You like sand
Not like stone
Self like blood
Not like bone
Wind moves water
Wind wakes waves
I am the foam
Crashing upon
Cold crags
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Author: Gene
Let there be peace.
My Honor Defended
“Why you wearing an ankle bracelet?” I hear a woman say sitting behind me sitting on the train.
“The city say I was running and illegal business, you know how it goes,” a young man replied.
“No I don’t know how that is actually,” says the woman. “What kind of illegal business?”
“I was running a liquor house,” he replies. “They caught me. We had a shooting otherwise they wouldn’t a.”
I turn around to listen.
“What’s a liquor house?” asked the woman.
“You been to a bar? I know how you white people like your bars,” replies the young black man.
“Yeah, sure,” she replies.
“Well someone moves outta someplace, and no one moves in, I open myself a liquor house. I got my own bar then.”
“Where do you get the liquor?”
“I buy the liquor. I keep it in a hooch house. That way anybody know where the liquor house is don’t know where the liquor is kept. Can’t steal it when I ain’t there.”
“I get it. Who knew,” she said.
“Oh I got all kinds of things I start. Juke joints for one. Dance halls another.”
“What is the difference?”
“A juke joint is a liquor house, but with space for dancing. A dance hall no liquor, just dancing”
“Again, No idea.”
“Stop eyeballing my head white mother fucker,” says a different voice. After a moment the voice repeats the phrase.
I realize after a minute that the voice is talking to me. It is young black man sitting in the seat behind me as I listen to the story facing away from me.
I don’t say anything, but turn around after a moment. It is Sunday at 11:45 a.m. I don’t want a problem.
“That nice man white man was listening to my story,” said the liquor house owner.
“I don’t want him eyeballing my head,” said the agitated man. “I got nothing with you.”
“Oh you got something with me now. You interrupt me telling that nice white man a story.”
“He don’t need to be eyeballing my head,” says the agitated man again.
“Oh he does it he wants to get the full effect of my story. When I tell the story you need the full effect. That’s looking at me.”
“I got nothing with you.”
“Oh you got something with me. Your going to get off this train, then I am going to get off this train. Then you got something with me.”
Things fall silent for a bit.
Two stops later the agitated man gets off quickly and the liquor house owner follows.
“I take care of this nice white man,” says the liquor house owner. “A nice white man should be able to listen to a black man tell a story.”
“Oh this isn’t necessary,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh it fucking matters,” he says exiting the train. “He going to know it fucking matters.”
The doors closed and the train pulled away.
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
The Exits of the Ikea
The exits of the Ikea
Have been theorized but never found
In its halls
The moans of the forsaken
Make such a mournful sound
Yet when I see
Lingoberry preserves
I find joy is all around
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
When Spring Overwhelms Me
The rain the sun
The bud the pollen
The flower the leaf
The fruit the seed
Spring undeniable
Again in its glory
Winter’s toll taken
The fallen both recalled
And unremembered
Now is the time of
The unencumbered
And new responsibility
Awakening comes slow
Then sudden
Like the flood of the
Mountain stream
White and cold with
Anger and breakneck
Speed, ice no longer
Controlling and slowing
Its pace, What did I
Believe yesterday?
It seems so distant
I am who I was, but
There is the reckoning
That maybe I was wrong
Believing the cycle broken
And the world to be colder
Than it once was
Winter is nothing if not
A capable illusionist
Claiming things broken and
The cycle ceased
Yet it comes again
The rain
The sun
The bud
The pollen
The flower
The leaf
The fruit
The seed
Unbroken
Just in time
Overwhelming me
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Gatsby Develops Android Apps
Gatsby develops Android apps
In the modern day
Daisy has a reality show
That’s a career in a way
Tom is the son of patent lawyer
Who went to Duke to play lacrosse
Nick is still choking on whiskey and words
As his body pays the cost
The world still glitters in the distance
The LED screen cuts down on the glare
It all seems so charmed
Until you finally make your way there
Nostalgia fills the empty
Where music fills the night
I’d say I saw them dancing
But the word fleeing seems more right
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
I Went Looking For A Story
I went looking for a story
Amongst the oceans
Sands and dirt
Instead I found
A world so overwhelming
I barely see it still as Earth
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
The Beat Knows My Name
The beat knows my name
Earbuds almost shake loose
Tonite the street knows
I ain’t going to stay the same
Going slip my neck outta this noose
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Invaders
Worst thoughts of my mind
Suddenly arrive uninvited
Attempts to ignore only tightly loop and bind
Slowly making it harder to fight it
In the end I find
I must acknowledge it not losing sight
That which comes unbidden
Cannot be ignored away
Attempts to keep it hidden
Invite a longer stay
When the mind is twisted and ridden
Your rituals have no sway
Speak of it
Do not run
They fade away
When faced with light and sun
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
For those whose minds get away from them sometimes.
A Black Blindness
I awoke to a black blindness
In my bed
Fevered and sweaty I was
Filled with
Growing dread
Yet what I found
Was my cat sleeping
Upon my head
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
A Positive Attitude
The train passes a massive amount of blue lights lining both sides of South Boulevard. I stare out at the cop cars as a large group of people are lined up outside an apartment complex with their hands in the air. They fade in the distance as the train speeds on. I look down at my phone. The train slows up and stops at the Archdale station. People exit and board. As the train begins to move I look out the window again. There is someone looking into my eyes. It is a man running next to the train with a colorful soccer jersey on. His face is heavily tattooed. He looks at me with a slight smile as he keeps pace with the train. After a bit he can no longer keep up. He winks at me, makes a big smile and gives me a thumbs up. I look back and see two policeman running after him in pursuit.
“You know that guy?” a young woman asks who is sitting facing me on the train.
“No, don’t know him,” I reply.
“Well I sure like his positive attitude,” she says nodding seriously. “World needs more positivity.”
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
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