Helen across the miles … on the wires— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
re-risen from where she’s gone … recognizable
her voice makes me feel love … memories
she says we’re not logical … it shouldn’t last
and she’s right, damn it!
This whip-snap girl who matches my every nuance
when she’s keeping it together
a flame who burns so bright she extinguishes herself
she shadows my every perception in her light
wistful…over the wires and the miles and the fields
needing her time to heal…and remembering our love
I feel so inexpressibly full … so full
when I want to hug her to hold her
and I’m holding nothing but the phone…
unable to empty, except to say, ‘I miss you, I care’.
Tender moment, balanced between need and decorum
wants and consideration, emotion and logic
pain and desire,
love… and loss … the phone’s plastic
and her voice in it.
and so we part with all that logic waiting in the future
and all these emotional months to come.
gallagher
9 oct 78
Archive for 1978
1978-10-09
Monday, October 9th, 19781978-10-12
Thursday, October 12th, 1978Why did I meet you?— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
now I wait wistful against the days
not quite as alive as I could be
You showed me, matched me, laughed with me
and if it was your insanity we shared
I guess I could be labeled so too
I liked it there where associations ran free
and every moment was hyper-electric
when you looked at me, I could feel it like a hand
Everything about you was velvet judo
I tire so often of half people
partial perceptions, conformers and half-thinkers
will I only find my match in someone like you?
full on with more than your slight frame can handle
romantic tragedy, intense spirit, over strained psyche
I’m spoiled now… I want only your kind
of freedom and devotion.
gallagher
12 oct 78
1978-10-14
Saturday, October 14th, 1978Ah, Helen… sitting here this night…it finally came to me
how deeply you affected me.
Softened by acid and the hour …
my running steps have
finally come to ground.
I stopped to look at these poems
and to sort my feelings out
since you left.
And I found I’m a sadder man
for the loss of you.
I cried here and felt
so many feelings come rushing down
and that one hand came
and reached into my gut and twisted
and said, ‘grief’.
And even then I thought of you;
that only you could understand.
I read again the poems you wrote me
the night I slept and you lay awake.
Why is it I only seem to hear
what you said to me in retrospect?
Your patterns were running so fast,
I could only catch them whole in moments.
Your attempts to deal, were edging onto the abrasive.
And the pain under, was speaking so much
to confusion.
And I, the deaf Irishman,
was offering you only conditional relief.
But I see here, now, where you’ve past by.
My scars are plain to see
I got some aches inside me now from you
and these poems that leave me wondering what I believe
There’s so much that separates us logically,
perhaps I should let it lie.
But only you would know how that feels…to let it be that way.
This evening I cried for you … what more can I say.
gallagher
14 oct 78
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —