The poetry below does not include all of Don MacLaren's published poems; it is a sampling of what he has published.
TABLES TURNED TO HAIKU
Tables turned to you
Waitresses serving your dreams
you can't pay the bill
( Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, 1988, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1988
BLOOD ON THE MOON
Blood on the moon
Blood inside the spirit
Of the killer's twisted person
One window sees freedom
One door – prison
The roads crisscross and we decide
There really is no place to hide
In the churches,
In the graveyards,
In the cocoon,
In the dimly lit vision
Of a furnished room
The straggler – alone
The leader – one and the same
Walking amongst strangers
Drops his name
And the razor blades and charades
Fill the cosmos and drip
Blood on the moon
( Fillmore Neighborhood News, 1987, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1987
THOUGHTS AFTER MY SECOND DAY OF WORK AT CAFFE TRIESTE
I feel fear, I feel ecstasy –
Caffe Trieste
Espresso machines – men, women –
Ashes on their genes….
Too slow! Too slow!
Faster! Faster!
The machines turn and churn
I do the best I can to
Keep my own machine running smoothly
But
It needs a lot of work.
I almost cried when told that was the
Diagnosis
Uncertainty, a most certain
Prognosis.
Cultures fall,
A woman does not want the
Caffe latte
I've worked so hard to make
A man falls –
He's been drinking lately –
Trying hard, civilization's frame to break.
I shake
I pour the coffee
I stand tall, I think it all
Awfully confused, misused, abused - -
I break a glass, I bust my ass –
Yet
I'm too slow.
I've got to work fast! fast! fast!
The world is revolving – it turns, it spins
It should slow down
It should take stock
It should feel its
Time has come to
Break for an espresso
In Caffe Trieste
Café triste
Sad café – someday
The world will shake, break
And say its
Time has come
And gone
And it must, as all things –
Exit through the door and
Let someone, something from somewhere else
Enter and
Inhabit the Caffe Trieste
(Lifelines: An Anthology, Central City Press, 1986, Central City Hospitality House, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
THERE'S ONLY PAIN
I've only pain where my heart should be
My heart's been broken many times
My life's a wreck
The world's a wreck
What the heck to say
She smiled at me
But she left with him
So ends another day.
I suppose everything has a breaking point,
As does a broken heart
I suppose that's why
At the point
Of my heart
There's only pain.
(Lifelines: An Anthology, Central City Press, 1986, Central City Hospitality House, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
BEAT
Radiation is inside – so subtle
No-one can ever hide – you know that,
There's a way out – you don't know,
Where to start – you know,
You must decide – if you want to,
To keep the beat
Inside your heart.
(Lifelines: An Anthology, Central City Press, 1986, Central City Hospitality House, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
SELECTED HAIKU POEMS
The bed is unmade
Love is alone, unafraid
Salvation is naught
Yellow taxi – screeches
Stomping soldiers halt at once
I breathe, the wind blows
Inspiration hides
In shame, in love, out of fear
Quiet spirits blush
(The Tenderloin Times, November, 1986, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
MAN AT MY TABLE IN THE OAKLAND LIBRARY
Yet another vagabond
Black with sunglasses
Talking loudly
With himself –
After I've read about Carl Jung –
A complex amalgam
Of history, art, and music –
Poet without a pen;
Nearly as unsocially graceful,
Gracefully unsocial
As I feel.
I don't want to look
I don't to look
At him
and
The sad colours that come
of
Disparate deaths.
(The Tenderloin Times, October, 1986, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
MEN
Men with misplaced eternal dust
In their hair
Stars of perpetual hunger
In their eyes
Looking for existential answers
In garbage cans
Their misspent energy
In misspelled cities
Vagabonds counting the time
It takes to burn
The emotional sunset
Layered with colours
Of their eternal desire
(The Tenderloin Times, September, 1986, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986
ATOMIC
the atoms of eternity flowing
within the atmosphere
ancient spirits,
ancient spiritual molecules
taken in by me
intravenously.
karmic fears withhold
in our withheld emotion
dirty scars left exposed to the wind….
counterparts face off with swords,
kill each other in mute agony
through the solar plexus
the planets revolve around
a central void
men scream in pain –
women overjoyed.
junky jazz,
mid-thirties junk blowing in the wind
in the skin of
desperate civilizations
(The Tenderloin Times, February, 1986, San Francisco, CA)
© Don MacLaren, 1986