I cannot ease your pain
Include suffering in your expectations
Conscious existence in full contains
Elated joys and sorrowful lamentations
Gene G. McLaughlin 2017
Tag: Suffering
Extend Your Compassion
Extend your compassion beyond
That which you hold dear
Lessen the suffering
Of that which you fear
Embrace the far
As well as the near
Gene G. McLaughlin 2016
I Was Here For a Time
I was here for a time
The worlds rages repeated
On this earth for a time
All our dark themes repeated
In quiet moments of grace
These hard truths receded
I was left with that
Which glows in my mind
The passions I have felt
The ties that bind
The love that turns the third eye
To seeing from blind
The war and stuggle can rage around me
The tolls and losses can mount
I will hold the suffering I see
Equally with joys my mind can count
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
Elated Joys and Sorrowful Lamentations
I cannot ease your pain
Include suffering in your expectations
Conscious existence in full contains
Elated joys and sorrowful lamentations
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
The Kindness Engine
Kindness is the creation of clarity
Life is never empty of pain
Value empathy not insularity
The path to balance writ plain
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
He Had Never Seen the Storm
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
I Threw All I Could Find In It
I had a hole I stood next to
I threw all I could find in it
I threw all the songs I could find in it
I threw all the words I could find in it
I threw all the images I could find in it
It was still empty still longing
Still a whisper I couldn’t hear
I threw all the whiskey I could find in it
I threw all the cocaine I could find in it
I threw all the food I could find in it
It was still thirsty still hungry
Just a whisper far away
I threw all the lust I could find in it
I threw all the fear I could find in it
I threw all the anxiety I could find in it
It found no peace still never resting
The whisper left me alone
I ran out of things to throw in it
I stood alone and broken
Next to the hole
Then the whisper said to me directly
It is standing right with you
The suffering and the desire
Grab it take it with you
Put it in the hole
In the hole you’ll know its name
I walked slowly forward
My nerves steeled
Knowing the whisper spoke truth
I wrapped my arms around it
I leapt with it into the whole
I saw it from within it
Then I knew I should embrace it
Then I got to giving up all of it
I knew the name of my desire
I knew the hole was me
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
A Spring Zen Prayer
Permit me to let go the things I am not
The things that are denied me
The things that are not to be
The things that cause me anger
The things that I cannot control
The things that are of me, but haunt me
The things that are of not of me, but haunt me
The things that the world imposed upon me
The things that I imposed upon myself
Permit me to know the things that are hidden
The things that become lost to me repeatedly
The things I must learn time and time again
The things I know are true, but cannot accept
The things that are of all things and not just me
The things that are of me and unmoving and real
The things that are not the narrative of it, but the pulse of it
The things that are silent and neither want nor give
The things a rock knows when the hammer falls upon it
I am the wind
Never allowed to settle or still
I am the ocean
Many things that look to be one from a distance
I am the sand
Both shifting and stable at once
I am the fire
Grown from spark to inferno to cinder all in a day
Let me begin each day and try to hear the silent sound
Let me begin each day and try to see the color of air
Let me begin each day and try to feel the back of my mind
Let me begin each day and try to smell the heat of the rising sun
Let me begin each day and try to feel the love I know pulses through the world,
but is sometimes lost to me.
If I cannot, let me accept my struggle and failure
Living not wanting to be that which I am am not
And rising tomorrow to try again to see
I am not it, but of it
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
