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1978-09-27 The unraveling of Helen O

Wednesday, September 27th, 1978

What is all this to me?
What am I supposed to see … to learn here?
That I loved someone, briefly …
and then watched her unravel
and sift away like sand?

Manic/depressive …
driven to the ends of her personality
and unable to make a stand.

Are we, then, no more than our personality patterns?

Is it
that I am to see
that there is no deeper essence
beneath the things we believe we are?

Is she, then, all of her, gone
when she disassembles?

Am I to disbelieve in spirit
when I cannot find hers?

A combination of intelligence
and an over-driven nervous system;
some parts striving, some parts of
ego, caring, memories, presence…
and beauty….

Some parts terror and vanity, courage and cowardice…
and hurt….

A form with too much energy to maintain itself
against the entropy we call insanity.

She has crossed the barrier again.
And much like the child’s tale of frosty the snowman …
we dare not love her too long.

gallagher
27 september 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1978, Catalyst2, Helen O., Long Beach | No Comments »

1978-09-27

Wednesday, September 27th, 1978 

   There must be reasons, I know, for this miserable play
   that I should have loved her… to see her taken away.
   Her promises, much brighter than most,
   now lie abandoned by their delirious host.
   She had possessions and a mind of razored fire
   and, when she could hold it, compassion and fine desire.
   I know its for something, that its all come down this way.
   Am I to learn understanding of it or to have the sense to step away?
   It seems the months of this last year
   have been filled with people like me, far too much I fear.
   Kathy’s centered ego, so very much like my own,
   mocks my need to hold her, her mirror brings it home.
   And Helen’s hyper-brightness, her driving needs to win
   lead me to my own belief that less than the best’s a sin.
   Its no chance, these people, more like me than me
   have come to give reflections of the things I never see
   I wane much more sober, beaten back again
   by the difference in the dreams I nurture and the ways reality
   bends.
                              gallagher
                              september 27, 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1978, Helen O., Long Beach | No Comments »

1978-10-01

Sunday, October 1st, 1978

 

   The long roll of days now coming' thru
   have got me held between ... time and my dreams.
   I cast about ... in love ... and out.
   See how it goes ... it changes like the wind
   its not so bad ... something will come to pass
   I gather myself against these days
   like a man who loves the winter and draws his coat closer
   come, and play for me, life
   ultimately you must leave me beyond repair, I know
   but this far I've been blessed
   I love you more than most of my brothers, I think
   I seek your razor edged dividings ... decidings
   Your Karmic truths and gaping paradoxes
   You will make or break me ...
   Why should I turn away, you're the only game in town
   we just fool ourselves that there are others.
   So you begin again, here, some new incomprehensible rhythms
   my loves exchange ... rearrange ... the mirror continues to stare
   and I, day by day, ... can see better ... more
   We dance, you and I, ... pupil and teacher
   creator and creation ... mirrored hands of God
   groping towards ... something.

 

                                 gallagher

 

                                 01 oct 78

 

 

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1978, Long Beach, Spiritual | No Comments »

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