Month: August 2019

Stay a Little Longer

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-8255

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Even the mountain is not free

Battered and bruised by both water and winds

You have not seen all there is to see

Despite your mind claiming it knows how the story ends

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

This is a world of change, nothing else is true

Within it lies suffering and wonder with no measure

Both dispensed and visited upon you

Containing love, loss, pain, and yes even pleasure

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

I would request you stay a little while longer

I’ll ask you this each and every day

Each time you feel the black dog’s hunger

We will sip coffee or tea till it fades away

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Maybe we will talk of nothing

For the topic matters little to me

Because a world without your heart beating

Is a far poorer one which you fail to see

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Gene G. McLaughlin

Refrain – Bob Wills/Tommy Duncan from Stay a Little Longer

To the Angry Young Men (Which Once Included Me)

Rage encounters empathy
If you live long enough
Acknowledgment of the other
That’s where it gets rough
Your friends and enemies
Each know the same pains
When harm’s inflicted
Both souls are stained
To be a mammal is to anger
Putting your needs above
But to be a mammal also
Is to love
You did what you did
Then and before
But you can choose to do it
No more
Maybe rage is part
Of a divine plan
But maybe love can grow
In the heart of a man
Live long enough
Perhaps to learn
Fire can warm
Not only burn
Gene G. McLaughlin 2019

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 2019

Back to School

Dread hangs in the air
Of this free and violent land
Our eyes constantly gaze
To what’s in the stranger’s hand
Sometimes we don’t dwell on
What has happened and what soon will
But then our thoughts are refracted
When the light grows way too still 
Those we love
Those we don’t
Those we’ve met
Those we won’t
We are the audience
We are the participants
Both victims and perpetrators
Despite our reticence
They say freedom has a cost
This we all know is true
I suppose how you judge what it is
Depends on what the word free means to you
They head back to school
As fall approaches in the air
May the strangers inscrutable gaze
Be looking far from there
Gene G. McLaughlin 2019