Denis Gallagher
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Denis Gallagher was born in Sydney in 1948 and now lives in Blackheath NSW. He wrote his first poem as a student at Normanhurst Boys’ High School, and recalls that it included the word “shibboleths”. His enthusiasm for poetry continued whilst a student at The University of Sydney in the late 1960s, but it wasn’t until several years later while sharing a house with Ken Bolton and Rae Desmond Jones in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe that he became actively engaged with the writing of poetry, which lead to his first collection, International Stardom, published by Sea Cruise Books in 1977. He is the author of three other collections of poetry and a contributor to Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones (2009).
Istanbul
On the Bosphorus from Eminonu to Uskudar
An old man built me a memorial of words
In tribute to the poet Yahya Kemal
How his heart like incense permeates the years
An old man built me a memorial of words
A monument to loss, regret, huzun
How his heart like incense permeates the years
Another ferry departs
A monument to loss, regret, huzun
Hidden in the eyes of every Istanbullus
Another ferry departs
A dream, as though within a dream begins
Hidden in the eyes of every Istanbullus
The aimless, lost street dogs’ search
A dream, as though within a dream begins
Ataturk’s bronzed eyes look west
Aimless, the lost street dogs search
Where once the pasha’s grand mansion stood
Ataturk’s bronzed eyes look west
Still let me dream my country is unchanged
Where once the pasha’s grand mansion stood
If death is night upon some foreign shore
Still let me dream my country is unchanged
On the Bosphorus from Eminonu to Uskudar
Two Dogs of Blackheath
I heard later
Those little dogs
Were Po and Mo
Chihuahuas
Of Prince George Lane
Quiet on the lounge
Alert at the window
Under the curtains
Chewing the air
Their mistress
The barmaid
Told me their names
Short for Poetry
And Motion
Her twin darlings
Abreast
Of the moment
She’d pulled a beer
We laughed
At ourselves
Looked at the floor
Over and over
That memory
Comes back
Every time
I walk
Up
Every time
I walk
Down
Their mistress
At home
Asleep on the lounge
I laugh again
At the thought
PoMo alert
Watch me pass by
Lost in the moment
Writing on air