Month: April 2015

THE END OF THE ROAD, DAY 30, POEM 30

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And so here’s to one
For the end of the road,
Words have been written,
Sentences steadily found sense,
Poems put together, pushed and pulled
On pages being published, hauled
And heralded, heard in hushed homes
Where hope is heartily housed and harboured,

Here’s to the unbelievers
The cynical thinkers of thought,
Leaning to maths in the absence of magic,
Scared to be seen perusing poetically
In their palaces of prejudicial pride,
In places where poetry is but a preoccupation
For pansies prancing about while decorating doilies
And fawning over follies, fads and followers of fashion,

Here’s to the ones
Who are missing out,
To those who dare to look away,
Ignore all that is spoken, reject all
That is written, miss the minutes of magic
Mixed with meaning and metre, meandering
Like madmen through a myriad of amused
And confessional men and women, all willing
To shed their skin, to drop their masks and reveal
The sometimes silly, sometimes scary, secrets beneath,

Here’s to the end of the road,
A month of calculating thought,
Converting concerns into so-called
Confessions, finding fact amid the fictions
Of life, figuring out the force within so as to find
The way to pen and paper, from thought to word,
From hand to eye to read, to lips, to mouth, words
For the mind to ruminate and meditate on the meaning,

Here’s to the completion
Of the composition, the composer
Can collapse, rest and recuperate,
Dream again, to look back and laugh,
Not dawdle in the depths of substance
But laugh at the lines he has lived through,
Lingered along, find light in the letting go, rhythm
In the rhyme, consume not oneself in the character
And caution and concern but release those creations
To live and love, to be heard and held without him and to be
Unburdened and unpunished if the rhythm didn’t always fit the rhyme.

All photographs and artwork by Damien B. Donnelly

ELEMENTS

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There is a sea

On front of me,

Its waters awash

With possibilities,

Waves of wisdom,

Its tides tickle my toes

Tempting me into its depths,

There is a sky

Above me,

Rolling with clouds

Of cotton candy,

Pillows of potential,

Folding and flexing

And forming my future fate,

There is water in the sea

On front of me,

There is air is the sky

Right above me,

I stand on the land,

And I am earthed,

I feel the fire within me

And it is burning.

All artwork and photos always by Damien B. Donnelly

WAITING

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I am within,
Amid the crowd,
Their breath, baring down
On my neck, stinking,
Their heat, transferring
Temperature to mine, terrifying,
Their scent, steaming its trail
Through my nostrils, twitching,

I am within,
Seated and centred,
Capturing canvas’ of colour,
Considering connections
Carried on beside me,
Caring couples cavorting,
Concerned comrades cajoling
And a curious collection
Of coyly carnivorous concerns,

I am within,
Tracing telling tracks
Of trailing thoughts,
Taunt on faces
On front of me,
Taking it all in,
Throwing it all out,
Being a part of it all
As it unfolds,

I am within,
So close to it all
That I am invisible,
I am not substance,
Shadow or suggestion,
I am simply the unseen,
Sailing through streets
Singularly unobserved,
A strange soul secretly sheltering
A blink beyond your eyes,
A shrug beyond your shoulder,

I am here, within,
Amid this crowd,
Waiting to be seen…

THE ALPHABET OF WALKING AWAY

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I walk away abolishing all affinities
I walk away believing it to be better
I walk away casting off all comforts
I walk away desirous for the distraction
I walk away ego eager for extra
I walk away from all the familiar
I walk away to gather goodness
I walk away healing hurt and holding hope
I walk away into the inevitable
I walk away to elongate the experience
I walk away before kindness kills
I walk away letting longing loose
I walk away to make all moments matter
I walk away never knowing what’s next
I walk away opening up to opportunity
I walk away putting out the pretences
I walk away quietly questioning cause
I walk away to reconstruct and ripen
I walk away to seek something sustainable
I walk away to tempt a transfiguration
I walk away to unwind, unroll and unravel
I walk away to vanish from your voodoo
I walk away to be a witness of the world
I walk away to add the x into extraordinary
I walk away from all that yesterday yearned
I walk away to ardently and zealously zing

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

 

SUMPTUOUS SIMPLICITY

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i wandered through the wood,
A world away from the walls
And ways of man
And his madness,
I wandered through the wood,
Its dewy fragrance,
Floral yet familiar,
Floating free and fluid
On filaments of air
That enamoured my nostrils
And enticed me to linger longer,
To look behind the bush
And briar, to witness nature
And all it nurtures as it fights,
Forages and furnishes fertile fields
With its bark, bramble, beauty
And bravado and it is brave,
To dare to demand your divvy
From hands of hungry humans
Harbouring monotonously for more
And more of more and more,
I wandered though the wood
And took time to thread through
The twisting paths taking me
To the truth of this terrain
That we worship
From a worrying position
Of polished pride
And perverted prejudice,
Perceiving the ferns and foliage
To be folly’s fuelled only
For our fancy and frivolity,
I wandered through the wood,
Garnished in grassy greens,
Golden and graceful, glowing
Under the sun’s synergy,
Sensitive to surroundings,
Savvy to predators
Preying in the undergrowth,
I wandered through the wood,
Branches unabashedly blooming,
Beating and baying their way towards
A better day, a brighter bounty,
I wandered through the woods,
Caught in a clarion curtain
Of captivating light,
Leaving leaves luminous
While sheeting a shadow
Over all that sat superfluous,
I wandered through the wood,
On the edge of the city,
Walled in with worry,
And rested awhile
Amid the certain serenity
Of all its sumptuous simplicity

LONG DEPARTED

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Nothing,

Noting the minutes ticking by,

The light descending into darkness,

Today becoming the memory of tomorrow

And yesterday, so long departed.

Nothing,

Waiting for the phone to ring,

A job to emerge into my job,

My home to change into your home,

And this city to be over, long departed.

Nothing,

Twitching toes and filling hours,

Packing boxes and building up trash,

What to take and what to leave,

All that remains and the rest, long departed.

Nothing,

Nothing happening, for now,

Not here, not today, but tomorrow,

All of this, all this fuss, all this worry,

Tomorrow, all of this, long departed…

ALL THE LOVERS

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A thought for all the lovers
All those perfect precious pairs,
The ones with hearts all hopeful
The we’s, the us’s and their’s,

A thought for all those holding hands
Keeping couples connected,
Who sneak a kiss along aisle 5
Who tempt and tease, thrust and thrive,

A thought for all the cuddles,
The spooning, forking, hugging,
A thought for every small embrace,
The rubbing, necking, pecking,

A thought for those with candles,
Dimming lights and opening wine,
A thought for those accepting,
Who think their partners are divine,

A thought for those who read aloud
While their soulmates close their eyes,
Listening to the voice they know
That will never tell them lies,

A thought for those together
Those living lives united,
A thought for those who stay the storm
Who refuse to be divided,

A thought for those still waiting
To those still trying to believe
That there might be something out there
A rescue, reward, reprieve…

THE STORM

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I stood, firm footed against fate, beside the storm,
A raucous rage of twisting winds and hollow howls
As waves, frothing with fierce foam, forced their way
Upon the land, as if claiming some right to survive.
I saw, amid the sweeping sound of the stormy sea
As it clawed, climbed and crashed its way forward,
The horizon line, looking like no more than a drop off;
A free falling finality from which all would fall and fade.
I watched the wilful waves as they crested the currents
And fell beneath, all in one endless search for a shore
To stumble upon, to rest along, in the everlasting hope
For an end to the ebb and flow of life and all its longing.

I turned, just as all those times before, to share with you
This wondrous world unfolding but found myself alone
Staring into a void where time and space had placed us,
Distracted us, before it carelessly, casually destroyed us.
I wondered, in absence, what world you now witnessed
As the tides tickled my feet and sand slapped my skin
And I reminded myself, once again, that you were gone,
No longer by my side, or in my hand, or breath on flesh.
Your desertion washed over me like the tides, in waves
As I wondered why I had met you and how I had lost you,
How I had let myself believe that an oarless broken boat
Could ever carry us onward to the places we’d dreamt of.
I lost myself, in that time, in all those seas of uncertainty,
Lost in a hope that the tides would set us right, that winds
Would carry us and an ocean of something could make up
For a past full of failures and fears you had yet to cast off.

I could have drowned in all that debris, in all that decay,
Stayed silent, not swam, not fought back at all the forces
But I gasped for air, in those final moments, and the ripples
I made favoured me and carried me back to the shore, alone.

I stood, firm footed against fate, and realised the storm had passed.

 

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-storm

COMPLETED

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Hungry
To lock lips again,
To draw you in,
Touch your skin
So recently kissed
By the sun,
To feel your hands
Finding their was around me
And shiver, once again,
At that sensation,
To have your breath
Upon my neck,
Along my chest,
Between my thighs
And everywhere else
That you wish to travel along me,
Let me be your next vacation
As you become my intoxication
Where I fall enchanted
By your scent
As you wash over me,
As my tongue
Finds that taste
So long away from me
In streams of love and lust,
All the while smiling
And feeling that smile between us
Sinking deep beneath skin,
Rousing endorphins
That thrill and tingle
Every inch of our being.

This is what the novels meant,
This is how those movies played,
This is the joy that was once
Spoken about as myth,
As fairytale, this is
Being home, in arms,
Wrapped in that embrace
That takes you,
With one touch, one look,
To another place,
Unconcerned with anything
Complicated, tedious, stressful,
But is nothing more simple
Than finding yourself welcomed
Within the heart of someone else,
Equally open, earnest, receptive,
Thoughtful, different to you
But the same too,
Someone who will question you,
Challenge you, create in you,
Wake you, shake you, love you
Awaken the laughter within you,
Someone somehow
Once a stranger to you,
Once an unknown traveller
In this world of coincidences
That sometimes lets the similar collide,
And suddenly, in a crash of considered
And complete clarity,
You are combined together
And candidly completed.