Tag: Zen

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

Digital Karma

Digital karma

Swirling in motion

To stay in the center

Requires eight paths

Vigilant effort

A heart ever open

Resilient skin

Nothing is past

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

22 Years

I.

When my father was my age

He had 22 more years left

He looked at the future

As an endless array of choices

Without death as an option

It was though

For good or bad

It always is

It is the boundary of

One’s vessel

Not it’s ripples

Across the inward ocean

It is hard me to view all of this

As an infinite journey as he did

Knowing what I know

Yet I will fight to view it so

To shrug off the knowledge of

Where the path to the ocean

Meets the water

Making 22 years into

A trans infinite journey

There is an eternity between moments

Endless ripples between the ripples

The ocean is never still

Even when there is no motion

Looking out from the shore

At the path’s end

II.

Sometimes there is a feeling of nostalgia

Even in the moment

It is an eerie flicker

Where you are looking back fondly

At what is happening in the present

There is no substance in the nostalgia of the now

There is only the ringing echo of actions as they happen

It is not the ripples of the action

It is the sound of what occurred

The feeling of the moment

Humming as it passes

The old and the new

Cauterizing at one particular point

Neurons dying

It always haunted me

Not from sadness, but from the dull ache of pain

The instant nostalgia of the now

It hurts from hunger

The desire to horde

The moment

The experience

To take something from the moment

That can not be taken

Because it is not mobile

The pain of attempting

Is tangible

What is created in the mind

Pales in comparison

It is the word that represents love

Not love itself

I was trying to win

To make a game of experience

To keep a score of consciousness

As if it were Monopoly or Risk

The ache it created

Persisted even as joy occurred

Over 22 years

III.

The past 22 years

Are recorded

As scraps of

Ancient paper

In the zipped pocket

Of an old leather bag

Receipts

Itineraries

Detroit

Dallas

Denver

A life once lived

Depicting only details

Of places and times

Flavorless

Yet true in a way

Having been there

The fading papers

Create a distance

That doesn’t occur

In my mind

Signaling and

Pushing me into the present

I shake my head awakening

And step out into the current timeline

Once again

IV.

I did not know I loved myself

Until I stopped in the moment

It is hard to exist

Without ghosts

Echoes

Memories of TV episodes

Passages of books

Lies you told long ago loves

Truth’s you put in drawers on slips of paper

The moment is always there

Throughout time

It does not hide from you

You can step into it

I do not always love myself in the moment

It is not permitted

Or perhaps not possible

There is no grand revelation at the end

Just one purposeful breath after another

No nostalgia

Just survival

Not 22 years

Just today

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

Ecosystem

There are dragonflies

In my earliest memories

There are no clever thoughts

There are no grand ambitions

Only their loud hum

Only the heat of summer

Only the taste of sweat

Only the feel of damp

The river is near

Giving and taking

Sleeping then waking

Frothy then serene

The mountain is near

Giving not taking

Bending and breaking

Its peak still unseen

There is my mother

Provider of food and love

There is my father

Before me and not above

We are of here

This valley

This land

We are from here

Our family

Our band

All I know

Is nearby

Or at least as

The bird flies

The river knew my name

When I was baptized in it

The mountain knew my name

When I pissed upon it

I became of here

In my crib

As the wind blew

Through it

I cannot forget

The hum

Of horseflies

Nor the pain

Of their bite

Nor the pull

Of the river’s current

It’s inhuman might

It all escalates outward

It all internalizes inward

The river takes me elsewhere

The mountain fades from view

When I am motionless

I can hear the dragonflies

Humming there still

When I am motionless

The river carries me there

Once again

The mountain’s peak

Still out of view

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

The Humming Center

Life is want and hunger

Seeking shelter from the rain

The rage to tear asunder

That which causes pain

In the humming center

Is the still humble fact

The life we enter

Is harder when we react

Our decisions

Unquiet the soul

Self derision

Takes it’s toll

You cannot win

That which is not contested

Freedom begins

When you are divested

The sound

Of the water

The taste of the wind

The embrace of your beloved

Tomorrow begins

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

The Quiet Life

I am greedy for the quiet life

For the longing to forever end

Accumulation and achievement leading to

An empty series of dusty rooms

I have already visited

Finding them wanting

Let’s waltz my love

On the porch

While the sun goes down

As the azaleas bloom

And spring comes again

The most important things earned

Are learned by the failures of success

And the victory of the speckled dusty air

Dancing at twilight

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

It Doesn’t Matter As Much

It doesn’t matter as much

As my beard grows grey

If I fail, succeed

Or win the day

I’ve failed at things

Had a little success

Surrendered without trying

Or gave it my best

It’s still all so beautiful

It’s still all so sad

If I’m dutiful

If my efforts are bad

I’ll live in the middle

In the dawn or dusk

I’ll engage a little

If I must

I’ll be the bass line

Of the song

You’ll only hear me

If you listen long

Lennon said

Watch the wheels go round and round

Watch the colors

Hear the sound

Feel the beat

Of your space

Stepping back

Is no disgrace

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

Every Wart, Every Scar

Grew up feeling

The need to be redeemed

Spent years trying

Or so it seemed

To make it something

Of worth I deemed

For others judging

To hold me esteemed

After years of failing

The attempts I tried

Took to fleeing

To the shadows on the side

One day

The haze just broke

The illusion

Went up in smoke

We are redeemed

From the start

We let constructs

Tear us apart

You were born

Healthy and whole

So you stay

From young to old

Do not exist

To only achieve

Always resist

If they deceive

With tales of why

This is not enough

Or that you need

Garages full of stuff

All that you need

You already are

Every wart

Every scar

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013

The Heart Will Beat Till It Don’t

The sun will burn till it doesn’t

The heart will beat till it don’t

Worry is a thing I wouldn’t

Do because I won’t

Manage the details and aspects

Of that I cannot control

So I’ll let the world sort through it’s cycles

And easy the burden and toll

Of the weight that sometimes builds up

At the base of my neck and my spine

Listening to wind, rain, and earth’s hum

My thoughts once again mine

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013