SamadhiMuse

                              586
      So we choose what we want to decorate our lives
         and then find ourselves in empty rooms
            with mocking mirrors and the riddle
      of how everything can be just as we wanted it
         and yet so utterly empty and unfulfilling
      I walk these rooms and wait the clock
         twist against frustration and strive to see the truth
      but I carry weapons against the deadness;
         love and memories, pictures and words
            faces and touches, family names
      they can’t break me on their pressures
         though sometimes they send me out
            to stumble blank-eyed
               from the wicked press of incomprehension
      as long as there are children’s smiles
         and a woman’s love
            I can survive
                           04-04-83
                           Irvine at Pick

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

   We erode against our experiences.
      In the end we have nothing but our name
         and our memories
            All the things we were going to do
            All those things we believed in
            All that we thought we had become
   Is washed from us by our own historical dialectic.
      We give birth to ourselves, but do not survive.
   I try in the mornings to focus my intent
      but in the evenings seldom have more
         than just the memories of where I’ve been
         These paper scraps, the only trail I leave.
                              Gallagher
                              11 April 83, Irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      Yes, I'm coming to believe some people are smarter than I.
         Oh, I knew it before but not in the same way.
      I saw them above me, running corporations
         but I never really got to know them.
      Occasionally I'd shake their hand or speak with them
         and I'd feel like an object being patronized;
            suppressing my resentment or my urge to please;
               they left me doubtful.
      But they were easy to ignore, because they were so rare or so distant
         and I could live the illusion of being the equal of anyone,
            on this, my chosen ground, raw intelligence.
      But hey, brothers, they've found me or I them now;
         I speak now as often as I'm quiet.
            and I judge as often as I'm judged.
      Now I have only my poetry to make me different
         which I never show....

                           05-22-83
                           Irvine, CA

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —