SamadhiMuse

   There must be reasons, I know, for this miserable play
   that I should have loved her… to see her taken away.
   Her promises, much brighter than most,
   now lie abandoned by their delirious host.
   She had possessions and a mind of razored fire
   and, when she could hold it, compassion and fine desire.
   I know its for something, that its all come down this way.
   Am I to learn understanding of it or to have the sense to step away?
   It seems the months of this last year
   have been filled with people like me, far too much I fear.
   Kathy’s centered ego, so very much like my own,
   mocks my need to hold her, her mirror brings it home.
   And Helen’s hyper-brightness, her driving needs to win
   lead me to my own belief that less than the best’s a sin.
   Its no chance, these people, more like me than me
   have come to give reflections of the things I never see
   I wane much more sober, beaten back again
   by the difference in the dreams I nurture and the ways reality
   bends.
                              gallagher
                              september 27, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Helen across the miles … on the wires
      re-risen from where she’s gone … recognizable
      her voice makes me feel love … memories
      she says we’re not logical … it shouldn’t last
      and she’s right, damn it!
      This whip-snap girl who matches my every nuance
      when she’s keeping it together
      a flame who burns so bright she extinguishes herself
      she shadows my every perception in her light
      wistful…over the wires and the miles and the fields
      needing her time to heal…and remembering our love
      I feel so inexpressibly full … so full
      when I want to hug her to hold her
      and I’m holding nothing but the phone…
      unable to empty, except to say, ‘I miss you, I care’.
      Tender moment, balanced between need and decorum
      wants and consideration, emotion and logic
         pain and desire,
            love… and loss … the phone’s plastic
      and her voice in it.
      and so we part with all that logic waiting in the future
      and all these emotional months to come.
                              gallagher
                              9 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Why did I meet you?
         now I wait wistful against the days
      not quite as alive as I could be
      You showed me, matched me, laughed with me
         and if it was your insanity we shared
      I guess I could be labeled so too
      I liked it there where associations ran free
         and every moment was hyper-electric
      when you looked at me, I could feel it like a hand
      Everything about you was velvet judo
         I tire so often of half people
      partial perceptions, conformers and half-thinkers
      will I only find my match in someone like you?
         full on with more than your slight frame can handle
      romantic tragedy, intense spirit, over strained psyche
      I’m spoiled now… I want only your kind
         of freedom and devotion.
                              gallagher
                              12 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —