There are ghosts in your spine
Created from that which came before
Thoughts I once called mine
I take full ownership of no more
We are agreements between elements
Negotiations between factions
Maybe influenced by environments
Leading to actions and reactions
Embrace the us in all of us
Make plural the royal we
Are my envy, hate, or lust
Just a war of ghosts within me?
An engine of looping thoughts
A walking talking analogy
Ghosts maneuvering for position
Wishing it to be their eyes that perceive and see
Gene G. McLaughlin 2019
Tag: Cognition
Stories All The Way Down
I Google My Thoughts
I Google my thoughts
To known they’re originals
Some are bought
Most are aboriginal
My mind’s fraught
In search of the seminal
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
An Ancient Ruthless Language
I do not want to be bitter in the end
DNA is an ancient ruthless language
That which is encoded to be aware
Is encoded to decay
Awareness an advantage
An evolution
Sometimes a difficulty
As the world spins
Bitterness would indicate regret
Which is purchased
And is sustained
By the illusion
That self-determination guided us
Yet the options we have
Are small, but meaningful
Such as the choice of bitterness
About the fate we are dealt
Or
Acceptance of that which blocks our path
And shall never move
To find meaning in stillness
To find peace the inevitable
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
Cognition/Grace
With cognition comes sadness
Sorrows we must all face
Luckily
Interspersed among the losses
Are moments of overwhelming grace
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
The Hive
Does the hive make choices better?
Did I ever really make a choice?
As I type this letter by letter
Is this really my own voice?
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Dataflow
We as machines process the data
As allowed by divergent models and makes
Filtering out that which does not matter
Configure, compile what info survival takes
Are we users of the technology
Or maybe just accessories
Connected to the world via USB
Or some other methodology?
Trying to redefine our natures
Making choices based on fact
Maybe simply as moving fixtures
Only functioning as they react
There is no mind to free
If there is not cord to cut
There is no truth to see
If the numbers define us
Gene G. McLaughlin 2006
Something Decides To Be
The garden was the garden
When all was stone and still
The dead spinning rock
Is sitting in the sky
And something decides to be
In the cold dead
Cosmos of black
Something chooses to move
The grey black silent stone
Slowly grows blue and alit with color
Trudging forward stone to water to bone
And then it is
And then it moves
And then it thinks
Ever in motion
Always afire
Can anything which has chosen to move so
Ever be still again
In the effort to pull back
There are rewards
The gift of the stillness
Was the definitive self knowledge
Not obscured by motion
And to constant hum of knowing
Gene G. McLaughlin 2012
Names
In the bright crisp sun of morning
The rabbit eats the green leaf
He is anxious and alert
But has no name for the state
He is in
The raptor watches the rabbit
Dreaming of pursuit of his prey
He hungers and launches
In the shining shimmer of the open air
But has no name of the state
He is in
I watch both
And rejoice and mourn I have so many
Names for the state of things
Gene McLaughlin 2012
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