THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US, day 9 of A Month with Yeats

09/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

It’s day 9 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote to inspire something new is: ‘Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and Usna’s children died.’ W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US

We are the tales

our children will tell of us,

our mystery and musings

bound to a cord we hope

was not cut too deep,

those not bound to bare

will be buried in the hearts

of those who loved them

more than in the earth

that will eat them,

the worms that will weave

trails through their tissue

now taunt, their flesh

now fallen to fodder.

We can be glorious

if they can recall our goodness,

or a rouser of war if they grew

weary of our tales before

time grew tired of us. We make

what we can out of time, but our

legend is what time will make out of us.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE, day 8 of A Month with Yeats

08/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

For Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge, today’s quote is taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem is called: WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE

Was it not all an ocean once

before bodies forged out land

for feet to fondle, to flatten?

Was it not all trickling tide once

before hands hunted harbors

for bellies to fill, to fatten?

Was it not all blue waters once

before creatures courted color

to devaluate, to distinguish?

Was it not just wind and wave

before man thought to wonder

what on earth he could extinguish?

What will ripple on the waterfront

when the tides turn on time

and man is pulled asunder?

What will be the second coming

when man is taken down for all

his pillage and all his plunder?

When rivers rise all red and roar

to wash away the tarnished trace

of the soiled sand we ravaged,

will it carry on it’s current

the power to plant a second seed

on the land our deeds have damaged?

Time turns on every twist,

tides rise after every fall

but we can never get back to before.

Innocence, once lost,

is quickly forgotten.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-there-was-but-a-wave

THROUGH THE SANDS, Day 7 of A Month With Yeats

07/11/201722/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 14 Comments

Day 7 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s inspirational quote from WB is: ‘…stars, grown old in dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody…’

To join in the creativity or just to discover Jane’s gentle genius, her blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THROUGH THE SANDS

And when they danced

she would hold him, her

perfume by his face, his

hands as her strength

as they waltzed through

their current as the tides

swept the shore, through

love and labor, to the first born,

still born, through the twins

who stopped the tears

and the girls who tied

the bows as the sands slipped

through time and the pace

became a quick step, through

the hands that held and those

hips that swayed through

the melody they were making

as they danced through

waves of washing houses

into homes, children into

strangers; rarely calling

and barely remembering

but on they danced as red

locks swept into silver strands,

as full head turned to bald head

on an older head as they turned

to the music now made

in the memory, till she left him,

finally, one morning in may,

as he rose to the sunlight but

she had lost to the moonlight

and so he built her an alter

of sea shells and sentiments

and now he turns, alone, across

the sands still slipping,

as the stars plot a path for him

to reach her in eternity.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHILE YOU WERE DREAMING, day 6 of A Month with Yeats.

06/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 14 Comments

Day 6 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and the prompt is as follows: ‘Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My Poem today is called While You Were Dreaming

And as you dove through distant dreams

just beside me, you left to my center,

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

SUNKEN SHIPS AT SEA, day 5 of A Month with Yeats

05/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

Day 5 of Jane Dougherty’s poetry challenge A Month with Yeats. Today’s quote is from The Wanderings of Oisin: Book One: “and like a sunset were her lips, a stormy sunset on doomed ships; a citron colour gloomed in her hair,” W. B. Yeats.

Below is the link to Jane’s blog: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/a-month-with-yeats-day-five/

My poem is called: SUNKEN SHIPS AT SUNSET

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

WHITE NIGHT, day 4 of A Month with Yeats

05/11/201722/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

Day 4 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and in a day behind but onwards we roll. The quote comes from To some I have talked with by the Fire “…till the morning break and the white hush end all but the loud beat of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.” W.B. Yeats

The link to Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/a-month-with-yeats-day-four/

My poem is called White Night

We are vessels

either being filled

or being emptied,

portraying pretty

or rotting as rebels.

We are angels

dancing in the darkness

of our own worth,

feet of feeble footing,

flapping wings

within our cages.

We are flowers

never quite knowing

our beauty,

pruning the potential

out of others,

never the full bloom

unfolding,

fighting the true nature

that is ours.

We are winged warriors

flying through the fog

of our fate,

not knowing

that decision and destiny

are like oil and water,

like light and dark,

like love and hate,

like hush and horror,

like a beginning

and an end,

beating breasts

to be fighters

instead of followers.

We can be angels

but choose too often

to be anger.

We live in dark days

and only dream through

the white night.

All words and photographs by damien B. Donnelly

SALMON DANCERS, day 3 of A Month with Yeats

03/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

Jane Dougherty’s 3rd poetry challenge based on a quote from WB Yeats is as follows: “With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,”—W.B. Yeats. Follow Jane and her inspiring poetry at her blog, link below, where you can also see a photograph from Paul Militaru which influenced today’s poem: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is entitled SALMON DANCERS

And so swim the salmon, against

the rising stream, foam flushing

against fins as falcons fly overhead

in the fight for freedom, destiny

is not a dance that can long

be distracted, shiny specks of silver

dancing, darting, borne to beat back,

to wage against the rushing waters

as they make their way west. And so

swim the salmon, along the corroded

current of Connacht, that Atlantic

sojourn, that shore still swaying

in the shadow of those ancient songs

when souls set off in search of security

overseas, burdened boats battened

down with the beaten and the broken,

culled like cattle in the rain, boats

with bodhrans and fiddlers, singing

and dying through their dreams

of a new world, already mourning

the old lands, the homelands

they’d been swept from, kept from.

And so swim the salmon

as the storms rage, as they battle

onwards, salmon dancers, skating

on the waters, leaving trickles like stones

once tossed by hands now lost, tracks

to follow for others who’ll follow,

as others have followed, as others

who’ve fallen, their faces now faded.

And so swim the shining salmon,

off into the world with the sound

of home in every stroke.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Picture from the internet of the Salmon of Knowledge.

THE BEAT OF THE BAT, day 2 of A Month with Yeats

02/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

For Jane Dougherty’s Yeats poetry challenge today’s quote is: “… the dark folk who live in souls of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;” —W.B. Yeats

To read Jane’s WB inspired gems or to join the other poets in this adventure check out her site at: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is called THE BEAT OF THE BAT

The brighter man, the lighter man,

the darker truth, the deeper vein,

bind me to the rough, the real man,

I beat as a bat.

The clearer glass, elusive glass,

the broken bed, the better lay,

tie me to the rider, all night,

I beat like a bat.

The gentle rose, considered rose,

the troubled torn, the rotting root,

plant me in the wild field, riled field,

I beat as a bat.

The sweetest light, the sun light

the witching hour, the darkest night,

pitch me in the rainstorm, windstorm,

I beat like a bat.

The house plant, the tendered plant,

the raging bark, the twisted branch,

nature’s not calm, not quiet, nor I;

I beat as a bat.

An angel rises to heaven’s skies,

bats hang downside, looking inside,

teach me what’s inside,

light the dark side,

I’ll see like a bat.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BIRTH, SO STILL. Day 1 of A month with Yeats

01/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 16 Comments

Jane Dougherty is not doing NaNoWriMo, let’s be clear about that. But she is busy doing something else equally inspiring- spending a month in the company of W.B. Yeats and asking us to join her- each day this month Jane will pick a line from a Yeats poem and write a new poem inspired by it and wants us to join in too! Below is the link, not only to this adventure but also to her wealth of poetry and short stories and links to her own novels- there are even wormholes! https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/november-yeats-challenge-day-one/

Today’s quote is: “they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, with heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:” —W. B. Yeats

My poem is entitled: Birth, so still

And the babies were born, broken,

while the seasons still turned, maiden

mothers moved from baring to being left

barren as cowering cloaks cut through

cords, bitter brides in black, climbing

on their crosses, splitting the sin

from the so-called sinner, discarding

the truth with the afterbirth, no grace

for the births so still, no remorse

for the innocence expunged, the girl