LIQUID RHYTHM

31/08/201931/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Need is hard
(to give in to
that craving for connection)
‘Not yet,’ I said (to Time,
teasing along twitching ties),
‘Drink me not, dark angel’
(we are light still and far from brewed).
Joy is a dance
of liquid rhythm
(lithe are we, fluid forms falling into arms
not always favouring hold),
hearts bleed when opened
(steel we are not, though hard are we
to mould into mutual).
‘Make us a secret
though our embrace is concrete
so maybe we (can) linger longer,
(let’s drink ourselves slowly,
regardless of how time ticks roughly).

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost. I am reposting old poems at the moment as I am editing my novel and working on new poems for a possible chapbook and sending out others to literary magazines and planning the move to Ireland in 4 months and thinking about packing and doing life laundry and doing the day job for another 3 months and still a little hot under the Parisian sun. Fingers crossed for all, one or none!

DIFFERENCES

30/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Nature is not alike;

red reigns over green,
browns bend to blend
and lilac leans,
perfect petals poised
over tiny tufts, trembling,

buds unfold from
stretching stars.

Nature is not alike.

Humanity could be harmonious
if we delighted in our differences

with dignity.

Nature is not alike. Why should we be?

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost

ANOTHER EXODUS

29/08/201916/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 14 Comments

I am 44 today. I found this poem I wrote when I was about 17…

Another Exodus

Being born
we die from the life before we lived,
that existence within our maker
but time transcends
and towards the light we fall,
swept along with an ignorance of the future
and a tire of the past.
The exodus arrives
and the tunnel ends.

Hands engulf
drawing us into a plebeian existence
where breeds an ignorance of the past,
a fancy for the future
and an enduring of the present,
but crawling,
our path is towards another plain,
another existence,
another light in a radiant tunnel.
Another exodus.

Just over 3 months left until the next exodus; leaving France and moving to Ireland. It’s gonna be an action-packed year and I cannot wait to see how it all unfolds. Here’s to finding the light! Thanks to everyone for coming by and reading and commenting and inspiring, I appreciate all your comments and support so much, Dami XX

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

AGEING FRUIT IN THE HOT SUN

28/08/201928/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

Beat and blow
and bare away,

let not blood rip beauty black.

We watch,
we want.

“I want hot peaches, honey,” you said.

“No music for me,

no sun”

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost as I am busy baking birthday cakes for myself and co workers

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY, JARDIN DES SERRES, PARIS

28/08/201916/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A lot of photographs, I know, I did edit, I promise, I took over 250 photos in about an hour while skipping like a 4 year-old around the place that was practically empty. I think this might be the city’s best kept secret and ‘how dare you’ Roland Garros, the neighbours, try and dig this place up to extend your tennis courts! This is priceless! Now who’s Out!

NORTH OF THE NOISE

27/08/201924/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

And so I come north
where the air cuts colder,
where daylight is a breath
that barely bays, night
a blanket bound to days.
I am not here to stay but
on a sway through ticking
time, to see what rests
where the light is less,
where day finds end before
being truly bent, where life
harks to harder as the day
hangs darker, dreams now are
the comings and goings,
the stuffing out of hours
before a bitter blanket of
blinkered blindness. Sad hearts
grow sadder, they say, grow
seasonal into sombre, into
the shadow of a city standing
still, waiting for the will. Days
fall short, are gone before
they can be caught, like hours,
like time, like the hand in that taxi
I once held, like all we cannot
hold, like all that ticks onwards,
all that moves off with the light
while I come here to the land
which time has left behind it.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

From the poetry series A Month With Yeats

WHILE YOU WERE DREAMING

26/08/201924/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

And as you dove through distant dreams
just beside me, you left to my centre,
I woke to the night sky splitting above me,
the stars were burning, bleeding through
the darkness as the heavens opened,
their gates no longer golden as the
rooks took flight, soaring into my fright
here in this cold night as you tossed
through thoughts and I watched mine
beating, beaten with feathers on fire,
the disparate darkness drawing delight
in my downfall, in my blindness, and you
turned in sweeping motions, your back
to me as I should have done, as I could not
and I wondered where you had wandered
as I was culled into consciousness, frozen
by the flames and shivering, were you
moving through memories we made
or making room for more to come
in other beds, in other arms, and then
befell the bodies, bound, in chains locked,
in flames crying, cursing, trying to pull
apart bonds that should have broken,
and you turned again and your arm
came over my chest and the vision
was smashed in contact, reverie
retreating but the burning continued…

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

From the poetry series A Month with Yeats

Photograph taken at La Lune exhibition at Grand Palais, Paris

SUNKEN SHIPS AT SEA

25/08/201924/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 21 Comments

And down fell the sun
and drowned within the sea
and rough raged the wreckage
as the sailors tried to flee.

And down fell the sun
as a storm claimed the skies
and water stole the rafters
and silence crushed the cries.

And down fell the sun
as the sirens swam to shore
and laid down the bodies
of the lives that were no more.

And down fell the sun
and a sorrow filled the air
as the sirens sang their song
combing cords through golden hair.

And down fell the sun
as their tears flowed like waves
and they kissed the fallen sailors
on the sand, now their graves.

And down fell the sun
as the sirens said goodbye
to the men mortal men who loved them;
the sea’s sad sirens who cannot die.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a poem from the A Month with Yeats Series

IF ONLY

24/08/201924/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

We are land birds,
bound birds,
we have made homes
in twisted trees
growing hallow,
growing hard.
We are land birds,
ground birds,
we have been deluded
by illusions
growing careless,
growing cold.
We are land birds,
drowned birds,
in a dying desert
growing doubtful,
going dry.

If only
we had been sea birds,
crowned birds
in a current caressing,
wings wild
at the will of the waves,
weightless instead of weighty,
free falling
on a bed of floating foam,
flexible instead of friable.