Cleansing The Temple

The data will not help you

When your house is burning to the ground

Your ROI will not matter

When all the bells and sirens sound

Safety is an illusion

You have been bred to believe

The spider is a capitalist

It’s his webs your labor weaves

Bring Jesus to the temple

Where crypto bros calculate rates

On their latest post engagements

Dealing in grievances and hate

Bring Jesus to the temple

To cast his light upon the scene

Of greed for greeds sake only

Asking all present what any of it means

He will receive no answers

From those fully absent of grace

Men barely acting of their own volition

In a digitally degrading race

They will howl about the blockchain

As he casts them out

Standing in the sun outside the temple

Will be slow moments of dread and doubt

What is to be empty

Standing in the sun

Your mind and body separated from your screens

Existing as one

Gene G. McLaughlin 2026

Image – Cleansing the Temple – El Greco – 1570

Clay

We are clay

Shaped by war

Even if we have never 

Fought a battle

Or met

Someone who has

The grandfather you

Never knew

Shapes you 

In his absence

Pulsing out the suffering

Seen

Across time

When he killed scores in the sun

Achilles did not know

But

When Patroclus died

He found out

What aristeia was

Simply blood spilling

Slowly pooling in the sand

Unmoving

The bringer of

Neither friendship

Nor grace

Back to him

War is the main character

In all our stories

Even if we never see its name

Written in our tales

Gene G. McLaughlin 2026

Image – Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus – 1760

Labor Day Weekend 2025

There’s a blockade starving Gaza

There’s a glitch on your timeline

Depending on your algorithm 

Everything is either burning or maybe all is fine

I watch the young play college football

As ICE stalks outside where they play

From the seat I’m sitting in

It all seems a world away

6,000 miles from Gaza

800 from the football game

In measuring all the suffering

Maybe all distances are the same

Can you hold on to what you love

Are you part of us or them

What will they allow you to keep

When they calculate the sum

Of what your worth based on the parts

Of acceptable DNA you contain

Of your pigment percents

Of your gender preferences 

Of what you view as sane

Is the cookout winding down

Are there hotdogs left on the grill

Do you have a headache from the day

Should you take a headache pill

You have tomorrow off

Tuesdays coming up soon

You gotta keep on working 

Putting out off your mind what looms

Gene G. McLaughlin 2025

Image – Going and Coming – Norman Rockwell 1974

Prickers

The passing of time

Perforate us with laden moments

Stinging like prickers

Upon the flesh

The eyes of others

Reflect upon us ourselves

Swirling emotion and expectation

Blotting identity on the skin and soul’s canvas

The passages of meaning’s creation

Are forever barbed and confounding

Yet down the shrouded twisting path

Lies joy

Gene G. McLaughlin 2024

May The Numbers Be In Your Favor

May your faith be like the sun

Ever present in the changing sky

May your love be like the stars

Shining brightly now and when you die

May your fear be like a river

With you, but always moving on its way

May your dreams be like a bird’s song

Hope carried from the night into day

May the numbers be in your favor

As they build and bind you to the path

May you know the face of your savior

As it appears within the math

May at your core there be a tower

Of blood and thoughts around your spine

May this structure grant you power

To sense the presence of the divine

Gene G. McLaughlin 2023

Outside of Time

I like that there was a time like that

Even if it is not mine

I like that there was a place like that

Amid the ruins of time

I like that love existed

Between those I shall never know

I like there are those that shall travel

To destinations I shall not go

I begrudge the universe nothing

I shall take what is given to me

But my universe shall exist of

Much more than I can see

In the earth are buried narratives

Stories by the score

In the sky are floating passions

Making the world both less and more

It is all one tale

Told outside of time

That I am the lead actor in

Yet which is never mine

Gene G. McLaughlin 2023

Lord Byron’s Present Tense

To do it for joy

Without expectation

To do it for journey

Not destination

Ignoring the narrative

Embracing sensation

The pain and beauty

Your soul’s validation

Gene G. McLaughlin 2023

Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday

Fat Tuesday

We all got scars

On soul or skin

In churches or bars

We all got sin

In the public eye

Or held within

Raise a glass

Sing a song

Go to mass

Hit the bong

This too shall pass

Before too long

Want redemption?

Not tonight friend

Tonight’s for wine

Creating vague memories

We all got wars

We all have lost

We all got scores

Of things they cost

Live today

Pray tomorrow

Find a way

To ease the sorrow

Sin not committed

Cannot be repented

The cycle repeated

As was intended

Ash Wednesday

Remember that you are dust

And to dust you shall return

Are we more than want and lust?

An engine designed to yearn

Repent, and preach the Gospel

Even for the apostate and the apostle?

I repent to those I have done harm

Not to those who I do not know

I carry love for those now gone

As I await my time to go

Our 40 days come with no warning

They just arrive

Our 40 days feel much like mourning

You might survive

If it is too heavy to carry

Take it from the pack

If the weight of it overwhelms

Give it back

The intrinsic should not be surrendered

The extrinsic is not judgment rendered

The ashes on your forehead

Are forever made of you

Gene. G. McLaughlin 2023

Clear Light

I am walking away from the me of this

Through the halls without walls of the mind

I am seeking the clear light of the universe

As the fabrications of identity unwind

From is to was to void

Of what do the cosmos sing?

When the sum of one is undone

What actualities might the time’s order bring?

Gene G. McLaughlin 2023

Be the Hammer, Be the Nail

I have always been open to the idea

That I would fail

Prepared and resigned

Comfortable with the idea

That when it all went to hell

I would be ready

I am a witness to the worst

Things can get bad

To this I attest

Things also

Can expand

The world can grow big

Near endless

Even for those with little

Nothing even

There are victories

Successes

Sunny days

Fists raised in triumph

The scope

Is everything

Everyone

All at once

This is not a zero sum game

It is a whole number

That counts you

Successes can be hard to see

They are not always visible

If you are a nail

Bracing for the impact

That strikes you down

For good

Be the hammer

Be the nail

Force and energy

Are all one transaction

Consider the possibility

This might be one of the days

You stand in the sun

Feeling strong

With possibilities

Burning around you

Like fire

Gene G. McLaughlin 2022