Month: September 2019

GONE, THE GARDEN

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Gone is the garden, we are paved now

in parts no longer potential to growth,
to goodness. And the crow caws
in the corner, flesh festering into feather.

Gone is the garden, we have paved paths

over all that was precious while thinking
thoughtless, if only we’d thought less
about what we wanted and more
about what was needed. And the crow
cowers in the corner, questioning
what has become of its celebrity.

Gone is the garden and we can never
go back; the lock now lost in lyrics
too light, in the songs surrendered
from all that was soul to just sold out.

Gone is the garden, gone to graze

over another galaxy not yet grown
greedy, we are now alien to all
the earth has asked for, strangers
to the simple sand that sweeps the shore,
and stranger still to the starlight
that shines through its last breath burning.

We are the crows, cawing over concrete,
in corners, claws cracking in our chaos

and confused as to where went the worth.

   

All words and drawings my Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost (from my Joni Mitchell series) for a week of considering creation 

THE SUM OF WHO WE ARE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

And we are all a sum of circles spinning,
spiralling, circling something, orbiting our own atmosphere,
seduced by our own stratosphere, (oh, how we smell)
chasing our own tails; can circles have tails or is it just dogs?

Although Plato portrayed us as circles split apart; restlessly
looking for the rest of ourselves, worrying the best half
is the other half that was snipped away.

So are we circles or just the unfinished sum of a circle?
Are we accounting or just counting our own charisma?
Fragmented fractures trying to add positives with only negatives,
semi-circles circling the greater circle of life, some all-seeing,
some all-knowing, some too wrapped in the self to see the shadow
and oh, how the shadows can settle over the oh-so-indulgent.

And she calls and she cries and she sees nothing and no one
as needy as she caresses her own concerns and she combs
long shining strands of sustained soliloquies over the silence, shivering.

And he sleeps and he cries and he needs all and everyone to see
how suffering stifles his strength to see beyond the self, and he breathes
his burdens over brothers he believes are blind to his behaviour.

Oh the poor ones, oh the pity; pretty girl, pity boy, how they want you
to see them as a star, bold and bright, to see how hard it is to be them,
to stay so bold and…

make way for the music; see the swines strumming the sinew as the crows
cut through callous cords and the vultures make violent overtures
on the violins and cut to crashing crescendo!

If only fortune could free them from the self-satisfying shackles
they slip over themselves. Shackles too shiny to ever enslave.

And she calls and he cries and they see themselves as singularly central
to the circle and not just a number in a sum of an incomplete equation.  

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost of a poem from my Joni Mitchell Series for this week’s stars and moon theme

THE GARDEN OF THE MOON

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There is a shadow,
like a dream too delirious to light with language,
whispering more of what swam away
than what smears this still water
I trudge through below a bitter moon
that has made his garden in this breast of man.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost for a week of moon and stars

THE PRICE OF A STAR

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

And she sang of hope and harmony
in a borrowed frock on Tuesday nights
in a smoky bar below the Bowery
where the Irish downed their whiskey
while the Italians were always frisky
and they touched her, always, after;
her faithful followers fingering flesh
as if to caress the affection she injected
into lyrics light and loving, in that bar
beyond the Bowery where she came to entertain
the Irish and Italians who always joined in the refrain.
Though they left her, always, after,
on Tuesday nights neath the smoky light
with hope and harmony already fading
in that bar below the Bowery where the laughter
never managed to linger for that long after
and in the silence below the Bowery
as the stars went out one by one
she felt betrayed by what they’d taken; by the hope
they had mistaken to be theirs for the taking,
and felt betrayed by herself; by her need to amuse,
to be the muse in the limelight but then alone
in the shadows, always and ever after,
by that bar below the Bowery where the light
was far too low to notice that her soul
had left her long ago.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost of a week of moon and stars 

STARDUST

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Stardust…
the fallout
from the flames,
a nebulous of what
was once known by names,
now falling, through time and space,
trailing dust, a trail of gentle dust
in place of touch, in lieu of place,
in lieu of hold and how we hold;
tighter and stronger, longer, after,
trying to hold a star, a fading star,
burning out before us
when all that’s left
is dust,

our brightest moments
now molecules of light,
blazing through the silence
of the night, but oh what a night.

Look up,
those who linger longer,
who fall and fret
before the great out-yonder,
look to the light
and not the loneliness,
the night is falling
but the light
is still unfolding.

Look up
star dust is falling
from on high,
writing names
across the sky
just for us
star dust…

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost for a week of Stars and Moons

FROM AFAR

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

In Space
is the silence so sacred
that stillness is a solace
to the spinning?

Are star lights
like dainty daisies that illuminate the night?

Is the earth
but a beacon of beauty
when viewed from afar,
so far that you cannot hear
Man and his kind
screaming?

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost for a week of Stars and Moon

 

 

POTTERS ON THE ROAD

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

I am free in the morning,
in this morning town,
waking,

slipping from slumber
like skin from sheets,
like wings above clouds

conquering concerns
that come a calling
and I am falling
upwards,

falling in love with light

can feel it sparkling,
even at day break,
even when days break,

falling for all that caresses carefree,

I am not constant,
no longer, not caught,
I am on course like the stars

I course through clouds, up from down,

I am clear of connection, of weight,
of all that heaves over heart,
I am more made of mind,

romance redirected in songs scripted
from memories and moments measured

in the heights that held us
and not the fights that harmed us.

I am cutting from my own carcass my own canyon

in the soil of the soul,
more whole than helpless,

brave the bird that breaks
from the nest to find fortune in freedom.

Freedom is a solo flight;

to touch the stars
you have to know how to hold the night.

I am man now,
brave begotten from boy,
gotten braver, better, broader,

brought back to basic; the characteristic core of all creation.

Shadows are quaint covers now
that come in from the cold
when comfort is called.

Shadow is not all sinister, sun is not always safe.

We are starlight
making our way
through the darkness
before we fall to dust,

trying to decipher the difference
between delight and distraction
along the paths we are potters on.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly. From a series inspired by Joni Mitchell albums.

This is a repost for a week of Stars and Moons

THE DEPTH UNDER THE MOON

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Moonlight
melts
languidly
on liquid lakes

like suds on dishes
like snow on windows

like thicker skin over age-old scars.

Moonlight
floats
momentarily
on rippling reflections

like the tingle after kisses
like the scent after sex

like the pain after parting.

Moonlight
flirts on the water

to divine
whether the depth

is worth the dive.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Repost for a week of Moons and Stars