Kathy M.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Shall I write you Kathy…
water for a thirsty man… just beyond my reach
the potential for passion with you
presses thru the air between us
These months have brought no relief
for my fantasy and longing
conversations snatched between games
smiles that touched me to the quick
I feel the current between us
that only hands against skin
can release.
gallagher
01 jan 84
Irvine
I read my poetry from ten years ago— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and I wonder if I’m becoming a shell of myself
that which is consciousness shirking within
that which is physical.
I’m more wood than quicksilver
more container than content
The growing gone,
the coalescing begun.
The bursts of unbearable insight
given way to impassioned remembering.
gallagher
5 jan 84
Irvine, CA
My pen comes to paper and meets the virgin linen— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
thoughts like birds swirl and plunge
pulling up and away before this white expanse.
Corridors passed, things glimpsed…
this year is that, some tentative bird,
the year without women.
Freddie gives up grass and then liquor
for a year each time to flex his control
and I, I lay patient before my life’s unfolding
and find myself without them… the women.
gallagher
5 Jan 84
Irvine, CA
That she can welcome me home— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
after tripping
with no more in her voice
than concern that I drive careful
says a lot
Like wood that weathers the winter
so whether we…
7 Jan 84
LSD with Freddie
Irvine, CA
Re: 7 Jan 84, tripping— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
The new year’s come to me
something’s going to stir
the stones are coming down
between me and my dream realities
I dropped acid with Freddie
and went as far into it as…
madness and dissolution
I sighed and I waited,
I cannot be disassembled.
I doubt acid holds magic for me anymore
flaming destruction of ego and boundaries
I just wait and survive
proof again of both sanity and folly
We share our roots, Freddie and I
but our futures lie ahead.
gallagher
9 jan 84
Irvine, CA
Damn it! I’m getting tired of patience compassion and meditation.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I want some lightning and thunder, some trauma and triumph.
I’m tired of being on hold.
Whatever it is I’m supposed to sort out isn’t coming to me
everyone’s deflecting; wishy-washy.
I exercise, I work, I wait and I read.
I love, I age, I lose myself for days at a time.
I want to put the hammer down NOW!
And say, ‘See me, confront me, deal with me’.
Wear me life, don’t just let me age away in a plastic bag.
gallagher
12 jan 84
Irvine, CA
Wisps of time … memories and music— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
eyes across the years … feelings.
Cool breezes in far away places
sunlight in photographs … traces.
It’s snowing in Vancouver.
Gallagher
24 Jan 84
Kathy M. II— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Don’t smile unless you’ll touch me,
I can’t bear to look away.
The feelings your smiles give me,
they just make me want to play.
Play in a dance of feelings
of skin and hands so warm
of sharing secret places
of stomachs glowing warm.
gallagher
01-26-84
Irvine
Kathy M. III— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Come around again, heart in flames
going down again, before brown eyes.
empty response…you leave me no less
I risked, open and knowing,
and I cannot loose, doing this
I walked with elated anticipation and warmth
into her response
and the emptiness it gave me
Her compassion and friendship exchanged
for my passion
her reason and values arrayed
against my poetry
her brown eyes and warm skin
now so unreachable
In the warm and dappled sunlight
she told me how it was
Life,
life, press me as you will
my skin and my feelings and my heart
will stay open
I won’t turn away from you
or what you pass before me
These hands, this heart…
they will feel
I love, I hurt, I live
and I am real and I will be no less.
gallagher
30 jan 84
Irvine
Kathy M. IV— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Engraved like stuben glass, her face
against the sunlight … telling me no
she wasn’t confused about how she felt
about me
about her marriage and her life, yes…
but about me, … no ….
I could have wished it otherwise
my emptiness told me
but I came here for the truth
either way … to feel it,
to embrace it.
Even now I want to run and say, ’stay’,
that I can be JUST friends
share smiles and lunches and friendship
endure for the magic of your smiles
and the candor of your spirit.
But why say this …
the sight of her will be enough
to unmoor me in the days to come
when against all feeling I’ll ignore her
and against all reason, … fail.
gallagher
30 jun 84
Irvine
This evening waits against my empty heart.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
It’s come to rest… footsteps die away.
Motors drone and light bulbs blaze of ice.
I’m alone and all up against myself.
The silence claws, begs me… for relief.
A letter’s started, dies, for nothing’s brief.
I willed to face it, the neon aching time,
without distractions, to edge up to some line.
gallagher
31 jan 84
irvine
Why do we struggle so…
we who are just indefinite moments
of indistinct clarity.
Small perceptions astride eternal purpose
fragments of evolution’s imagination
minor reflections in the ocean of her.
Unable to stop her birth pangs
we live as froth from her caldron’s brew
and live and die…beneath her swell.
We who have only to create ourselves
and our progeny here
where the sun’s excess showers us.
Here, close to the flame
where entropy run reversed
here…we search for our name.
gallagher
01 feb 84
Irvine
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I see myself talking— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
with my heart open
attempting to cut through
the insanity and bullshit.
why, I don’t understand,
but I seem to have some gift
to make people understand.
I’m wrestling loosely with it now
but I want to get more focus.
Its not enough to just talk
but I don’t want to build a system.
waiting is… waiting is.
The gift shines, my heart pounds
I’ll grope my way, if I can
God willing.
gallagher
01 mar 84
Irvine
I fall into my poetry, sometimes,— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
like a dancer falls into the music
or an artist into his medium
It sweeps me
self-fulfilling creativity
passion and feelings
bound in the form of words
Exploding memories and convictions
and the realization
that I am going to share it all
someday.
gallagher
04 apr 84
Irvine
Whenever I go away from her— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I ache from the sudden emptiness
where someone was.
She’s a slowly growing storm
an echo of childhood friends
and a future memory…growing warm.
She touched me once…
sudden compression of feeling there
like acres of skin
beneath a momentary tear
gallagher
10 apr 84
Irvine, CA
I spent the afternoon unmoored;— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
driven before the pressured storms.
deadlines, complexity, frustration
my centeredness ebbed, …naked
So what, here, now, as the evening falls?
and Vollenweider’s music plays
and Gerda’s letter lies on my floor
and, perhaps, Lise will call.
So what, here and now…
Am I that manager, that programmer
am I those tasks undone
or Dick’s condescension incarnate?
I am the father of my children
the writer of poetry
the lover of some women
and a seeker of God in this world.
gallagher
23 apr 84
irvine
Lise— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Come burn me down
amid music and pillows
dusky eyes and dim light
smiles burning engraved
words like chance strangers
wandering between wider forms
of that feeling current
the silence communion dances
Lise comes from a time of grinding changes
that bay at her doors these days
they hem her and bind her, mocking her dreams
with endless vistas of worst to come
But here where we can own our hours
I find her beyond those definitions
strong with the wisdom born of struggle
and blessed with a spirit that will survive
she still knows how to play.
gallagher
25 apr 84
irvine
Today I was shaving— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and putting in my contacts
and Chris sat on the sink watching
like he’s done a lot this last two months.
Suddenly, from this random behavior,
came pattern and purpose.
if I were making a fire or tanning leather
or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
there…it was…
there he would sit, receptive
to what he would need to live;
the transmission of learning
parent to progeny.
Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
all the same…small eyes learning.
And in our plastic electronic world
where this has little validity
the instinct still lives.
he looks to me to show him the way.
gallagher
apr 29, 84
San Juan Capistrano
Today I was shaving
and putting in my contacts
and Chris sat on the sink watching
like he’s done a lot these last two months.
Suddenly, from this random behavior,
came pattern and purpose.
If I were making a fire or tanning leather
or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
there…
there he would sit, receptive
to what he would need to live;
the transmission of learning
parent to progeny.
Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
all the same…small eyes learning.
And in our plastic electronic world
where this has little validity
the instinct still lives.
he looks to me to show him the way.
gallagher
apr 29, 84
San Juan Capistrano
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Poetry is hard to read because— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
the meanings of many of the words used
are not the first meanings
which come to mind
If the effort used to make the mix
was born only of puzzle making drives
then the effort to decode it
could never be worth it
But if the poet plays
on those lower registers
only as he needs for accuracy
then let him play on
for how else could
the thought be rendered
gallagher
8 may 84
Irvine