How sweet it is that she gives me her love
and sends me home so full of peace.
Here to be with my books and poems,
secure and loved against the night
and that awesome emptiness
that can destroy our serenity.
Her face in my mind so close
her hands and skin and words...
...the evening air caresses me
as I ride thru all the years
of these poems.
gallagher
7 august 85
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
I’m drifting, walking, thinking— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
and then I remember you
and such a feeling fills me
that I want to run and hold you
so I can share this joy.
We’ve started a fire here
where we dance beneath the moon
under these, the ripped and passing clouds,
and we dare the flames to touch the sky.
My heart aches that love could have found me
so long jaded with stale dreams,
and compromise.
But now this love burns with an abandon
both timeless and transient.
Here, eyes look at me like I never thought
to see in this life.
Here I love … here, I am.
gallagher
7 august 85
13 Aug 1985— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
1040 pm
Dear Lise:
Chris lies sleeping and the emptiness of my place
mocks me; that I asked you to go, tonight. I feel sad;
that, somehow, I’ve been rude or insensitive or have
unnecessarily hurt your feelings. If I have, my love,
I am sorry. I know I’ve hurt mine.
I realized tonight, when you told me you would
resent it if Rose had another child by me, how much
more I ask of you than you ask of me. How blessed I am
that you’ve come this far with me, in love. How deeply
you touch me; when you hurt, I ache. I wish I could
take your proud head against my chest and somehow make
it so your love for me would give you nothing but joy.
I used to imagine that someday I would love
someone like I love you. Many years and lovers later
this had faded to a dim idealistic dream and then I met
you.
After a long time with you I now can look back on
the time we’ve spent and see some things. I can see
why my love for you has constantly deepened. It’s
because of your inner qualities of resilience,
self-possession and self-respect. I’ve never loved
anyone with the inner-possession you have. A friend of
mine, years ago, paid me a deep compliment. He said
that, ‘Unlike most people, I owned myself.’. I think I
understand him when I think of what is so special to me
about you. You’re not willing to just exist and not
question.
Ah, Lise…words are so poor for these feelings;
sometimes I just want to lay my head on your breast and
just let my heart pour love into you like a torrent.
I wonder if I’m beginning to feel that ache you
mentioned that you had last Saturday. Its for sure I’m
feeling something here when I think of losing you and
that it will be by my own hand.
God does play with us as it says in one of my 1975
poems. He delights in forcing us directly into those
razor edge decisions that we would most like to avoid.
he lets me long for years for a moment of monetary
freedom and travel … and then he puts, in my path, a
woman I’m going to cherish and want so deeply.
Somehow, I suspect there is no right or wrong in these
confrontations he constantly provides. Only that we
should experience all the shades of love and loss,
longing and fulfillment and disappointment that we can.
He seasons us with reality, raw.
Well, let him play. I love you and I will not
retreat. I love you and I love my dreams. I want them
all. If he wants to cut me for my audacity, he will.
If I am here to be worn by his experiences, then so be
it. I kneel and open my hands. If there is love in
this life like I am beginning to feel, then i would dare
anything. Let it come through the pores of my skin,
like the sound of the surf, or the sun at noon.
Through my eyes that behold yours or my skin that
touches you. Through my heart that my ache and break.
Through what time I have. What fools we are! We live
in the midst of an unchanging panorama of death and
decay and we set gathering our small safeties and
insurances policies and avoiding feelings that are too
strong because they might be bad for our health. Bah!
You make me want to burn like a flare and feel, just
feel, to extinction.
Words. Just words. And life is full of so many
concrete problems; money, time, position, and age….
Well, I’m going to hold on to these words and feelings
and let the rest sort itself out. These passionate
feelings, to me, cut a deeper swath through our purpose
here than all the arranging of the knick-nacks of our
lives ever could.
I can see/feel in your eyes that you feel some of
what I’m saying. If it were not so I could not have
this passion so strong, born of such a deep echo.
Love,