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2012-07-17

Sunday, September 29th, 2013 


Do not spare me from feeling all this;

right down to the quick.




To feel the life that’s always been here

just beyond my next should

and the mind’s endless chatter.




There are death and endings here

so burn me down, Beloved,

and just let me feel it all.




Here, without purpose and meaning,

here, where this same sun has shown forever.

Here, where transience is the song of life,

and here, where the poet’s heart burns within me.




Here, I raise my hands and close my eyes,

here, a terrible beauty rages.


Here are the beginnings and endings of all of us,

on our ways to the we know not what.




Here, I’ve stopped for just a beat,

to be in the endless moment.


Gallagher – 17Jul2012 – Benicia, California




— Copyright 1965-2013 by Dennis Gallagher —

				


				
 Posted in 2012, Benicia, Culturium, Spiritual |   No Comments »


			


				

				
2013-11-22 – As tears go by

				Friday, November 22nd, 2013

				

					
 
Why is it that the older I get
   the more that things move me? 
Music brings me to tears
   and injustice to anger.
The short-sighted stupidity of greed
  that is destroying the world I know
     brings me to deep sadness
        and thoughts of violent resistance.

The poet in me rages when I look at my heart's pain
  and compassion wells up and washes me again.

Is it nostalgia for this life I have loved so well
   or the pain of loss gathering around me like the night?

I tell you this - I shall not resist
   these knives of love that cut me.
For these tears are born both
   of love and pain.

And, if we are not here to saturate ourselves in this
   then I cannot think why this is better than being dead.

gallagher
20Nov2013
christchurch


— Copyright 1965-2013 by Dennis Gallagher —

				


				
 Posted in 2013, AAA - Recommended, Christchurch, Spiritual |   No Comments »


			


				

				
2013-12-06 – Dear Sister

				Wednesday, December 11th, 2013

				

					
 
Dear Sister, I know you tried to grow.
   In the early days, I was deeply awe struck by your struggles. 
So much more sincere than my own dilettante musings.
   You opened me up then to the meditation room's quiet seeking
      and inspired me to make my own questing real.

I was a rough seeker; just a blunt Irishman with dreams
   far too simple to be afraid to open any door, if I could but find it.

And, in your chair beside me, you burned with dedication
   and called in the voices and the truth; session after session.
How many hours of channeling flowed through your conduit
   how many times there did you open my eyes?

Looking back now across the years and all that has happened since,
   I see what an unequal struggle it was for you.

You began so much more encumbered than I.
   Your childhood, your Karma, your inflexibilities, your isolation,
      your anger, your hurt and all your deep distrusts.

They walled you in even as you spent so many hours 
   seeking to break through.
They blocked you 
   even as you burned for release.

You sat in that chair with fierce will and dedication
   and you held the vision of the highest good for all concerned.
You read Seth and pondered the mysteries locked inside T.S. Eliot's poems
   and you filled the house with the symbols and sounds of many traditions.

And yet, Dear Sister, you've arisen from that chair un-transcendent, 
   un-opened, un-humbled and still essentially believing 
that only your will, only your hard-won defenses, only your way, 
   only your opinions and only your disdain, strength and anger could protect you.

All of these I can see now betrayed you.
    They were the very walls that kept you from breaking through.
Sweet Sister, what you tried to achieve through acts of will and dedication
   can never be done; save through the erosion of all that you held to make you safe.

There is no growth without humbling, 
   no advance without disassembly, and no new becomings without unbecoming.
And only a deep and sincere choice to allow yourself to become porous 
   to all that has hurt you and all that you can feel 
      can free you from those things that impede your realization.

gallagher
06Dec2013


— Copyright 1965-2013 by Dennis Gallagher —

				


				
 Posted in 2013, AAA - Recommended, Christchurch, Culturium-II, Monroe, People, Sharon, Spiritual |   No Comments »


			


		
		


			
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