Archive for the ‘Exposure’ Category

« Newer poems
Older poems »

2013-08-30 – Parc Monceau

Friday, August 30th, 2013 
 
I feel my legs creaking as age steals up upon me
   and, when I walk in the park, I know the ground waits below me.

All my health, lovers, adventures, years and successes 
   are just chaff in the winds of these many lives I've lived.

I sit near the still point and feel the simple knowing
   that ebbs and seeps from there.

The old men with money and power and the tiny tots
   with their little plastic sunglasses are all one to me now.

Love and being, here and now, and the leaves 
   that fall from the trees, they all whisper 'freedom and bliss' to me.

I look, and the urge to grasp rises, 
   but I say 'No'.
Each thing and moment, each coming and going is,
   in itself, perfect.

Buddha smiles someplace in this moment and in no other
   and whatever purpose is, and has been, is always now.

The ground waits beneath me and I hear its murmuring
   and I wait, pleased, for what is and what will be.

The world is magic that there can be such peace here
   in the midst of so much pain and war and evil.

gallagher
30 Aug 2013 - Paris, France

— Copyright 1965-2014 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2013, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Culturium, Paris, Places, Spiritual | No Comments »

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 »


			


				

				
2013-12-06 – 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 »


			


		
		


			
« Newer poems
Older poems »