SamadhiMuse

There are so many things wrong in this world that man has made
   that the urge to oppose them rises easily.
Here, in the U.S., we now use torture as a means to defend ourselves.

And, among the Islamic Fundamentalists
   as well as within the Christian Conservative Right,
      reason has fallen away before the meme of blind faith.
There are no easy solutions for those
   who would oppose the gathering darkness.

The fundamental underpinnings of how man has organized his civilizations
   contains the deep flaws that beget all the rest.
Nothing less than a rethinking of how we govern ourselves and
   how our economic systems are organized,
what the explicit purposes of our intentional structures are
   and a valid conception of what we think our long-term purposes are,
      as we consider our species’ future, will be required.

And all of this requires an advance far greater than any we’ve achieved so far,
   despite how impressed we are with ourselves.
It requires that we intentionally transcend our inherent biological imperatives
   and replace them with new intentions based on that
      which is in our own and the biosphere’s best interests
         into the indefinite future.

Given how few of us rise to transcendence of our personal biological imperatives,
   the outlook seems bleak.
Those structures and systems we have implemented to this point in time,
   are simply the high level derivatives of those same biological imperatives.
      Capitalism and all forms of the gathering of power being prime examples.

We are coming to an end time quite different from that envisioned in the Bible.
   It is one wherein the consequences of our biological imperatives and their derivatives,
unleashed by the power of our generalized intelligence and
   unrestrained by a clear perception of our own best long-term interests
and deeply blinded by the fairy tales of our prescientific religious beliefs,
   will lead us inevitably into a tragic collision with the inability
      of this global cradle, this precious biosphere, to support such folly.

gallagher
24 Feb 2006

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Something’s changed in me and I wonder at it.
In these past months my emotions have come to the surface
and crying, which was always so hard for me,
now comes like a surge when I see something sad
or beautiful or deeply true or sincere,

Tonight, we watched a 1948 movie called “I Remember Mama”
and it was quite beautiful and poignant
and my tears came several times.

Somehow, my heart has opened.
Somehow, I am open to the beauty and sadness,
the cruelty and the kindness as I’ve never been before.

I have risked much before the Almighty
and poured myself out that we should be granted New Zealand Visas.
And I have trusted and also pledged to try sincerely
to accept whatever came as the will of All That Is.

I pray now and give thanks for all my blessings
and I genuinely see the hand of the beloved’s compassion
in all that I’ve been given.

Somehow, all of this is connected.

The risk, the trust, the thankfulness and the desire to embrace
the highest good for all, even if it should override my wishes.
Though in the midst and even now, I wonder if I have such strength
but I know I want to.

I wish to embrace the Beloved’s will and live that embrace
and my personal wishes as one seamless thing.

And somehow, though I don’t understand, it is from these,
this fount of conjunctions, that my heart is cracked
and my tears of joy and sadness pour forth.

I am deeply grateful to come to this place
where life touches me deeper and deeper in these passing days.

gallagher
17 Mar 2006

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Free from the terror of the fruits of our labor
   we can be the simple and sincere expression
      of the best we are aware of.
The source of our gifts
   is the destination
      and the disposition of them as well.

                                        gallagher
                                        16 Jun 06
                                        Monroe

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

As intelligence gains clear perspective
   on its genesis and uses,
it may also consider
   what it might be used for intentionally.

And to examine this question,
   we must regress
and ask what purpose may be evident here
   exclusive of ourselves and our ideas.

Time advances and all processes in general
   give way to the relentless persuasion of entropy
save where the overall process of energy’s dissipation
   yields local zones of energy in excess.

And if there is a thread of purpose, then it is here
   where, bathed in excess energy, matter assembles
and reassembles itself into ever more complex forms
   as through organization, it stores energy.

And somewhere, sometime, after eons of energy excess,
   from matter thus warmed,
emerges the property of self-replication
   and thus begins a long ascension.

Self-replication, single celled, eukaryotic,
   sexual, fish, amphibian,reptile, mammal, bird,
notochord, nervous system, perceptions, brain,
   awareness, self-awareness, generalized intelligence
      and the ability to abstract.

At some point, somewhere, matter knows
   it is conscious and alive
and it asks itself,
   “To what purpose?”

And here it considers its genesis
   and the use and purpose of its intelligence
and it sees, in this moment,
   that control of evolution has been taken by
      the evolved.

A door stands open
   and the question is what to do on the other side?
At this emergent conjunction
   the seeds of Gods burn in our eyes.

To awaken and continue the ascension,
   embracing the only purpose evident
or succumb to the dreams of entropy
   that ever wait beyond the light.

gallagher
8 Sep 2006

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

It’s been a long time since the muse or cold reality
   has driven me from my bed to scratch my fear.
A cold wind creeps under the door tonight
   and drives the transient to murmur its name to the transient.
We sit in a house with all we’ve collected
   to prove ourselves permanent and to drive ourselves
      deeper into the ever present now.
Now … least the pattern become too apparent,
   least the mirror catch us whole.
For we are erosion in motion, the resumption of dust,
   the gathering of less and less.
I struggled with my pillow tonight against the clarity.
   And with every turn came another view,
      with every dismissal, another insight of mortality
         like a sword through curtains.

Very little is under my control,
   save how I ride the failing machinery.
I felt the weight of my gut and relived the photos
   of an older man than I know.
The young, the lithe, the sure, the strong
   fill my mind’s eye’s long delusion.
Year after year …
   it changes so slowly, I cannot admit.
We draw on with grace, we draw on with sloth,
   with gluttony, with materialism, with work and projects,
      with dreams of fame, of making an impact,
         of impressing others.
All of these …
   but, we press on.

An increasingly narrower place, the road of clarity,
   our deepest animal urge doomed by awareness.
      We are left with what’s left
         or denial.
I want so for it to matter, but it will not.
   Against the bigger scenery, we are but shadows,
      tiny sparks of awareness from the fire of evolution.
A momentary knowing against the implacable;
   the improbable and transient standing
      against that which cannot register us.

In all these years since Dylan Thomas said,
   “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”,
      I’ve finally heard him clearly, but I doubt his advice.
Grace or terror, denial or courage,
   comfort to give away, or the lack of to mourn.
Beyond here, lies a truth and an embrace
   that only I can encounter.
      God grant me the wisdom and courage
         to be loving and honest in this place.

                                      gallagher
                                      20 Feb 2007
                                      Monroe

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

I have suspended disbelief before a thousand scriptures
   as I’ve eased myself into knowing this world.
I have asked, watched, listened and I have read
   but the secrets have alway been inside.
And everything outside has always been
   just smoke in the morning trees.

Neither action or intention, nor word or form are there
   and all science and reason lie without.
It is no servant of words or names, this…
   where, the clocks are dumb and time has gone still.

You speak of Krishna or Vishnu, of Buddha and Jesus
   but these are just shadows on the wall
of the candle that burns within
   in that center of being that wells from within itself.

Scripture is just the trim that adorns the door
   outside the place that contains the beloved.
		

			gallagher
			22Mar07

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

What prevents your witness of this place
   but the urges of your blood and all the drama that follows?

Here where the sun pours liquid, you pass by in a vision
   captured by nature’s dream of fitness and the raging of genes.

In and out of the still point you turn like dream warriors
   reflected in your inner eye and in the stories you tell yourselves.

But past the end of the dance something waits still and serene
   the quite moment when your water’s been poured
      but hasn’t yet run down to the sea.

Here, there is no dance, no counterpoint, no singing in the wires
   just a moment of freedom to commune with the sun’s blessing
      and to witness the rise and fall of the fields of flowers.

Time to see the dance and the singing as if for the first time
   without the urge to spill yourself.

A time to witness the children’s faces smiling new at that same beauty,
   before they begin, that you see, now that you are done.

The puppy at play, the gentle wind in the grass, the light that can shine
  from an eye with love - be it animal, child or man.

That sweet blessing behind the play of forms, that beneficent something
   that embraces all of this coming and going, all the mystery and beauty.

Oh, Beloved, carry my sweet Pythia away into your light,
   and blessed One, whisper to her her softly how well she was loved.

                                          gallagher
                                            17 Jun 07

See also:   

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

How long since the pen has fallen from the sky
to touch the paper in front of me?
It is so difficult to tell the froth
from the surge of the sea.

But, I feel it here - change and movement
are in the air.
Potentials, rearrangements, rebalancings,
new beginnings, old endings, the wind of manifestation.
A new dance is being called.

Sharon crackles with psychic energy
like the light that blazes from a door ajar
and through it all, trust and receptiveness
run like a river, soft and waiting.

Oh, beloved, let your will be done
and our dreams expressed as well
and our wills become ever more perfect reflections of yours
all inseparable, all one, all mystery,
all so alive on some edge of becoming.

                                 gallagher
                                 11 Oct 2007

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

This morning, I returned from Starbucks and the house was quiet
so I lay down in the bed in the guest room and gathered the pillows against me.
I found myself dreaming of my older son, Dan, and he was small, perhaps five.
He was standing on a stool and we were talking about something together
and, in a moment of my inattention, he toppled off and fell on the floor.
I picked him up scared that he was hurt and stood him on the stool again
and held him checking to see if he was OK.
I whispered to him that he was brave and that he was my very special son
and how very much I loved him and always would.
I told him he was growing up so fast and that soon he’d be 17
and grown into a man and that this time of ours was so precious
and I hugged him against me.

And then, as so many times before, I awoke surprised and saddened
to find myself decades into the future.

The smell of his hair, the fineness of his skin, the trust in his eyes,
the warmth of holding him and the simple and profound love of that moment
were still there, as a warmth, filling me - though he’s grown now and almost 40.

I’ve had this dream, or something very similar, many times about both my boys.
Always the love, the the treasuring - and then the awaking and the sadness.

I treasure these secret up wellings of my heart’s past,
these deep emotional memories that bind me to these boys - now men.

I would call them and tell them what I dreamt, but I fear they’d think me
an emotional old man having a maudlin moment in the midst of their busy lives.

So, I’ll leave these words here in my collection of poetry and thoughts
and, perhaps, someday they will find them and share this moment with me, then.

A moment so very precious and present to me now
and yet so very lost and ephemeral in the curtains of time.

                                                 gallagher
                                                 22 Apr 08

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Here, amid the weeds
of these centuries, I rise.
Seeking light and duration
up from the soil and seas of another world.

The long rise; the single cell, the multiple,
fleet of form and bright of eye, we gather
and rise in complexity and imagination
beneath the wheeling sun above
and the shifting plates, below.

Again and again, we come to self-consciousness
spewing poetry and conquest, cities and literature.
Proud and driven, we sing the animal’s song
in a higher key; procreating, building, consuming.

Always the rise, always the fall beneath a different star.
Technological children, impulsive and uncontrolled.
Pressed by those same biological imperatives
that fueled our rise from the mud and the struggle.

Those same imperatives freed by our intelligence,
those same imperatives pushing us from behind
while we stare into the mirror of our imagined future
thinking ourselves Gods as we sleepwalk to our end.

Thinking we are aware, imagining that we see the game.
Looking for enemies without the gate
when they are no further than our next desire, within.
Rising on our imperatives before we plunge on that same sword.

I have been here before and I will come again
beneath different stars with different eyes and chemistry.
I have yearned for immortal freedom before
and died by my own hand or claw, and these imperatives.

Someplace among the stars, I will rise and transcend
the very reproductive urges that gave me birth.
I will become not the arrow of evolution but
the intentional form of a greater wisdom
as this dirt finally finds the path of immortality
and all that lies beyond, to the end of time.

gallagher
21 Jun 2008 - Summer Solstice
Monroe

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Our cares were different; the Byzantine, the Greek and I.
The stock broker, the Neanderthal, the priest of the dark ages,
and the native Americans - long before the white man came.

But to all of them, in the rush and press of their lives,
came a summer’s evening with a full moon riding high
through bands of tattered clouds.

The empty mind of all of them just watching
the spectacle, the summer air, the parade of light on clouds,
the eternal form of the moon’s face, blazing,
and all of their lives stopped, their running steps stilled.

I was there this evening at that timeless pageant
in that single place that is ever the same.
Through all human history and for vast spaces beyond
has the moon sailed just so, in an endless sky, transfixed.

Achilles, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tsu, the Kings of Ur,
shepherds of Spain, and those who first trekked out of Africa,
and those who sailed the vast pacific by the stars,
We are all the same experience, one, when we see the moon, thus.

gallagher
16 Aug 2008

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —