Tag: Art

Be the Hammer, Be the Nail

I have always been open to the idea

That I would fail

Prepared and resigned

Comfortable with the idea

That when it all went to hell

I would be ready

I am a witness to the worst

Things can get bad

To this I attest

Things also

Can expand

The world can grow big

Near endless

Even for those with little

Nothing even

There are victories

Successes

Sunny days

Fists raised in triumph

The scope

Is everything

Everyone

All at once

This is not a zero sum game

It is a whole number

That counts you

Successes can be hard to see

They are not always visible

If you are a nail

Bracing for the impact

That strikes you down

For good

Be the hammer

Be the nail

Force and energy

Are all one transaction

Consider the possibility

This might be one of the days

You stand in the sun

Feeling strong

With possibilities

Burning around you

Like fire

Gene G. McLaughlin 2022

More Pissarro Than Picasso

I want a world more Pissarro than Picasso

More the sum than a piece

More the glory of all of it

Then cubes of us at our least

Gene G. McLaughlin 2022

Nabokov and the Blue Butterflies

John Fetterman

Marching Orders

American dogs

French frogs

The world is going to war

Angry Continentals

Middle East fundamentals

The war is going to war

In the Arab lands

Among the sands

We all are going to war

Let it ignite

And burn all night

The world is going to war

Can you slow it down

When the oil’s underground

The world is going to war

The people forgot

The lessons taught

In 1944

No time to stop and think

When you’re on the brink

The world is going to war

I only take the side

Of those that have died

In the never-ending glory of war

Gene G. McLaughlin 2022

Dead Languages In An Encrypted World

Dead languages in an encrypted world

Floating on currents of textual seas

New syntax and context unfurled

Ideas carried by the digital breeze

Massless data of New Babylon

Still growing ziggurat of a modern age

Non-physical ideas carry on

With or without the page

Language united with math

Following the binary path

What or who does it benefit

If anything or anyone at all

Are the data’s flows sinister or beneficent

Are its actions fair or foul

– Gene G. McLaughlin 2022

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 2022

A Bee In A Flower

Do not abide

A lack of grace

In the world

Find it

In small things

Grand plans fade

Crumble to dust

A bee in a flower

Can sustain

Gene G. McLaughlin 2022

A Priori Me

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

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