SamadhiMuse

                       The photograph album
            Looking at the photographs
              I could sense the number of times
            her eyes and hands had passed here
              on baby pictures and friends long gone.
            As if she had written them there,
              her feelings came to life in me
            and stopped my eyes
              on those moments of time…
            I wish she were here now to hold her
              and her dreams.
                              gallagher
                              7 jun 73
                              Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                         Acid again

            Psychic or what…when I can look in
              at cupboards and feel love.

            Laughing in the face of joy
              I’ve turned away so many times
                 to find it just there…

            Insanity comes in a pill
              but why make it real?

            I saw the spokes of the wheel coming together
              witchcraft…intellectualism…egotism…
            all lead to what we keep
              in our pills
            and we can’t quite wait to get there,
              can we?

            Insanity at 10,000 watts, just another
              weapon in our arsenal.

                              gallagher
                              7 jul 73
                              Long Beach - acid tripping

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          For Rose
         There’s a woman who loves me pure and clear
         and that’s fine
         though sometimes I don’t know why
         she’d want such a hassle as loving me,…
         Me, who wants to be free
         and sure and wise and strong…
         she loves that…the prideful stupid fool…
         and me, I’m just amazed at my grace
         to have such a woman.
         Ah, but love’s so simple,
         why, she’s been whispering it to me
         for years at night
         and I’m just now getting wise…
         going on to do it myself I was….
         and she was patient.
         Love is my gift
         and its fine.
                                 gallagher
                                 7 jul 73
                                 Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          Before class
         I saw a look I never saw before today…
         on the face of a man
         who was pumping the heart of another man
         who probably wasn’t going to make it.
         Sadness there, self consciousness,
         the chill of the ultimate reality,
         they all blended on his features
         for the amusement of the gathered crowd
         so tired of T.V.
                           Gallagher
                           02 Oct 73

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          Denise
      ….Denise said that religion wasn’t important.
      She wasn’t sure if there was a God or not
      nor that it mattered save that she was a bit of ‘God’.
      “Living is creating yourself, loving life is learning
      to believe you can cope with all of it.”
      “Learning this until you get to the place
      where it doesn’t matter, learning this
      until you learn what non-sense is and dig it.”
      “The master plan, if such a thing could be so called,
      is that ultimately everything is without sense or reason
      and struggle represents the untogetherness
      of believing it otherwise….”
      I told her it must make sense
      cause it seemed to work for her
      and she laughed at me….
      I felt better, though.
                              Gallagher
                              4 Oct 73
                              LBSC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Harvest
            Gathering light I am the lens…
            sometimes I’m watching it
            sometimes I’m lost in it
            but few times, I am it.
                           Gallagher
                           4 Oct 73

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Grace
      Perhaps I’m foolish to believe
      I understand grace
      but when she comes to me
      there’s no doubt
      and when she leaves
      no mistake
      I mark her presence by the absense
      and absence by the presence of life’s cares
      She comes when my best is realized
      and yet she’s not a steady mark
      for she’ll run one step ahead of understanding
      and fade with time unfulfilled.
      She enfolds you unasked
      and hides when sought
      I believe she is the reward,
      undefined as it seems,
      to those who seek truth and love
      by creating and living their best dreams.
                           Gallagher
                           10 Oct 73
                           LBSC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                             Carla
         Carla, the direct experience girl,
         blew some of my fuses
         when I fell into her eyes…
               It was when…
               looking at her gave way to
               seeing into her which gave way to
               understanding her which became
               loving her which was the direct knowledge
               of experiencing more than
               I could cope with…
         It was then that smoke
         began to coil out of my ears
         that curiosity gave way
         to overload …. Zap!
                           Gallagher
                           12 Oct 73
                           LBSC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            Peace floats in my soul
            like slow liquid notes.
            Encompassed in a universe
            that gives answers
            to those who seek,
            I am the circle, complete,
            once more.
                           gallagher
                           13 Oct 1973

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Brother Unknown

         My brother Elmer is such an enigma;
         he says things which I’d call unreasonable
         for anyone else and I’m swayed.
         If its intelligence, its not my kind….

         If its leadership or charisma, its impressive.
         And if its my misconception, its durable.

         All in all I can’t think of anyone
         I’d rather drop acid with
         than my brother.

                           gallagher
                           13 October 1973
                           Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                           Off Key
         cat’t seem to
         just can’t quite seem to
         get it together today.
         bodies fill my eyes
         where spirits used to shine.
         somehow personalities
         have given way
         to the shape of behinds.
               cycles of Karma and Grace
               spin in and out of my thoughts
               but never seem to connect to now.
         ‘focus’ and ‘cope’ are words
         i don’t understand, even as i recall them.
               as best as i can remember
               coping at a time like this
               just involves waiting it out
               which doesn’t help a bit.
         i think i’ll go make love to Rose
         and shut the computer off awhile
         and i’ll drift until the dust settles
         and i can see what wheel
               i’m on the down stroke of…
               the down stroke of….
                           gallagher
                           18 Oct 1973

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                           Poems
         I wonder if thoughts on paper placed
         do lose their life and become a trace
         of the mind that, while it yet held the jewel,
         concieved a capture and became a fool.
            And on staring later over hours and days
            of the scratching’s mark did seek to praise
            the wisdom of the man who probably laid
            his time’s sweet fruit in an inky grave.
         A grave he values as his soul and true
         as if it could be and create anew
         he parts this best of the rest and folds
         to save and reverance it and think it whole.
            Until at last he finds that the paper and he
            are not of the same and he must be
            the lesser part who failed the test
            of living the thought that was his best.
         Oh, a shame doth spark him to reckon anew
         why it is a pin in his pride, bears him through
         to a vision both saving and one its true
         his new life’s essence, a higher ‘you’.
            Which elates him so he flys to hold
            his pen’s fey handle both black and cold
            to begin again his circular trip
            round the wheel of Karma, life’s sweet whip.
                                 gallagher
                                 19 October 1973
                                 Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                        Creation
            So reality is only limited by my conceptions….
         Then let me create God and order;
         as reversed as the process seems
         its yet not a paradox.
            Let me persue the mental means
         of growing out of each previous dream
         by riding the wheels of Karma around
         until the trip I’ve learned and the wheel unbound
         and then perhaps the wheels of Karma
         will become the limits to lay with some previous sum.
                              gallagher
                              19 Oct 1973
                              LB

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                           Naegeli
         John told me, abashed I thought,
         that he was becoming part of the establishment;
         he was buying a house.
         I’m still thinking about that, I guess…
         about growing up and settling down
         and slowing down and getting older.
         Part of me believes that if I don’t acknowledge it
         it might go away.
         Part of me knows it won’t
         and I’m just wasting time trying.
         I guess John’s going to quit fighting
         and simply settle in to watch time pass.
         I wish there was a moral to this story.
                           gallagher
                           31 October 1973
                           Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       — coming up —
            Coming off a cold I’m strong
            coming off the cold I’m up
            mind and muscles realized.
            I’m wired on returning vigor
            a happiness based
            on the relative change fills me
            and I know it for what it is
            and then dig it.
                              gallagher
                              14 November 1973
                              Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Psychic Power

         They were looking
         and in looking they caused
         what they thought to be
         and the circle turned
         with the child at the center.

         I’ve seen it and can’t believe
         those who say thought isn’t physical.

         True, our grasp (attention) is not normally enough
         to perceive the causal connections
         which link subjective to objective
         imagination to creation
         and will to experience.

         But they exist.

                           gallagher
                           18 November 1973
                           Long Beach

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         Interlocked; the seer and seen…
         no longer I and thee alone
         but we who touch
         by thinking’s song.
         and by the other’s presence feel
         the other’s will as warmth or chill
         direct and clear the seeing thus
         is essence to essence
         by mental touch.
         the older reality
         so seen
         seems the thinner vail,
         pehaps the dream.
                        Gallagher
                        20 November 73
                        LB

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                  Ron’s week and Ron’s wedding

         There was an identity of the weekend
         which, like identity’s twirl,
         left me wondering at the conjunction
         of people and ideas.

         As if the fabric,
         which showing whole for the moment,
         must recede into time and vanish
         as all the parts.

                           gallagher
                           26 November 1973
                           on LSD

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                        Mellower Men
         Mellower men we’re becoming
         my brothers and I.
         Men now closer to thirty than twenty
         and just coming to know it.
         Now we exchange kindness
         without seeming foolish
         and reminiscing mostly
         we talk in the past tense
         as if to somehow
         retard time’s passage.
         But, really, we’re sharing the experience
         of knowing we’re older
         and a good deal tamer
         than back when kindness
         was weakness and mellower men
         were old.
         And old was
         somehow irrelavant to us.
                        gallagher
                        26 November 1973

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         What fire burns me that
            I can’t quench the flame?
         Would, that I could, seek the cause
            but passion’s flames rage too high
         near that center of my thought
            and drive me spinning dizzy from them
               again and again.
         In this cycle of trying and wanting
            spritualism, materialism, realism, humanism,
         relative, absolute, unity, becoming
            are each some truth but no answer
               each is a way, all a paradox.
                              gallagher
                              27 November 1973

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —