When I was a ghost
Songs sounded like sorrow
The aural recognition
Of time fading away
But
When love shaped my form
I knew the song was melody
The joyous exclamation
That then is always now
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Tag: Poem
I Didn’t Get it Henry and Wish I Didn’t Get It Now
The plunge of civilization into this abyss of blood and darkness… is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be, with whatever abatement, gradually bettering, that to have to take it all now for what the treacherous years were all the while really making for and meaning is too tragic for any words.
– Henry James – 1914 – on the day England entered WWI
The world always gets turned upside down
I see that and know it
It’s the way everything works
Always has worked
It’s a cycle
I studied history
The facts are clear
Cause and effect
Random occurrences
A trampoline of ups and downs
Forever
Intellectually Henry I knew it
I thought you wrote real pretty
But then I moved on
A footnote, an addendum, something that happened
To someone else
but I didn’t get it Henry
and
Wish I didn’t get it now.
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
The Subtext
I wish I could show you what
I see
But
It lacks impact
Without context
But
As a hint
Love and light
Are the subtext
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
The Terroir of a Thought
When I am struck
By a feeling or emotion
That is not consistent
With what it once was
I recall
The terroir of a thought
Includes time
An instigator of change
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.” – Hunter S. Thompson
Ok Hunter.
I’m in.
Not even gonna put my safety harness on or brace for impact.
Not even going to blame anybody if this all goes wrong.
The safety inspectors all retired and their replacements are on strike.
I’ll wear the helmet, but not the googles, I’m already not seeing too clearly.
There’s no football until September.
I’ll make it until then.
Nope nobody smokes cigarettes anymore,
but we got more beer than you can shake a stick at and weed is legal all over.
Oh the rides starting.
I’m just gonna close my eyes when we get to the top.
Gene G. Mclaughlin 2016
Red Raw Orlando Sun
Red raw Orlando sun
Lays our failures plain
Kneeling all as one
Souls burdened with pain
Filtering words of sense
From the anger soaked insane
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Undiminished
Time is not a zero sum transaction
Somewhere
You exist young and undiminshed
Everything echoes
All at once
All the time
I choose to hear your laughter
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
Anatta
You like sand
Not like stone
Self like blood
Not like bone
Wind moves water
Wind wakes waves
I am the foam
Crashing upon
Cold crags
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
The Exits of the Ikea
The exits of the Ikea
Have been theorized but never found
In its halls
The moans of the forsaken
Make such a mournful sound
Yet when I see
Lingoberry preserves
I find joy is all around
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
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 2016
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