SamadhiMuse » 1983

1983-01-12 On Sophies choice

Dennis — Wed, 12 Jan 1983 08:00:00 +0000

                        On Sophie’s choice
         Let me look … let the light freeze just there
            on these love worn hands and new grayed hair
         softly now … go and see your child
            go … look … with your eyes that can feel and smile
         That your children, so loved, can die … its unbelievable
            their small coats still buttoned up.
         and your wife, with her warmth at night
            and all those photograph albums shared
               the cups she’s dried with care
                  and the small wrinkles that seem to run
                     where once was young and fair.
         Go, my friend, and walk the house and touch the wood
            and sit among it … your midnight kin
         and let the walls come round you … and the moments wait
            while you think how frail, …how frail is this love
         That a child, you’ve dressed for school
            can die, a bullet’s glove, on a concrete step
         and that the woman who’s shared all those years
            can become just a statistic in some foreigner’s newspaper
         Some day these all, the child, warm wife, and wood
            could be torn from your page of life
         and your cups go broken … their skin grow cold
            while pityless politicians
               vie for their intangible goods….
                                    Gallagher
                                    12 January 1983
                                       Dallas, TX

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-01-13

Dennis — Thu, 13 Jan 1983 08:00:00 +0000

I wonder, as I listen to Bhagwan’s words
if the difference he defines
between knowledge and knowing
doesn’t have something to do
with the difference between holistic
and sequential modes of perception…
sort of like an apparatus we control
the F stop.
Full open is holistic with full parallel processing
the ego dead because nothing can exist
separate from the process?
letting the past, as memory or judgment
come in is analogous to dividing the task
forming alternatives or sequentiality into it
closing the aperture…
attenuating the sensitivity…
biasing the wait….

01-13-83

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-01-13

Dennis — Thu, 13 Jan 1983 08:02:00 +0000

How much I’ve come about
these last few years
my love for Rose and Danny and Chris
is never at issue
it overflows at the slightest thought
where before were only dreams

01-13-83

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-01-13

Dennis — Thu, 13 Jan 1983 08:03:00 +0000

So this Irish son of immigrants married
the daughter of Norwegians
and he from a line that ended faltering
and she from the small Minnesota towns
lost in dust.

The years have passed, the wrinkles grown,
the children strong.

What are we…you, my love, and I
but the fabric that has made my life a joy.

I wish I could say my thoughts better
my heart fills with so much
and I turn to try to say
how very much I care.

gallagher
13 Jan 83

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

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

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

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

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1983-02-22

Dennis — Tue, 22 Feb 1983 08:00:00 +0000

Same concept in different context

same concept as a subset of itself

sometimes I glimpse strange ropes

amid the tangle

arch forms thru the many

extensibles, a calculus

to the structure’s algebra

I wonder what thought forms await us

computer man

02-22-83

Irvine at Pick

1983-02-28

Dennis — Mon, 28 Feb 1983 08:00:00 +0000

Sometimes small boy dreams float over me
camping trips not taken, rocks not polished
days spent walking around someone
who will so quickly grow and move on
someone whose young disappointments
were only my laziness
baseball, racquetball, model building, Mexico
and he grows so well
in spite of all I’ve forgotten
to do.

gallagher
02-28-83

1983-03-12 My Great Aunt Nell

Dennis — Sat, 12 Mar 1983 08:00:00 +0000

My Great Aunt Nell

I’m time tripping in a very different way tonight.
My Great Aunt Nell McGee was over for dinner
and I pulled out the old boxes of photographs
that I was never able to face
after my mother passed away.

Mixed there were my mother’s collection
and my Great Aunt Mame’s.
Things that ran from Rose and I, three years ago,
to my Great Grand Parents;
Pennsylvania farmers and Irish immigrants.

Even now I sit among these beautiful people’s
pictures, long gone.

But when my Aunt was here, it was different.
Through her eyes, I saw my mother at 17,
young and fresh and pretty,
and my Grandfather as a young blade,
with wit and intelligence
engraved so clearly on his face.
I followed brothers and sisters
throughu births and deaths;
through first-hand knowledge
and through things just heard.
She put names to faces fifty years gone
and I felt them as they were.

I saw my Father, briefly,
some ghost image who came into
and out of my Mother’s life
in a camera’s blink of time.

I saw myself, as little Chris is today,
when my Grandfather was old
and I saw my Grandfather’s youth
with a rebel’s spirit
so clearly on his face.

12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano

1983-03-12 My Great Aunt Nell

Dennis — Sat, 12 Mar 1983 08:00:00 +0000

My Great Aunt Nell

Mixed there were my mother’s collection
and my Great Aunt Mame’s.
Things that ran from Rose and I three years ago
to my Great Grand Parents
Pennsylvania farmers and Irish immigrants.

Even now I sit among these beautiful people’s
pictures, long gone.

But when my Aunt was here it was different;
Thru her eyes I saw my mother at 17
young and fresh and pretty
and my Grandfather as a young blade
with wit and intelligence
engraved so clearly on his face
Followed brothers and sisters
thru births and deaths
thru first-hand knowledge
and things just heard
She put names to faces fifty years gone
and I felt them as they were

I saw my Father, briefly,
some ghost image who came into
and out of my Mother’s life
in a camera’s blink of time.

I saw myself as little Chris is today
when my Grandfather was old
and I saw my Grandfather young
with a rebel’s spirit
clearly on his face

12 Mar 1983
San Juan Capistrano