The Vulture

The vulture picks away at the bones

In the heat of the sun

Carrion before him

A feast of rare

Portion and quality

Looking about at the plain

Feeling the wind

Gentle and warm from the sky

He thinks of the sky

The warm spots he finds

Floating for hours

Surveying all that is below

Beauty and bounty

Plunging his head into the

Wet decay of carcass he

Hears their sound in the distance

His brother and accomplices

Come to clean the landscape with him

Full, his time is done here and he arises

Taking flight and elevating toward a perch

And grasping a large branch

Sun baking the skin of his head

Drying the juice of the carcass

Surveying what is around him

Heat dust life sun water plants

And bones

He is the creator of bones

Dry white and dusty

Defiler defender devourer

And disinfectant

Watching a small rodent

Thinking of life and death

Not two sides of a coin

Not an equation

But separate

His domain the edge

Death not beauty

Death never beauty

But sustenance

The issue not desire

The issue not direction

The issue acceptance

That no desire

Changes the beauty of life

No direction away from the

Bones that all become

His brothers squawk below feasting

The breeze and sun whispers to them

Together

I will not be bitter when it’s time to go

When my eyes close upon the sky

I will not mourn for what I did not know

When my last moments arrive

What I had

Was enough

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

Unstamped

Lonely, but not sorrowful

Sitting in the cold wet grass

Resigned to season change

Summer burns away

Short, sometimes glorious

Sometimes fleeting

In times of leisure passing unaware

Disappearing without notice

Noting that fact

Arising walking toward the water

It is cold and salty

In the depths it is winter already

World of krakens and such

Beach holds no revelations

Only noise, absence of human sound

Birds shitting and squawking

Fish there, but unapparent to the eye

Avoiding the water, too brisk a day

For water logged shoes

Some moments cannot be stamped

By signatures of time or date

Only moments framed by themselves

Loneliness starts to needled at me

Urban instinct desires activity

Moment and sound of the hive

Walk up through the overgrown

Green brown-splotched grass

Toward the house

Strolling passed the peeling paint

Toward the narrow two lane road

Ten-minute walk to town

Where the date and time

Are always clearly stamped

Gene G. McLaughlin 2004

When I Met Her

When I met her

I was five foot ten

The next day I felt taller

Yet lighter on my feet

The tape measure said I was still the same

The scale showed no difference

I told my doctor of this

He looked through his horn rimmed glasses

And said

This is a condition that happens

It is unpredictable

It is called a woman son

Gene G. McLaughlin 2012

Ancient Paper

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

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

White Flag – Jasper Johns

you are tired

the blood has run through you

the blood has run out of you

the blood has dried on you

red is no longer your visage instead

it is the white of fade and loss

not promise which you once represented

not hope which you once inspired

not purity of symbolic idea

but violence and dreams of power

you have changed of your own volition

transformed via your own power

your color patterns your own now

in protest and in desire to end it

having seen far too much, far too many shores

born of an idea

witness to what was forged

only you can measure the full cost of the years

so you act in what way you can

rebellion resurrection recreation renewal

Gene McLaughlin 2004

Musical Memories Recalled

Bob Dylan barely aware

Looking at the crowd

As if he didn’t recall why they were there

Beck as a young man

Becoming something new

Before our eyes

John Lee Hooker singing tales

I was too young to understand

But am starting to now

Lou Reed looking older

Yet still defiant

Equal parts rage and love on stage

P Funk swirling like chaos

Floating on the boards

In a smokey dark haze

Elliot Smith standing like a shadow

Singing with beauty and fear

Shortly before the end

Public Enemy fist raised

Marching and calling out orders

Daring us to move

In my mind

I hear the music still

Feeling the sound

And the pulse

Of the crowd

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

Put It To Paper

It happened

And haunts

Put it to paper

One word

Then another

The raw churn

Ever moving

Becomes abstract

And still

On the page

 

When it is released

It is shared

Among us

And what was

Once yours alone

To carry

Is divided

Between many

We shall lock arms

And walk from the place

Together

That you could not leave

Alone

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

The Heart Will Beat Till It Don’t

The sun will burn till it doesn’t

The heart will beat till it don’t

Worry is a thing I wouldn’t

Do because I won’t

Manage the details and aspects

Of that I cannot control

So I’ll let the world sort through it’s cycles

And easy the burden and toll

Of the weight that sometimes builds up

At the base of my neck and my spine

Listening to wind, rain, and earth’s hum

My thoughts once again mine

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

The Light Shines Down Upon The World

The light shines down upon the world

And I know it to be something

Fully explained by science

Yet this morning

It feels like love

The lighting scorches the ground

And I know it be something

With reasons for being

Yet this evening

It feels like scorn

My soul clings to my flesh

And I know not what it is and

I ponder disregarding it

For lack of evidence of its tangibility

Yet this day

It feels like all I have and

If I am mistaken

I feel not guilty nor the fool

For detecting the charade

Is far beyond my means

Gene G. McLaughlin 2005

You Can Believe

You can believe in rage and conflict

Those are the ways of old

You can believe that confrontations

Make a man brave and bold

You can believe in the language of violence

That ever has existed

You can measure your life by how many conquests

Of which you life has consisted

You can believe in the primal easy path

That has always been the clearest way

Or you can believe you choose for yourself

The road you take today

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013