SamadhiMuse

                  When Helen O. came around

         I’m thinking’ about her and there’s not much to say
         she just feels good in the easiest way
         this lady’s got it and I’m blown away … with love … easy love
         We started talkin’ and I had to smile
         she’s kinda pretty and she’s nobody’s child
         she’s quick as lightening and a little wild … I’m in love
         There’s so much in her that I’ve looked for
         she’s complex and shows it, she’s never a bore
         she’s come thru some hard times and it made her much more
         I’m in love, …and I want more.

                                 gallagher
                                 03 aug 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

   They’re brusing’ me, these days
   ever since I met her its been chaos in emotion city
   the lady’s a razor … the lady’s just too much
   the lady keeps me in free fall … in love.
   She comes on electric … hyper
   she’s got intelligence to burn … quicksilver mind
   small and wiry … she’s been wounded and maimed
   and her wit and opinions are quick to reclaim the loss
   And her fantasies … she walked me thru them … a farmer’s son
   dazzled my simple love and even acceptance
   made love to my body … to my eyes … my hands
   until I sustained a smile two days running … fantasy time
   She’s a woman I’d give up a lot for and ache if it was enough
   but she’s got a lot of past to sort before this could be real
   she led me in because it felt so good, to love…to fall into it
   but she’s not really ready to play
      and I don’t know if falling in love can be put on hold
   So, today, rinsed and drained … emptied … more real and yet less
   I think I can learn to see her like the others, but not easily.
   I want to love so simply … I want to love so singly
   I don’t know why it should be so hard
      why am I always loving someone else’s love?
                                 gallagher
                                 18 aug 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Days … Days like these never were before in my life
      Helen, like a fire in my mind and heart and body burns
      and in the fire’s light I see my past for all it could’ve been.
      She, more than anyone else I’ve known, is my kin
      her eyes burn with all she sees, like mine
      and she loves me like I’ve wanted to be loved
      for a long long time.
                              gallagher
                              20 aug, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Kathleen A.
         Helen K.
            Kathi K.
               and now, Helen O.
      How rich it grows
         the light seems to never lessen
      Diana C.
         Carol K.
            Beverly S.
               Suzanne S.
      I can’t believe them all
         each one some incredible wonder, joy.
      I feel like Siddartha wandering among life’s lures
         eagerly passing thru …  touching each thing openly
            no hurry … just learn and see
               whose love, whose real … what I feel.
                           gallagher
                           28 jul 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         She said, “You like to walk on the edge?”
         “Yes, I do, … Yes”, I said
         and I looked across the space and into her eyes
         and fell on over to the other side
         Its by the edge that the strong survive
         its on across that the dead come alive
         she said, “You always seem so open and so real.”
         and I thought, “I’m trying to stand all that I feel.”
         Electric eyes, she has electric skin
         I want to love you, I want to win
         Love’s easily my hardest game
         its oneness is an invitation to pain
         and yet…and yet I open
         again and again.
                                 gallagher
                                 aug 29, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            Overextended and hurting again
            is it only in love that I bend
            only here with my heart in a mess
            that I let my feelings come undressed
            its never easy…never thought it was
            this aching feeling that lingers from love.
                              gallagher
                              aug 29, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Love’s confusing…its an overload dream
      I’ve got too many feelings and I don’t know what they mean
      quicksilver lady, i cannot pin her down
      quicksilver lady, her presence is a dream
      my easy drifting is gone without a trace
      our lover’s dancing all other time’s erased
      I’ve got to focus…I feel this more each day
      love should have its moments, but life’s the game I’d play
      come then, tell her… let her stay or slip away
      these days, so full of essences, to me just steps along my way
      I love this lady…she’s more mirror than I’ve seen
      but more than soft and easy…she’s a lover’s tangled dream.
                                 gallagher
                                 aug 29, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         To: Dennis Gallagher
         So much to tell you
         Dear Diary
         And yet — My life runs in circles
         and spirals
         Sometimes forwards
         Sometimes at a standstill
         OH TIME: tell me
         Is it yet?
         Is he the ONE
         With whom I can settle?
         Put down more roots?
         Here is a woman
         Vital and loving
         Who will want her children?
         To spend TIME with.
         The gamble is the mystery
         and the solution is
               LIFE
                     Helen O’flarety
                     29 aug, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            Ever more cryptic this grows
            “We entertain each other” and
            “I’ll do it all”.
            The girl’s so complex in her thoughts
            I cannot find my place
            she’s got a dowery, she wants a man
            she craves understanding, her words are soft as sand
            she dances blindly and poses if she can
            she speaks directly but never touches land
            The process passes understanding,
            resolve it if you can…
            I wait a sign from her,
            uncertain where I stand
            the decisions are all interlocked
            shall I sit or shall I stand?
                              gallagher
                              aug 30, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      So all the confusion has come to this
      that she lies sedated in some mental hospital
      so beautiful…so intelligent…and incredibly, flawed.
      Her house would’ve been too much tonight
      to stay there with Sharon and Gary.
      Every wall, every object saying,
      ’she saw me as clearly as you,
      she ordered me, she arranged me, she cared for me…’
      I helped in her disassembly…for all her intelligence,
      she just wasn’t made for for normal human stresses.
      I was going to be strong, conservative, fight for my needs.
      But hers, so immediate, just pushed her over some edge
      when they were not immediately fulfilled
      God, I ache for her…I love her
      the part that was unflawed
         was more than anyone I’ve known.
                                 gallagher
                                 september 01, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            Dreams of the Shaman again tonight
            power for the giving
            I preserve my dreams against the tide
            but what of the people in my life?

            Do I toy with them so cruelly
            I don’t want to … I just want to grow
            as big as my dreams … or fall trying.

            She asked me to leave these many months
            and now she’d call me due
            but I won’t give into these old ways.

            I ache inside for her need
            but mine runs a deeper course
            and tonight … I hear Helen on the wind
            and all my questions tensed
            before realities brief facades.

            Sanity or no, convention or not,
            is it a space I can live with?
            And will her need
            give me the time to find out.

                                 gallagher
                                 03 september 78 - LSD
                                 references to Helen O’flarity

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      The tides in my life are rolling
      these days begin to focus their force on me
      rebirth again…just as I’ve called for it…again and again.

      The easy paths always divide
      and I’m forced to choose, forced to focus, forced to endure
      where two weeks ago I had it all
      today, I’m looking at chaos and confusion.

      Rose wants me to come back
      Helen’s in a mental hospital
      and the other three are stepping away for another look.

      I want to hold on the to clarity of my gut visions
      but they’re so easily lost
      personalities, priority conflicts, needs, finite energy
      I’m small against my history, today.

      I know I’m going to take a ride
      through my doubts and fears to some other side.

      If you would, love me, life.
      help me through to the other side…intact
      with all my love and my freedom…and all my dreams.

                              gallagher
                              03 Sep 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               Coping with my disease
                  is hard enough for me alone
               yet I seem to inflict my pain
                  on others who don’t deserve it.
               Sitting up in the middle of the night,
                  trying desperately to sort me out
               is an exhausting process.
                  Even medication cannot keep me forever.
               He sleeps in there - I can’t disturb him
                  God, -  will you hold my hand
               through this night?
                  can you tell me about my tomorrows?
               Why is just living hard for me?
                  I am at the border of society
               always peeking in but never “normal”
                  he calls me hyper and wild.
               I have been reading his poetry.
                  He knows me well for such a short knowing:
               Am I that transparent.
                  Why, God, is change so difficult?
               These episodes of pain are wearying
                  why am I so reactive to events
               that in the perspective of time
                  are so insignificant?
                                 Helen O’flarety
                                 September 17, 78
                                 written at my apartment

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            This love is so new —
            on a rose, a drop of dew
            that needs protection
            from scrutinization
            This love makes me spin.
            That line is so thin
            that I’m walking
            I feel like balling.
            This love is so strong —
            who knows if it will last long?
            I can’t shut out the past,
            but I ask:  can it last?
            This love brought on a new light,
            so strong I stay up the night —
            wondering if it fits me,
            knowing I want and need thee.
            You question as vehemently as I.
            Your questions raise me high.
            And I dash me down —
            am I but a clown?
            Please give me time, my love,
            nothing else to think of —
            it may be a fantasy of mine,
            but I hope to make it reality in line.
                              Helen O’flarity
                              september 17, 78
                              written at my apartment

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                  The unraveling of Helen O
      what is all this to me…what am i supposed to see…to learn here
      that i loved someone, briefly…and watched her unravel
         and sift away like sand
      manic/depressive…driven to the ends of her personality
         and unable to make a stand
      are we then no more than our personality patterns?
      is it that i am to see that there is no deeper essence…
         beneath the things we believe we are?
      is she then, all of her, gone when she disassembles?
      am i to disbelive in spirit when i cannot find her’s?
      combination of intelligence and over-driven sympathetic nervous system
      some parts striving, ego, caring, memories, presence…and beauty…
      some parts terror and vanity, courage and cowardice…and hurt
      a form with too much energy to maintain itself
      against the entropy we call insanity she crosses the barrier again
      much like the child’s tale of frosty the snowman
         we dare not love her too long.
                                 gallagher
                                 27 september 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

   There must be reasons, I know, for this miserable play
   that I should have loved her… to see her taken away.
   Her promises, much brighter than most,
   now lie abandoned by their delirious host.
   She had possessions and a mind of razored fire
   and, when she could hold it, compassion and fine desire.
   I know its for something, that its all come down this way.
   Am I to learn understanding of it or to have the sense to step away?
   It seems the months of this last year
   have been filled with people like me, far too much I fear.
   Kathy’s centered ego, so very much like my own,
   mocks my need to hold her, her mirror brings it home.
   And Helen’s hyper-brightness, her driving needs to win
   lead me to my own belief that less than the best’s a sin.
   Its no chance, these people, more like me than me
   have come to give reflections of the things I never see
   I wane much more sober, beaten back again
   by the difference in the dreams I nurture and the ways reality
   bends.
                              gallagher
                              september 27, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Helen across the miles … on the wires
      re-risen from where she’s gone … recognizable
      her voice makes me feel love … memories
      she says we’re not logical … it shouldn’t last
      and she’s right, damn it!
      This whip-snap girl who matches my every nuance
      when she’s keeping it together
      a flame who burns so bright she extinguishes herself
      she shadows my every perception in her light
      wistful…over the wires and the miles and the fields
      needing her time to heal…and remembering our love
      I feel so inexpressibly full … so full
      when I want to hug her to hold her
      and I’m holding nothing but the phone…
      unable to empty, except to say, ‘I miss you, I care’.
      Tender moment, balanced between need and decorum
      wants and consideration, emotion and logic
         pain and desire,
            love… and loss … the phone’s plastic
      and her voice in it.
      and so we part with all that logic waiting in the future
      and all these emotional months to come.
                              gallagher
                              9 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Why did I meet you?
         now I wait wistful against the days
      not quite as alive as I could be
      You showed me, matched me, laughed with me
         and if it was your insanity we shared
      I guess I could be labeled so too
      I liked it there where associations ran free
         and every moment was hyper-electric
      when you looked at me, I could feel it like a hand
      Everything about you was velvet judo
         I tire so often of half people
      partial perceptions, conformers and half-thinkers
      will I only find my match in someone like you?
         full on with more than your slight frame can handle
      romantic tragedy, intense spirit, over strained psyche
      I’m spoiled now… I want only your kind
         of freedom and devotion.
                              gallagher
                              12 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

   Ah, Helen… sitting here this night…it finally come to me
      how deeply you affected me.
   Softened by acid and the hour…my running steps
      finally come to ground
   I stopped to look at these poems and to sort my feelings out
      since you left.
   and found I’m a sadder man for the loss of your time.
   I cried here and felt so many feelings come rushing down
      and that one hand that reached into my gut and twisted
         said, ‘maximum loss’.
      and even then I thought of you; that only you
         could understand.
   I read again the poems you wrote me the night I slept and you lay awake
      why is it I only seem to hear what you say to me in retrospect?
   Your patterns running so fast
      I could only catch them whole in moments
   your attempts to deal, running to the abrasive
      the pain, under, running to so much grief
   And I, unhearing Irishman, offering conditional relief
      but I see here, now, where you’ve past by
         the tracks to me are plain to see
   I got some aches inside me now from you
      and these poems that leave me wondering what I believe
   there’s so much that separates us logically,
      perhaps I should let it lay
   but only you know how that feels…to let it be that way
      this evening I cried for you … what more can I say.
                                 gallagher
                                 14 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         She’s gone again across the miles
         and as they open up between her and I
         I can feel this emptiness in my stomach growing again
         Sister, lover, friend, equal … all of these … easily.
         she wakes me from my sleep everytime she looks at me
         and leaves me in some kind of ‘less than it could be’ agony
         everytime she’s gone … she’s real amid dreams.
                                 gallagher
                                 22 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —