SamadhiMuse

         Our lives are made fragile by the things that we love
           and the years our love brings to bear.
         Chris lay sleeping as I prepared to leave
           and I stood and stared thru the bars of his crib.
         He loves me to tickle him and his eyes shine as he squeals
           and he can say 'Da-dee' and does, again and again.


         Some place from far back inside of me
           as I looked watching him sleep
         I thought of how fragile are all of our lives.
           The patterns of security, comfort and association we erect
         against these wars and illnesses, crimes and disasters...
           none of them are less real, because we love.


         Its just that my perception
           of how life and its vagaries comes together
         with our love and its attachments
           has sharpened with age.
         As the blunders of youth's mania
           and other distortions fall away
         and I see the 'human condition' more,
           and I cringe at how naked we stand.


         But Chris didn't know ... even that I was leaving
           his blankets and thumb and baby fat warmth
              defined the world he knows.


                                    gallagher
                                    29 Nov 1981
                                    LAX, Vancouver bound

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                     Long time sleeping
            Sometimes I lay awake at night
               and my thoughts just crawl like liquid snakes
            and my life seems to pass in front of me;
               the waste, the traps, and the mistakes.
            I remember all the years like snapshots
               when Rose and I were younger
            and the images and dreams turn inside of me
               like hopes; my wishes, my friends.
            I lay awake and ache for
               just how terribly little I’ve learned
            that our once simple love like children
               is now the colder love of just friends
                              09-22-82

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Sometimes I wish, I need…
              Sometimes I want to just wake her
               and say “Hold me, make it go away.”
             All this age and dissolutionment
               the aches that words can’t say
             But we sleep in bed like strangers
               and the night seeps between us like death
             and I’m afraid that if I awaken her
               she’ll be annoyed and have nothing to say.
             So I lay and quietly twist
               while snapshot memories
             crawl over me like worms
               and the night waits endlessly
             against my need
               and my stomach whispers of
                  its little boy fears.
                                 gallagher
                                 22 sep 1982

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —