August 24.85
When it's all over; when I'm dead; when my ashes
have been scattered over Bullocks, I'll still be around.
Recorded for posterity in the circonvolutions of a
computer's memory. Categorized under LB 1984, 85 and
surely a bit of 86. I'll be between RG. and KA., KM., and
GO., the ones I forgot and the ones I don't know about.
Slices of my life crossing his. Words trying to transcend
feelings, green characters on a gray screen.
I wonder who will stumble onto those files. I
wonder how much will transpire of the love, passion and
magic that hangs in the air just now as I think of him.
Perhaps it will all seem very pale compared to the
poems of years to come and those of earlier years when his
passion was burning out of control; for others.
I'll be a small contribution, a shiny raindrop who
fed him the water of life. He's grown so much through
women. They gave him love and pain, ecstasy and agony.
They pushed him to the limit, backed him into corners,
they ate him up alive and he loved them all.
And I owe them. The ones I read about with a knot
in my stomach, and the shadows, beautiful unknowns whose
influence I can only feel. He's their legacy to me. Each
of them a chapter in the book of his life.
But now he's mine to hold for a moment. And the
added sum of his experiences comes through. My gentle
lover, knowing, tender, strong.
Yet, already he's getting ready to leave me. And
I will send him away with tears in my eyes, a heart ready
to break and pain in my soul and body.
And for all the others who will hold him, I've
made him richer, I've left my mark. They will owe me too;
and they won't know the price of loving him until it's too
late; like me.
- about Gallagher's women.
- on a Saturday afternoon he's
spending with his wife.
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —