April’s fool— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Hard running … flat out working
on a Maya high
lost in the computer’s labyrinth logic
Making it work … for some ego trip?
for the joy of creation
for the passage of unconscious time … ?
Virginia, Washington D.C., Portland, Maine, and Quebec
Rose and Christopher
Work’s cresendo … time’s almost inaudible
laughter.
gallagher
1 Apr 80
I must have been happy these months— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I’ve not picked up a pen to write
more than 2 or 3 times
Christopher has been born,
I’ve bought a condo in Capistrano,
I’m getting a computer of my own,
and I’m staying right physically
and Rose, … Rose has been Rose for me
A baby … now I know how to love a baby!!!
Baby smiles are simpler than trust
just as touching a baby
is more than being careful
I used to think babys were too simple
to be interesting
but I don’t think so anymore
and I don’t care why
Christopher, … just smile for me.
gallagher
10-13-80
What a pang I got when Rose and my children left tonight— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
the long freeway drive…so much of me in one place.
They all become more dear to me each day
Danny’s age and intelligence make him a companion and a friend
as well as my blood kin and my son.
and Chris … Chris’ baby learnings, his baby smiles charm me
until I start mooning and babytalking at him
like any supermarket momma, oblivious to those around me.
And Rose. What can be said about Rose?…
That she’s so much a part of my life
that I can no more paint her in words
than imagine my life without her.
She is my other half, without which
I would probably be some wary emotional cripple in this life
she has built my capacity to love from nothing
and given me the confidence to express my manhood
and the emotional security to excel at my work
but mostly she has given texture and depth
to my life with her sincerity
without which, love, my most basic need,
could only twist frustrated.
Rock of Love, she, no empty designer jeans manikin here
the sincerity of her love for me
and the quality of life it gives me are One.
Rose.
gallagher
12-01-80
I hope this life sustains Rose.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
This one of coming and going
this love for a week and then
wait for two.
I think of Chris and I’m always
amazed at my thoughts
small person with eyes
of such potential and trust
Loving Danny grew on me
like the ivy that overcame the church
but Chris has been a storm
ever since Rose and I gave him his life.
I hope she holds on
all my life, or hers.
Its the only feeling I have
that runs deeper
than the joy of living
and its pleasures
amen.
I’ve been so reckless with it
and I’ve been so lucky.
gallagher
11 apr 1981
Vancouver, B.C.
My Sons— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
My sons a man could be proud of
they say something of the best of Rose and I
with a cut and line, a form
that my eye never fails to fall on, pleased.
Danny, the sensitive blond and popular artist of us
how well he’s formed thru the caldron
of our marriage years and evolutions
The man begins to show in him
as firm and as deep as I could wish it
and I want to stand back and applaud
and give him room and respect to grow in
And Chris, blocky intense little Chris
affectionate and secure, pushy and proud
his potential and promise fill him with presence
he radiates ‘I am a good boy’, without any doubts
My sons
they make me prouder than anything else
I’ve ever done.
10-08-82
Vancouver, B.C.
For Chris— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Chris’ small shoes
He says, ‘Read my book, Daddy.’.
Hold me, tickle me….
Where else have I seen
those child’s eyes?
1913, 1930, 1950, …
He’s so precious
the moment so brief
I want to cry and read him
his book
before we all become photographs
God, life is beautiful
and so short
and we are such utter fools
in the midst of it most times.
12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano
For Chris— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Chris’ small shoes
He says, ‘Read my book, Daddy.’.
Hold me, tickle me….
Where else have I seen
those child’s eyes?
1913, 1930, 1950, …
He’s so precious
the moment so brief
I want to cry and read him
his book
before we all become photographs
God, life is beautiful
and so short
and we are such utter fools
in the midst of it most times.
12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano
Patterns seem to be forming— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and I begin to fear War
I read ‘The Clowns of God’ by Morris
and now the real Pope announces
that he feels War more immanent
because of the rising cries for peace.
And some where in the last few days
I read that someone (the Pope?)
feels we’re leaving the ‘post-war period’
and entering a ‘pre-war period’.
In Beruit 28 men out of 90 survived
a hand to hand attack with hatchets
and, then, the Korean flight, 007,
was shot down this last week.
The faces of Danny and Chris swim before my eyes
against the back drop of nuclear conflict
and the inescapability of Los Angeles
in wartime.
The only thing that comes to mind
when I try to imagine War as not inevitable
is the sheer stupidity of it.
But, somehow, that seems small defense
in the world of ever lessening resources
and ever growing competition for them.
Children, families, neighborhoods, blood lines
toys, momentos, health, life, and life works
are all irrevocably torn asunder by War …
Where will I hide a little boy
who says, ‘Daddy, I love you, so much.’
and hugs me with such simple trust…?
gallagher
13 September 83 - Irvine, CA
LAX and Chris— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Little people holding big people’s hands
hands wading through a sea of faces…
so vulnerable, so precious.
I imagine him here
and a cherishing feeling sweeps through me.
gallagher
03 nov 83
- on my way to Vancouver
LAX and Chris— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Little people holding big people’s hands
hands wading through a sea of faces…
so vulnerable, so precious.
I imagine him here
and a cherishing feeling sweeps through me.
gallagher
03 nov 83
- on my way to Vancouver
Dave said it today…— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Pictures of starving children
our cupboards full of non-essential luxuries.
So what can such as we do
to stem this world’s insanities?
Each week more money and energy flow thru our hands
than many people in the third world see in a lifetime.
This moment…THIS moment, someone starves
some child cries out in that utter well of despair
that only the young and innocent of this world have to bear.
That endless moment of terror
that waits without cause or remorse
to prey on their young lives
crushing their attempts to understand and be loved
staining their innocence and corrupting their trust.
Generations turning like wheels, children issuing forth
into war and poverty, sickness and pain
and sometimes, …sometimes into love.
More than our imaginations could hold or our hearts believe
they live in far away places where people
are different and, somehow, less real.
Our perceptions of these places lost between
the stock market quotations and furniture sales.
My Chris is four and when he hugs me and says, “I love you.”
the love and cherishing wash thru me so poignantly
He knows he’s loved and safe and secure
and his love and innocence can burn in their full flowering.
He lives in this world we’ve made him
between his naps and meals and tickling
and being told he’s a good boy.
He grows strong and whole, here.
Can he really be living in a world where people are gambled
for money and power?
gallagher
19 December 1983
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
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Today I was shaving— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
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
Mists of time around me, sweeping.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
A lamp in the moving fog
of some greater darkness, I.
Impressions of progress and decay, fragmented
small glimmers of understanding
against the animal’s short run.
Film spliced, images racing, overlaid
in bursts of light and shadow.
But what cares the screen beneath.
We run unarmed, to battles unwinable
and our love’s the only comfort taken
and our small awarenesses
the only progress made.
Death and pain and dissolution and decay.
We are motes in the vortex of life’s sink.
Our children only a momentary reverse.
Come the mists and darkness, I wait …
weathered and drawn in animal skin
receptive to an unknown God.
Rose and Danny and Chris
and these lines on my face
and those on these papers I’ve traced
these are the only measures I can discern
of what I’ve wrought
in this time and mist and darkness.
gallagher
1 jun 84
Irvine, CA
For the pictures— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
In the gray half light I saw the picture patterns she’d hung;
imperishable for this moment, and so fragile for all the rest.
Someday, I may remember these, that tonight I can see.
Somewhere, down the imponderable paths our lives wind,
I may be dropped into another world far from this
and Rose’s pictures and Danny’s manhood and Chris’ cheeks
may all be photographs and memories then …
indeed…we all will be, someday.
So this moment … I cannot stop it, cannot delay it
and I cannot waste it, least I regret.
So easy to lose it against hungers or moods or fatigue.
The kindness and love we give and receive…
it seems so mixed with the mundane and the trivial sometimes.
But all the lessons of our lives wait before us;
lessons from which no one escapes alive.
What more could God give us than the people we love
and the passion of living out our lives with them
in family/friend chains of living change?
gallagher
24 jun 84
Most of my life is easy…distractions— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
friends, peers, equals, sounding boards
those I’m defining myself with
and against.
But it gets harder when we press against
those unlike us in years or spirit;
our teenagers and preschoolers
and those we have to work with.
And yet how much of my energy do I spend
on the easy ground
and how sparsely do I meditate
on my sons and their growth.
gallagher
11 aug 84
san juan capistrano
A little boy has the chicken pox— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
his skin comes boiling
but its my heart
that talks…
He whines and twitches; it itches so bad,
and I look at his skin and I get mad.
Love and anger, compassion and strain,
I ache for his innocence, so small against pain
These moments are burnt of welling tears
hard passages through my mortal fears.
The love we feel, on this stage of death,
for long vanished children and we who’re left here.
All this was mine as I held his hand.
As his little courage
struggled so hard to stand.
All this was mine
…but, God, … I can’t understand.
gallagher
5 may 85
All weekend Chris was here— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
how nice it was.
He, like Danny, is so flexible.
He gives me my space when I ask
and loves and is patient
until my heart calls
and
we play again.
Small eyes of trust and love.
How I hope my problems with your mother
will not come between our love
for my blood is full of you
and my heart is bound to your smiles
and
your small hugs.
Our time is so precious and so short
and this blood we share
is so rare.
It’s ours.
gallagher
27 Oct 85
I almost made some unforgivable mistake— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
with Rose and my children.
Almost cut us loose from each other
to drift until the ends of our lives
and not know
what we could have been to and for each other.
When I see the hand of God move
I’m never sure which side or why
and the closer passes the stroke
the less anything
resembles what went before.
gallagher
1/20/86
Chris’ birthday meditations— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
You have to give the things you want.
If you give dishonesty and deceit
then expect it.
Give what you want,
be what you want.
If you are tempted to transgress
your own spiritual convictions
and you think, ‘just this once’
then you risk much. And with each repetition
the danger grows more grave.
For, as your habit grows,
your belief in yourself
as a growing spiritual being
diminishes.
gallagher
3/21/86
- written in SJC on Swallow’s day weekend
when I stayed over for Chris’ birthday.