All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Month: April 2020
FINDING OUR WAY
I woke early, attention tethered to the bird call
as they build their nests within the walls
we once lit fires between. Regardless of season
we must all find ways to shelter and survive.
I ran early, out into the open morning where air
was still yawning and I thought about sleep
and what it takes to catch a dream at the far end
of the wood when you aren’t sure of the way back.
I climbed the slow hill, with flattened breath
and caught two moons under the still grey light
kindly carved into the edges of memory
in this growing garden we water with tears.
I came early, to ponder position by tall towers
no longer watchful with feet that haven’t settled
while the sun, I cannot see, casts its light
onto two white moons above a thousand eyes
no longing seeing.
I woke early and still came up upon the moon.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
KAMSAHAMNIDA
In a quiet corner of Korea,
tucked thoughtfully behind a dozen back street twists
designed to derail any uptight tourist, there sits
a pair of us, unbreakable, in the evening light
and smiling, still
In a wooden bar
at the far end of the Seoul where cocktails
came with chicken soup and crisp fruit crumbles
and ears that smiled at my tongue twisted Thank you
in a language I wished was mine, you can subtract time
from the year that followed and find us,
smiling, still
On a stone seat
under the shining shadow of a palace that honoured space
before all else, that wanted to be a unity instead of a history,
still, there sits a pair of us, stealing a moment from time
as if we knew that wishes were sometimes
just sweet dreams
like crisp fruit crumbles or chicken soup to satisfy the soul.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt
WATER FLAMES
We moved, once, and habitual was your foot to my follow,
in debt my blush to your concern
like we were the oxygen of the other, at either ends of the water.
We swam, once, to the other, in crossed currents, in avoidance
of those cold-blooded fish dipping their blond hairs
into clotted canals that your darker locks turned briefly bland,
the beginnings of a ballet in two parts, you the body and I the babble
written in flame on the water
in this city sucked from the sea with its ferry, crossing and connecting,
as habitual to its route as I became to the curve of your spine.
You were fire and I the fury. Or was as I the fire and you the flight?
We lit fires, for moments, on the water, flames that found their place,
finally, in the stars, fading before fully noticed.
We moved, once, as if each was the compliment to the other’s jewel
even if we knew that time was not the compliment to the us
that danced, for a time, as a flame, on the surface of the water.
If I was still there, by that water, waiting for the blue ferry, crossing,
I would habitually dip foot into current to test its temperature.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Inspired by a Twitter Prompt
THESE ARE THE DAYS
Rooms get smaller.
We close doors tighter,
words come like judgements,
what’s left to share when you’ve shared
everything.
Rooms feel smaller.
like big plants in small pots,
like small meals on big plates
I want to break.
I want to watch Netflix
in Pj’s, all day, every day
but I won’t look lazy in company-
even her company.
So I write poems and books- nothing new
and chop down trees and reclaim the garden she’s covered
in weeds to brush things under like the rugs indoors-
the cover-ups we cough over.
In the evenings I write again and cook
and later we clean and you say you’d cook
but I can’t digest any more potatoes
or drink vegetables that have been boiled
to bland
in small pots
and we are just two big vegetables
resisting the urge to shout
in rooms too small to whisper.
I love you I say, and she does too
and we know it- but every day, every minute, every second
in these small rooms?
PLAYING FOR POSITION
I played waiter on weekends to women and their well-worn wishes
and worries, after or in between or in avoidance of the shopping
and washing and cleaning and stewing, mothers sitting with mother,
packed onto the flattened pile of the green velvet sofa, scorched
with leftover tunes from parted parties and expired expectations,
milk and one sugar, black and boiling with a biscuit, coffee for her
up the road with hair in a chignon as if she wasn’t from round here
and later, maybe, a glass of wine squeezed from a box with a tap;
thinking we were posh when they changed our name from Coolock
to Clonshaugh. I was a willing waiter to these women on weekends
when they dropped in through the backdoor, over the mopped floor
to avoid the hassle of husbands and kids and all the copious concerns
that came a calling, later, looking for coins and cuddles and timings
for dinners and hoping for a spare biscuit while pulling up a chair
in the corner below the parrot; puffed up and padded on his perch.
I was a waiter, waiting, back then, on the far side of understanding,
wondering where I fitted in between the orders and observations,
teas and coffees, the women congregating and the men left waiting,
adding the cream and dunking biscuits and pondering the placement
of that perfectly positioned parrot; puffed and padded upon perch.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.
Inspired by a Poetry Prompt on Twitter.
EXAMPLES OF BEING STUNG
Not all bees write back
Not every beetle takes the right route
Some letters, like roads, wind on regardless.
We don’t always notice the sting
Until after, until later, until it’s too late.
Honey is sometimes sweetest
When far from reach.
We wrote words on each other’s back
Thinking time to be tender but we couldn’t turn around
To see how they’d both twisted.
These love letters- like journeys with no maps
One of us always the backseat driver of the beetle
Such stings from the boot.
Not all bees write back.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt from Cobh Readers and Writers
WHEN LOOKING UP; DON’T LOOK BACK
One born to song and sorrow
One killed by serpent’s bite
One lost to hands of Hades
One walk from dark to light
If I could say to hold the note
If I could say to keep the chord
If I could say that she will follow
And that fear should be ignored
One descends to catch the hand
One walks by light of moon
One leads and plays the lyre
One follows and trusts the tune
If you can trust that she’ll follow
If you believe the devil’s dare
If your song is true and steady
You can escape the Cerberus snare
But Orpheus was melody
And Eurydice his muse
But Mr. Hades was conductor
And kept the band beating blues.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
BOOK OF MEMORIES
I lift a book and watch as dust particles catch air
(dust; tiny particles of waste matter lying on surfaces)
sentences stir, structure returns to life after slumber,
some things come back- having long been forgotten
(memory; the mental ability to retain and to recall
previous experiences)
I turn pages with consideration, parts pressed back
through time, corners folded over where you wanted
to hold onto a moment for longer, retaining words
that came easy but were lost too soon.
My fingers trace the line of narrow spine still holding
onto crinkled paper like crisped skin that once held us
in firm holds to spite time.
If time was held in paper, I’d take it, like the pages
in this book and fold back the parts too piercing
for the memory and duplicate days where we held
minutes as monumental, recalling them later, after,
when dust settles and weeds overgrow the delusion
that we should have been more.
(Delusion; a fixed false belief, resistant to reason)
I lift the book and watch as dust catches air-
particles of spirits that still matter, recalled from pages
that once held them captive before their chapter came
to its conclusion.
(Conclusion; the end or finish of an event or text).
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 