Boys came calling after school,
sometime between six and eight,
before the summer- longer days
under the swell of frustration.

Boys came calling after school,
halting homework and hunting,
looking to come closer to a truth
but I held mine firm, in the door-
halfway, me half in, half confused
as to what they wanted, intrigued
as to who they thought I was.

Boys came calling after school,
before the summer- longer days,
stifling nights, sticky like glue-
like adhesive that never stuck
to the right surfaces as I beat
myself into a form I’d never fit.

I wanted to open the door,
to the boys who came calling,
to accept that some could be
sincere after so much shame
but I was afraid, at that time,

of who exactly might come out.

   

All words by Damien B Donnelly

CALLING

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What if a rose grew on the far side of the moon,

now, after, later?

Would we spread out time to explore the space
between the bloom and the branch?

Nature is a construct, much like the moon-
we don’t always consider it when we cut its roots

or ignore its connection to the current.

Remove ourselves from obstruction and regard potential
from this far side of confined distance

that plants consideration.

See how far a single petal can travel without our interaction.

We cannot go back to before. Select assimilate

instead of annihilate.

There is a rose now, growing on the far side of the moon
and it didn’t need our manhandling to get there.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

WHEN SEARCHING FOR WHO WE WILL BE, AFTERWARDS

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Last month,
in the first breath of this coming season
of the sun’s light,
you crept in through the stillness
of the solitude that the birds had begun
to sing of
and spread out across the swaying branches
as we foraged for distractions beneath.
I climbed you, on occasion,
to release my feet
from the whispers that trembled
along the surface of the earth’s floor,
spiralling out
like panicked weeds whose roots
were as invisible as the dust
we cannot contain.
You’ve since fallen from sight, white tears
that only the birds recall in an evening song
that stirs the stillness
while we still hang to an invisible weight,
waiting to be told we can safely
let go.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE BIRDSONG RECALLS WHAT ONCE HUNG UPON THE HAWTHORN

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Would I have kept you closer, longer, if you’d been a soft toy
that found my empty arms when the nights were endless instead
of your characteristically classy chaos the posters never chose
to optimize

or were we meant to be just chalk running into the deluge
of the rainstorm?

Should I have been less passionate and you more personable
or I more placid and you less proud?

We were stuffing, in the end, plucking feathers from our insides
out through skins that had neither thickened nor tendered enough
to survive those endless flooding nights together in that hold
we never named.

Un nom, c’est quoi, un nom- la tien, la mien, le nôtre ?

Un non est seulement une chose que tu donnes à quelque chose
quand tu le comprends.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

CLASSIFIED UNDER NO NAME

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Rocket pesto and ricotta meatballs

Almond cookies

 Pork pie

Buddha bowl

Frittata 

 

glazed chicken adobo thighs

 

Ham cheddar and chive bread

Apple, strawberry and almond sponge

Irish soda bread

 

Sausage, vegetable and rosemary traybake

Smoked Salmon chilli and chive quiche

Chicken chorizo stew

Orange Breakfast Muffins

Chicken Thigh Traybake with leek, pea and vermouth sauce

Chocolate Fudge Cake

White chocolate cake with ginger biscuit base

Lamb Kofta, home made naan bread, tomato, parsley and sesame salad, garlic sauce

Scones

Carrot Cake

 

All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly and cooked by me too.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY; COMFORT COOKING DURING QUARANTINE

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A navy jumper, twice monthly washed, a blue shirt and striped tie
with a red thread. Grey trousers growing tighter though not getting
any longer. I was 12

in patient leather shoes with points to piece the playground’s pricks,
all sweaty under pit and after-school spit and fearless, only, in the face
of other fools, the types

the teachers all cheered for, for their football field finesses
(everyone wants to fit in) and cursed, later, for lack of flare in their classes
(grade goals were not the same

as game goals). Those were the days of ruby red walls and stained floors
I’d stripped one summer, looking for a more tangible form in the simple wood
buried under a carpet

of complicated patterns- knuckle knotted boards that twisted in place
like my feet, knowing that liberty did not live in things beaten into place.
Those days when education

insisted, with its uniform and a ruler to measure the distance of the hair
from the collar, that similarity was the best way to integrate- 30 not-so-neat
navy jumpers, pulled,

stretched and torn at the cuff for the thumb to slip through, 30 ties tied
in tight knots around necks licked by the sweat of the sport instead
of the inspiration

of individuality. Those days when I turned the cumbersome carpet over
in a red bedroom, trying to carve out a single sliver of liberty, fraternity
and equality

that I mistakenly believed should have been cardinal to the classroom.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly. School day photograph

KNUCKLE KNOTTED LIBERTY

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Slow hum.
Morning beckons-
delicate dance of daisies,
baby bunny in back garden
thinking it’s his whole world,
even the breeze is bouncy.
Breath better than before.
Slow hum
of day unfolding,
footsteps on sidewalks,
sights on slow lanes, softly humming.
Even runners head towards hedges now-
hedge funds thrown to the ditch-
see the bunny bouncing
far from the banks.
Slow hum,
songs from tall trees
in place of traffic, alarms, sirens.
A hushed hum dedicated to the lost light-
birds sing of wings now rising,
nests have grown cold
even under all this sunlight.
Some have flown, others simply slowed,
missing the integration under the hallow hum
of this softly slung isolation.
Slow hum.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SLOW HUM

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Resounding
Within

You beat
With the softest stroke ever felt
And I come back for more
Every time

Resounding
Within

You beat
And I fall further with every breath
I listen to your rhythm
And in it

I find

My rhyme

Resounding
Within

 

All words and drawing by Damien B. Donnelly

STILL BEATING

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Sometimes

I imagine holding mine
in my hands, beating organ-
fleshy and fumbling and trembling
between my thumbs and fidgeting fingers

bringing it to my mouth-

my lips- their caress, my tongue- its tease.

Sometimes
I imagine holding mine
in my hands and bringing it in
close enough to bite.

If I ate it,
would it slip right back inside,
into place, perhaps a better place

than where it’s been before.

Sometimes
I imagine holding mine
in my hands, like you did
and wondering if I could bring myself
to tear it apart

with my teeth.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

TO CARNIVORE OR NOT

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Sometimes morning breaks
before the hold has found the frost.

We wake dizzy-
flung into field where dawn’s breath
corners all that has been fearless
but will soon fall to fragile-

breath becomes touch becomes dew becomes done

running down the blade of grass regardless
of how much it will cut.

Sometimes morning breaks
and I am off already, running

through the long grass, twisting around all that lies uncertain

I feel the blades stab skin
that has just been cradled.

Buds of blood come to cloth
like colour cast into cotton fields,
in this early light of twists and truths
they look like roses but come close

and see how quickly they slip down the side of each blade.

   

All words by Damien B Donnelly.

 

Photograph from the wonderful Liz Cowburn at https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/

THE PRICE OF BEING WILD

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