Archive for the ‘Christchurch’ Category

2016-05-21 – Blood and Time

Saturday, May 21st, 2016

With their one life squeezed
between their hands,
stretched, until it might break.

They agonize not to lose that
which was forever only temporary.

The agony of living in
such a short pause
between all the endless time
when we were not.

It comes and it goes,
and it begins and it ends.

We are just leaves in a wind
that carries our DNA through
the unrolling of time.

It is cruel that we have names and memories
when we were only born to be
the vehicle to carry
what lies behind us
into what lies before us.

Squeeze these moments then,
my friend, regardless.
And feel the blood and flesh that speak
to you of your time.

Gallagher
21May2016
Christchurch

2016-08-07 – Ghosts at the fair

Sunday, August 7th, 2016
 
The flutter of wings through an open window,
   the movements of light across the floor.
Our lives, like the shifting shadows
   that haunt the late afternoons
      of the days when we are no more.

These photos, these memories,
   these senses of all that we are.
We hold them against us
   as if they were proof against
      the power of the shifting sand.

My name, my lover, my family, my friend,
   all on the carousel that turns
      and frees them all again.

Meteors and arc-lights, we stand against an end
   that shifts like light and shadows
      and absorbs us all and then....

Every treasured feeling rendered into air
   every cupboard full of memories
      to be opened empty and bare.

The turning wheel of transience
   the scythe that cuts the air
we of momentary consciouness
   are the patterns on the rides
      at an endless entropic fair.

gallagher
Christchurch
07Aug2016

— Copyright 1965-2016 by Dennis Gallagher —

2017-06-27 – Don’s passing

Wednesday, June 28th, 2017
 
The soft comings and goings;
   the sounds of bodies falling;
      the urge to cry.

But who are we to resist
   and who would listen?

We hold each other
   against the pain
knowing someone else now
   has no one to hold.

Colette said that when someone dies
   you think that if you go out
everything will have stopped
   the stores, the cars, everything....

But they all go on
   and then, in your grief,
you know
   just how small any of us are.

Gallagher
27Jun2017
Christchurch

— Copyright 1965-2017 by Dennis Gallagher —