ON THE SHEETS

 

And you
were gone
and we,
and you
and I
were off
and running
in different
directions,
in search of
subsequent
distractions

and you
were gone,
the day
unfolding
and duties
reasoning
chores into
realities
far from
the comfort
of beds
where bodies
were bare,
where tongues
touched thighs,
trembling,

where fingers
found flesh,
feverish,
where lips
licked
the lies
we tell
each other
that time
will last

and you
were gone
and I was
empty,
had been
emptied,
la petite mort,
unburdened,
lightened
by all that passed
in the passion
and parted
with the dawn
breaking,
with your sweet
sweat still
on my sheets.

All Words and Ink Drawing by Damien B. Donnelly

SEEN IN SCOTLAND

Last year I headed to Ayrshire and the island of Arran on the shores of the Firth of Clyde in south west Scotland to find a location for my novel “The Journey Home, currently in the editing stages.

This is the wonderful wilderness that lay in wait;

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All Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

WHEN THE EMPRESS IS REMOVED FROM THE EMPIRE

 

There is art
           on walls,
               winding walls,
            in rooms
       on show
           with light,
                    luscious light,
                          and climate controls
                                   while she’s sidelined
                                to the shadows
                         to weep
                              for the darkness
                                        that devours her
                                               skin, stuck like tar
                                                       and trapped in stone
                                                once tempered
                                 by an artists touch
                      now off and absent,
             now long grown
                  cold, not being of stone
                                   but breaking bone,
                                                while she weeps
                         neath polished position
         on partitioned pedestal
and waits
        in the shadow
                      of his name
                         long forgotten from rooms
                alight with art
                                on walls,
                                          the art
                                                of other men,
                                                            maybe more remembered

          like lands,
                  once considered,
                           now grown careless
                                                in their unions
                                         next to nations
                                    who have not
                                          nurtured the need
                                                              to be noticed
                                                      for notions
                                               long ago
     set in stone.

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio Version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-the-empress-is-removed

 

 

BLUES AT THE BOTTOM

 

Even in paradise,
on paved paths long pillaged,
the palms are no longer placid
and shady skies swell with storms
as rivers rumble with ripples
from ructions bellowing between
the blues at the bottom
and the clouds congregating,
without comfort, by the high heavens
and, blowing on boisterous breezes
nearby, are names I once knew,
faces forming of fidelities forgotten
in the foaming waters
where once there was weight
now withered with ruin
like colours that run
in the wash, in the tempest
that turns through time,
too lost to latch on to,
too fragile to fight
the currents currently pervading
this paradise now paved and perishing
like parts of me long lost
in a sea now swelling beneath me…

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Turks and Caicos.

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/blues-at-the-bottom

 

BITTER BRIDGES

 

Clouds cross the skies
and trains cross countries
while we cross each other
only at jagged junctions
and obstinate intersections,
cluttered with catastrophes
or below bitter bridges
that bridge no boundaries,
basked only in blackness
always shadow, never light,
always almost, never right
here, right now, right moment,

while clouds still cross skies
and trains still trail onwards,
distance never denied to those
on the right track.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken from a moving train somewhere outside of Lisbon, Portugal.

 

 

THE BENCH ALONG THE WAY

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And the leaves
leaned back

by the bench
beneath the branches

to let the light
linger longer

on the memory
now maintained

when two sat together

and dreamed
of the distance

they had yet
to discover.

All Words and Photography by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in the Jardin du Palais-Royal, Paris

THE STILLNESS IN THE BARN

 

And so he waved back, and, as if brushing back the years, he remembered when they cycled through the lanes together, well not together, in their group, but he was there and she was there though, in truth, it was not this particular woman, the woman who had waved to him as the train passed but he recalled the recollection with her reflection. A time when he watched a girls hair in front of him as it caught the breeze and the sun light above them and the wisps of leaves that leaned from trees overhead as if to touch her and he remembered how much it hurt. How much he resented nature in that moment, on that perfectly ordinary day in the countryside when everything, it seemed, reached out to touch her but him while he peddled to keep up with her scent, with her hair, with her hands that caressed the handlebars, with all that had always alluded him at such a young age. And he wondered, as he cycled, if she knew how he fantasised about her every move.

Falling back to reality, the train upon which he sat in the crowded carriage continued along its tracks, and the crowds continued their insubstantial chatter of babies and breakfasts and lunch dates and reunions and mass projections and program malfunctions, and she, a stranger who’d stopped to watch a train pass and wave at him, momentarily, inexplicably, strapped herself, in his mind, to a memory of another, long since lost, before she continued onwards and away on her bicycle, fading in the fields, now but a tiny glimmer of blonde waves brushing above the bushes of blood red berries.

And he recalled that day, after that dance where she had smiled at him across the floor, across the crowded floor of feet shuffling, of socks showing and leather straps cutting into ankles, of teenagers attempting to be attractive, alluring, aloof and yet she had smiled at him or had he smiled at her, was that the truth and the reason she blanked him the following day as if nothing had ever really happened? Which it hadn’t, of course, except in the meandering mind of the boy who wished and waited and met with nothing more than disappointment which grew into embarrassment before it slipped into anger which lingered for a while, just below the fist, until that other extra ordinary day, three months later, beneath the stillness of the barn, when the world stopped rushing past him and he finally realised what it felt like to hold her in his arms, to catch her scent, like butter and pine, in his nostrils, to have her hair against his cheek and feel her blood on his body.

And as the train pulled into the station that had once been his station, he counted 30 years that had past since that day of death, discovery and detainment. A childhood imprisoned by ferocious feelings and a life imprisoned behind unbreakable bars.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BLUE

 

And there, by the winding road, it watched

and there, by the rushing waters, it took anchor

and there, neath commuting clouds, it found no freedom,

her song; locked to the land

waiting as the tides retreated

wailing as the breeze bolted

out onwards and over
always and forever
while there, by the winding road, by the edge of the baying blues

her song;
bound to the shore
unlike the tide
unlike the tempest
unlike the sands of time

blue said the sea
not I said the sky
nor I said the clouds
nor I said the sand
but I sang the song
there on the shore

her song forever tied
forever more…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland