SamadhiMuse » San Juan Capistrano

1980-10-13

Dennis — Mon, 13 Oct 1980 08:02:00 +0000

I must have been happy these months
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

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1981-02-14

Dennis — Sat, 14 Feb 1981 08:00:00 +0000

         Another time...another moment
           with indelible written on it
           the strobe flash of recognition
         amid the mindless progressions of moments...the day to day.


         A lifetime's change point bridging time and insignificance
           it brings to ground against the quiet paper.


         I run so hard most times and think so little
           our world's going to hell in a hundred ways
         and my loved ones and I wait near naked against its caprice
           nothing so precious here as their moments and their love
         and so much seems to escape me
           so much.


                                    gallagher
                                    14 Feb 1981

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1981-07-18

Dennis — Sat, 18 Jul 1981 08:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I go so deep within myself
and see so shallowly into others
as if I was the only one who felt
or imagined
or rejoiced
or thought.

Clear my eyes that I might see
the wondrous child that lives within each of us
and cross the bridges that words and relationships
can never span.

That deep something that burns
deep inside of each of us
amid doubt and habits for only the certain touch
of another who’s awake … and cares.

gallagher
18 July 81
SJC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1981-09-21

Dennis — Mon, 21 Sep 1981 08:00:00 +0000

I reach for my feelings
and try to give them form in words
to capture the moments
when I rise above the stream of my life’s history
and gaze with horror or rapture
on the forms I’ve invested my life in.

Less these days do I rise…
so tight have drawn the habits
of the things and the people I love.

There’s no measure
by which my life is not adequate
and yet, somewhere inside,
I still turn restless
wanting the ice water shock of everything new
that maximum becoming
that must arise from starting as nothing.

The love is not so bad these days…Rose and my children
I’ve never been more blessed
and she, she loves me enough
to let me have my time and space alone.

More these months I turn restless against my work
I remember realizing sometime ago
the difference between
the absorption of creativity
and the mire of baroque detail.

gallagher
21 September 1981
sjc

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1981-11-29

Dennis — Sun, 29 Nov 1981 08:00:00 +0000

Our lives are made fragile by the things that we love
and the years our love brings to bear.
Chris lay sleeping as I prepared to leave
and I stood and stared thru the bars of his crib.
He loves me to tickle him and his eyes shine as he squeals
and he can say ‘Da-dee’ and does, again and again.

Some place from far back inside of me
as I looked watching him sleep
I thought of how fragile are all of our lives.
The patterns of security, comfort and association we erect
against these wars and illnesses, crimes and disasters…
none of them are less real, because we love.

Its just that my perception
of how life and its vagaries comes together
with our love and its attachments
has sharpened with age.
As the blunders of youth’s mania
and other distortions fall away
and I see the ‘human condition’ more,
and I cringe at how naked we stand.

But Chris didn’t know … even that I was leaving
his blankets and thumb and baby fat warmth
defined the world he knows.

gallagher
29 Nov 1981
LAX, Vancouver bound

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1982-09-22 Long time sleeping

Dennis — Wed, 22 Sep 1982 08:00:00 +0000

Long time sleeping

Sometimes I lay awake at night
and my thoughts just crawl like liquid snakes
and my life seems to pass in front of me;
the waste, the traps, and the mistakes.

I remember all the years like snapshots
when Rose and I were younger
and the images and dreams turn inside of me
like hopes; my wishes, my friends.

I lay awake and ache for
just how terribly little I’ve learned
that our once simple love like children
is now the colder love of just friends

09-22-82

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1982-09-22 Sometimes I wish, I need…

Dennis — Wed, 22 Sep 1982 08:02:00 +0000

Sometimes I wish, I need…

Sometimes I want to just wake her
and say “Hold me, make it go away.”
All this age and dissolutionment
the aches that words can’t say

But we sleep in bed like strangers
and the night seeps between us like death
and I’m afraid that if I awaken her
she’ll be annoyed and have nothing to say.

So I lay and quietly twist
while snapshot memories
crawl over me like worms
and the night waits endlessly
against my need
and my stomach whispers of
its little boy fears.

gallagher
22 sep 1982

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1982-10-20

Dennis — Wed, 20 Oct 1982 08:00:00 +0000

“I’m insecure.”, I said, and she came and held me.

She’d been telling me of her boy friend at work
and the story of what they’d been thru these past weeks.

My heart had crept from its shell to stare
and my questions quivered to be calm and even
as they followed her there.

She had been unhappy to share in his lies and deceits
and had said that if he was unhappy
that he should leave his wife
and then she and he could conduct themselves
straight and fair.

But when he took her advice his wife, driven to far,
tried to take her life and thus held him there
and, now, he and Rose are ‘just friends’
across the quiet bridge of his despair.

gallagher
20 October 1982
sjc

1983-02-06 The Winds of War

Dennis — Sun, 06 Feb 1983 08:00:00 +0000

The Winds of War

The winds of war and I can feel the sinews of time

about to rip from their anchors

children, customs, love, forms, history, memory

torn thru every part, across every line

Here a picture of Poland’s jews

a wedding day the day before Germany invades

I remember a museum… a few books… black and white photos

of people in black clothes and funny hats

all gone, all gone

neighborhoods, blocks, buildings, families, marriages

children, furniture, clothes, books, records, memories

all gone

but for these isolated pieces in the museum

02-06-83

SJC

1983-02-07 Gerdas Knife

Dennis — Mon, 07 Feb 1983 08:00:00 +0000



                           Gerda's Knife

      I watched 'Winds of War' on TV and then turned out the light
         And, on the stairs, in the dark, ascending
            I saw your father's knife as it hung in your bedroom.

      Its white metal patient these many years
         since another sun shown on it
            in the days of the German Reich.

      I could hear flags whipping, red and black,
         against the green of trees
            and the gray of building stones

      and, for a moment, felt the eyes of countless men
         as their hands caressed its handle's symbol
            and reveled in the power and purpose of a God given cause

      and then, these many years later, through chances too rare to say,
         I came and found it there in your room
            waiting patiently through all my childhood and travels

      A time machine from another land
         another time
            that almost changed my world

      I look at old photos, black and white,
         and so much time seems too stand between me and those images
            but with your father's knife

      I could hear the flags whispering
         in the crisp air of that unique time
            and feel their dreams across the years

                                    GALLAGHER
                                    7 Feb 83
                                    San Juan Capistrano