Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

1978-09-12

Tuesday, September 12th, 1978

Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to rest
life keeps building up, relentless pressing tests
your heart, your mind, your patience all at war
until … my feeling mount and I want to cry, ‘No more!’

I know (believe) there is a why though I can barely hold the thread
to gather from this chaos the one, the essential thing

I need to learn to exist all on my own
my views and mind intact, my integrity gone full ring
to bear pain without destruction and feel joy without the need of it
to center sure against all tests and save a place to breath

To press myself against life’s tests without this essential thing
is just to waste my life unraveling, …string by string

gallagher

12 september 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1978-09-12

Tuesday, September 12th, 1978

Sensuous sister I see you … us … in the pages
of Shaw’s Rich Man, Poor Man.
Our lusty need to win winning out
beyond names and roles … our hours passionate
like his characters are lusty.
Our pasts springboards into lives and futures;
the options, the futures, the magic and the dead ends,
I see us there in his pages
and here in our days.
No regrets in these living hours
I hope you’ll always be my sister and my friend.

gallagher

09-12-78 about/to kathy a.

long beach


— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

1978-09-13

Wednesday, September 13th, 1978

Needs and wants are our problem
if I cannot ask to have my needs met
and be equally willing to accept
both possible responses then
I’m not asking, I’m pressuring.

And, if someone asks something of me
and I’m not completely free to say
yes or no then I’m in danger of compromising myself

I seem to relax my boundaries
in inverse proportion to how much pressure
I get from someone

I want nothing but what’s freely given
and the strength to resist the tendency
to want more

If my love asks something of me
and I deny her
and she accepts without a display
of regret or pain

I will no longer think her weak or shy
but rather that she has given me the highest
form of common sense love, love of who I am,
which is also called freedom.

gallagher
september 13, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —