As the soul departs
on the last breath,
we,
with breath in bounty,
break
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Month: July 2016
POCKETS OF TIME
I have crossed many oceans and have known
few limits, I have travelled many roads
and have folded my favourites into pockets
of time, stored in a hundred boxes, marked
with a thousand names who have touched me,
sealed with a hundred souls who have moved me,
taped with a dozen men who may have loved me.
I have travelled many roads and I have packed
many boxes, I have folded so much of time,
and lost too many friends, but memories
cannot be stored in boxes and time cannot
be held in pockets, roads are only the beginning
and friends are never truly lost. Home is not
housed in bricks and mortar, home is like the ocean;
it knows no limits if the water is willing.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
VIRTUE OR VULTURE?
Is love letting go or leaning on or leading on
Is love like a salmon swimming upstream, struggling against the tide, against the current,
against all nature
Is love like a room you redecorate on rotate, layers of new prints over old paper, frail and fragile and fading in corners too complicated to remove the clutter, long since left, from other lovers now departed
Is love like the copious copies of masterworks, artworks we hang in hallways far from any real light so as not to intimidate real life
Is love as subtle as the smile stroked on canvas across her face, impossible to trace if she is leaning towards love or lingering in loss
Is love like the riverbed, caressed and corrosive concurrently, currently leading towards lust or something that might last longer, that might run deeper than an ocean
Is love virtue or vulture?
All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken in Aldeburgh, England by the Benjamin Britten tribute sculpture
Audio Version available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/virtue-or-vulture
ELEMENTS
In the uncertainty
between the darkness
and the dawn
there is the gentle dream
of what might
one day
unfold,
in the wings
of the new born bird,
with feathers still unfurling,
there is the fear
of that first flight
still to be flown,
in the page
that rests before me
there is a story
begging to be told
between the weaving
of words
I’ve yet to find,
in the first kiss
I place on your lips
you may taste
the real truth
of why
one day
I’ll have to
let you go,
in every house
not yet a home
there are walls
newly mounted
waiting for memories
to fill in
the cracks
already forming,
in the taxi
we took together
to somewhere
since forgotten
I held your hand
and thought
of someone else
long departed,
in the woman,
not yet a mother,
breathes the ties
already tethered
to the child
she’s yet to bare,
in the waters
broken with new birth,
in the air
that echoes our secrets,
in the fire
that drives our desires,
on this earth
that we tear through in taxis
there are songs
we’ve never heard
we’ve never known
we’ve not yet rejected
still waiting to be sung.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken in Tarragona Zoo, over looking Sydney Harbour, Sydney, NSW.
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/elements
BOOKS TO READ: Jane Dougherty & Christina Strigas
New Reading just arrived:
Today I bought two new books from Amazon:
The first is a new novel from Jane Doughtery, entitled The Pathfinders, Abomination, who you will recognise from http://www.janedougherty.wordpress.com and if you don’t recognise her then go check out her work, go on, move it…
And the second is a poetry book from Christina Strigas entitled Your Ink on my Soul who can be found at http://www.christinastrigas.com so after you’re finished looking at Jane’s site, move directly on to Christina’s and no dilly dallying…
Okay, time for me to read them…
Catch you all later X
4TH JULY: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
It may feel like winter in Paris and I may be rubbing Vicks into my chest while my nose runs like a tap from a so-called Summer (Man)Flu but these pictures recall a perfect summer when a Dutch girl and an Irish man cycled to Brooklyn and took the circle line under the bridges of New York City. We also met Winnie the Pooh in the Library! Happy 4th of July to all the Americans out there (except for Mr.Trump)
Bridges remind us that no man is an island…
All Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Winnie the Pooh (the Original) also says Happy 4th July
(he lives in the New York Public Library)
Below is the Dutch girl and the Irish boy driving through the library:
THE PRICE OF A STAR
And she sang of hope and harmony
in a borrowed frock on Tuesday nights
in a smokey bar below the Bowery
where the Irish downed their whiskey
while the Italians were always frisky
and they touched her, always, afterwards
her faithful followers fingering flesh
as if to caress the affection
she injected into lyrics, light and loving,
in the bar beyond the Bowery
where she came to entertain
the Irish and the Italians
who joined in the refrain
and they left her, always, afterwards
on Tuesday nights in the smokey light
with hope and harmony already fading
in that bar down below the Bowery
where the laughter never really
managed to linger for long after
and in the silence below the Bowery
as the stars all blew out one by one
she felt betrayed by what they’d taken
by the hope they had mistaken
to be theirs for the taking,
and felt betrayed by herself
by her need to amuse,
to be the muse in the limelight
but then alone in the shadows
that followed, always and forever after,
by that bar below the Bowery
where the light was far too low
to notice that her soul
had left her long ago.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken on the High Line in New York
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-price-of-a-star
THE COURTSHIP OF A QUEEN
I The waiting
And one fine day I will see you there
Where our bench waits by the bend
And the trees will thrill at our tenderness
When my lips find yours to amend
For the distance that’s divided us
And the years that slipped between
When this soldier returns to take your hand
A proven servant fit for queen
II The beginning
Two summers now past she found him there
Perfect prince with pen and prose
Bequeathing his lines to a love unknown
Where the paths bend and courtship grows
While she painted him beds of roses
He sent sonnets to her dreams
The pauper prince and the newly crowned queen
Whose love wrecked rules and rocked regimes
III The Promise
And one fine day I will kiss you there
When the stars return to skies
When the cloaks and daggers have disappeared
As darkness fades and love survives
But your heart I hold by my armour
and your ribbon wraps my chest
while I fight off your foes on foreign shores
till I come home to you to rest
IV The Turning
But today gives way to tomorrow
And no man is made of stone
and wars can be won but love can be lost
When ashes burn from what was bone
V The Ending
And so one fine day she wandered there
To their bench beneath the trees
When the kingdom no longer fought with fire
Although the Queen felt no reprise
And in the wind she heard him whisper
The promise he once had made
But cold is the touch of a dead loves hand
For warmth withers from what has been slayed.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
WILD WANTS
We are wild
We are warriors
We are war
We are wild warriors waging war
We are wild warriors waging war on a world
We are wild warriors waging war on a world weary
We are wild warriors waging war on a world weary of our wants
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 