If I think I thought of something
Walt Whitman likely thought it first
Or at least it seems to me
When my self esteem is at its worst
Eventually I realize
My measure as a man
Should not be how Walt lived
Or where he took his stand
It should be my own past
Do I rise and face the day
When my friends and love’s face losses
Do I run or steady and stay?
The constancy of comparison
Wears one’s own art away
Modern media’s consumption
Might be too high a price to pay
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Domain of the tollgate not password
Modern struggle now internalized
Pistons and smoke were once preferred
Terrains of the world once externalized
Progress now deterred?
Not as things once existed
Design of things have altered
Highways of data and gas twisted
Course to destruction faltered?
Why has this foreboding persisted?
Gene G. McLaughlin 2004
This all happened
Despite our best attempts
The world closed in around us
The world became too big for us
Both at the same time
Intention was not part of this
It was just the flow of existence
Know you were loved
Do you believe us absent?
This is not the truth
We are still here
We just can’t navigate
With the ease or the agility
That we once could
Know you were loved
We do not keep secrets
Even if it seems that we might
We are silent on subjects
Because we know nothing of them
We would share all we had
If we had the information
We have the inclination
Know you were loved
There is little among our possessions
We would not let you take from us
We do not hold them dear
Those things are plastic and paper
If we hold them close
It is because they remind us of you
Or some other memory of you
Close to our hearts
Know you were loved
You were loved in the first thought
You were loved in the creation
You were loved in all the moments
You were loved in all our breaths
You were loved in all our failures
You were loved in our sometimes successes
You were loved in our last thoughts
Until the very end of us
Know you were loved
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
The towers fell
The gauntlet dropped
The desert hell
Full of cold steel props
It beings now
What is needed
This is how
Introspection is seeded
The broken souls
The bloody fist
The dark foxholes
The casualty list
What of the desert
Its blood soaked grains
What of the fires
Of our shames and pains
What do we recall
Of that day?
What did we desire
Or hide away?
Grief not faced
Is a wound left open
For what’s been razed
And for words unspoken
My heart is bled
Of its hatred
In my head
Glimpsing the sacred
The truth clear
The war never won
The ending near
The heat of the sun
In the towers
As they died
And looked out
Into the sky
They thought not of
Justice
Or noble deeds
Democracy
Or government acts
They were scared
Yet not alone
They thought of you
Your face, your tears
Your love, your loss
Reach out now
It is not too late
To touch their hand
Before they go
The pulsing heart
The slowing beat
We must part
The end is complete
Gene G. McLaughlin 2006
I want to put my feet up
By the river
The sound
Of the flow
Around me
Summer
Coming to life
The peak of life awakening
Once again
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
This is a poem my father wrote shortly before his death in 1999.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off my nose.
So I’ll take one giant leap at the moon.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off my nose.
If it would only slow down,
I’d sure take that blue bus to town.
Time will come when blue buses
Will roll around heavenly stars.
Full midnight chants will split your pants,
And you’ll put up fresh mint in green jars.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off my nose.
So I’ll take a long step to the moon
We’ll take one giant step at the moon.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off off my nose.
If you ever pass by this way,
Bring the pipe made out of red clay.
We’ll fill that ole bowl and we’ll smoke,
And cloud up the room ‘till we choke.
Then we’ll climb to the top of the hill,
Where night air is sweet as fresh dill.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off my nose.
So I’ll take a long step to the moon.
We’ll take one giant leap at the moon.
I’m wearing hand-me-down clothes.
The glasses fall off my nose.
Gene S. McLaughlin 1999
I feel like Bartelby
The world swirls around me
Preferring not to
Yet doing so
Modernity is a hurricane
Not a gentle rain
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
I want to be the man I am on the best of days
For as many days as I able
I want my moments of wonder
To outshine those where I feel unstable
I want to live a life of light and love
Where all days I feel enabled
Come sit with me and we will talk of joys
All are welcome at my table
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Do not abide
A lack of grace
In the world
Find it
In small things
Grand plans fade
Crumble to dust
Yet
A bee in a flower
Can sustain
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
It is important to me
That even if you don’t know
If love was denied to you or not
That it was not
Because
If you never saw the sunshine
You shined as mine
If you never heard happy birthday
It was loudly sung
You didn’t know you cried out
The cries were heard
Because all things being equal
Which they are not
I’ll take you love
Over what others got
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
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