SamadhiMuse

           What duplicity we play with ourselves
             our entertainment is full of murders and rapes
           we go and we’re scared or thrilled
             but, when we leave we can cut it loose
                because it was just fiction.
           But, ask how many would go
             if it were a documentary
           made for the strict purpose of telling us that
             ‘This exists,
                 this is real, …
                    see it, believe it with your heart.’
           Not many I suspect
              once the pandering
                 to our voyeurism
              and sexual stereotyping
                 was stripped away
           We won’t come to grips with this sickness of ours
             and we won’t come closer to considering it
           than giving a shudder reading about it in print
             when its real
           and going to see it as entertainment
             when its not.
                                 gallagher
                                 8 September 84
                                 after seeing ‘tightrope’

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                                 1
              And these days, how are they coming down now?
                Still the restless dissatisfaction
              that I’ve accomplished nothing materially
                lingers and yawns when I falter
              from this path of timeless hedonism
                ( read ) resolute spiritualism.
              Age walking hard on my face
                and physical capabilities
              reduces the raging youth released syndrome
                to caricature against its light
                   of naked self-perceptions
                      and diminishing futures.
                                    gallagher
                                    3 oct 84, irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                                   2
           The other day a doctor told me
              that, other than the normal dying we did,
           all of our life,
              I may be faltering now
                 with a name.
           Arthritic deterioration of the spine, he said,
              a weapon which will invite injury
                 and reduce your flexibility, progressively
           Old hedonistic athlete at thirty-seven, stop!
              your time, so briefly shuttered between
           your birth and death, is now exposed for transient
              and, where you postured immortal,
                 you now have your ticket for the journey.
                                    gallagher
                                    3 oct 84, irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —