SamadhiMuse

            Softly … come softly … come the rain
              in grays and blues.
              The winter’s wind, the closed out sky.
            I’m here … waiting … for the rain,
              I’ve been here for years
              waiting for this season to wash me clean.
            Somewhere … beyond the rain
              lies Leningrad and Mexico City,
              Vancouver and Australia.
            Time to let the rain wash me away
              from these people and places
              that tie me down in a changing world.
            I want to be a Buddha or a Saint
              or a madman … I want to be something
              no more waiting and rusting in the rain.
            Such faces and turmoil …
              cultures and insights
              wait for me … alone.
                                 gallagher
                                 2 Jan 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                  The way a guy attacks his worklist
                    shows if he’s work
                    or pleasure oriented.
                                 gallagher
                                 12 Jan 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                        It whispers around
                        that scary sound
                        of being alone
                        but when it does
                        I think of Rose
                        and I hope it goes
                        there’s nothing out here/there
                        but the clothes we wear
                        and that silent sound.
                                    gallagher
                                    12 Jan 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            I almost made some unforgivable mistake
               with Rose and my children.
            Almost cut us loose from each other
               to drift until the ends of our lives
               and not know
                  what we could have been to and for each other.
            When I see the hand of God move
               I’m never sure which side or why
            and the closer passes the stroke
               the less anything
                  resembles what went before.
                                 gallagher
                                 1/20/86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         Rose, it gave me such a pleasure
            to help with the children when you were sick today.
         I know I wasn’t as much help as I could have been
            fussing with the phone and the newspaper
         but it made me realize what you do with them
            like a farmer who digs his hands
               deep into the soil that is his life.
         You see them as life brimming, raw with promise.
            A treasure of people just beginning.
            A future world you can mother and comfort.
         It was such simple pleasure to smile and hold them.
            They saw my feelings and responded to me.
               But you had already made that place
               where I came to visit and open to them.
         It was a day well spent and badly needed.
            Somethings cut deeper than others
               and you’ve found one, my lover, wife, and friend.
         You nurture them and me in the sunshine
            of your love and cherishing
               and I see now
                     how you let God work through you.
                                 gallagher
                                 1/20/86 #2

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          Challenger down
            A look at our mortality again today.
            Life and death, spirits and love, all together.
            Something in me can almost grasp it, sometimes.
            The faces and hopes of these people,
            their purpose and joy, their lives and deaths.
            Sometimes I think we’re here,
            just cattle in God’s pens.
            We move, we feel, we birth, we love
            but still die for purposes
            far beyond our small understanding.
            The best of what we love and what we are
            seem so intense and so transient, at once.
            The best of us die without apparent purpose,
            without explanation.
            I can almost grasp it … maybe I will
            before I am driven from the stage too.
            I hope our choices and actions
            are not just empty gestures
            against death’s apparent caprice.
                                 gallagher
                                 28 Jan 86
                                 Irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                  God is everything
                     God is love.
                  Everything but man is content
                     to be just what it is.
                  Wheat to be reaped,
                     wood to be cut.
                  We should extinguish ourselves
                     and stop the difference between us
                        and the world
                  and we should love,
                     love everything,
                  like the water
                     that bubbles from a spring.
                  And, as we would fade,
                     our love would increase
                  until we became God,
                     loving everything.
                                 gallagher
                                 28 Jan 86 #2

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            1986 … eight years since ‘78
               and I wonder what I’ve learned since then.
            Woman passing by, touching me
               like spirit ghosts at some improbable dance.
            Rose, stronger … needing me less, free
               leaving me less room to hide in her love.
            I’m so much on the brink of being alone and free
               and so afraid of it.
            I can see now how my mother fell into the bottle
            and why Bhagwan says enlightenment comes
            only when you’re driven to the bitter end
            and have nothing more to drop.
            You can’t go to that place and hedge your bets.
                           gallagher
                              6 feb 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         What are these faces we have
         but the graven images of what went before.
         Every face, every feature
         of strength or beauty
         reflects someone who survived
         in the genetic pool.
         We’re so many and so sanitary now
         with our educations and mass media.
         But then, during most of man’s growth,
         men survived by strength and brutality
         and woman by their sexual charms.
         Tumbling fortunes on stages so small
         that the next feudal estate was legendary.
         From dark ages, lost dynasties,
         and forgotten lovers
         come our faces that have seen
         and been much.
         And we wear them
         and think all that is lost.
                                 gallagher
                                 11 feb 86
                                 Irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                     December, January, and February
               Someday, perhaps, she’ll be by
               wanting to settle into the patterns
               of this life.
               Until then, she can never ‘just see me’.
               It always has to ‘mean’ something,
               be something, go somewhere.
               I’m sorry, Kathy.
               With you I’ve never understood why
               just love and friendship weren’t enough.
               So today, once again, we part.
               We drop our sexual magic
               and this friendship that tried
               to transcend the years
               and the marriages and the lovers.
                                 gallagher
                                 19 Feb 86
                  raining in Irvine and Hawiian gardens

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               People won’t be with others
               unless the others can give them something
               and yet we have a built-in need
               to be with others that won’t let us rest
               so we resist compromise and the terror of aloneness
               at once
               and tell ourselves so many
               stories along the way.
                                    gallagher
                                    19 Feb 86 #2

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          Joan
            We talk of the need to drop needing
            and yet we’re so happy to see each other.
            I can hear those soft wings, again.
                                 gallagher
                                 20 Feb 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                           Weather low or…
                     Hemmingway come to the wall
                        Dark gray afternoon
                     tight stomach, poised
                        against an indefinite moment
                     Here, from everything that’s gone before,
                        the music plays, the wheels turn.
                     I should find what I seek here
                        with my small companion
                     and memories of the masters
                        and these hours that wait
                           for my response.
                                    gallagher
                                    1 mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               Joan comes and begins to give me such pleasure
               but I’m not sure what I see or how I feel.
               My attraction and affection for her are strong.
               She drifts in and out of my thoughts all day long
               but Lise has taken me apart so throughly
               that I cannot see Joan as my ‘next’ woman.
               I don’t know what I would’ve seen or felt
               if I had met Joan before Lise.
               And, now that I’m here on the other side,
               nothing is familiar.
               She’s young and intelligent and spiritual
               and I can see she’s beginning to care for me.
               It’s all new.  Every thought and passion,
               every dream and fear.
               I’ve traveled so far.  I can meet her here
               but I cannot tell her where we are.
                                    gallagher
                                    2 Mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               Joan arrives and brings
               vulnerability, doubt and joy.
               I’m scared to death of her
               for the way she uncenters me.
               What is it she does to me?
               Like quicksilver she seeps so quickly
               into my secret heart.
               In mere days I’ve come to crave her smile
               and fear her loss.
               All my previous composure is gone
               in a week’s time.
               Am I this vulnerable now, after Lise?
               Will I be swept away again and again?
               Is this something real or just a rebound?
               And everytime my fear gives me pause
               she comes and shares a secret space
               and I’m gone further
               into a place
               I know less and less.
                                    gallagher
                                    4 Mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                 35,000 ft, my thoughts like swirling birds.
                 Joan and her spiritualism are focusing me hard.
                 No casual affair; her effect on me.
                 No face passing in a moment of light or lust
                 but a catalyst and an unleashing in me…
                 realizations and recognitions
                 pass like crossing swords where she is.
                 It’s not that I should grasp at her
                 or resist her here
                 but that I should let her simply play out
                 her part unburdened
                 and learn from all that she evokes in me
                 or gives to me
                 or takes from me.
                 She brings me my own.
                 My own possesiviness and insecurity,
                 my own needs and fears.
                 She reveals me to myself,
                 so quickly has she cut me open.
                                    gallagher
                                    5 mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                                                         3/6/86
         Yes, Dennis
         I’m waiting for you to call
         I think you’d like to know that
         But how much shall I say?
         You’re very verbal and I like it,
         But if I say too much,
         Are you going to take a few steps back?
         I think this because … I wonder
            if you’re the type who likes to be
               in control?
         Are you the kind that gets uneasy
               when you’re not calling the shots?
         After all, if someone gets close by their
               own choice,
         they can always back away;
         they’re controling the closeness
         But if someone ELSE leads it …
               then THEY are “in control”.
         I’m not worried.
         Just wondering.
         It’s not like I’m contemplating
               throwing myself at you!
         I feel a fondness and affection
         and much interest in your mind
         I like your company
         And am hoping you’ll remain
               a friend to me (on one level or another)

                                    Joan
                                    6 Mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            A few days away from everyone
            and, finally, some perspective.
            It’s becoming clear I want to become
            platonic with Rose for both our sakes
            and it’s clear also
            that Joan’s idea of going slow is good.
            Rose and I will never be
            what the other’s looking for
            and Joan and I or anyone else
            can never succeed
            unless I can approach love
            in a centered way.
            I’ve fallen into Joan so quickly
            and felt her presence so strongly.
            What about just me, alone …
            no Rose, no Joan, no Lise.
            Just me, centered, happy, and optimistic
            and realistic.
            That’s someone worth sharing with another.
                                 gallagher
                                 8 mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               Like a tear in the sky
               that lets heaven come shining through
               I opened up today
               and nothing could hide the flame I felt.
               Deep joy burning my heart down.
               I went for a run, music in my ears,
               God’s creation in my eyes
               and a deep feeling filling me
               that I was tapped into something deeper
               than the everyday shows.
               Sometimes, like a lens, I just come focused.
               Like a crystal, when the light comes on,
               I am for a moment showered with grace and clarity.
               Full of the conjunction of my will
               and my life and God’s purpose.
               As if all the warm hands of love and meaning
               have come at once to press me
               and I to feel through them
               the fabric of life.
               Ah, what deep love I feel and am.
                                       gallagher
                                       10 Mar 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      This man is a friend
      who satisfies my mind (as few have)
      and communicates with me so well
      (though we’re of different pasts)
      This man offers me pleasure
      And I, a woman,
      ponder complexities I feel.
      My body eagerly remembers and imagines
      While my mind - no, more than my mind,
         something in my heart and soul -
      Reminds me there’s much more involved here.
      Than Bodies.
      Something inside me seems to whisper,
      “Listen, listen.”
      What is it?  I ask myself
      At times before,
      I thought my sense was only fear
      But trying to ignore it brought regret and confusion.
      Suddenly I’m seeming it may just come down to
      Admitting and accepting what I truely feel:
      I have this ideal that is so much more
      than passing pleasure…
      Dare I say what I really want
      Is simply a love that is deep and enduring and true,
      with someone who’ll stay around in my life?
      Making love without doubts or hesitation
      Selves meetinbg on deepest levels,
      Each comfortable in the other’s caring…
      When I try to accept less,
         part of me wishes for more
         and feels I’ve been denied
      Do I expect too much?
      But I can’t just think about a temporary feel good
      I don’t want to be someone’s conquest or diversion.
      Part of me will feel I’ve sold my dreams and said,
      “I don’t believe I can have what I most desire.”
      Besides, if I give up what’s true for me to please someone else,
      I won’t be acting from my real self - so
         then how can I believe they love (or even know)
         the “real me”?
      And I’d be giving them the responsability to
         “make me happy”.

                                    Joan
                                    11 March 86
?
???dennisPOETRY?3-11#2.JR
I must listen to my own Sense of Things

and not try to force the love I desire,
but believe it will come in due time …
as I continue to know myself better
and extend to those around me.
This man is a friend who means a lot.
I lke having him close, and
he may not understand,
but I must be true with what I feel
and take the chance
to be met with understanding
(Remembering that I must first
accept what I feel before I expect
someone else to)
Joan
11 march 1986

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —