SamadhiMuse

                           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 —