Rage encounters empathy
If you live long enough
Acknowledgment of the other
That’s where it gets rough
Your friends and enemies
Each know the same pains
When harm’s inflicted
Both souls are stained
To be a mammal is to anger
Putting your needs above
But to be a mammal also
Is to love
You did what you did
Then and before
But you can choose to do it
No more
Maybe rage is part
Of a divine plan
But maybe love can grow
In the heart of a man
Live long enough
Perhaps to learn
Fire can warm
Not only burn
Gene G. McLaughlin 2019
Tag: Poetry
Back to School
Dread hangs in the air
Of this free and violent land
Our eyes constantly gaze
To what’s in the stranger’s hand
Sometimes we don’t dwell on
What has happened and what soon will
But then our thoughts are refracted
When the light grows way too still
Those we love
Those we don’t
Those we’ve met
Those we won’t
We are the audience
We are the participants
Both victims and perpetrators
Despite our reticence
They say freedom has a cost
This we all know is true
I suppose how you judge what it is
Depends on what the word free means to you
They head back to school
As fall approaches in the air
May the strangers inscrutable gaze
Be looking far from there
Gene G. McLaughlin 2019
Stories All The Way Down
Textual
I Hope the Crows Remain
Self-Medicated
Some days I drink for my country
Some days I smoke for myself
Some days I dose for the dead
Some days I dance for everyone else
There’s still ravens in the trees
There’s still smoke in the wind
There’s still a madman staring upward
Waiting for something to begin
Stories are pattern recognition
When there ain’t no pattern there
But you can tell somethings right in front of you
Yet all you can see is the cold mist in the air
For now I’m just self-medicated
A little of this and that to get through the day
I’ve got nothing special slated
I’ve got nothing new to say
Gene. G. McLaughlin 2019
Different Cardinals
Landfall
Info Panic Pornography
I Am Reassembling
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