I would go on a shopping spree at Toys R Us in 1980. When I was a kid I always saw the advertisements for Toys R Us on TV and couldn’t believe that such a place existed. The closest one was far away in North Jersey. How could anyone get there? North Jersey! It might as well have been Oz. It just seemed impossible. Luckily my parents eventually took me in their orange VW fan on a pilgrimage to the holy location of adolescent consumerism a few years later, but it never lived up to my imagination upon first seeing the TV ads. Locally in 2026 I would probably choose the mundane location of Barnes & Noble.
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
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