Archive for February, 2010

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

I’ve made some changes to this Blog. On a normal Blog, the posts are listed from newest to oldest. Given that this Blog is about poetry, I’ve altered it via a plug-in that I’ve written so that the posts/poems are listed from oldest to newest so that progressions of life events can be followed in the order they occurred. My most recent change deals with the text that says “Newer Poems” and “Previous Poems”.

Prior to today, these were reversed and if you clicked “Newer Poems”, you would get older ones and vice-versa. This has now been corrected.

The only place where the new scheme doesn’t work is where you are reading now – in the “ABOUT THIS SITE” area.

I’ll work on getting this right next time around. If you note any problems, drop me an E-Mail. Thanks.

2010-02-16 – Another cut

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

I wonder if we know what we're losing.
Tonight, in bed, the memories and feelings began to turn and haunt me.
Tomorrow, I will have all of my personal life shipped here to New Zealand.
A sad ending, another tie broken.
And then I realized how few ties there are left and how tenuous they are.
The accounting and the computers are now all that connect us.
The house, no longer my house.
Never to sit in that meditation chair she made for me again.
To pet the cats, walk down to Paradise, admire the pond in the front yard.
All cut off and unreachable.
Never to stand and read again  in the kitchen while she prepares a meal.
To sit in the TV room and enjoy a show together.
To discuss our day.
To sleep in beds just beside each other.

All these things unraveling are tearing my heart out.
All these things that were part of a marriage until death do us part.
The end of shared experience is the hardest.
The real treasure lost.
Where we live, what we have or don't have, is so much less.
One day, the last cut will sever us.
The accounting books will be closed one day and then the ebb and flow
   of all that will be lost to me.
And the computer links that let me see our place
   will be closed as well and I will be blind and lost
      to all that was there, once mine.

These lives, these tragedies, these broken hearts are real.
It doesn't get any more real than this.
As the country and western song says,
   "This ain't no rehearsal."

I feel like I am being punished for having had a dream.
And for trying to carry us into a new life.
For listening to history and the future and heeding its whisperings.
The joy of creating something new with your partner
   was lost somewhere along the way - to this terrible place.
The marriage that was suppose to be forever
   has floundered on insecurities, distrust and anger.
Am I to blame?
Perhaps.
But then so is she; tied to her fears, her need for security,
   and her anger and lack of trust.
What does it matter who is the one?
A dream is ending and every time another part is pulled away
   I feel the greatest sadness of my life gathering.
We began so well, with such intents and promises,
   to end so very poorly.
I wonder if I can survive such heartbreak.

gallagher
17 Feb 2010 - Christchurch

— Copyright 1965-2010 by Dennis Gallagher —

2010-02-22 – How loyal I am

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Hours of laying on the couch
   with my thoughts turning like snakes.
Empty and aching - going over things
   again and again.

All of the ways of appealing to her again
   parading before me one by one.
And all of them now remembered to be failures - 
   none of them effective before
      though each cut me to the quick with memories.

And the final words.   I walk up to them again
   and again - and I turn away.
Every time, my heart says, "There must be something
   still to be said - before this."

She told me once that I had no idea how loyal she was
   and I built my life upon it, never doubting then.
But somewhere, 
   something fatal was lost.

I think it was when she decided
   that I was wrong and she was right.
Instead of seeing that we had a difference of opinion
   and that no one was right or wrong.

Loyalty was lost there.
   And I've come to see 
that her loyalty only meant,
   "Until we disagree and I decide you are wrong."

I think we could have worked through
   almost anything
if we both could have seen and accepted
   the others POV as genuine.

But, so many ugly things have been said.

"I don't want your shit here - ship it."
"I don't want you to come home every six months."
"I don't trust you."
"I am so angry with you, I don't know what to do."
"I couldn't stand for you to come back this summer."

I don't know, when I read these things,
   Why I would want to be with this woman.
But when I think about saying those final words,
   I turn away again and again
      in pain and confusion.

Where is that loyalty now?
   Am I the only one who feels
      what the end of forever means?

"If, my mind says, "If".
   "It's the end", my reason replies.
"If I tried one more time", my heart says....
   
"You have no idea how loyal I am."

gallagher
22 Feb 2010
christchurch

— Copyright 1965-2010 by Dennis Gallagher —