MOVING INTO MÉNILMONTANT 

A new place to call home… painting new tales onto old walls in Ménilmontant, Paris…

Before…

Yes, I do make cutouts of furniture from paper to see what will fit where (I am a patternmaker, afterall!!)




The Magic Team Stories Movers (hijacked friends)…

A light at the top…

Those now famed 5 flights up- no lift…

And finally, furnished and familiar…

A little home baking to make it truly home (Apricot and pistachio cake) 

A place to write new tales…

Home Sweet Home, all decoration, photographs & hard climbing by Damien B. Donnelly

A HOME FOR HOPE

 

There is a gentle light shining
in this place not yet home,
pouring hope into a hold
beginning to pull on my grip.

There is a light, a subtle light
adding a lightness to all
that is weighing; the furniture,
the fittings, the fitting into a city
that has not changed
during my absence while I
have not stopped,
a city often angry
as I search for a place
of solitude amid all that leans
towards arrogance, of comfort
to come in from the chaos
and the clutter and the claws
clutching at scraps in the cold
corners the commenters
are unconcerned with.

Tonight, there is a gentle light
to lay under and dream
of what will go where
in this house soon to be a home.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

COMFORT IN THE CARDS

 

Behind the fanfare we fan the light
to make our way through another day
to night. Behind the fuss we muddle
through movement on route to contentment
caught in quiet corners of unconsciousness,
like that word on the tip of the tongue
we can’t quite pronounce.

On terra-cotta tiles I turn through cards
of comfort from days now distant,
wishes signed with love from names
I can no longer call in this light,
in this life. Far from the fanfare,
far from the fuss, you are all still
somehow a part of each movement
I make, distant stars now that once
held dreams, that once signed cards
of greetings, never thinking how much
one day, beyond the fuss, they would mean.

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: