She’s got a coexist bumper sticker
On her hybrid car
She’s had seen Widespread shows
Where things went way too far
She don’t believe in Jesus
But acts like she does
Because a ministers daughter
Is still what she was
In her younger years
She had some trouble with blow
It’s the nights that get late to fast
It’s the people you know
She does lots of yoga
To smooth out the nerves
It usually works
Least it maintains her posture and curves
She’s got a daughter she loves
And ex that she don’t
She tells her parents she’ll marry again
But she knows that she won’t
She’s got good intentions
In actions and deeds
A job and a small ranch house
Most of what she needs
She’s got a boyfriend
On alternating weekends
He spent time in the desert
He’s quiet and still seeking
An answer to what happened
Or at least a good night sleep
He doesn’t complain much
She don’t dig to deep
They watch a movie
Or make shrimp and grits
Sometimes they hold hands
Watching the cats clean for ticks
The mountains are quiet
They have few opinions
In the hills behind her
There grows mint and wild onions
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Month: June 2013
Words Like Thunder
Words resonated more
Before they were written down
Crashing like thunder
Confined to only sound
Now they are echoes
Lost and found
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Digital Karma
Digital karma
Swirling in motion
To stay in the center
Requires eight paths
Vigilant effort
A heart ever open
Resilient skin
Nothing is past
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Reason
I was wrong
I changed
Now I’m better
Didn’t know
Was taught
Now it’s true
These are things of wonder
That reason can do for you
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Is It Possible For The Heart To Be Broken From The Start?
I was born with a melancholy smile
Knowing I was different after just a short while
Nursing from my mom
I knew soon her lovely tit would soon be gone
Oh I knew it would all soon fall apart
Is It Possible For The Heart To Be Broken From The Start?
I met a little blonde haired girl in my first year of school
Knowing even with her inviting smile soon I would be the fool
Before touching her blonde hair
I knew she would run away so scared
Oh I knew it would all soon fall apart
Is It Possible For The Heart To Be Broken From The Start?
I went to university knowing all would go so bad
Knowing all the hope with my heart would turn to the feeling I’d been had
I told my lover of my soul’s true passion
Yet she laughed and so so quickly I was soon out of fashion
Oh I knew it would all soon fall apart
Is It Possible For The Heart To Be Broken From The Start?
Now I walk on the winter Sunday beach of middle age
Yet another doleful lonely page
Oh I wish I could even feel some genuine rage
Yet I know even that attempt at truth would be betrayed
Oh please tell me this might get just a little better
If it gets any worse
I will think my birth was my curse
And the taste of the hemlock will be like bittersweet wine
No one will miss my passing, but I’ll be fine
Oh I knew it was destine to all go wrong
Why did I ever wait for its ending so so long?
So I put my words in this pitiful parting song
Yet I know no one cares so you can all just move along
Is It Possible For The Heart To Be Broken From The Start?
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
22 Years
I.
When my father was my age
He had 22 more years left
He looked at the future
As an endless array of choices
Without death as an option
It was though
For good or bad
It always is
It is the boundary of
One’s vessel
Not it’s ripples
Across the inward ocean
It is hard me to view all of this
As an infinite journey as he did
Knowing what I know
Yet I will fight to view it so
To shrug off the knowledge of
Where the path to the ocean
Meets the water
Making 22 years into
A trans infinite journey
There is an eternity between moments
Endless ripples between the ripples
The ocean is never still
Even when there is no motion
Looking out from the shore
At the path’s end
II.
Sometimes there is a feeling of nostalgia
Even in the moment
It is an eerie flicker
Where you are looking back fondly
At what is happening in the present
There is no substance in the nostalgia of the now
There is only the ringing echo of actions as they happen
It is not the ripples of the action
It is the sound of what occurred
The feeling of the moment
Humming as it passes
The old and the new
Cauterizing at one particular point
Neurons dying
It always haunted me
Not from sadness, but from the dull ache of pain
The instant nostalgia of the now
It hurts from hunger
The desire to horde
The moment
The experience
To take something from the moment
That can not be taken
Because it is not mobile
The pain of attempting
Is tangible
What is created in the mind
Pales in comparison
It is the word that represents love
Not love itself
I was trying to win
To make a game of experience
To keep a score of consciousness
As if it were Monopoly or Risk
The ache it created
Persisted even as joy occurred
Over 22 years
III.
The past 22 years
Are recorded
As scraps of
Ancient paper
In the zipped pocket
Of an old leather bag
Receipts
Itineraries
Detroit
Dallas
Denver
A life once lived
Depicting only details
Of places and times
Flavorless
Yet true in a way
Having been there
The fading papers
Create a distance
That doesn’t occur
In my mind
Signaling and
Pushing me into the present
I shake my head awakening
And step out into the current timeline
Once again
IV.
I did not know I loved myself
Until I stopped in the moment
It is hard to exist
Without ghosts
Echoes
Memories of TV episodes
Passages of books
Lies you told long ago loves
Truth’s you put in drawers on slips of paper
The moment is always there
Throughout time
It does not hide from you
You can step into it
I do not always love myself in the moment
It is not permitted
Or perhaps not possible
There is no grand revelation at the end
Just one purposeful breath after another
No nostalgia
Just survival
Not 22 years
Just today
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
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