Photos from 7am walks last week in Shanghai before going to the office…
grey mornings
rainbows before the sunshine
All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Month: March 2018
POEM IN LITTLE ROSE MAGAZINE
–
So excited and grateful to have a poem this week in the beautiful Little Rose magazine Online
The poem is called Waves of Identity and the link is here:
https://littlerosemagazine.weebly.com/home/waves-of-identity
Get Voting for the Saboteur Awards
Hello Readers and Writers,
We need your help.
Voting has opened for 2018’s Saboteur Awards and celebrated Irish Surrealist Poet Kevin Bateman and his beautiful spiritual events in forgotten places where voices dance have been nominated.
Please take a moment to click on the link below and nominate him and his writers for these sacred events in beautiful spiritual places that people have forgotten to visit.
The link is:
https://form.jotformeu.com/80625273550353
You have to vote in at least three categories so type his name into 3 or all of the following and let’s keep poetry and places far from being forgotten…
Best spoken word performer
Best wildcard
Best spoken word regular night
Best spoken word show
Best collaborative work
If you missed his last event “I can Dream and You can Love’, which I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in, then here is the link below. Over 5000 views already on Periscope…
A KISS ALREADY GONE
–
This haunting,
this dance we are blushing,
this steam of soft smoke
to melt the broken from the heart,
this ferocious fever before the fall.
–
We are prisoners to this poison,
devouring desire before
its kissed with decay.
–
A ghost we cannot let go.
–
All words by Damien B. Donnelly with the aid of the magnetic poetry Oracle
SEARCHING TO BE SMOOTH
See
the simple stream;
current crashing
into character
See
the mouths of babes;
wishes whispering
of their will in waiting
Rough
runs the water
falling to find its force
Smooth
as our skins
we are not
We are curt corners created,
counting on the current
to carve us into caress-able.
All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly
TO THE WATER
I have taken to the water,
am running toward reckless
and dissolving the wreckage.
I have taken to the water
even on this land
of cracks and grumbles
(slippery under snow
or shadowed by a sun
we can’t outrun)
I still hear the water
rushing amid all that is restless
(am still bound to rest less and less)
as this will whispers within
to ‘follow the water’
in place of drowning
in a desert of dry doubt.
I have taken to the water,
corners caught on a current
clear in it’s translucency
as if to reveal the truth
beyond the abstrusity
of the boulders once blocking me.
I have taken to the water,
to it’s meanders of movement
(I move toward what is meant)
I turn and twist
and forget tastes once treasured,
I am flying fluid
(a flood of fluidity)
I cannot hold everything
(catch the kiss before it capsizes)
there are no pockets
in paradise
(babies are born naked;
only man dresses the dead
as if to ignore the death).
I have taken to the water,
reckless is running
right on front of what is left
of all that’s looking for rest
(while I swim toward the rest of me).
I am a small storm
in the steady stream,
I am the stream
storming into sturdy.
I am change.
I am unstoppable.
The truth lies
not in the bank,
but lays in the trust I place
on this translucent trickle
tracing my paths
upon the water.
I have taken to the water,
ripples running through reflection,
cutting the connection
of what once was,
I am catching on current-
all else will drift to dissolve.
All words and photography by Damien B Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/to-the-water
TO SLIP BENEATH REFLECTION
Drawn to the river
where the sunlight bends to bleed
as the hush on the water
finds a hold among the reeds.to
Caught by the current
as if to slip from this climate,
as if we could lose what we’ve learnt,
as if all noise could fall to silent.
To wade into the water,
to slip between the stream,
to break from beg and barter,
to dive, to drift, to dream.
Drawn to the river
where the leaves lean in to whisper
to the salmon swimming silver
of the truth we failed to figure.
Caught by the current
as its trickle threads my toes,
we were good till we weren’t
and this the riverbed; it knows.
To wade into the water,
to slip beneath reflection,
to swim from all man’s slaughter,
to be cleansed of all infection.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/to-slip-beneath-reflection
CAST OFF
–
Along the river bed,
long running with water
already washed through our hands,
–
long is not the hold we have to harbour,
–
long running with this water
no longer light at its level,
no longer smooth along its sands,
–
along this bend of river
I cast into the current, like a kiss
no longer catchable,
this weight no longer workable,
now on route to dissolvable.
–
From breath to bubble,
bobbing
bubbles,
from breath to bubble and then trouble,
then off they blow,
splashing as they sparkle
and splutter on to spent.
I cast you into this current,
where shamrock slips to sapphire,
to let the past depart,
not sad of heart, not hard,
just a shadow of blue
in a bend of the bank
at the edge of expire.
–
To slip from soul like a skin
now shredded from recognition,
a cast off of character no longer cast
in this current condition.
We knit until we are knotted,
we weave patterns;
loops locked under chains,
some stitches saved and others slipped,
connected to a comfort
until they struggle under strains,
–
a fragile filigree
we cannot always wear,
hands can only hold
what wants to be held,
we are not fortunate
for the future to foresee,
we can not always follow,
sometimes even sheep
must make their own route
before they are wound as wool
or substance to swallow,
–
even the river bed must turn, in time,
twist at others, we are no straight line
but a collection of corrections
cast on and cast off,
kick off
pay off
drop off.
–
We are more than characters
or thinly drawn caricatures,
I am more than this flesh you see,
you see; I can fester or I can be free.
–
I shed this skin of a former self,
here by the edge of this river running,
running onwards, searching for its shore,
searching for something more,
for its share of the truth,
I shed this skin to let the other
parts of me find their sea.
–
I cast into the river bed
this weight so the rest
can float and form and be.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
Damien B. Donnelly 