SamadhiMuse

                     More thoughts on anxiety
   At times I’ve zeroed in on this or that as the possible cause
      my unbidden anxieties
   Lack of sleep,
      lack of exercise,
         excess of calories
            fantasizing,
               internal dialogues,
                  lack of religious faith,
                     personal inadequacies,
                        lack of women,
                           lack of people,
                              lack of privacy,
                                 and lack of personal freedoms.
   And, at some point or another, each has been vanquished for a time,
      with the possible exception of religious faith,
      and, during that time, proven to not be the answer.
   No, I suspect they each were a compounding factor
      which happened to be present at the time
      and which was labeled, guilty, by association
      rather that by causality.
                              gallagher
                              27 september 83
                              orangetree

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      My moods come swinging harder
         more brutal between the good places
      eye fogged anxious days
         women who turn me like a card in solitaire
      Hours that wait like wounds
         and demand confrontation, wine or madness
      I still hear Bhagwan and the Sufi’s
         still remember Monika and Nirala
      I can still see Danny and Chris’ and Rose’s eyes
         but here, where my moments are mine
      I come down to some line
         some deeper pressing reality
      Women and wine used to save me from confrontation
         but wine can kill me, as it did my mother
      and women; women find me less these days
         through the filters of age, affluence, and truth
      so we come down to it: mood slugging and slogging
         aerobics and smiles, sweat and hedonism
      balanced against karmic mirrors
         like Adelle, the psychedelic pharmacist
         and Kathi M., the Jewish-American business woman/wife
         and Maria, the waitress
         and Lorrie, the aerobics instructor
      I can offer no one anything and I go upset
         from each meeting where they tell me so.
                                 gallagher
                                 03 oct 83 – Orangetree

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

            Sometimes I think moods are born of events
            and sometimes of biochemistry and genetics
            and from one theory to the other I’ve bounced
            analyzing, watching, trying to see which it is
            so I can either turn off the swings
            or know that it’s not within my power
            but I’m beginning to come to a third way…
            let them come…from where they will
            no more will I bargain, give in or resist
            I wish to just accept, hands down, unresisting
            to find the good and the bad
            equally a part of my life
            this perfection that Bhagwan describes
            and which I see so imperfectly
                                 gallagher
                                 05 oct 83 – Irvine Club

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —