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Feb 2020 · 68
Chicken
PL McGroarty Feb 2020
September 4, 2016

I went for a walk in search of a man
I came across some chickens and a cat

Led by the wheelbarrow in my head and scales in my hand
blinded by a heavy load and the thickness of it,

With eyes closed, my tired legs moved deeper into the valley of steel,
‘just keep walking,

Walk, walk, walking, until finally,
all was still,
The heat rose up from the dirt
From sole to soul I began to see,

I contemplated the chickens and the cat
The way they live in a corporal tug-of-war but still free
a chill breeze washed over my body
and a strong dark figure appeared in front of me,

my knees began to shake,
and he turned to look in my eyes,
seeing deep into the canyon's grooves,

He spoke:

"I'm looking for a woman who can go deep,
I'm looking for a woman who knows what it means to be free, whose heart beat is strong but steady, do you know where I can find her?

No, I don’t, but I hope you find her.
Feb 2020 · 255
Black Socks
PL McGroarty Feb 2020
2/28/2020

I’ve been testing out these new black socks for three days now,

I can’t take them off,

My toes grew numb so I stuck Chinese charcoal heaters to the bottom of ‘em

Wrapped up heavy in the covers on my Japanese futon,

kerosene heater set to the highest degree,

Watching snowflakes pileup on my window seal

As I waver between peaceful meditations and combative mental mediation,

Intermittently manipulating time and commanding this bone to heal,

I breathe in I breathe out

Here and now there is so much space to feel

I can't remember the last time I sat in bed in the daylight

Navigating patience, peace and pain

It's all perspective

An energy lift or an energy drain

But the universe laid me out this time

carving space out of the go-go-go

Burning off the fog, dissolving those mental linear lines

Making it okay to settle into the just so-and-so

I can't remember the last time I sat in bed in the daylight

To just lay here and feel the space of nothing

To let the breath come’n go,

To let the breath make space for something that I don't know
Time and space
Mar 2018 · 251
Binoculars*
PL McGroarty Mar 2018
April 15, 2015

Everything looks better from a distance.

From far away we’re fearless
and free from resistance.
Sweaty browed exhaustion,
Looks cool in the breeze.

Palm trees planted in my heart.
A paradisiacal coconut guillotine.

Wistful eyes turning counterfeits into truth,
Colorblind, grey water becomes blue.  
Soul screams mirage,
But the animal’s craving magic.

Postcards painted, stamped and sealed
The mind reflects ideals.
Everything shines with excitement,
when you're drunk on possibility.
delusions, the grass is always greener *ay
Feb 2018 · 297
The Concert of Compromise
PL McGroarty Feb 2018
Gather it up from the bottom of your belly,
use your calloused hands.

They’ve seen a lot,
and they can reach deep down into the thick of it.

Soil your fingernails,
like a cat kicking up its heels in the litter box,
fling it all to the wayside without remorse.

Exhale that grimey charcoal soot.
Purge it out, and let it ******* go.
It’s been building for some time now,
And you know it weighs you down like rocks.

When you go to speak--
and it stutters from your mouth,
like there’s a concrete glacier in your chest,
and nothing makes any ******* sense.

That ugly ***** pain again, and all that ******* shame--
Simply for feeling anything at all…?

Layer upon layer, and another one again,
like a ***** sheet that covers the light.
It’s the dust on the bulb--(and it’s) clouding your vision.

Wipe it clean.
This time, you might need bleach.

Yes, there was that deep inner knowing,
and no matter how many times it said ‘No more’
literally pleading with your soul,
screaming ‘No ******* more’
you just ignored it, and plunged deeper down that hole.

Graceful as a swan would,
You left no scraps behind.
Not one solid tether to reground,
You forget to consider the potential aftermath,
And just spit freely into the face of the ******* wind.

None of it mattered, because you smiled.
And It was beautiful,
as you told yourself, this is bigger than me.

Suddenly, with your muscles, bones and blood fused together,
all one in some corporal kinetic wave...
You melted into putty.
And it felt so good, for a few months.

...what’s time anyway?

But you know what else?
You were malleable,
And you let yourself bend, bob and weave to someone else’s will…

Here and now though… there’s space;
And now you know where to find the line.
So recognize the concert of compromise…

Because your flesh is not clay in another’s palm.

Your soul is not the tar and texture.
So please don't let that truck pave it down into asphalt.
It might look smooth from the outside,
But it’s so hard and beneath, it’s just dirt.
There’s no truth there.

None of it is as precious as the soil you were born with.

My love, stay true, and let those shiney magnetic things go by,
they were never meant for you.

Just exhale, and let them go,
there’s nothing left here to cling to.

Believe it.
Something far better is coming.
Feb 2018 · 306
Erasing
PL McGroarty Feb 2018
Flashes of you careen into view.
The past ideas of us,
come walking into my mind.
Uninvited.
I ****** them out like they never meant a thing.

If I follow them...?
They’ll only steal mental peace.

It’s when my body gets flooded with that longing feeling.
The yearning.
My body hinders me, my will starts to melt.
Drenched and helpless....

It takes so much effort to force my claws out through the skin,
to scratch away the blind ideas of bliss,
to be fiercely dedicated to the evolution of my team.

Team SELF.

Because now. It’s too dangerous to wonder.
There's not enough space to contemplate “what if's”...

I’m curious about so many things.
But now it’s too dangerous to wonder.
Dec 2017 · 349
Farangs Not Wanted
PL McGroarty Dec 2017
Dear Mae Sai,
You’ve been a hard pill to swallow.
Downward gazes and inside jokes.
Farang, farang.
Little pointing fingers followed by a wave of giggles as my floor-length dress with the slit down the side blows wild in the breeze,
trying to contain my runaway drapery,
maintain modesty in a border town where summer dresses don’t fly.
A voice cautions from the inside:
"You’re not in the islands anymore dear one.."

Om Namah Shivaya
I murmur steadily to myself repelling thoughts of “I just want to go home.”
There is no home, not outside in the physical world at least.
This here is a recurring theme.
Now I’m really traveling.
How dislocated will you become before you eliminate outside chatter,
and go to work paving the temple solace inside yourself,
the eternal home within the eternal om,
the exterior is irrelevant.

Oh Mae Sai,
soot and smoke bellow up from your belly
placing masks on the mountains at your back,
your wretched reflection glows unforgiving in the street.
Glorious, unpainted authenticity.

**** the farangs, they’re just passing through.
Smile til my face hurts,
it mostly makes no difference,
and then when I’m feeling so unwanted that I can’t hold back the tears,
you throw me curve ***** with every passing street.

A little Burmese babe with the brightest smile
still unsure of how fast her feet will carry her,
she dashes to my right and with the smacking sound of her lips
and the grace of her palm she blows me a kiss.

Thank you sweet one,
that’s just what I needed…
*'Farang' means 'foreign/foreigner' in Thai, derived from 'farangsayt,' which means 'French.'

During a failed visa run in 2016 I found myself stuck on the border of Thailand and Myanmar for several days in Mae Sai waiting for the Thai immigration office to reopen. It was uncomfortable and I cried for hours one day just sitting alone on a stoop, watching people struggle to make ends meet, very few people cracked a smile-- but the whole experience was incredibly therapeutic
Dec 2017 · 237
Yearning for Longing
PL McGroarty Dec 2017
Yearning is what we’re after.
I want to feel you from afar and want you near(er).
we laugh all afternoon rolling around in the sheets,
breathe one another higher and higher til we forget our bodies and lose track of our feet,
I want to walk home after,
And sit still wondering what you’re doing,
I want to miss you

— The End —