June: Writer/Poet of the Month – Scott Thomas Outlar

Scott Thomas Outlar lives and writes in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past eight years. Selections of his poetry have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Dutch, French, Hindi, Italian, Kurdish, Malayalam, Persian, Serbian, and Spanish. More about Outlar’s work can be found at 17Numa.com. 


Here are some poems and a prose work by Scott Thomas Outlar:

Beyond My Sphere of Explanation

These many moods of the churning cycle
with the wink of moon
the kiss of fog
and softly glowing pink hues
splashed against a violet canvas

Please show me where to place my lips
upon the fiery crown
to welcome home the roaring lion

I barely have a poetic breath
left in the lines of my palms
but I live out these visions each day
and cradle them close to heart

If all I have are fragments
slipping past the veil of consciousness
to tease my tongue with ineffable thoughts
then I will do my best to sigh sincerely

Whether we laugh or weep
in the pouring rain
our steps will learn to tango
with the shaman king of the dancing geese

and the birds will chirp
to herald spring

and the buds will shift
from red to green

and all these gifts of grace
will brand our spirits

Governor

Pretty bird, pretty bird
soar either way across the street
or hum loud enough above the music
and thick tinnitus
to start this poem forthright

There are two parks
within one mile from home
and I have walked them
3,500 times or so
since returning

I try to keep
my obsessive compulsions
framed
in a positive light
soft as a feather
so I can stay flighty
and continue dancing
as these bones crumble

The reason I hesitate to speak about
my own suffering
is because I know everyone else
has their own
bouts with the world
to contend with

I lick my wounds in the woods
and rub coconut oil in both eyes

God, you know
the burn feels good
but saps and salves are better

Rarity

High on honeysuckle perfume
scent of ouroboros
solar mass corona
taste aurora’s sweet drip
yellow light enters form
whet the tongue of thorns

signs of the source
please
sing me back safely

carrying lost thimbles
home
to quell the ancient thirst

I haven’t felt this way
since I was eight years old
but I think I’ve finally
found the flavor
of spring transcendence

or at least
caught the white flash
of momentary remembrance

during the buzz

Dispatches and Declarations (Circa November, 2020)

My memory is mostly shot. A kaleidoscope of groans and sighs shifting throughout the years. Laughter and sentimental sways. Traumas and trigger points. The subtle difference between a bleeding heart and silent detachment. The fallen leaves of autumn’s spell. Prayers of peace and heaven’s whispered love. Something sacred for the save.

Fill me with the Holy Spirit and I will write something beautiful. Or speak of terrible things concerning love, war, God, and what we all saw coming.

The Beast System has its fangs sunk deep into the body politics and culture of this world. An entrenched establishment, a decadent empire thrashing in its death throes, yet held in place by fraudulent means. The way of the wicked always weaves its deceit in darkness.

But it’s nothing to get all bent out of shape about. Schemes shriek loudest when exposed under pressure. Light burns hottest at the melt point of truth. What has begun cannot be stopped.

The New World Order globalist agenda promises to “build back better” with a “great reset.” No, thank you. The ideology is destined to fall. Hard. International communism blended with corporate fascism boils into a stew of collectivist faux-utopian hell. It is the greatest evil ever unleashed upon the earth. Stick a fork in it.

They say it all comes down to good vs. evil in the end. And I guess that battle is summed up in human society as being freedom, sovereignty, and liberty on one side and tyranny, authoritarianism, centralized control systems, and power hungry despots on the other. There’s nothing new about any of it. Thousands of years ago in the past it was playing out in a similar vein as it is today. On and on the story unfolds. One thing is for sure: it’s an exciting time to be alive no matter which side of the sand you stand on.

Each turning of the season brings along its own twists of fate. Some more unexpected than others. And so we flow and flux as best we can with mindfulness during experiences of both sun and storm alike.

In the end, there are only a few questions that truly matter. Did you do your best with the gifts, talents, and unique sills you were born with? Did you face your fears with courage, strength, and resolve? Did you act in accordance with what your heart knew to be right?

Life is not always easy, but it does weigh out fairly when balanced on karmic scales that we would sometimes like to ignore or deny the existence of. Just as there is peace found in moments of happiness, ecstasy, and joy, so too is there a purpose for every challenge, trial, and tribulation that arises along the path to test our mettle. It is sometimes a harrowing proposition to keep putting the next foot steadily forward when the ground seems to be shaking and collapsing underneath, but in those times of uncertainty we must at least continue crawling until a solid foundation is reached once more.

The greatest sin is to give in and not get back up when we have fallen. Continuing to adapt, adjust, and push ahead through all circumstances, especially those beyond our control, is a victory in and of itself. Perseverance is the golden key that unlocks doors waiting on down the line.

But what of your distractions, your impulses, your compulsions, your pulls, your sways, your turns through time?

What of your anger, your aggression, your petty annoyances over the minutiae of everyday circumstances?

What of your revolt, your rebellion, your banging of head against walls, your piercing of veils behind masks, your shatterings, your shaking of foundations?

What of your goodwill, your glowing aura, your grasping toward God, your longing for peace and love, your promises of higher ideals?

What of your holiday spirit in the Wuhan Age, your dancing heart in the Roaring Twenties, your blinding vision of Atlantis rising, your eternal optimism for golden days?

What of your sorrow, your sadness, your ecstatic joys?

All as one momentary emotion, bound tightly in disintegration, eternal yet impermanent, expansive in its temporary nature.