Archive for the ‘Long Beach’ Category

1978-01-30

Monday, January 30th, 1978
      My self opinion has been independent
      of what I do, not because of it.

      Think of what they cannot take from you
      your mind, your attitude, your health -
      but very little else.

      Age goes, love goes, success goes,
      money goes, even health in the end,
      though you tend the flame.

      Then it's down to you
      somewhere below your mind and attitude
      (acid takes me to a timeless place)
      then it's down to you,
      and when death comes to knock
      you have to give up even this.

      Its all relative
      every circle spins down
      to the same center
      its all relative.

                                 gallagher
                                 jan 30, 78
                                 Acid tripping'

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1978-01-30

Monday, January 30th, 1978
         I want to make sure
         when it comes time for my accounting
         that I've lived it as I should have,
         no regrets;
         otherwise it just makes no sense.

         All afternoon, the afternoon past.
         Armchair scholar of my life,
         I astride my poems and memories
         sifting ... looking for me.

         Years gone by here again
         those weeks and months
         when I loved Sharon Freeman so deeply
         and Maxine finally saved me from ruin.

         And in the afternoon I finally called Maxine
         and found out how she was.

                                 gallagher
                                 jan 30, 78
                                 Acid tripping'

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1978-02-02

Thursday, February 2nd, 1978

I see her soft smile crushed
and I feel her pain,
reproach in her embrace,
she says I should come back, why not?

I want my life to get better at each juncture,
going back to our marriage is not an advance.
Her tender smiles would turn to bitterness
and my dreams resign themselves to waiting, why?

She thinks my lovers are the main reason why I won’t return
and she doesn’t realize its more of one cloth.
That the cold mornings and lonely afternoons
are better now in my gut than our marriage could be.

When…I see her hurt, I hurt, but I’m unmoved
I love her and her presence in my life
but I’m no longer malleable
because of love.

If she could love me, as I am, I could love her, as I am
and it would all be enough, but…
until then the hours are filled
with pain and the pressure to change.

She never found me so unreachable
and she struggles to grasp my love
which springs free and independent of need
and I can only watch her pain
and love her even as she tries to change me.

gallagher
feb 02, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —