Not all creatures can be crushed-
some lords have lizard skins
beyond the light to slip from.
Behold, stilled soil
but the other side has been broken.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly. Photo taken at Pere Lachaise, Paris
Month: July 2020
THAT WHICH IS MAPPED OUT FROM THE START
There was always an end
Even before we started
To circumnavigate
Time’s tock-
Listen
Still
Hear it
Winding back
To that first tick
There was always an end
We
Were
Just greedy
Like composites
Wanting to be primes.
All words photos by Damien B Donnelly
LEARNING TO CLIMB WALLS
There can be earthquakes
in little towns,
far from tectonic plates,
on little streets, rarely shaken
where we sat, once,
on the wall of a garden
now obsolete,
the summer burning
through our cool-lessness
as we trembled beneath attractions
we didn’t have the words
to understand
while eyes watched from windows,
trying to translate
thoughts tossed
between their local boy
and a sandy-haired student of exchange.
And I wanted to exchange-
to uncover
all that was growing curious.
We sat on this wall, once,
in the kiss
of youth’s sunlight,
in the stifling days
of undulating adolescence
and the growing tension
beneath every question,
and that temptation-
and I wanted nothing more
than to touch that temptation
despite our twisted tongues
and those eyes
always watching, always wondering
what was unfolding between us-
two boys just beginning
to join the colours that made blue,
for a while, beneath the weight
and the worth
of all the nothingness
that never trembled
for longer than a month in the summer
when our legs
occasionally touched, like tectonic plates,
shifting positions beneath
all that was once solid,
sensations rubbing up against
all that we wanted
and what, I suppose we knew,
at the time, we could never really have.
There can be earthquakes, in little towns.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
RED
We strike matches
along the shiny skins
of polished apples,
bite into the heat
of burning coals
that hold no seeds
within their core,
watch our reflections
on the heavy skins
of those ripening fruit
as if it will show us
a truer representation
of who we might be
because it too holds
a core beneath its skin
while the ashes add
a bitter fruitlessness
to the taste now thick
upon our tongues.
If we were obliged
to share, perhaps
we’d take more time
to peel back slowly
instead of striking
all those matches
that burn too quickly
while guiding blindly
all those ashes into
our oh so open mouths.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
KEPT IN RECESSES OR THROWN TO DUST
Old wheels still turn through new miles.
We are more than we look- muscle
is not only what it takes to transform.
We skirt old roads now well educated
on my departure, it’s not just the seasons
that circle back on themselves. I’ve left
parts of me in every other recess in order
to recognize the parts I portrayed, later on,
when the route returns me to worn road.
I peddle at times without predetermination,
you cannot lose the track if you haven’t
traced its outline, beforehand. The road too
is more than just a route as we roar along
its rigor despite its restriction. I was never
happier than when taking the dirt track-
scattering over-weighted thoughts
of who I was upon the disrupted dust.
Old wheels still turn through new miles.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
IN OR OUT
Lilium lancifolium lies back
in a bed we repositioned
last spring under the scorch
of today’s mid-afternoon melt.
In a slow movement that set her
into structure, before the dawn woke
the rest of us, she assumes a position
to demonstrate the perfect pliancy
of her freckled petals and pushes
everything out to be eaten.
Next to her majesty, in the sluggish
shade of a white pot on the worm-
twisting soil, succulents seal in
all they will ever need to survive.
Somewhere in between I, myself,
am planted with all that I hold vital
willingly caged within these ribs
not even I can open while my fears
sway like stamen from this skin
as I pray for the wind to soon
introduce them all to flight.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
THE SWEETER SONG
Dominant bird rings on repeat his call
in the late afternoon- arriba, arriba,
arriba he appears to echo whilst other
feathered fellows join in his mash-up
as if they all know the price is now
time sensitive-
this has become their season to shine-
they sing and we sit in their shadow,
the quiet of our confinement seemingly
sweetening the juices of their melody.
All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly
THE STING
9 is not yet known to this Sunday morning
but already I’m playing catch up with the dawn
in a once foreign field now renamed home,
running after breaths and age that is unobtainable
like caressing clouds or surviving on the sap of stems
where needles immerse nettles in a loneliness
we have come now to understand
as we make small steps out of the reeds of isolation.
There will be a telling later, after, in how we survived
the conservation in place of consumerization.
Will we continue running to catch up, later, after,
with all we lost or come out to shed the macho master
of the world masquerade and realise we’re all nettles
standing in the shadows of much brighter flowers,
our skins stabbed with too many stings
to truly get close to the truth of who we could be.
All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly
PLAYING GAMES
When I was a child,
was I thoughtless or taught less
or was there less to think about,
less to love?
Though life was never loveless.
When I was a child,
did I dream less because
I didn’t know any more?
When I was a child,
I lied without knowing
the truth of a lie.
As a man,
the closer I come to the truth,
the more I turn to the dream,
for now there’s less to love,
less to give,
for so much more
has been taken.
When I was a child,
I held trust like it were breath,
ever buoyant,
flirted with faith
as if it were a fountain
that could never fail.
As a man,
breath grows cautious
to capture
and faith has fallen to faithless,
has fallen to fate, to fear.
When I was a child
a puzzle held 10 simple pieces
and when combined
they formed a whole.
Now, as a man,
the pieces are countless
and this puzzle
is far from complete.
When I was a child,
I played like the sun
would never settle,
now playing is paused
as paws are poised
for the running,
running to catch the light
before it falls off a horizon line
they tell me is not a flat drop off,
but this is a truth
I must see for myself
so as to know it’s not a lie.
Time falls
into something, off something
and we are runners in races
whose finish-lines
we don’t want to face.
The truth
is not what we dreamed of
when we knew not
the value of that dream.
As a child,
finish was never a word
that took flight in dreams,
no bird flaps its wings
with desires to meet its end.
I see, in the mirror,
dimly, and sometimes clearly,
pieces that have parted
and the puzzle that remains
between child and man,
between innocence and all the light
that grew dimmer
after the loss,
and between the thinking,
the taking and the being taken.
And somewhere
between it all, I am there,
looking back at who I’ve become.
All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly
GIVEN TIME
Rushes rustle a calling to the rain
mimicking
the sound
of those
molecules
of moisture
they long
to feel
against
their
sharp-
edged
skins.
We all
learn
to mimic
what we
must,
let go
of all
we can
not
hold,
lean in
to what
we love,
fake all
we can
not
feel.
Gulls
squawk
overhead
for prized
position
whilst
wings
spread
out
to claim
all that
eventually will come down from the clouds.
All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly
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Damien B. Donnelly 