A deep anger is flowing like a river in me.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Lise again.
Several days of relative peace after these last weeks
and then the deep mistrust she’s sowed in me
has risen again with a vengeance.
I try to make a stand against it
with some thought of seeing her side of things
but, it just doesn’t ‘play’.
My emotions of hurt and loss have finally come down
to where I can begin to think more clearly
and instead of dispassion and acceptance
I find my anger waiting rabid.
I still do not understand what she’s done to me or why
but it makes me deeply angry
that what I gave her of love
has been returned in such a way.
gallagher
9 dec 85
Archive for the ‘Lise’ Category
1985-12-09
Monday, December 9th, 19851985-12-10
Tuesday, December 10th, 1985
On the brink of midnight last night
I bent and kissed her one last time
and closed the door on so much
I had come to think I needed.
One last evening of feelings and sharing,
of honesty and passion.
Parting, we would remain friends and lovers
until the last moment.
To say that I learned much from her
would be a profound understatement.
She drove me to both ends
of my passion and pain.
She opened my heart
and drove humility through me
like a stake.
In the end, I believed her every word
and felt only sadness, not anger.
Only that I had been more deeply touched
by her love than hurt.
She's been there, herself,
to the end of reason and passion.
She stands testament to our ability
to survive these things.
She, and others like her,
burning their passion for love like flames
move without fear
into the darkness of their futures.
She took my hand and led me out to that naked edge
and told me then
that we must each risk everything we have
and do it alone.
Today, I am alone, but I am not the same
as she found me.
gallagher
10 dec 85
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
1985-12-10
Tuesday, December 10th, 1985I used to tell Lise that I’d dreamed about her— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
at some indefinable time in the past.
Soft memories of her passion and spirit were there;
a hundred impassioned afternoons in an upstairs garret
lost in the play of lovers.
I could never explain or remember more
of these gossamer images but that she brought
these memories out in me ….
Once, on mushrooms, she saw a terrifying view
of some desperate moment
in the middle ages
that scared and moved her deeply.
She and I talked about
if we’d known each other before, as lovers do.
Today, something finally connected for me.
Lise and I have met before
and what has happened between us now
is part of it.
Perhaps we’ve met many times before
on this very battlefield
of passion and pain and addiction
we’ve just quit.
In the past I must have killed her for love,
or she me, or we may have both died of it…
Perhaps, many times, in different places
and different ways.
Always struggling against this same insanity
and indebtedness that addictive love engenders.
Unable to summon the spiritual strength
to endure, we must have succumbed to violence.
just to come back
and try and work it out again.
Last night we succeeded.
We went through all the passion and pain together
and found the grace to remember ourselves,
the strength to know that our spiritual natures
are more enduring than these
material illusions so seamlessly woven.
gallagher
10 dec 85