Poetry

FIELDS OF GOLD

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Gold grows in many ways-
like how the soil can be pressed with seed,
how a daisy decorates that which has been deserted,
how the sun burns at a safe distance
or at least it did, once.
All is relative, now, to time-
I didn’t know what ozone meant as a boy,
or Wifi or gluten free or panic or pandemic
but there were days when I could have cradled distancing
when school corridors closed in too tight
on skin that hadn’t been taught tough.
Gold grows in many ways
as we find a new rhythm of crossing over into fields
once forgotten where daises make waves instead of chains
and farmers strive to find fortune
for us all in fields of food.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHAT YOU WISH FOR

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Remember
When all we wanted was a little distance?

Remember
Starting out with a cushion on the sofa,
A pillow in between the folds twisting against us,
One word less
And then another.
Every move a single mile.

Remember
How all we wanted…

I wonder-
While watching shadows growing stiller
Beyond the window of this other room,
Here, at the end of all these miles,
At home with our wants,
Without a word-

If we’d held a little tighter
Would we have survived the distance now?

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

PERMISSIBLE TO ASK?

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I take the boat out on the water,
rowing out to come into the stillness
in this place where space is still displaced.
Chez moi, c’est quoi, c’est où ?
Il est permis de demander ?

Merci, I say, still, when I should just
stay still, like this water where I row out,
stretching limb, exhausted, after the search
that brought me back, to pacify.
Pacifier- je peux le toucher, presque…

but these movements, however measured,
deprive peace from pacify, remove the stillness
from all this space I am, still,
struggling to reach. Mais.

Priver, je ne veux pas, non, non plus.
Je ne regarderai pas mon nombril, pas comme avant.

Moi- I shed who I was, am, along with time
but not breath- I lost breath, once- tu te souviens,
tu étais là, non ? Oui ! Tu ne te souviens pas.

Regarde ce bateau-
hope is a delicate placement of desire upon wish,
of wood upon water.

Je suis le bois, ou non ? C’était toi avant,
Mais tu as été viré. Viré. Fired. Sacked. Sack.

Meanings can give way to so many misunderstandings,
like translations- so much gets lost in the turning,
in the movement, going out and coming in,
with each row

further out. On the water.

Sometimes thought is not what is needed but stillness
within a world that cannot stop.
Arrête. Stop

but that word is too final.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

PAINTING

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On comes the light
and I reach out for the taste of morning
in an orange orchid that unfolds a sash of summer’s stock
to tie its threads around the ears of anxious.
On comes the morning
and I stretch emerald strokes onto a light canvas
pulled out across grouchy grasses that cannot see hope
glimmering in far off fields.
On comes the light
and I strike rainbows into shivering streams
that take dreams off to open oceans where the breaths bays
just above the surface, waiting for us to dive back in, to the light.

 

All words and water colour painting by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Based on a Poetry Prompt from Cobh Readers and Writers on Twitter 

THE SHADOW OF LIGHT

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Light
is changeable.
Can be changed.
Exchanged.

We cut down stress
in the back garden of our woes,
in the back garden so neighbours
cannot see our fears spread out
across the lawn.

We stew it out
in solitude so we can shine later
after the dust has found its antidote,
after the touch is again tolerable,
after the new grass grows over
these rotten weeds.

Exchanged.
Can be changed.
Light is changeable.

We sit,
this evening,
in the late light of the kitchen
behind the glass partition
and watch the sunset.

Its last light
changing everything it touches

into shadow.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THORNS

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I climb trees to forlese the briar and catch the soil
from this bird’s eye view, but my sight is not the same
as sad sparrow so I cannot see if something is stirring
in the rat race below and yet said sparrow can spot
the worm before he enters up into the air
from the earth.

I rub oil, later, over scrapped skin and curse nature
for its thoughtless thorn as I catch a reflection
of Anxious staring out from eyes that cannot see
the thorn of these times. Perception is paramount
to understanding, visible is half the battle, blindness
is not just bound to sight.

I can climb trees and cut thorns but I cannot fly
from this place while erratic dust wiggles like worms
through air I try not to inhale.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Based in a Twitter Poetry Prompt 

FIESTA, EST-CE QUE CE MONDE EST SERIEUX

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Hemingway loved the bull, both the beast and the shit-
the bravado of animal instinct bared on horny streets
in the heat, caught up, breathless, in the chase-
the Aficionado on fire, at the Fiesta, those buen hombres
who always knew how to get a room in a hotel
with nothing left to rent

and that other artist, galloping
for his freedom through the fearless fools
in the sweltering sun, under crowded balconies
but the crowd knew the clause, freedom was not his prize
at the end, after the gallop, inside the ring as the rocket roared
and the costumes and cape commenced.

Hemingway loved the bull…

‘Sentir le sable sous ma tête c’est fou comme ça peut faire du bien,
j’ai prié pour que tout s’arrête, Andalousie je me souviens…’

Lyrics from ‘La Corrida’ by Francis Cabrel

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ADAPTION

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Things change.

Sunday morning I rise,
though with no rolling stone miracle,
and thread footsteps into the field
where the passage of daisies have taken over
from the pressing soles of sport.
Things change.

Later, in cream pants
and oversized sofa sweater instead of the customary
suited and booted parade affair,
I drop smoked salmon into foamy scrambled eggs
and break fresh baked bread
in the golden glow of the newer kitchen
grown over old land
and think of all the loaves and fishes
that some don’t have to share
or the glow or the land or even a kitchen.
Things change.

Later still,
so much stillness amid all the disturbances,
I shower stale sweat off confined skin
and then snack on corn cakes
instead of Easter eggs
and pull strung-up chicken
from the fridge to stuff its belly with herbs-
to decorate the day with a scent
of something familiar
amid all this change.

Things change.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

IN THE PLACE OF WHAT ONCE STOOD

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Robin rummages in the rushes,
upon rock she roots out traces
of all that once was, tuts at all
that has changed and all that hasn’t.

Robin rummages in the rushes,
bright spark- but fast to flight.
She comes to call and comprehend
but never comes when she is called.

A fluttering of fine feathers
on front of old familiar fields
where the tracks have been pulled,
where all prints have been ploughed

but there are marks, still- fine folds
where the grass leans in, just so,
in suggestion of what once stood
in its way, of what once stood

in the field, beyond the rushes,
just a recall beyond the rock
where robin comes to rummage.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

IN BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE SLEEPING

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Packed like yams into dusty carriages
we watch from the safety of our sitting room
where Nana used to sit and iron by the table
and Pop, in the corner, with his pipe,
now just names in prayer and that picture
of their wedding on a wall that still stands
and they, long taken to the sleep.

We sit in all this space while passengers
are packed like sandwiches in tin tubs,
trains swapping stations and germs
on the Underground, over the water
where I used to live, once, when nana
was still ironing and Pop, already sleeping.
I was happy then, I think, I tell myself,
I played happy at times, hilarious
and happy little me in Hampstead,
back stage, behind the spotlight
and considering the distance
I’d covered and the sitting room,
the sofa, the Nana and the Pop.

We watch from that sitting room,
now, with its ceiling since lowered
so the heat stays closer to the body-
the only contact we’ll consider-
she on the sofa and me- single armchair
for single boy returned home as man
and now kept home in quarantine,
in close quarters, two grown-ups
counting the money they cannot spend
and watching lives unfold on the telly
after playing clean-up in the garden
and looking to the trees for carvings
of connections since taken to the sleep.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly