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Best Poems Written by Madeleine Mclaughlin

Below are the all-time best Madeleine Mclaughlin poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Angry Words

A sky of angry screeching,
demanding;
like a raptor in the wind.
Doesn't have the impact
that simple warbling brings.

With fear of cruel words spoken,
love retracts,
like claws on birds of prey;
and all I loved about you
has now flown far away.

Predatory words can rip,
into beings
lovelorn at their peak.
Not accomplishing anything but
the sharpening of the beak.

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Devil's Island

I'll tell you a tale
of our own Devil's Island
and the demonic crash
of the waves in the swell.
The smell and the taste
of the ball breaking weather;
the ghosts that deliver 
poor sailors to Hell.

We were out in the water
in the Magdalens
the wind plucked the ropes
of our rigging at sea.
We looked for a port 
and saw many lights flashing
"That's old Devil's Island,"
said the skipper to me.

Tongues began hurling
their fierce imprecations
"to come to the island
safe landfall to thee."
But the skipper turned round
the ship with a vengeance,
"That old Devil's Island
will never get me."

I thought he was mad
to be scared of a legend
it was my first time
in a storm on the sea
and two men washed over
to Davey Jones locker
"God bless 'em, they'll rest now,"
the skip said to me.

Protesting the treatment
of two forlorn sailors
I said to the skipper,
"It's not very well."
"It's better," he said,
"that they're resting in Heaven
than entering into
the portals of Hell."

The wind lasted the night
then the voices did falter
the lights blinkered out
and I saw very well
so many rocks, jagged
just waiting to smash us
the Devil's Isle gateways
await in the swell.

If you're on a ship
and the voices of demons
come tell you it's safe
in their harbor a lee
remember the shoreline
at old Devil's Island
then turn the ship seaward
and gracelessly flee.

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Downtown In the Summer

A summer's evening stroll
in the downtown.
Tiny flying bugs
maneuver in the wind.
A hobo with one hand
strums a guitar,
his traumas grate against the air
as his style
-the blues-
echoes from his instrument.
Older ladies rush home
their purses clutched tight to their sides.
Knowing the approach of wicked darkness
is near,
and the welfare recipients who wander
the streets perhaps need
extra cash.
Druggies begin to appear.
Their morning,
and day
-hours in which to score a hit-
is others sleeping time.
This is the downtown.
When the summer evening winds down.

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Sailing Leaf

a leaf falls
the water ripples
nature's boat sails away

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Love

What hate gains, love can tame.

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Confessions of a Wage Slave

Time paces
-tick, tock-
life trudges between its
tick, tock.

hurry, hurry
-tick, tock-
rush to all the garbage pails
each minute means
another few cents
stalling means
no job to pay the rent
tick, tock

eat, eat
-tick, tock-
slender meals and bitter thoughts
of life and all its tick, talk.

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Trees On a Slope By a River

 A bicycle path along the river
wends beside the edge of trees
Planted there to keep the soil
from sliding down in nth degrees

The sassafras is from the middle
part of North America
Right by it sits the Trembling Aspen
fluffy seed that fly then fall

It's done with planning in an office
so people can walk safe and free
So they can stroll beside the river
and never think of plant disease

Because if one plant gets a sickness
all the others of it's kind
will bend under the natural illness
and denude the landscape when they die 

ABCB DEFE GBHB
IJKJ
1/16/2012

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Forgotten Soldiers

We are the long forgotten
Just ordinary men
We fought for gain and glory
And met our gory end

We marched in fields of honor
Cause we were in the right
And ended up with nothing
Torn open from the fight

We are Alexander's army
Or Pharaoh's lowly slaves
The Romans ran us over
Now we're rotting in our graves

So long the woe-begotten
We soldiers of the past
Just pay us fond remembrance
And give us peace at last

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Mall Walking

Like fruitless wanderers,
mall walkers slap their feet
in a rhythm
that goes nowhere.
Only round and round,
past mega-bucks sales;
pet store puppy mill reject dogs,
a merry-go-round for elderly exercisers.
Fitness for arthritic window shoppers.
Fashion pants do beckon,
'come forth and sally
ye nomads of the modern world.'

Details | Madeleine Mclaughlin Poem

Fancy Men

hostility snaps the nerves
taut from life in tiny boxes
your neighbor prances
naked
through the hall
and brags about her fancy men
attracted to her beautiful, black body
they pay
her rent
her groceries
everything she needs
she tramples them
orders them to hand over their wallets
they do
while she sinks into her coffin
of dependence on handouts