Month: September 2017

CIRCLING 

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

We come together
again and again
to create, to comfort,
to concede, to compromise,
to be co-habitors hiding old habits
but bound like a boomerang
to fall back on ourselves
in this constant search
within the circle, praying
for the little mercies
to bring us back to a better
completion of the circumference
already closing in.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

Inspired by a twitter Prompt from #DimpleVerse

BE AFRAID BUT BUY THE BOOK…

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

Halloween may be a month away but believe me; fear has come early this year. Tomorrow is the official release date for Gehenna and Hinnom’s Year’s Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology. 

Do you like being scared; the fear finding its way into your flesh, hairs rising and sharpening, the silence being shattered by something sinister? Well go buy this wonderfully terrorizing book featuring a nerve wrecking collection of chilling tales to set your wits on end!

In the words of the publishers: Abodyemigphobia is the fear of the visceral aspects of the human body. Mutilation, alteration, and disfigurement at the epicenter of horror for many ages. In body horror we not only find something to fear, but we learn to fear ourselves.

How can one fear themselves? Why would something so natural disturb generations of readers?

Gehenna & Hinnom is honored to present the Year’s Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology, the most disturbing and blasphemous collection of horror to ever be read by human eyes. Enter the morose. Embrace the Unknown.

Oh, and I am in there too!

Available to purchase on kindle and that old classic book form.

BOUND 

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

We are to the road bound,
paved in method,
measure and movement,
we dig trenches,
turn earth and choke
with cement (no joke).
We are to the light drawn,
toward the harbour,
the heat and the hope,
bound to shore,
to security, to bath
and body (to stroke).
We are seekers of shelter
along this helter-skelter,
cutting comfort
into concrete forms,
wombs become rooms
become homes
filled with customs
we become cocooned in,
a bed to lay our burdens on
and rest our bodies (still stroking) in.
Each morning another blanket
folds over yesterday’s shadows
(light, bright till night finds flight),
each morning another curtain
opens on the dream waiting
at the end of another road
to which we will be,
once again, bound to.
We are bound to follow
the paths we are painstakingly paving.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SHROUDED IN HOPE 

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Even
when shadows
settle over me
as shroud,
beside me
rests a light;
a faith
in what might
still be allowed.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. Photograph taken at the Dior exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. 

POLAROID 

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Camera stands to capture
all the memory cannot hold.

Stand. Strike. Flash
before we fade.

I hold a younger you
in my older hands;

lips
just settling after a smile
and your eyes;

forever with questions
I couldn’t answer

and now
all that stands
is our silence;

for the voice
is never part of the Polaroid.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly.

Photograph taken at the Irving Penn exhibition at Grand Palais Paris

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 11; WHEN THE SEA MEETS THE SHORE

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

See me,
see in me,
see the sea in me,

see in me motion moving,
from an outstretched ocean,
returning, movements manoeuvring;

the sea in me, seeping,
seeping out of me,
sweeping over you,

over us now,

not just me now,
not just you and me now,

us now, us two now, too.

The sea and shore,
and the sea wants more.

See me,
see the sea in me,
see how much more we can be;

you; the shore and me; the sea
coming in, coming home,

see more in us now, today,
here together, (forget forever).

See the sea seeping over shore
sinking deep between
the cuts and curves

see in us more than before.

See me, this sea
that sees you, me, us,

these waves that sweep you, me us,

concerning, caressing
this current connection

coming in closer, (and breathe)
pulling out gently (and breathe)
coming back deeper (and we breathe).

See us taking major meanings
from these minor movements,
taking time for the tides that bind us;
bare bodies, on this beach, that wash over us;

me; the sea and you;
the shore, now sure

now each wanting more and more of more.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TIME ON THE TIDES, PART 10; CREEPING ON THE CURRENT

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Seep, seep, slowly shifting,
sea skirts shore, holy water
washing in, anointing,

bless us, blessed, in warm
and wanted waves that widen
as we watch, as we welcome,
unaware of being too welcome.

Seep, sweep, seduce the shore
into submissive before you
break the kiss off and beat
the beach with your creep,

creep,

see it sweep, this cut of current
curving into claws, creeping
over sands now shady, shaking

under surface of the seas now
crashing, current rising,
drowning, desiring, destroying.

Creep,

seas slashing, sand bashing,

creep, creep,

deep devouring, searching, scouring,

see it sliver and slice, cold current,
cold as ice, wicked waves, waging,
wanting more and more of the slipping shore.

Creep,

creep, how they seep, how they
creep from calm and quiet,
serpents sweeping from seas
we thought to be slumbering,
now salivating salacious over skin,

tearing, taking, twisting.

We thought you wanted less
but you turned your tides to currents
cunning, running away with more
and more, leaving us with less and less.

Creep!

Seep from this shore, this skin
now sore, ripped raw to the core.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 9; TRUSTING TIME

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

We slip and slide
like grains of sand
that the sea seduces
as time sweeps over us,
combing us into compact
companions that come apart
after the sun shines
and the warmth dries us up,
how we hate the sand
that slips between the cracks
when we are parted
from the shore and so
we pull apart before we slip
and slide again, making
memory solely of the golden
grains and not the matted
mess that formerly moulded us
into misunderstood,
trusting time to thrust us
into more of a lasting truth
and I wonder if the water
coming in, sweeping up,
spreading out over each grain of sand
has a memory of the last time
it touched the shore or if each sweep
inland is like a new breath,
a fresh attempt to hold
onto something more
hopeful?

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/time-on-the-tides-part-9-trusting-time

 

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 8; HOURGLASS

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

We are
the hourglass
through which time slips,
love seeps and life is lived
on ever sinking sands, come
see us turning over and falling
down on new stops and false
starts, like tides that sweep
the shore, coming in and
going out with less and
less of more and more,
or is it more and
more of less
and less.
We are
hours of taut
time caught within
glasses of fragile skin,
of breakable bone, fine is
our tiny hold on those golden
grains of complex connections;
I wish, I was, I am, I will, I want, I
am done. We are hourglasses
slipping through scents we
try to make sense of
before they slip
from our
senses.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: