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
Sometimes I feel that I’m failing
From the weather or a smell in the air
Sometimes I feel that I’m winning
Despite the score showing I’m far from there
Sometimes I grow stronger
From something I decided not to eat
Sometimes a rock in my shoe
Slows the pace of my gate
Sometimes life seems like a deep woe
That I carry upon my soul
Sometimes I’m light as the wind
Endless days with no tire or toll
Today’s maybe somewhere in the middle
Some coffee and rain and some hope
Success and failure are not for this moment
Both lie out of the present’s scope
Gene G. McLaughlin 2020
Right thoughts
Right words
Right actions
The absence of nostalgia
Is the beginning of today
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
The bear went over the mountain
To see what he could see
And all that he could see
Was the other side of the mountain
Was all that he could see
So the bear took a long slow moment
Atop that lonely mountain
He thought of all his wanderings
Where all his winters brought him
This mountain was a mountain where
Maybe his moments could have meaning
If the bear he so allowed
The next mountain might have something
That from the bear was hidden
A sacred secret knowledge
The bear would finally make his own
His paws dug in the dirt and dust
His fur felt the warmth and sun
His bones they came to realize
The mountain knew the same things
As the next did and the one before
There were mountains to be found
By stillness and not by climbing
By the staying and not the roaming
The bear went to the top of the mountain
The bear called the mountain home
The bear climbed to the top of the mountain
The bear became of where he sat
The bear became the mountain
Together they both grew
Into another mountain
For another bear to find
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
Each human
Is a decaying civilization
Forgetting things they once knew
Knowledge displaced, replaced
Or misplaced
Lessons once held tight
Considered learned
Now faded
Absorbed into the organic ruins
The civilizations
Grandest city
In crumbles
Moss covered
Flickering in the air
Much like dust
There is a once great plaza
That is now only visited
By pigeons and those who haven’t
Forgotten
The once shining marble
Fountains of fresh water
And vibrant bustle
With little to hold back
The ravages of
Time
Inertia
Hubris
And whatever else
It is best to enjoy the sun
Birds singing
Smells of the season
Cherishing the brightest memories
Past summers have provided
Greed never
Served your cities well
It is endless
And in the end
Does not complete the circle
Mindfulness and presence
Were always your cultures
Finest elements
Those that could persevere
Until something is built
On the newly discovered ruins
Gene McLaughlin 2014
I’m trying not
To always get
Distracted by
Shiny new things
To embrace what I’ve got
And to let
Myself see
What joy that brings
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
When emaciation had taken its toll
His eyes were sunken in, closed, and hollow
The life slipping from them slowly
Understanding was no closer
All that was left for him was the end
The final stages of the suffering that haunted him
The hunger that held tight to him in these final moments
The desire and want and need
All would be gone soon
Nothing was left to take
Nothing was left to give
The last step was the loss of what he saw before him
The blood slowly coursed through him
He opened his eyes
The tree and air and grass and sun all were in front of him
This was the moment
Maybe this had always been the moment
Maybe this would always be the moment
There was color in the world
There was a color in all things
There was the dark red of his blood
There was the brown bark of the tree
There was the green of the grass
There was the golden yellow of the sun
There was the white swirling wind of the storm of existence
Lingering and circling in the air around all of it
There were his eyes
Through which his slowly diminishing life force met the storm
He faced the end
He saw the storm was not actually white
The storm was all colors
The storm was everything at once
The storm was always there
He had never seen the storm
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Sometimes
I think ahead
Or dwell
In the past
Only in the now
Can I hear
The quiet hum
The nameless song
The beloved echo
Within
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
BeardedRiffRaff.Blog 