Sometimes I wish, I need…— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Sometimes I want to just wake her
and say “Hold me, make it go away.”
All this age and dissolutionment
the aches that words can’t say
But we sleep in bed like strangers
and the night seeps between us like death
and I’m afraid that if I awaken her
she’ll be annoyed and have nothing to say.
So I lay and quietly twist
while snapshot memories
crawl over me like worms
and the night waits endlessly
against my need
and my stomach whispers of
its little boy fears.
gallagher
22 sep 1982
Archive for 1982
1982-09-22 Sometimes I wish, I need…
Wednesday, September 22nd, 19821982-10-08 My Sons
Friday, October 8th, 1982My Sons— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
My sons a man could be proud of
they say something of the best of Rose and I
with a cut and line, a form
that my eye never fails to fall on, pleased.
Danny, the sensitive blond and popular artist of us
how well he’s formed thru the caldron
of our marriage years and evolutions
The man begins to show in him
as firm and as deep as I could wish it
and I want to stand back and applaud
and give him room and respect to grow in
And Chris, blocky intense little Chris
affectionate and secure, pushy and proud
his potential and promise fill him with presence
he radiates ‘I am a good boy’, without any doubts
My sons
they make me prouder than anything else
I’ve ever done.
10-08-82
Vancouver, B.C.
1982-10-20
Wednesday, October 20th, 1982“I’m insecure.”, I said, and she came and held me.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
She’d been telling me of her boy friend at work
and the story of what they’d been thru these past weeks.
My heart had crept from its shell to stare
and my questions quivered to be calm and even
as they followed her there.
She had been unhappy to share in his lies and deceits
and had said that if he was unhappy
that he should leave his wife
and then she and he could conduct themselves
straight and fair.
But when he took her advice his wife, driven to far,
tried to take her life and thus held him there
and, now, he and Rose are ‘just friends’
across the quiet bridge of his despair.
gallagher
20 October 1982
sjc