Between strangers flash exchanges – never spoken As telling as any intimate touch As revealing as an undressing of the soul The darting hungry eyes of loneliness The knowing crooked frown The reminder of the disappointments The folded empty arms The nervous twitchy crossed legs Of empty anxious beds… Then[…]

Standing on the platform the shiver through me isn’t from the cold. Ahead lies an endless living tapestry the window unveils every morning. The ordered little houses- row on row on row- a quiet suburban police station- almost no signs of life- an orderly cemetery being groomed in the distance-[…]

There is a certain sadness that we each recognize. We never have to speak of it. We know it through our eyes. We see it in the faces. It’s known without a word. Our souls are always speaking, and every soul is heard. We see it as we watch them[…]

when walls have been erected but windows not yet hung and they stare vacant like sockets when doorways open up the space without the option of being closed yawning out when ceilings gape open and skeleton stairs imply their destiny when walls echo the absent paintings dulled in shades of[…]

There are faces in the city that seem always to be in change. There are faces in the city that seem always to remain the same. They are made of flesh and stone, steel and bone. In the streets there is an intimacy within the anonymous surging crowd. In the[…]

I hear it calling calling me back inside calling as if it had never gone and my name floats in the air carried within the winds of my mind places so deep inside that they cannot reach out screaming up from within the darkest places pull me down pull me[…]

Orion hangs above the treetops in the bitter, night air. Above the stillness of these empty spaces, the quiet of these orderly divisions, sets apart each of the lives within every single dwelling. And looking down upon it all unnoticed, only a ghostly silver ring almost invisible, frozen not only[…]

Thank you to Pam Mammarella, Tina Barr, Barbara Stoffa, Julie Bolt, M. Peach Robidoux, Susan Pierce, Alexandra Grilikhes, Bill Rothwell and all the Poets with whom I have had the pleasure to share work and workshops. Dedicated to my Mother and Father Hermia Lawson Gallagher and F. N. Gallagher.  […]

If you didn’t fill the space the pain came howling in to fill it for you. Half way through the game and a whole lot of crushed and collapsed catastrophes later, I, at last, really revolved, turned around, turned to find myself, and turned to find you. For Pam 12/31/94

Common threads tie to each of us a oneness with all life. Common threads which tie to each of us a oneness with the earth. Each blade of grass… Every sunset… Even the wind in our ears… Reminds us… The sounds of joy or anger in each voice. No matter[…]