I got nothing tonight
But the summer heat
No feeling
But pavement burning
My feet
Only the ache
No
Deceit
Flesh singed
Like Meat
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
I got nothing tonight
But the summer heat
No feeling
But pavement burning
My feet
Only the ache
No
Deceit
Flesh singed
Like Meat
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
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
Summer a boon
Before you go
A warm wind
A late sunset
A last flower
A blue sky
My mind distracted
By comfort
Instead of cold
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Insight is not available
Revelations do not come forth
Just the dog day heat
The sweltering breeze
And
The summer squirrel
Navigating the tree
Never seeing all branches
The tree in whole
Yet never falling
His self-knowledge
Is all encompassing
Living near death
Makes all thing
Shine brightly
Nuts
Hawks
Babies
Winter
Enough to fill
One lifetime
Might as well
Let go of it friend
The entirety of the tree
Cannot be seen
Without falling
From its comforts
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Singing birds &
A musical ice cream truck
Sound like they’re conversing
On a warm summer night
Discussing the events of the day
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Winter knows
What summer doesn’t
Winter shows us
That which wasn’t
In spring life grows again
In summer we see that couldn’t
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Money is what we say it is
Paper or power or both
Life’s meaning is what we say it is
Winter’s stagnation or spring’s green growth
God is what we say it is
The center or nature or the all
The season is what we say it is
The heat of summer or cool colors of fall
Love is what we say it is
Passion or desire or hope that binds
Struggle is what we way it is
Something to overcome or accept in our minds
Rebirth is what we say it is
A continuation or the world born anew
The new year is what we say it is
May it ruminate quietly or speak in volumes through you
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
I want to put my feet up
By the river
The sound
Of the flow
Around me
Summer
Coming to life
The peak of life awakening
Once again
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013