Lilac showers
Parisian walls
to lift the day
from tones of grey,
colours whisper
to hungry minds
from lithesome leaves
to planting seeds,
branches bound
like blood to body,
to walls so willing
like veins now filling,
lilac leans
with leaves of green,
gently swaying,
thoughts are weighing,
nature bends
to hear my call
and pens take flight
on lines at night.
All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Hats hang on hooks,
headless hats,
harbouring hope
to be held on high
like fine feathers
that flit and flutter
for the fervour
of flattery.
Ornate orange
unobtrusively
oscillates
towards an
overdue ovation.
Chapeau!
All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
What are we
but lines crossing,
lanes connecting,
leaning on lovers
lying next to us?
What are we but colours
caught out of context,
in corners too curt
for comfort, so often
a reflection already faded,
a ripple unreadable,
a trace too tepid
to be touched, a shade
too subtle to be seen. Blue,
like she said, this is the rhyme
we’ll leave them in time,
a hue of blues on the water,
colour cast into the current
of consumers too caught up
to be concerned. What are we
but tall tales towering
over twisted truths,
echoes that ache more
with their passing
than their lack
of permanence.
What are we
but bright colours
bolt upright, trying
to make our way
through a landscape
that now shadows the day?
All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Bright red berries
linger on bushes
before sunsets
like lip’s lightness
that lingers after kisses.
Bright red berries
tremble in the afterglow
of careful witness
like mouths that modulate
after tender caress.
Bright red berries
adorn towering twigs
thick and tall
like lips in flavour
of that fine flexed flesh.
Bright red berries
slip with the sun
into sleep serenaded
with the days delights
like lips that seek slumber
to sweep over skin
as the scent of seduction
sinks between sheets.
All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
On dull days
when the sun
absconds from sky,
when grey grinds
gloom into gutters
and mothers utter
‘stay inside’,
children’s minds
flutter to unfold
like umbrellas opening;
colours cascading
over concrete clutter
like candy to calm
a calamity.
In the midst
of the mundane
and the murky,
inspiration catches
on the canvas of creation
like wings willing
to cut through clouds
and gain the grace
of the sun.
Children’s minds,
so magnificent,
hold matter so magical
that ordinary moments
can become such
extraordinary miracles.
All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Running
faster than feet can find footing,
forced to face up, catch up,
stand up, turn up. Running
through streets cluttered
with collisions I’ve already
crossed, with bunkers
of bones already broken, with
senses still shackled to skins
already shed, layers lost in
houses I thought were homes
but they were just illusions;
deliciously devious enough
to delude as time turned,
keeps turning, keeps taking
and I keeping running
looking, always,
for the rest,
for the rest of me, for a rest.
Running
backwards now
through a city of shadows
that have shifted in the seasons
I sought out other shores, other
stimuli, other skins to slip beneath.
Back now to before, but more
different, more difficult,
more deceiving,
catching sight of myself
in half lights and side streets,
catching sight of the sides
that I am no longer in this older
render. Running.
Wondering
is this it? Is this enough?
Is this who I am? Running
towards something
seen once, but now forgotten,
a suggestion in the shadows
of these streets but with a hope,
however fragile, lying between
the bone and the broken,
that these are just augmentations
on the byway to my becoming.
All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/my-becoming
I feel you twitching
beneath the skin, itching,
supple suggestions
slipping into sinew,
a subtle sonar
to syncopate the sinus, incapacitate,
to alter the ego;
ego goes to id, super slipping
on its own judgement,
but if the ego goes, I go; ignite darkness.
I feel you pulsing,
pounding pressure
beneath the parts
still running,
still looking,
still trying to get
to that place that is implausible,
that peace
that paradise promised,
the parasites banished
and medication cannot manage.
I feel you turning
from tender to taunt,
tweezing threads from tissue
soaked in too much tears,
tears torn by talons
that have twisted
their way through
the ego’s dream,
the super ego’s nightmare
and revealed themselves
as victorious within the darkness
of those
internal desires;
id goes on. I blow out.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Lock.
Locked.
Listless leaches
light from limb
below the skin. Lock.
Locked between
lonely and longing,
bone and breakable.
Locked. Unreachable.
Reason untraceable.
Bone. Break. Bones
are breakable but
listless and longing
lie like locks
on limbs. Captured.
Cornered. Light. Less.
Locked.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Under bedclothes,
under darkness,
under the weight
of all that once was,
I twist and turn
through folds
that blankets
can’t seem to find
freedom from.
Under. Weight.
Under water,
undercurrent,
under pressure
at the deep end
of denial,
I twist and turn
through waves
the sea
can’t seem to
ship back to shore.
Under. Pressure.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
Bones crack.
Break.
Snap.
Blood clots.
Pours.
Spills.
Bodies fight.
Fall
frail.
Tears taint.
Trick.
Tease.
Skin ripens.
Rots.
Rips.
While I forge
Fear.
And then fade.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
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