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2011-08-31

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 

I don't think I'll ever let anyone know
   how closely madness came to claiming me this winter.

Murderous thoughts have been my unrelenting companions
   on many nights as I've thought of how
      to hurt those who have so hurt me.

One night, I lay tortured; one moment asking for the light of the highest good,
   and the next with visions of murder raging in me
      back and forth until I rose at dawn exhausted.

I fear these bouts.   I fear that one day, pushed too far,
   I will simply rise and depart from sanity and responsibility,
and make true my claim,
   that I do not, in the final event,
      respect the law, if it cannot redress my complaints.

In my thoughts, there is no force in the law that can save someone,
   from another who thinks that the law and redress 
      belong to him and his Karma.

He that has a deadly aim to not be undone and bereft,
   while he still has breath and choice.

Where this leads, I know not.

I just know my pain is near an edge and I have trouble seeing why
   those who have done me so ill should not taste of that same well.

gallagher
31Aug2011

— Copyright 1965-2011 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2011, Christchurch, Sharon | 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 »

1990-10-23 – Bremen thoughts

Saturday, January 10th, 2026

I.
Around us are the thoughts we’ve not grasped,
real and potential, whispering.
Our consciousness like the mantle of a flame,
moving among curtains,
amid the soft breath of our interest,
We are children of varying intellect,
from moment to moment.
we illuminate so much.
and know, so little.
How do we speak
of the sleep that we sleep?
Do we think that the eyes slept.
before the hand moved?
That only when we’re awake.
do we know sleep?
and we are often not?
Around us, are we sometimes,
and sometimes, we are there?

When we run, sooner or later,
we will slow down.
It is still us, only slower;
would we wish to always run?
When we think, we grasp more,
but we cannot always think.
Is it still us, only dumber?
And would we wish to always think?

II.
Animal dreams
food, sex, power, warmth ….
And Scheherazade in the breeze,
if we listen.
How can you reason
with people who refuse to discuss.
what they do not understand?
What will you say to yourself
falling asleep?
That you wish the voyage well
and that when you’re awake again
that it may be sooner?
And that if you sleep
that the world does also.
But that God knows.
your intentions are good.
And he has put order in the world.
and you in a reed basket
on the Nile?
Sleep child
Scheherazade is in the wind.
and you will awake.
But if you dream.
of war and death.
Look well, my child,
for dreams are messages.

III.
And these messages are for you.
for none other is the sleeper
and none other can awake.

Words on paper from another day
born of coffee, drink, or music.
God almost extinguished.
between pressed pages on the shelf.
The books wait
thru the heater’s hiss.
And the murmur of silverware.
the lover’s groan
and the real estate loan.
Alarm clocks and bills
television and the shower.
saved against the day.
When the sound of Scheherazade
whispers.
In the light across your wife’s face.
or the wind in your trees through flannel.
Pause the shovel,
And bless the sweat,
Divinity has smiled on you.

gallagher
23 Oct 1990
Bremen, Germany

Posted in 1990, Bremen, Sharon | No Comments »

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