and divinity.

Just Poems is a journal of mental illness, depression, self-harm (cutting), alcoholism, suicide, and abusive relationship, and spiritual crisis. It is not all darkness though. Two sections of the book contain various random poems of a more lighthearted nature.

These are not my poems. They belong to you, the reader. How you respond to a poem, what it means for you, is your experience that is different than my experience writing it. Also, they do not exist unto themselves. Each one is like a tree unaware that it is. When a poem is ready for birth, it talks to me, and I write it. It is just a poem, like a tree is just a tree. There are no good or bad treesjust trees, just poems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503569300

Larry Logan

In 1951, Larry Logan was born and grew up in Tacoma, Washington. Larry has worked as a house painter, an elementary special education teacher, a custodian, a drug and alcohol counselor, and a life coach. Today he is retired, living in Vancouver with his wife, Tami. Larry began writing poetry in high school, the usual dribble that teenagers write, and continued to write on and off since. In 2008, after a divorce and loss of employment due to mental/emotional illness, Larry began writing daily as an expression of his personal journey from darkness to light. Larry likes to study the history of Christianity and development of its doctrines. He practices mindfulness and centering meditation.

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Copyright © 2015 by Larry Logan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/14/2015

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CONTENTS

DARK PLACES

Buddha Was Right

Ecclesiastes 4:2

Every Damn Else Thing There Is

I Don’t Understand

I Know Depression

I Tried To Live Today

I Would Sleep Better And Laugh

It Just Seems That Way

Just Under Enough To Breathe

Left For Dead

Like A Chain-Link Fence

Like Air

Malignant

Not Right Now Today

Not Worth The Dream

One Hell Of A Choice

Pessimist

Quiet Like A Coffin

Rape Me Again In My Cage

Scratches And Scars

Sometimes I Cut Myself

What Do You Do When?

The Next Dark Day

The Other Side Of Insane

The Sentence Is

The Thought Of Death Is Sweet This Morning

When?

These Lies Are True

Wednesday Morning

What I Have Always Been, Am Now, And Will Always Be

GOD STUFF

A God-Awful Plan

A Problem With What People Believe

A Simple Promise

Control-Alt-Delete, Lord

God Is For Believing

Gods Or Not

He Never Told Us

I Had My Chance

I In The Father, And He In Me

Idol Worship

If To Hell I Go

In Love And Fresh Light

It Rains Or It Doesn’t

Jesus Is Not The Moon

No Real Choice

Not For Today

Prayer

There Is A Gigantic Problem With What 2.1 Billion People Believe Is The Perfect Plan

Satan Says

Screwed

Should Have Thought It Through Before You Said It

So I Can Bleed

Soul’s Journey Home: Revelation 4:11

Stories And Myth

That I Should Have A Soul

The Ones You Love

They Do Not Care About Demons In Me

Is Victory For Breakfast?

When Did Jesus Repent?

When I Stray To Dark Places

INSIDE ALCOHOLISM

Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Are Lonely

Call It A Night

For Young Katherine

Hops And Barley

It’s Called Relapse

Loss Of Control

Not Alone There

On Board

One Day

One Way To Live

Raving Again In The Early Am

Three Ways To Quit

When I Am Drinking

Whirlwind

Worms That Wiggle Within

PEOPLE

A Line In Song Of Songs

A Make-Believe Date

Abused

Barb

But Still Cannot

Captivating

Empty The Next Day

Her New Bedroom

I Am Lonely Too

Barbara

I Cry With You

I Swear I’ll Stop Loving Her

It Hurts To Love You

Let Die The Dream

Like Buddha

Marie

May It Be Me

Not Here With Me Today

Slow Dancing With Cheryl

Soft In Spirit And Form

The End Of Your Days

To C5 Dripping

Vengeance

Victim

Walking Back

Weekly Christian Singles Group

VARIOUS POEMS 1

A Mouse In The House

Amy Ann

Annie Dog

Assuming I Am The First

Beach

Big Wet

Chasing The Wind

Decision

Do Not Look (07/06/10)

Free Like Blood

Furbish

Grace

Hell Is Alone

Hell Is Mute

I Will Buy One On Sale At Walmart

Lorazepam

More Of The Same Again Today

Not Depression Someday Maybe

Only One Arm

Pond

Progress

Strong Wind

Survival Assistance

Things Get Wet

Tree

When I Am A Small Airport

When I Am Rain

Word

X

VARIOUS POEMS 2

Am I Dead Yet?

Angels And Demons

Battlefield

Better I Lick Evening Slugs

Better Than I

Borderline Personality Disorder

Counsel For Life

Dear Mr. Kierkegaard

Echoes

Exit Strategy

Free Gifts

Guided Meditation

Instructions On Burning Leaves In Western Washington

Just A Little Snow

No Director In Sight

No One Seeks God

Not Of The Few

One Hell Of A Choice

Something Happened

Soul For Sale

Stroke

The Prayer

This Is Not Good

To The Future

Too Fat To

Vortex Energy

Wheel

Who Said That

DARK PLACES

BUDDHA WAS RIGHT

I have peeled my onion self to the core

That is, I think I have, probably, maybe.

I am most likely mistaken as always.

Weekly therapy sessions two and three hours

Digging, digging deeper and deeper

Pulled through knot holes,

Emotional garbage, conceptual crap,

Challenged to look at negative thoughts,

Self-defeating behaviors

That perpetuate failure and failure again.

I fall freely inner space,

Often resistant, unwilling to look at the

Crap and pain and self-perpetuation

Of more than dysfunction, rather

Determination to stay stuck and

Always, evermore playing games, games

Games of help me, poor me, poor me.

Night. The close of another day wasted

Unless this trash I write is a thing at all.

This can’t go on but it will.

I cannot, will not leap beyond long

Established negativity although I am

On the edge.

Damn my quest for myself to find.

Damn, and damn again that I want to be well,

To be integrated, to stand on the

Other shore complete in myself and whole.

I hate therapy, although I have never come

This far to stand on the verge of

Health smooth and refined, not a slave to

Emotions flinging back and forth

Smashing into a brick wall, a mountain,

A climb to ascend to the peek where

Healthy people laugh and