Tag: Poetry

The Sound of the Engine

It all gets ahead of you

It all gets away from you

All of it happens so fast

It’s not like the eternity

Once pondered and pictured

When you were as high

As your old man’s knee

It’s more of an avalanche

More of a storm

More like a dog’s leash

Taut with a Doberman

Raging and barking

Hurtling forward

Chasing a rabbit

That you cannot see

Momentum pushes you forward

Despite your best efforts

You can set your mind still

Through the passing of moments

Yet you still feel the engines

Churning below you

Which can’t stop for anything

That pay head to nothing

No matter your wishes

Despite this soliloquy

I’ve slowed naught and nothing

The train slows for no one

No stops ‘til the end of the line

So I’ll fill up my world

With the tools to learn

That the sound of the engine

Can be kind of calming

Maybe even relaxing

Even if it knows nothing for me

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

I Will Sing Your Song

I will sing your song

In moments of your silence

I will hear the tune

When sound fades from the air

I will be buoyant

When floods will not abate

I will be the enemy

The object of any hate

You have lost enough

And I care little if I win

Do not be bereft

All we can be judged upon

Are our arbitrary sins

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Bathroom Mirror

The measuring of ones self in the bathroom mirror

In the early pale gray morning

Does not become easier over time

The weight of actions and estimations

Grow ever greater

Like roots of trees intertwined

Becoming ever closer together

Facing the toothbrush and razor

The white stubble of the beard upon the chin

The plaque upon the once near white teeth

There is knowledge that this is yet another day

Full possibilities

Maybe redemption

Maybe failure

In the tasks that lead to that which one desires

To become

To represent

One day at a time says the addicts sponsor

Yet in truth it remains the same for all whom

Walk a path in conscious direction

Toward some specified or worthy goal

To thine own self be true

Said the aged character in the play

And in the bathroom mirror

This estimation

This evaluation

Is true

We are days and decades and sons and fathers in that mirror

Women we have loved and hurt and men we have killed or maimed

We are not our own gods nor can we ever be

Yet in the early pale gray morning with water running

The steam upon the mirror

We can look up and see through their divine eyes

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Approach

Tell me a story

Of the things you want

Tell me your tales

Of the places you haunt

Show me your heart

What your see in the mirror

What tears you apart?

What god says when you hear her?

It is all just instances

Guiding us toward the now

All just hearts and souls learning

The intimacies of why and how

Tell me how I can reach you

And the secrets you know

Tell me how to approach

Where to hasten and slow

Tell me what a kiss means

And when I’d be brazen to touch

Tell what songs you sing alone

What memories are just too much

Do not hold back the burdens

Those that are too much to bear

Do no hide what you value

Or mask that for which you care

Be cautious and careful

For I would be to

But for those things I ask

Answers maybe be slow

Yet please make them true

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Breaking Bread Upon My Table

Breaking bread upon my table

We face and judge our hunger

Faith not in the believing

But in the subtle conceiving

Picture a summer watermelon

Sweet pink fruit it shall be

Pouring water at my table

We face and judge our thirst

Tell me what dreams you dream

Comparisons will be made

Faith not in the compensation

But in the stable construction

Picture a tower of steel

Shining beacon it shall be

World starts in broken pieces

Just as chaos swirled before

Piecing together of faith

So slow, progressing

Occasional progress through

Personalities and paradox

What texture does the world take?

Without the faithful?

Around me days are filled with

Purpose and light, without question

Their hearts full

What pulls them out from beneath?

If it is gone?

If the oblivious dwindle

Do the informed continue?

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Delaware

Like a woman

Sometimes fickle

Always changing

Both delicate and strong

Giving life through the decades

Warm in summer

Bugs fish wood green and lush

Cold in winter

Ice snow wind and shimmering shine

Always alive

Always reborn

My heart will always long for you

Seeking to be reborn

In places of no comfort

Dry foam sterile and plastic

Thinking back to the sand silt and dirt

Muck and wet rotting leaves and horseflies

Smell of shad on your shores

Desperate to spawn

And their stink

Filling the air, life and death inhaled

In one breathe

Sight of eels in the water looking like

Slippery sliding sly snakes of the depths

You have had names before that which

We call you

You shall have more names still

The name we hold in our hearts for you

Will always be the same

No words are needed for it

For just as we need not articulate that

Which our hearts know our mothers to be

Always what you are

Life giver life taker

Warmest and most welcoming

Coldest and most foreboding

Never ever changing

Yet current always raging

Mother River

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

I Heard A Rumor of Warm Wind

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I heard a rumor of warm wind

I heard of a tale of green growth

I heard a story of cold’s end

I doubt the veracity of both

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Thanksgiving 2014

I give thanks for this moment of living
The future has forgotten me now
I give thanks the present moment of giving
The past has shown me how
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014

As the Pain Shapes My Path

I’m not done with my damage yet

I’ve got a few more rounds to take

As the pain shapes my path

I’ve got a faith I can’t shake

I’m gonna miss one bit of pain

Before I sleep and then wake

Gene G. McLaughlin 2014

Flowers and Stems

I like to hear the people talk

Silently conversing with them

I like to see couples walk

Silently strolling with them

Choosing not to be the flower

Existing as the stem

Gene G. McLaughlin 2014