I see her soft smile crushed— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and I feel her pain,
reproach in her embrace,
she says I should come back, why not?
I want my life to get better at each juncture,
going back to our marriage is not an advance.
Her tender smiles would turn to bitterness
and my dreams resign themselves to waiting, why?
She thinks my lovers are the main reason why I won’t return
and she doesn’t realize its more of one cloth.
That the cold mornings and lonely afternoons
are better now in my gut than our marriage could be.
When…I see her hurt, I hurt, but I’m unmoved
I love her and her presence in my life
but I’m no longer malleable
because of love.
If she could love me, as I am, I could love her, as I am
and it would all be enough, but…
until then the hours are filled
with pain and the pressure to change.
She never found me so unreachable
and she struggles to grasp my love
which springs free and independent of need
and I can only watch her pain
and love her even as she tries to change me.
gallagher
feb 02, 78
Archive for February, 1978
1978-02-02
Thursday, February 2nd, 19781978-02-13
Monday, February 13th, 1978Come turn the years and swirl them here— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and bring us around full circle again.
Over coffee, today, so much came to an end.
For years her house and memory had beckoned
and lingered … and waited
and I’d driven by it a thousand times
in my lifetime since then … past its whispering.
Her memories and questions waited, until today
over coffee, when all those years came to join us
and we found what had become of us then.
Down dark years and through darker paths …
through schools and marriages …
and drugs and sex.
She’d been cast into these from the events
that spawned both of us so long ago.
I’d taken her virginity (and mine) then
back when I didn’t think it could matter …
but it did, as the tangled years have come to tell.
Pressed then, in roles beyond our knowing,
we danced our dances, blindly … savagely ….
And I’d used her then … just as she’d wished it
until, finally, I left her without a look back
and let all the years behind me sleep
until today.
And today, among the plates and lights,
our roots re passed, untangling, and she forgave me
and all the years that had waited began to forget themselves.
gallagher
13 feb 78
– after meeting Sally Henderson
1978-02-22
Wednesday, February 22nd, 1978Well all my life I’ve been a fool— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
fire and ice, a little cool
now I feel the fire
subtle, yet its grown higher
and I can feel my passions know
the patterns of my life and grow
Cast in forms I come to know
put up in stone against time’s flow
nothings real and nothing’s right
endless screams these laughing flights
take a life and live again
everyone’s another end
a turning wheel, a wheel of fire
from spirit light to fleshed desire
Cast in stone I seem to know
I’m born in forms amid time’s flow
and the timeless dreams I listen sow
and like birds of laughter grow
am I spirit born again
or evolution’s lash and end
the questions burn, burn to bear
shackles that the living wear
Its every guess and every game
you win or lose its still the same
a flight that left without belief
in flesh awake without relief
I can’t tell where I’m here
in timeless truth or chance’s jeer
and in these forms I fly
believe it game and ever try
to window out to winnow free
the secrets locked inside of me.
gallagher
22 feb 78