SamadhiMuse

         What's the cause, that I should think of leaving her?
           My eyes and heart, daily, pressing her and Danny away...
         Its here in my dreams that I've held all these years
           dreams held against all the waiting and poverty of school.
         I've been naive thinking that an education
           could separate me from our carnivorous reality.
         Its fighting at all levels in the under thickets of success
           and the dreamers and the weak are the fodder here.
         Its no wonder, then, that I look askance at my love;
           its easier, at thirty,
           than seeing myself as a dreaming fool.
         I don't love how much less I am than the dreams I held
           but I can't press her away because she does.

                                          gallagher
                                          9 July 1977

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         How dry the leaves and empty
         my first winter into the thirties
         I could disappear without contact
         be a person lost without love.
         I’ve told Rose I won’t come back now
         and the winter starts to blow,
         I’ve told Rose I’d love to see her
         but when she moves I know
         she’ll take her summer laughter with her
         and leave me here to grow.
         She’ll take my love and son then
         and leave me here to know
         how dry the leaves…and empty
         when the winter winds begin to blow
         and alone and empty I am
         as I begin to know…
         But I chose these winter empty stomach days
         and I chose the waiting for my life’s new phase
         and lead me to the summer sunshine
         where I’m bound to go.
                              gallagher
                              feb 25, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      My feelings walk inside me like a man with a hammer
      The year of thirty must be by far the strangest one yet
      Joe’s gone, his room says over his leavings,
      and Rose and the house are harder to bear each day.
      Soon the last shreds of her love will be torn
      and the last of my security flown away
      Its an ache to be there and yet I’ll probably always return
      for Danny
      I dreamed Bob the night before I met him
      and when he arrived I felt prophesy on my shoulder.
      And, tonight, when Rose told me
      he wasn’t going to San Francisco
      and that he’d been asking her out behind Nona’s back,
      my dream came to reality.
      “I’m seeing Rory”, she said, and I smiled…
      I like Rory and he can’t make me insecure
      Sorting photographs … cleaning the garage
      talking, with control, to Bob and Nona,
      eating Rose’s chicken and feeling this hammer.
      I’m going to be alone again soon as I’ve not been
      in a long long time
      and on none of my fantasy girls can I rest
      until this hammer has spent itself
      I pray thee, thirty, move on.
                           gallagher
                           04 apr 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —