I whisper into wakefulness,

the body stirs before the brain, the blood before belief,
I curl into colder corners of the covers to encourage
skin to come round as sound slips in just before sight,

light pours into eyelids
slowly opening, toes slip out to inspect the season
but the soul knows the truth; I bear every season
in a single day;

a snowstorm
in the stench of summer, in moments overlapping,
burning flesh on ice cold streets (Paris can perish you
behind its postcard perfection), springs of hopeful holds
that fall to less likely,

there is an unbreakable blossom
in this heart that covers the precious particles,
like once perfect snowflakes that have since been shattered,
strings that have been strung;
strung out, strung up,

turned to taunt,

I recall the harmony
but am a stranger to the words we wound into songs,
stretched into surrenders.

Your calls now drown us both
from the far end of another ocean I thought to be tempered
with tepid time, phone floods forage where even distance
cannot dissipate the despair that settles on the floor beside me,
a shallow pool of strangulation after the hang-up that always feels
somehow lighter at your end.
So much falls away,

so much falls to the ground;
shattered shards no longer capturing its distant promise.
I watch the snowflakes catch the wind carefully, glisten for a moment
before it’s beauty losses breath on the trodden tracks
of these treadmills that take us to nowhere

and back again

as the bluebird sings her song
and the moon, even in the bright sky,
still retains its shadow, ever watchful, ever wondering
when we too will find our time,
in this fall,

to fall.

All words and collages by Damien B. Donnelly

I stepped into the storm and took the path between the pines,
and curved along the bank of which the riverbed defines.
I watched the falling snow bequeath a blanket on the bark,
the water formed a wave and then that wave became an arc.

I noticed how the birds had long since taken from the trees,
the current held no caution and the arc held no appease.
I stopped within the storm among the silent pillared pines
and held my breath by the bank as that arc unfurled its spine.
I watched the wave turn wing and saw the tide become a tail
and from the sky came down the snow on the wind, now a wail.
I’d stepped into the storm between the pines along the path,
and t’was there by the bank where I saw myth lay down with wrath.

A tarragon arose, had drawn breath upon the rivers,
a dragon of the snow and my skin awash with shivers.
I wondered if the birds had since foreseen in the future
this dragon from the tide find its form as snow-capped creature.
I tried to run, run away, from this basilisk of snow
but when its eyes fell open, I sensed that this was no foe.
I stood upon my tracks and felt my foolish fear descend,
no fire this beast did bare and no danger his snout distend.
This dragon of fair flakes, this mammoth mythos flushed in white,
no monster of the dawn and neither demon of the night.
I’d stepped into the storm and found my fate transform from snow;
for this vision from the water had a tale for me to show.

I’d fallen from the magic and been jolted out of joy,
had grown into a man who’d lost the dreams he’d held as boy.
But there in the clearing I sat and watched my fear take flight
from a ripple on the river as the dragon seized the night.

This poem was originally inspired by a photograph from the wonderful photographer Pete Hillman http://www.petehillmansnaturephotography.wordpress.com

and a nudge from the ever inspiration Liz Cowburn from Exploring Colour and this link brings you to Liz’s gorgeous wordplay poem based on the same photograph… http://www.exploringcolour.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/ode-to-snow-dragon

All words and drawings by Damien B Donnelly

I walk over drying leaves in this season of the fall,
crisp tissue freshly fallen under foot, less colour,
more contours, more concern to be connected

than to be a contrast. At first blast, I was off
and running from connection, the interjection
of other’s concerns, I was not to be collected
in a case, a case of you, this case of me, my case;
gone and grown heavier, come hear this heart
beating faster, this punchbag hung over from battle;
beaten, broken, twelve rounds but still standing,
still falling, like crisp tissue, torn into translucent,
still trying to get away from where it was caught

under foot. Foot, feet, these feet are faster runners
now, to make that racing heart seem slower,
a contemplation of a brighter pace to give way
to panic, a cessation to being a shooting star, shooting,
moving, eluding the truth of who we are, I am,
this case of me, it is okay to be encased in a connection,
to consider catching a breath, catching these contours,
those freshly fallen leaves drying in the rainstorm

I’ve been waiting for. And, as they crunch beneath
the slow shuffle of my shoes, I hear a sound familiar,
a song sung in my younger ears as I stamped first steps
in and over the cobbles of this city I have harboured
my heart to. Somethings stay attached, somethings
change their tempo and others fall beneath the soul.

‘Au revoir’ I whispered, and you smiled,

knowing I’d be back.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

A plane is waiting, wings are warming up. I have said my goodbyes, see you all in a few weeks when i have my feet on the ground again…