SamadhiMuse » Catalyst Reading

1972-02-23 The morning wind

Dennis — Wed, 23 Feb 1972 08:00:00 +0000

                          The morning wind
            When the morning wind has come again
            to rattle my window pane
            and the morning fog to make
            the dream gray world the same
            the winter's chain it holds me
            in a house overseeing dead grass
               I lay by my lady, spoons cupped
               my arm around her
               breathing the cleaness of her hair
               dreaming...
            Of naked highways
            thru razor mountains
            of my aching muscles
            and eyes that squint in salt
            dreaming...of lust for my other lady
            who will wait for me
            when the season's turned.
               And I will go
               and stand above the tree line
               on some mountain's flank
               to be where only high contrails
               mar 2 billion years of natural selection
               and remembering indian thoughts
               I'll put my watch in my pocket.
            Two ladies love me in this life
            and I can give them neither all
            for while one lies enfolding me
            I hear the other's call.
                                    gallagher
                                    23 feb 72
                                    Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1975-05-05 5 May 75 … the conversation

Dennis — Mon, 05 May 1975 08:00:00 +0000

                    5 May 75 ... the conversation

   Last night she talked to me and expressed more than I knew she held
     vessel of my love...
   Like night and day, I walk in and out of her influence
     and I'm torn by the winds of our love and thoughts,
       and she, for her love, bears as much.
   Until we know, we won't be free of this waiting
     and until we part or mend, we'll be torn of heart.
   Deal my mind cries... wait, my heart screams...
     hurry, my fears whisper... Rose my love says, ... Rose.
   She said maybe we'd never be happy,
     she said maybe the big hurt would be better
       than this waiting and a future filled with more hurts.
   And then she held me until not the winds of hell could touch me
     and whispered to me to do the best I could.
   She said if she could just know that I was coming back
     she could cope with anything... and I tried.
       I tried to make it work, to say it without cheating...
         but, I couldn't.
   There's no way to say for sure if you don't know
     unless you cheat or lie... I wanted to put her on hold...
       wait for me, I thought, don't get lost until I know...
         but we both know who would lose more this way.
   So strange... when I'm away I can't think of anything else
     for the emptiness that fills me so threateningly
   I move in dreams which wait to wake...
     I drift in these dreams, unfelt... unseen, spaced
   a traveler in a silent scream...
     moving in poses... through washed out scenes.
   She says I want my cake and to eat it too.
     That, like some child, I imagine a paradise here
       lying hidden from me here in my mundane life.
   I want love without hassles and problems...
     she doesn't... she doesn't want or imagine more.
        Our love is more than enough to make life good
   Is it that we're afraid that since we've only loved once
     that it wouldn't happen again if we split?
   And, are we avoiding the answer, either way,
     with this touch and go love of ours?
   Am I improving myself with all of this...
     or just ruining a good marriage?
   Do I know the answers and my pride blocks my sight
     of do I know and it's just fear that stays my hand
        or do I just not know?
   Is the way of the intellect just too hard for me...
     or is my common sense saving me?
   Am I just a fool chasing whimsical ideas
     or am I a coward,
        afraid to live my best dreams out?
   What am I...that I can feel her love like warm hands all over me
     and her arms like all the mothers in the world
        and think there's still more?
   What am I...that I can see how our love holds me
     because of my emotional need for love's security
        and not walk away from this material bond?
   Who am I...that I should have to answer...
     and who am I that I cannot?

                                 gallagher
                                 5 may 75 North Long Beach
                                 - late at night at Rose's apt.

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1976-12-24 Christmas Eve

Dennis — Fri, 24 Dec 1976 08:00:00 +0000

                          Christmas Eve

      With watery blue eyes and Norwegian accent,
      Hallard told me, with dignity,
      how it is to live on, afterwards.
      Not much to do at home;
      just the little dog she loved, waiting.

      Chuck's wife, Etta, had said
      he was sleeping on those same sheets
      she had put down after the funeral...
      sleeping in those same pajamas
      and never cleaning up after the dog,
      just spending the evenings in the bars
      until it was time to go to work again.

      Chuck talked a lot; a compulsion.
      He told me about the doctors
      and how hard it was to get the straight
      about those spots on the x-rays.
      One doctor was going to pass him off to another
      without asking him, but he cut him short.
      If they wouldn't consult with him, he'd look elsewhere.

      Rose said he's dying of cancer and that Etta knows it
      but that they don't think he does.
      Etta, I had thought, must be a little simple...
      how she walked around and smiled meekly.
      Unobtrusively passing in and out of our moments,
      not sad, just brittle, like a hurt child
      trying to be good.

      Hallard sat telling me how nice it was
      to have the family together at Christmas...
      the holidays were lonely times since his wife had passed on.

      And I'd been tolerant - pleasant to all of them;
      Rose's relatives and their holiday gathering.
      A bit boisterous and condescending and bored,
      and telling Rose, with barely concealed pride,
      how well I was putting up with it all.

      Hallard will go back to his Los Angeles apartment and his dog
      and Chuck and Etta will go back back to Washington like Rose's parents
      and these moments won't pass again for any of us.

      We won't sit here again in our ignorance and pain,
      the young and the old, the condescending and the patient...

      But its not so bad for us to be here together;
      they see us as spirits yet unbent
      and they can yet find some meaning and hope
      in our ignorance and our condensation and confidence.
      They were young once.

      And we, if our eyes were opened, would see great courage there
      in their eyes and their hours, courage, without cheering,
      courage in the face of death, aging and agony
      and in the face of our condescending youth.

                                 gallagher
                                 24 Dec 76

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1978-07-04

Dennis — Tue, 04 Jul 1978 08:03:00 +0000


 
  Paused for a moment on the edge of all the future
     all our lives will surely tangle or unweave now
     and all of these potentials,
     like hands on my shoulder, steady me.
  So let it begin and all the rest of my life go on
     I no longer wait or care for the past to resurrect itself
     this life can be invested in my future now
  I can weave and sort my friends and lovers into the days of my life
     I want to walk out each day excited
     about what could happen again
     and care nothing for what has gone by
  I've been too long tangled with the old ways
     so carefully unknotting our lives and feelings
     learning that exquisite patience that lies half way
     between compassion and self preservation
  But, its done... let me depart and begin anew
     this time not to bury my freedom with love and security
     or to hold myself untouched by love's whip and passion
  I want to find that balance point there in my heart, between...
     there, where on the edge of my best,
     I can live each day like it was the last
  I want to dance to life's mysteries and paradoxes
     as the fountains dance to the wind and the mimes to the crowd
     these things are not to weep for
  and, sometimes ... in those graceful but oh so brief moments,
     perhaps in a lover's eyes or in a passage of my son's growth
     I'll see something behind it all ...
     timeless ... smiling thru at me
  Brother Methuselah, here in all of us as we gamble our lives
     untouched yet compassionate ... he waits for us to begin
     and he smiles at us, a spiritual joy and promise within.

 
                                 gallagher

 
                                 07-04-78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1979-06-19

Dennis — Tue, 19 Jun 1979 08:00:00 +0000



 
         Ten years I've loved this girl
         and I'm falling in love with her again.
         I'm beyond trying to understand
         what we are or what we'll be.
         Its just enough that life can hold this much for me;
         that I should love someone like Rose
         and that she could love someone like me.

 
         No mystery there of first time flesh, new skin to touch.
         No modesty or politeness, no measuring or comparing
         and yet, new.

 
         Each evolution of kindness is built
         on all that went before.
         Each caring, each easy assumption, each knowing...
         The appreciation of time and love's memories
         pressed in the squeeze of a hand.
         That happy glow just to join company.

 
         Its been so long since we've had pause to grow;
         divorce, lovers, bitter words,
         pain, growth, ...all unchangeable,
         all necessary for us to come here to this new love.

 
                                    gallagher
                                    19 Jun 1979

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1984-04-29

Dennis — Sun, 29 Apr 1984 08:00:00 +0000



           Today I was shaving
           and putting in my contacts
           and Chris sat on the sink watching
           like he's done a lot this last two months.

           Suddenly, from this random behavior,
           came pattern and purpose.
           if I were making a fire or tanning leather
           or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
           there...it was...

           there he would sit, receptive
           to what he would need to live;
           the transmission of learning
           parent to progeny.

           Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
           all the same...small eyes learning.

           And in our plastic electronic world
           where this has little validity
           the instinct still lives.
           he looks to me to show him the way.

                        gallagher
                        apr 29, 84
                        San Juan Capistrano

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1984-04-29

Dennis — Sun, 29 Apr 1984 08:00:00 +0000

           Today I was shaving
           and putting in my contacts
           and Chris sat on the sink watching
           like he's done a lot these last two months.
           Suddenly, from this random behavior,
           came pattern and purpose.

           If I were making a fire or tanning leather
           or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
           there...
           there he would sit, receptive
           to what he would need to live;
           the transmission of learning
           parent to progeny.

           Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
           all the same...small eyes learning.

           And in our plastic electronic world
           where this has little validity
           the instinct still lives.
           he looks to me to show him the way.

                        gallagher
                        apr 29, 84
                        San Juan Capistrano

1985-03-28

Dennis — Thu, 28 Mar 1985 08:00:00 +0000

            Rich beyond all measure
            we stand blind in the midst.
            The light of God shines through us
            and around us in every form
            and we go aching
            from mood to mood
            and place to place
            in search of His peace and joy.
            He must smile with compassion
            at children such as we
            who, in the wheat fields of His love,
            cannot find the harvest
            nor simply love the sun.
                              gallagher
                              28 March 1985
            after yet another listening of Gibran's, The Prophet.

1985-09-04

Dennis — Wed, 04 Sep 1985 08:00:00 +0000



 
         The summer's gone to rain
           the murmurs of water and leaf.
         These gray skies and cool air
            speak to me of my Vancouver winters.

 
         Indonesia and Singapore and Canada
           begin to loom behind the rain
             and the ending of this unique summer.

 
         The fear of loosing things
           is with me, sometimes.
         In the mirror, in my relationship with Lise,
           in my job, in my son's years,
              and in Rose's patience.

 
         And I wonder if I was ever
           stronger or weaker.
         Before, I used to stare my fears down
           with the promise of the future
         but now I've lived, I'm waiting no longer to begin,
           and I know the future as well as the past.

 
         Now, when I confront my fears or the rain,
           I can bring no illusions.
         Now enlightenment is not an option
           among my future dreams.
         It waits for me like steel trap
           behind each burning moment.
         And it waits for me to arrive,
           dead or alive.

 
                              gallagher
                              4 September 85

1986-01-20

Dennis — Mon, 20 Jan 1986 08:02:00 +0000

Rose, it gave me such a pleasure
to help with the children when you were sick today.
I know I wasn’t as much help as I could have been
fussing with the phone and the newspaper
but it made me realize what you do with them
like a farmer who digs his hands
deep into the soil that is his life.
You see them as life brimming, raw with promise.
A treasure of people just beginning.
A future world you can mother and comfort.
It was such simple pleasure to smile and hold them.
They saw my feelings and responded to me.
But you had already made that place
where I came to visit and open to them.
It was a day well spent and badly needed.
Somethings cut deeper than others
and you’ve found one, my lover, wife, and friend.
You nurture them and me in the sunshine
of your love and cherishing
and I see now
how you let God work through you.

gallagher
1/20/86 #2