SamadhiMuse

            1986 … eight years since ’78
               and I wonder what I’ve learned since then.
            Woman passing by, touching me
               like spirit ghosts at some improbable dance.
            Rose, stronger … needing me less, free
               leaving me less room to hide in her love.
            I’m so much on the brink of being alone and free
               and so afraid of it.
            I can see now how my mother fell into the bottle
            and why Bhagwan says enlightenment comes
            only when you’re driven to the bitter end
            and have nothing more to drop.
            You can’t go to that place and hedge your bets.
                           gallagher
                              6 feb 86

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         What are these faces we have
         but the graven images of what went before.
         Every face, every feature
         of strength or beauty
         reflects someone who survived
         in the genetic pool.
         We’re so many and so sanitary now
         with our educations and mass media.
         But then, during most of man’s growth,
         men survived by strength and brutality
         and woman by their sexual charms.
         Tumbling fortunes on stages so small
         that the next feudal estate was legendary.
         From dark ages, lost dynasties,
         and forgotten lovers
         come our faces that have seen
         and been much.
         And we wear them
         and think all that is lost.
                                 gallagher
                                 11 feb 86
                                 Irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —