We erode against our experiences.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
In the end we have nothing but our name
and our memories
All the things we were going to do
All those things we believed in
All that we thought we had become
Is washed from us by our own historical dialectic.
We give birth to ourselves, but do not survive.
I try in the mornings to focus my intent
but in the evenings seldom have more
than just the memories of where I’ve been
These paper scraps, the only trail I leave.
Gallagher
11 April 83, Irvine
Archive for 1983
1983-04-11
Monday, April 11th, 19831983-05-22
Sunday, May 22nd, 1983 Yes, I'm coming to believe some people are smarter than I.
Oh, I knew it before but not in the same way.
I saw them above me, running corporations
but I never really got to know them.
Occasionally I'd shake their hand or speak with them
and I'd feel like an object being patronized;
suppressing my resentment or my urge to please;
they left me doubtful.
But they were easy to ignore, because they were so rare or so distant
and I could live the illusion of being the equal of anyone,
on this, my chosen ground, raw intelligence.
But hey, brothers, they've found me or I them now;
I speak now as often as I'm quiet.
and I judge as often as I'm judged.
Now I have only my poetry to make me different
which I never show....
05-22-83
Irvine, CA
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
1983-06-21
Tuesday, June 21st, 1983 The thought that you might be mad because
you can't handle everything...is crazy.
I want my life to require courage.
There's another concept that I wish there was a word for:
It's the act of honing into the essence of something.
It's non-dichotomous solutions to the problems of being.
It's the strategies and methods to accomplish something that all fall short
in that they achiever and the achieved remain one step apart
separated by the method.
In the end, as you hone in,
the wish and the action and the result should merge
and the planner must depart, and the waiting evaporate
and the 'you' becomes a unity of wish/action
as the ever-present moment forms.
Greater awareness through meditation
won't increase one's abilities at social games
but that doesn't keep us from looking for that transference
and being surprised that it's missing.
Why should an increased ability to contemplation
yield more skill at being shallow?
gallagher
22 jun 83 - collage of thoughts
on the freeway
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —