Poetry

GOOD DAY

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

They call it Good Friday, Mum initiates
the conversation early for fish and chips
and somewhere, not far from subconscious,
I near a church and its pressure leaning in
on her sudden sway for the taste of something
fishy, less meaty, today, on this Good Friday
where tales tell of salt and vinegar and the smell
of soft flesh drying out in the heat of a distant
desert. Later, I flick through photographs-
some West Coast sass, where Mormons saw palms
stretched out in prayer, there, where the cactus
have hard skins and hollow centres to hold
the tears of this dying desert where succulents
send signals to the stars while Joshua, tired
of being seen solely as salvation, has blown
a balloon into the hot air to catch for himself
a better view of how the river lies, here,
where every day is a good day or a bad day
or both or neither and no one talks about
what to eat, only that food is a gift and death
makes way for life and nature can have
soft centres to harbour hope while its shell
dries in the heat of an endless summer
and holds beauty in the pierce of every pine
that stabs its skin during the unlimited
possibilities of goodness in every single day.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

ART ISN’T EASY

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Colour
catches on canvas as we lean towards light,
a beam to break the boredom like a breath
above the water after diving up from darkness,
ripples run across the current,
ink spreads out like veins upon this page;

art isn’t easy, breathing isn’t any better-

both come up from down below,
rise through risk into life, into looking lively.
The texture of the wave is as temperamental
as the tone that sets itself out upon the page.
I dab the brush, horse hair taps connections
and colour comes at a gallop. It is clear-

control is not concerned with the creator.

This body needs air, runs broken, breathless-
breath and then less and less and less
and sometimes, sometimes I need to turn back

and teach the lungs how to draw. In.

Ink dries and petals stand, enchanting time
with their dismission of the word wilt.
Colour catches on canvas, clear and captured
and I lean in with the hope of drawing fresh
breath before the dive recalls me to paint
panic.

   

All words and paintings by Damien B. Donnelly

TIPS FOR CLEANING UP

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I saw a jellyfish once, just beyond the tide,
a tick away from time’s reach where it couldn’t sting.

On the same beach, once, though years later,
as we dipped our desires below the moonlight,
I lost your ring.

A week later I found your sting was laying in other beds.

I thought love was less abundant then, before I left,
before I found Paris and perished slightly under its pretensions

though I never shivered at that time or in the water,

not that time with the jellyfish, or later,

when that base metal that would never become gold
freed itself from my finger.

I cast you all off later, after, when Paris passed
and I set off to chase bland blond hairs
through the dunes the Dutch had recalled from the sea.

I agree that I have worn many rings since then
but not one of them have drowned me-

I always pick one size bigger so it slips off
without leaving too much of a mark.

I think that’s why I like salads-
chopped lettuce, some pulses and a breast of chicken-

they don’t take much cleaning up, afterwards.
However, the French, as a rule,
never cut through salad, on their plate, in public.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt 

BUDS OF INVINCIBILITY

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Notes multiply under an orange blossom moon.

We pour music into cups and songs sprout
from rose trees that have yet to bend towards the bud
while daisies turn noisy in the far field as the grass
orchestrates the dawn’s chorus and petals tremble
in the wake of all that once shivered in the stillness.

Clouds melt like warm snow beneath our imagination.

We wear it like candy and when we eat it we grow giddy
and gravity gives way to the illusion that we too
can rise from this heavy earth, drowning dust blazing
a distance into our trail as we pat the sun with our smiles
and that orange moon melts into a melody we can taste
on our tongues while our weary eyes close, for a while,
in a slumber the angles have created to cradle our chaos.

Notes multiply in back gardens where invincible comes
to conquer all that needs distance and all that is disease.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt

FINDING OUR WAY

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I woke early, attention tethered to the bird call
as they build their nests within the walls
we once lit fires between. Regardless of season
we must all find ways to shelter and survive.

I ran early, out into the open morning where air
was still yawning and I thought about sleep
and what it takes to catch a dream at the far end
of the wood when you aren’t sure of the way back.

I climbed the slow hill, with flattened breath
and caught two moons under the still grey light
kindly carved into the edges of memory
in this growing garden we water with tears.

I came early, to ponder position by tall towers
no longer watchful with feet that haven’t settled
while the sun, I cannot see, casts its light
onto two white moons above a thousand eyes

no longing seeing.

I woke early and still came up upon the moon.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

KAMSAHAMNIDA

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

In a quiet corner of Korea,
tucked thoughtfully behind a dozen back street twists
designed to derail any uptight tourist, there sits
a pair of us, unbreakable, in the evening light
and smiling, still

In a wooden bar
at the far end of the Seoul where cocktails
came with chicken soup and crisp fruit crumbles
and ears that smiled at my tongue twisted Thank you
in a language I wished was mine, you can subtract time
from the year that followed and find us,
smiling, still

On a stone seat
under the shining shadow of a palace that honoured space
before all else, that wanted to be a unity instead of a history,
still, there sits a pair of us, stealing a moment from time
as if we knew that wishes were sometimes
just sweet dreams

like crisp fruit crumbles or chicken soup to satisfy the soul.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

 

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt

WATER FLAMES

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

We moved, once, and habitual was your foot to my follow,
in debt my blush to your concern

like we were the oxygen of the other, at either ends of the water.

We swam, once, to the other, in crossed currents, in avoidance
of those cold-blooded fish dipping their blond hairs
into clotted canals that your darker locks turned briefly bland,

the beginnings of a ballet in two parts, you the body and I the babble

written in flame on the water

in this city sucked from the sea with its ferry, crossing and connecting,
as habitual to its route as I became to the curve of your spine.

You were fire and I the fury. Or was as I the fire and you the flight?

We lit fires, for moments, on the water, flames that found their place,
finally, in the stars, fading before fully noticed.

We moved, once, as if each was the compliment to the other’s jewel
even if we knew that time was not the compliment to the us

that danced, for a time, as a flame, on the surface of the water.

If I was still there, by that water, waiting for the blue ferry, crossing,
I would habitually dip foot into current to test its temperature.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

 

Inspired by a Twitter Prompt

THESE ARE THE DAYS

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Rooms get smaller.

We close doors tighter,
words come like judgements,

what’s left to share when you’ve shared
everything.

Rooms feel smaller.

like big plants in small pots,
like small meals on big plates
I want to break.

I want to watch Netflix
in Pj’s, all day, every day
but I won’t look lazy in company-
even her company.

So I write poems and books- nothing new
and chop down trees and reclaim the garden she’s covered
in weeds to brush things under like the rugs indoors-
the cover-ups we cough over.

In the evenings I write again and cook
and later we clean and you say you’d cook
but I can’t digest any more potatoes
or drink vegetables that have been boiled
to bland

in small pots
and we are just two big vegetables

resisting the urge to shout
in rooms too small to whisper.

I love you I say, and she does too
and we know it- but every day, every minute, every second
in these small rooms?

PLAYING FOR POSITION

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

I played waiter on weekends to women and their well-worn wishes
and worries, after or in between or in avoidance of the shopping
and washing and cleaning and stewing, mothers sitting with mother,
packed onto the flattened pile of the green velvet sofa, scorched
with leftover tunes from parted parties and expired expectations,
milk and one sugar, black and boiling with a biscuit, coffee for her
up the road with hair in a chignon as if she wasn’t from round here
and later, maybe, a glass of wine squeezed from a box with a tap;
thinking we were posh when they changed our name from Coolock
to Clonshaugh. I was a willing waiter to these women on weekends
when they dropped in through the backdoor, over the mopped floor
to avoid the hassle of husbands and kids and all the copious concerns
that came a calling, later, looking for coins and cuddles and timings
for dinners and hoping for a spare biscuit while pulling up a chair
in the corner below the parrot; puffed up and padded on his perch.
I was a waiter, waiting, back then, on the far side of understanding,
wondering where I fitted in between the orders and observations,
teas and coffees, the women congregating and the men left waiting,
adding the cream and dunking biscuits and pondering the placement
of that perfectly positioned parrot; puffed and padded upon perch.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

Inspired by a Poetry Prompt on Twitter.

EXAMPLES OF BEING STUNG

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

   

Not all bees write back
Not every beetle takes the right route
Some letters, like roads, wind on regardless.

We don’t always notice the sting
Until after, until later, until it’s too late.

Honey is sometimes sweetest
When far from reach.

We wrote words on each other’s back
Thinking time to be tender but we couldn’t turn around
To see how they’d both twisted.

These love letters- like journeys with no maps
One of us always the backseat driver of the beetle
Such stings from the boot.

Not all bees write back.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt from Cobh Readers and Writers