Squirrel scuttles across the sea of grass.
Stops to my right to consider someone else’s acorn.
Mouth twitches to mimic tail before I’m noticed.
Embarrassed by my presence he adopts a still stance
as if that might make him invisible.
Don’t worry, I whisper, I can relate.
Once I found lips too sweet to miss and kissed them.
There in the open. Knowing they were not mine.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
New leaf climbs old tree-
this ivy will not be held
down is no direction,
dynamic is the trail of this root
now gleaming on the hallow wood.
Sometimes empty centres are for holding
hopeful hearts.
Layers of leaves come like coats of zinc-
a wrapping for these times were comfort is craved.
Nature nurtures freshly cut back bark
by the side of the garden
where thought had been neglected.
Not everything will survive-
not all bark, not all breath,
but hope, when held, can be as simple
as a trail of fresh branch
born around a broken bark.
Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
I saw you first in a library,
in a bound book on front of the light,
as if you needed to ripen any further.
My first book, bound and borrowed
from a library, was Mrs. Potter’s
inquisitive rabbit Peter, all eager
to explore the taste of all he could
not yet name. We’re like that, children-
eager for the answer before we’ve
really come to consider the question.
I ask myself more now, at this midway
through the darkness than I ever did
then, where all was so seemingly light.
Yesterday, in the garden my youth
once played on, that time has now
returned to consider, an eager rabbit
came out to play and I asked if perhaps
there was camomile in the cupboard.
No, but there’s a pomegranate
in the pantry
came the reply.
And I looked at Peter and laughed
like I’d taken you from the bookshelf
in that light library, that day and smiled
as I turned your pages that held just
as many questions as there were answers.
For Eavan Boland.
Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.
We were waiting for the green man beneath the blue sky,
waiting on an open corner to cross over, do you remember?
A simple day of smiling sunshine, an easy lunch of eating
smiles and we were laughing, were laughing at everything
and nothing- at the osteopath and his cracking observations
and the sunshine in that blue sly and your belly getting bigger.
You were listening to me, looking at me telling some tale,
making it taller, I’m sure, but you didn’t see I was floating-
my feet off the ground on that silly day, on that sunny day
of simplistic observations on easy corners with their moments
and movements when I found myself laughing and my feet
no longer weighted- no longer ground down or in or under.
We were bouncy and breathy and your belly- unbreakable,
so delicately unbreakable beneath the blue sky at a crossing
while eating up those bright smiles and breathing in easy air
under all that yellow laughter and realising that the red man,
when given time, will eventually give way to the green.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Happy Poetry Day Ireland. There will be Time.
Back story- Orla Grant-Donoghue originally invited 16 poets to create 16 new poems based on their favourite books and we were going to read these poems at Alan Hanna’s Bookshop in Rathmines Dublin, today. Of course, due to current events, all that was cancelled but it still took place today online on Twitter…
You can read all the poems and discover all the artists in one place because Eoin from BlueFoot Books kindly put it all together for us. This is the link to the site…
https://bluefoot.ie/poetry-time-2020/
The book I chose was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and here, with my 1st attempt at using Clips and my almost octogenarian mother as Camera Woman extraordinaire, is my Short Film to showcase the poem. Welcome to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo and his fellow passengers are waiting. It’s Time …
Mobilis in Mobili
Behold
the monster-
metal made, making movements
under waves.
Air trembles. Earth rocks.
The sea is a desert.
Immense. Without Master.
But with mineral, vegetable, animal.
Man can be the beast on land- despots, destroyers.
Land and Mr. Land who can’t swallow water.
Down below, beneath the glass.
Glass is breakable, like man, but can be of service
like Conseil- glass is capable of offering resistance.
Considerable. And He comes to resist.
Resist man and land and service.
But he takes the Other down, leagues below the darkness
to where there’s light, to admire this liquid light
through which they sail,
his electric thread of connection,
there, in that place which is far off
and exceedingly deep, away from those despots,
his own aquatic flock below the wave,
his own folly to float through the fathoms.
Fathoms. One comes to fathom who can find it out,
how man can flee, can float on his own hope,
his own pride, his own position. Opposition.
Defence. Defender. Here below,
where there are no masters.
But one. And it isn’t always
the sea.
Although
the sea is everything.
The globe began with the sea
and may end that way too.
He is the Sea and must defend himself.
And Man? The sea is an immense desert
where man is never lonely. Though man is on his own.
Not being Mineral. Or Vegetable.
Or always animal.
Darkness is deceiving,
regardless of its liquid light.
Behold the maelstrom! The Nautilus is no narwhal.
A can of unquestionable character can also be a coffin.
Man can make his own. His own house.
His own home. His own tomb. To float. In the water.
Through the light. Leagues below the sunlight.
Where light is electric, that fine thread.
Finely Snapped.
I recognise no masters here,
he said. I am free, here, he said.
God Almighty!
And the Other blinked, for a moment
and took hold of Land and his Conseil.
And then looked back
to behold the monster.
Some are drawn to the deep,
to the current, to the curiosity
of the perpendicularity, to the leagues
of light at the far end of the black water,
where there are no other men
murdering to be masters.
Behold. Enough.
Enough.
The Cast…
Damien B. Donnelly
With huge thanks to Orla, Eoin at BlueFoot, Alan Hanna’s and my fellow poets and you, for tuning in xx
Tomorrow is Poetry day Ireland but as we can’t go out and do our thing, we are staying in and doing our thing anyway.
Poetry time at Alan Hanna’s Bookshop in Dublin will be online and celebrating from 11am onwards on Thursday. Catch us on twitter and instagram and Facebook and anywhere we can make a post and share of poetry. And it’s all about our favourite books.
There will even be poems and links and videos and maybe a mini movie. So don’t sleep through the day- come join in the fun…
I’ll be the one dressed like this…
Part 1
Morning
comes with birdsong these days
instead of street cars and sirens,
Blue Tit and Yellow Hammer
next to daisy, daffodil and dandelion
as the garden springs like never before.
Part 2
Afternoon
is found at the far end of the near field
because distance is dearer now as we take
slow steps around all we once overlooked
to see what this unsettling light can reveal
along those old paths life lost time for.
Part 3
Night
comes with gentle lights that dance
in windows, flames reaching out further
than the stretch of our arms, to touch
other souls at the far end of other fields
recalling old paths while wondering
what tomorrow’s birdsong will bring.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
I do not play chess.
I grew bored of board games at an early age, as an only child
who lived in his head where fairies were magical and not mauled.
I guess I had enough make believe on my shoulder, already.
I was ultra-shy as a kid,
I guess I didn’t understand who I was and tried not to get tied up
in conversations that consisted of ruminations of who I wanted
to become. Identity was difficult to determine on a blank canvas
that already had sections sinking below the surface.
We had a cherry blossom tree
in the front garden that rained pink petals onto the lawns
in late spring, I remember standing under them in a white suit,
new holder of the holy spirit and wondering if it would make it
any easier and what is the weight of a knot.
I would slay dragons for you.
I remember saying that over and over, I’d heard it once, in a movie
when I was too young to know how many people I’d say it too
and how few would slay even a tame dog in return.
I know who I am, now
since those quiet days under the fall of the cherry when rainy days
meant silly games and the coming of the spirit didn’t have as much
effect on my soul as it did on my wallet.
I have tasted more, too-
beauty, bounty, boys, bitches, sunsets and saints, gods and clowns,
serpents that tasted sweet and a certain kind of cute
that gave venomous a new name. I too have found the bitter side
of who I can be, they’d put me on a pedestal at a young age
and left me there, perishing alone, at that height and since then my knees
have always trembled at the sight of stairs.
I’ve climbed right down since then
and managed to make my way out of the gutter while putting together
my own idea of what it takes to embrace the darkness while shining
like a fucking star.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
We come considered, now, congestion side-lined
by concern, far from those racing rats
who reigned over the old normal, the old days,
the old ways. It’s not about choice anymore
but proximity- a courgette in place of an aubergine,
some Cheddar instead of Stilton, potatoes again
instead of that other, sexier, sweeter variety,
like those snowmen I built on the beach,
out of sand, back in half drowned summers
when I didn’t have a bucket to cast a castle.
Do you wanna build a… well, we make do.
We move, now, on the far sides of odd aisles
where no one overtakes, where we all stop
to let people pass by, first, before, before coming
too close- a new return to old graces highways
could do with heeding. This is how we move,
down familiarly strange aisles, planning recipes
to avoid disasters under masks, under gloves,
under pressure to keep our distance,
to keep going on, through this new normal.
Do you wanna build a… well, safer world?
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
I slipped recently onto an old road
that had circled back onto my diverted path
to find myself at first flat, basement floor,
25 years grown between us like the weeds
in the forgotten garden where I looked to see
if the cobbles still recalled my sole
before remembering how, on winter nights
that seemed bluer than black,
in hallowed hallway, I’d sit by the payphone,
juggling coins in jars of naivety and watch the lights
from the traffic flood the darkness like a fanfare
through the curved window above the door
and dream of how it would feel to slip, finally,
from streets that simply circled.
I slipped recently onto an old road,
happy to discover that even diverted paths
know how to accept circles as something to grow
to love, like certain weeds that complement
the cobbles where I found a part of my soul, sitting.
Waiting for me to call back.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Poems, Poetry, Poets
Some lays of the Fianna, translated from the Irish by Annraoi de Paor with illustrations by Tim Halpin
A small press
The Things That Are In My Head.
Stay Bloody Poetic
Author of 'Sent, 'Fall', 'Unmuted' and 'Saudade'
home of the elusive trope
Fantasy Author
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Writing, Poetry & Creativity | Angela T Carr, Dublin, Ireland
Kay McKenzie Cooke Website & Blog
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Poetry inspired by ethereal feelings, life events and personal philosophy.
A Journal of Brief Literature
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New Zealand
French magazine - art & visual culture
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