Staring at machinescapes
Fractal music in my head
The inflammation of my spine
Confirms for me I am not dead
A priori me
In the wind, dust, and shadows
A posteriori me
Weighing and measuring my battles
Knowing what I know
Without knowing the reason
The eerie absent answers
Feel like my mind committing treason
I accept the betrayal
My cognizance shoulders on
Knowing some framework exists
Both before and after I am gone
Gene G. McLaughlin 2022
Today was like dust
Floating away from me
The reason I saw it at all
Is because it danced
In rays of morning sun
Promising a confidence
If I didn’t look away
I barely moved my eyes
Still, the secret was withheld
Promised in due time
Dwelling in a future moment
Gene G. McLaughlin 2022
The art of the spider is patience
Its venom is held in reserve
For when the web breaks unbidden
Or if the prey works up the nerve
To resist that which nature intended
To swerve from the course of its fate
The spider’s unseen strength
Is the will to sit and silently wait
Gene G. McLaughlin 2022
In an empty arcade, exists activity
None arising from life
Sounds of machines humming and beeping
Existences clear and free of strife
Bells ring to alert no one of nothing
Digital voices entice the absent to play
They can’t distract their intended targets
To attempt to chase their worries away
Oh the pop-a-shot lights
Are ever oh so bright
Offering buttons to press
Promising prizes and tickets to win
As the cabinets bathe in fluoresce
Waiting for the day’s simulations to begin
Gene G. McLaughlin 2022
Once we were kings
But did it matter?
Once we were kings
In our hearts and songs
Once we were queens
Purses and fortunes grew fatter
Once we were queens
Ignoring miscalculations and wrongs
Once it was morning in this land
Yet it was never as bright as we believed
We never realized it was by our own hand
That means to deceive were conceived
Morning in America
Has always and never been the same
It is only the measurements and criteria
That divides our nostalgia from shame
At the top the world all still moves
The weight of the world still spins
Those who might approve
Are them who claim benefits and wins
Maybe stand for something?
Or maybe choose to don’t?
In the end there is no need to worry
The self anointed kings and queens won’t
Gene G. McLaughlin 2021
A short poem for you fall mushroom lovers-
Mushrooms are the ghosts
Of forest floors and fallen trees
How does meaning demand to grow
Among the moss and decaying leaves?
Does a lineage link the floor and canopy
Via roots and sun?
Is the bolete a forgotten memory
Or the birth of a new one?
Gene G. McLaughlin 2020
A Halloween/election/all of it poem about my least favorite new monster of 2020-
There is a rhythm to the movement
As your finger taps the screen
There is reverberation lingering
A sound that isn’t what it seems
A buzz, a beep, an alert
At least that is what you first hear
Then gradually a sense of hurt
Combined with a slowly growing fear
It is the howl of The Doomscroll!
As the noises of your devices build
Deformities of truths and lies unfold
The zeitgeist dreadfully distilled
Created by mistake
Now driven by its own volition
We all live in its wake
As the world we know is riven.
Gene G. McLaughlin 2020
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