Month: April 2019

TATTERED BROWN TROUSERS

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

Father ate all the flowers
in the back garden
because he couldn’t swallow
the promise of happiness
that bloomed within the home
he couldn’t find his root within.
Father left all the flowers
in the front garden,
too proud for others to see
him pulling from the soil
everything he needed help with
but had never been taught the words.
Father liked to laugh, first,
when others lost,
so no one could hear his own loss
tearing at him, like weeds twisting
behind the restraints he wore
like his inside out jumpers
and tattered brown trousers
he thought no one could see through.
Father ate all the flowers
in the shadows
of the back garden
and choked on a laugh
that no one understood.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

13th poem for National Poetry Writing Month

WHITE LIES

/ deuxiemepeau / 17 Comments

 

What if I admitted to you,
here and now,
before I even begin,
before I even let you in,
that all I am about to tell you is a lie,
perhaps white, perhaps a depth darker.

What if I lay it all on the line,
here and now, naked,
the truth of all the lies,
would you believe me,
would you still listen,
would you still want to hear
and make up your own mind

if what I’m telling you is a lie
or if I’m just laying lines upon the truth?

We live a life
on both sides of the line
and exist somewhere
in between what we believe
and what we know to be false.

I have told the truth many times,
its many lines spilt
over many skins, in many beds

and still I lie alone.

This is what I have left;
this is the truth of my lie.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

12th poem for National Poetry Writing M0nth 2019

ORANGE COLOURED SKIRTS

/ deuxiemepeau / 17 Comments

 

‘And there can be days like this,’
and the boy smiled and sausages
swam past him in shorts and shades
and in the sky dogs with Madonna mikes
flew over kittens in orange coloured skirts
and Beyoncé in their boogie.
‘And there can be days like this,’
his mother said as she painted
pictures of cows in caps and snakes
in sarongs shopping in stores
for shoes to put on. ‘Put on what,’
he asked, ‘they have no feet?’
‘But still,’ she carried on,
‘there can be days like this
all wonder and magic.’
‘But how,’ he asked as he sat
on her bed, as the machine
kept beeping, as the white coats
kept creeping, ‘just close your eyes
and see with your heart
what your sight can no longer see.’

There can be days like this.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Poem for Day 10 of National Poetry Writing Month

CRIMSON CONSIDERATIONS ON CARRIAGES KISSING

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

A curious crimson
caressed his cheek
as we crossed
the carriage,

no winding words,

no exchange of the
extraordinary,

only that crimson kiss of curiosity

that blushed upon cheek
and burnt into my hunger

long hostage to painfully pale
and drained out drought,

before pressing passengers
pushed me forward
and him

too far behind…

and soon to fall
out of mind.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

9th poem for National Poetry Month

GRAZING GREENS

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

I set down
upon your shores,
those grazing greens
of my childhood memory
displaced as tears rained
over the darkness
of your sleeping fields,

once seeping with humble hope,

once filled with a fine blood
even famine could not blight,

now flooded with a feeling of regret or relief,

too dark to tell,
too changed to recognise,

not knowing if you were crying
because I had found my way home
or that I’d once found a home in other fields.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Poem for Day 8 of National Poetry Writing Month

THE BLACK OF NIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

See, he says
to the child by his side,
see how the water rises.

Wait, he says
to the child by his side,
to see how life surprises.

Dark, he says,
is the black of night,
the stars too far to enlighten.

But day, he says
to the child in his wake,
brings a light for the willing to find sight in.

I see, says the child
by the side of the man,
feeling his ancestors were blind.

All words and photographs by Damien D. Donnelly

7th poem for National Poetry Writing Month

PURPLE CLOUDS

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

In that garden
of the many meadows of my mind

plants grow down
from purple clouds

carved of cotton catchable candy

and seek substance
from the surface
and not the ceiling.

In that garden
of the many meadows of my mind

fences are painted
with faces familiar

and mouths to catch kisses if you’re quick enough

and embraces
sprout like brush
to cradle comfort.

In that garden
of the many meadows of my mind

music spreads like ivy
a chorus to cut the chaos

and a crescendo of colour like a flower unfolding.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

6th poem for National Poetry Writing Month

SCARLET RISING

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Eat the storms, Mother said,
boil these beds of bitter blackness
until the dream rips through the rain
and translucent turns to trust,
even a diamond must ache
in the darkness until compression
can no longer compound its shine.
Eat the storms, Mother said,
slip the shivering skin out
under shimmering sky until touch
recalls the sweet music of scarlet rising
caught below the lick of leaf lost
to the shadow of the shade,
even the petal must rise above the thorn
before its fragility can dance in the light.

Eat the storms, Mother said,
but I didn’t hear it, at first.

It takes time to swallow the truth
and teach the tongue
to taste the refreshment of the rain.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Poem for Day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month

GREEN GARDEN

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

 

Behold the delicate daffodil,
spirited squirrel,

moist moss of early morning in green garden,
towering tree thriving through winter,

the peace that dawns with the dust,
the blue sky afloat on still water,

absorbing, reflecting, meditating,

the simple root the river runs,
the rustle of the red rose tipped with thorns,

the flowering moonlight over stony soil,
the secrets Spring’s sun whispers to Summer’s stock.

Behold how nature nurtures

while man disappears beneath his own destruction.

Behold how much there is to learn from.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

4th poem for Nation Poetry Month 2019