poets— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I don’t understand the poets who dig for their hearts
twisting in the coils of their own undoing
or, perhaps I do, for I’ve been there
but pain for the sake of rendering it
as proof of having lived it…
You will live and die posed and postured or not
Go stand on tables and rant
thumb your nose at convention
and go for what can be felt
with your utter resolve
moths against the flame
No one said courage and understanding sleep together
Go ON! dig for you heart…tear it out and stamp it
stamp it until its dead
but there will still be poverty and children and love
and people will still live and die outside
with their simple heroisms unsung and unseen….
gallagher
24 jun 84
Archive for the ‘Irvine’ Category
1984-06-24 poets
Sunday, June 24th, 19841984-06-24
Sunday, June 24th, 1984What will I say to them, these chest clawed veterans
what, to shock them with MY vision
to awaken those jaded of wine and muse?
They'll fall asleep if I don't tear my heart out here
and come to the bare edge of my sanity, quickly.
Sarcasm, passion, agonizing, intellectualizing
and plundering their lives for words.
What can I do against such as these,
a romantic at an existentialist's ball.
My dreams, though, are real....
Forged of pain, yes.
But the dreams, and not the pain, have endured.
I see music in children's eyes
and feel tears well up at old photographs
of people never met.
I've seen that each moment can be an act of utter
courage...if we just live it to the brim.
Gossamer curtains these,
against their screams for blood.
I'm a child, running, in a city under siege.
gallagher
24 jun 84
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
1984-06-27
Wednesday, June 27th, 1984
Cloistered in your American T.V. family dream
of homecoming queens and morals
and sanitary friends without sin
you are ... as solid as oak.
Though the deeper you, as yet,
is untouched by her mortal kin.
Our eyes meet ... and exchange
a seeker and his seen
an ingenue and a chaser of his dreams.
Every glimmer of the potential lover within you
talks to me where my magic
and the child wait against the night.
My sweet all-American princess
whose about to find the inner key
just let me be standing in your pathway
when you opt for crazy, wild and free.
gallagher
27 jun 84
Irvine
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —