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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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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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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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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)

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Wrongthink-Rightthink

Wrongthink is any think
You might do on your own,
You know, in the vastness
Of your inner space
As cloud trains drift by
Morphing into shapes
As fanciful as you allow.

Rightthink in contrast
Is mind control from without
With nothing fanciful or free allowed,
Just dogma and doctrine
And all the usual stuff
That makes thinking a chore and bore
Leaving us free to accept
Whatever it is they say we need to know.

Rightthink becomes our think
When we have lost touch
With what it means to be free
‘Cause being free
Means not knowing what might come next
As cloud trains pass
And shapes morph
Outside the boundaries of our mind.

(2/19/24)

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Turning Point - Coming of Age - Acceptance at Last

("Mrs. It Dances Through It", 2014, original pen and ink)

Turning Point - Coming of Age - Acceptance at Last

Finally at age 65 I reach a turning point
Where a lifetime of doing is seen
To be just a lifetime of accumulating
Moments and things to give purpose
And a reason to be perhaps,
But more likely just a way to keep score
To express a thwarted competitive edge.

Looking back it all adds up
To a progression of progressively stronger addictions
From stamps and coins, insects and rocks as a kid
To dharma practice, climbing routes, books
And music, poetry, art and Persian rugs as an adult.
Always something a little more to have and to hold
And take the place of something less tangible.

So where does this leave me now 
Raw and exposed and tired of the game?
Anxious and alone
Happy to have at least a few friends
Who accept me as I am
And a handful of dogs who apparently love me
No matter what.

What is ahead I ask?
The five stages of grief come to mind
Letting it all go, the good the bad the ugly,
What others may say and I may judge,
All that I have done in the confusion of living,
Until there is acceptance at last
With some golden years left to go in peace.

(3/27/24)

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Speaking in Tongues

("Still Life", 2021, original encaustic)

Speaking in Tongues

I like speaking
To the sky, to the earth
To my dogs, and wife and kids.
It’s the sound of a babbling brook
Flowing in cascades and eddies
Rushing to the sea.
Of course such language of the heart
Is deeply encoded
In these hard, angular, abstract edges,
But those edges are in turn
Worn down, softened and smoothed
By the yielding force of the flow.

I like speaking
In whatever tongues
The world can show.

(2/17/24)

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You Cant Judge a Book By Its Cover

("Eye of God", 2018, original encaustic)

You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover

You can’t judge a book by its cover
Or then again maybe you can
Covers show us what the authors want us to see
And there is plenty to judge in that
But it may not be what the author wants us to think
Once open though
All bets are off
As the author’s own words
And not just image
Are exposed for us to taste, test and judge
And yet still in our judgment
What are we really seeing?

Speaking from experience
I can say there are many
Who have seen me, my art and poems
And think I’m cool
And then….
After a bit of conversation
Walk away
Thinking, Jeez, what a racist, sexist, fascist pig.

If you need to see the face 
Of all you judge and fear
Just look in the mirror.

(10/10/23)