Tides roll in, roll out,
waves recall not where they’ve been
but to where they’re bound.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Poetry
CATCHING THE RECALL
They come and go,
playing tag with the tide,
swimming in to touch
but the ocean is an elastic
to recall.
We came here once,
a love of youth’s illusions,
dipping our skinnies
before I lost you on a breath
without recall.
It comes and goes;
that tide, his touch, this time,
so many currents
congregating under clouds
that can’t be caught.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
THE DRAGON SLAYER OF DOOLIN, HIKES AND HAIKU
The Dragon Slayer in Doolin
Brown cow seeks shelter
Such weight under so much rock
Hush, soft comes the sea
My past is not buried beneath all that rock and weed like I first witnessed. My past has become moss and mould that has made more of these monstrous walls than I first saw. See how the seedlings shoot from cuts and cracks. I have the same spots on my skin, now more worn, but also less sharp, less prickly, less pointed. Direction is something which distracted for too long, too far. Perhaps that is why I keep returning now to the harbour. The light from the lighthouse turns, it is not still, not stagnant. The sea cannot be captured. I cannot be caught. There was weight, but then comes the wave. Weight and wave. Wait, for soon there will be wave. See the brown cow standing.
Where did this come from; the ‘Cliff Ginko’ workshop hike, in Doolin, Sunday Morning, Writers’ weekend, we walked to the coast and back again through our past, we stopped and wrote, walked further on through our present, we stopped and wrote, walked further again into our future, we stopped and wrote and then headed back to the hotel, a cosy snug, some hot tea and we summed it all up which is how I arrived at the above passage and haiku. Below are the free-thought notes taken at the stops along the way…
Into the Past…
Rocks, rocks and famine walls, my nose runs, slow pace, fast wind, the mind rushes to that scene; the beach as a boy, breathless, always breathless and feeling so much less, then, at that time, now too, oh for God’s sake. Sake, stake. I felt trapped, my chest and that stake. I feel I was born out of shape, formless; a pebble, plenty of potential, ripe, but then you came and piled rocks upon potential, gave me your form, your design, heavy, clunky, sharp bits, sticking out and over and into me. I hated the penis, sharp bit sticking out, wilful, uncontrollable, on the outside, everything on the outside, no cover, no care, no armour. And yet all that weight.
Into the Present…
Little bird flies in, speckled, black, specs of white, like the sky, likes the clouds, darkness but light, behind, beyond. We walk further, out closer, wind coming in, wind and then water. Waves of weight, then comes anger, anger, more and then in the chest, panic. Feel the panic, free the panic. Coming out and up for air. Breathe. Feel the power. Power, like a shower. Welcome to Doolin Pier, the sign says. Welcome to the Dragon Slayer, I say, here in Doolin, who knew Jamie Lannister was here. I come to the sea, to wash off the dust like she did, like Joni did, after the city. The water cannot be captured, cannot be caught. No droplet, like she said, all those hours, but never the same water. I cannot be who you want me to be. I see bridges and roads and wires, telegraph wires, all leading and moving and coming and going. And here I am; coming home. I will slay dragons for you, remember, how I told you and you and you and you and you. Fuck, how I told you and you and you buried me in so much armour. I came to the sea for the salt to rust me, to break me free. We pass a house of loose old rock, rumbling, crumbling. How much will be left of who I am when I finally break free? See me, See Me! Don’t forget me when I take to the field to fight those dragons for you. I see you making already for the sink, to bash those dishes. Out of sight, out of mind. And I said it all because I wanted someone to slay a dragon for me, that day, by the beach, one day, some day. And now it is up to me, Me. I will be the sea and the Slayer. I cross oceans of my own dreams and desires and I will find my own shore. I will not be (cannot make out last hand written word as hand was frozen from the crisp morning air).
Into the future…
I come up and out and catch the light coming through the clouds. I’ve cut through, Joni, your clouds and those illusions. I run fingers of frozen flesh along these walls, settled now as my form frees itself. I don’t have to break it down, only chip away at it in places, smooth till it settles. I have rubbed my hands and hopes along these walls as this dragon slayer, blue as a tattoo, illusions and clouds, come together. Brown cow seeks shelter in the cut-out of the rock. See how much he hears the sea sigh of life.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
For Kathy
WHEN IMAGINATION COMES BACK HOME
‘An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination’
George Bernard Shaw
I came back, looking to find the pieces I’d left behind,
in my parting, having since shed so much of the things
once thought treasures along the trail. I came back,
wondrous for the parts as yet unopened, unlike the heart
I never knew how to close, or the route I never knew
how to resist. Even in that taxi, that took me away,
I held your hand and thought of another, since departed,
and wondered whose next I would hold. Even my thoughts
had been off and running, always eager for something else,
the something shiny, the scent of something in flight.
I never liked to nest too long in the shadow of the same tree.
I came back to recall the beginning, to remember all
the dreams I had yet to deliver and there, upon a wall
where I watched a robin consider the rouge of his chest,
a wall I thought I’d never get back over, I saw your words
and realised all that I am and will be is because of how
faithful this heart has been to the concept of imagination.
And I turned and took to the task with red chest ready to roar.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
I’m off now to attend the first day of the Doolin Writers’ Weekend here in Doolin, Co. Clare on the west coast of Ireland.
I CLIMB VOLCANOES
I saw a heart of metal encase a heart since stilled
on a pillow of white purity, precious protected
in a glass case, without a key and I wondered
how far people would go to protect themselves?
I have never known how to cut glass carefully
nor cared to consider a case for this organ
which I offer up without consideration itself.
I’ve never known how to restrain the beats
that slip out from under this skin and there are
times where I can barely catch my own breath.
I do not own the rhyme nor rule any ripple
that rises up after the fates have been flung.
I climb over volcanoes instead of into cases
and tremble above shores too pure to sit upon.
I have not come to lay love lightly upon a pillow.
I leap off burning cliffs with even sharper edges
in the call of amour, not the encasement of armour.
I have been made merrily of these immeasurable
mistakes with an abhorrence to metallic restraints.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph from Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, of the encasement of the heart of Lorcán Ua Tuathail (1128 / 1180) who became Saint Laurence O’Toole, Patron Saint of Dublin.
THE WHOLE
Remembering Nana Frances on Nollaig na mban (Women’s Little Christmas)
Evolution 13. The Whole
My grandmother, whose name was Frances and not Nana
as I used to think, started baking cakes for Sunday’s tea
on a Monday morning, slow and steady was her process
like her concentration while waiting for pennies to drop
from slot machines on summer Sundays after train rides
all the way from Lusk to Bray. She was never that tall
but grew down towards us all so she could slip treats
into pockets or kisses onto cheeks. She married Pop,
whose name, I later discovered, was actually Bernard,
but I never remember them together, he died before
I started collecting memories of her comfortable cardigans
and flat feet and that coat she kept for Sunday mass
and the soft evening light pouring in through the narrow
window as she sat by the table ironing my underwear
of an evening, the same table we crowded round on Sundays
for her high tea when we’d devour the cakes she’d started
to prepare for us on Mondays, in her kitchen, at the back,
off the station road in the countryside she hated at first
until she met Bernard and never left. Frances and Bernard.
Nana and Pop. Nana who I knew better and longer,
Nana who we buried with a bottle of Tweed perfume
in her coffin because that was her smell though I recall
more the fresh bread from the oven, in the morning,
as she sat on her stool in the kitchen, waiting and watching
things coming and going. It’s not the finished product
but the collection of ingredients that makes up the whole.
All words by Damien B Donnelly
SNOW WHITE
I saw you, one morning,
blanketed in white,
a speckled canvas of virgin purity,
all colour lost out to a simpler shade of simplicity.
No more that magnificent mass of contrast and contradiction,
just quiet and gentle unencumbered distinction.
Distant laughter carried on a breeze
swirling round trees caught motionless in time,
branches bare but for the kind kisses of that slow falling snow.
I saw you like this, one ordinary morning,
as tears formed icicles on my face, snowflakes falling
from your skies to hide your valleys and hills
as my feet disappeared beneath the snow-white earth.
I saw you, like this, one extra ordinary morning,
and that long lost smile
reappeared.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Merry Christmas everybody, Dami xx
THE FALL
I whisper into wakefulness,
the body stirs before the brain, the blood before belief,
I curl into colder corners of the covers to encourage
skin to come round as sound slips in just before sight,
light pours into eyelids
slowly opening, toes slip out to inspect the season
but the soul knows the truth; I bear every season
in a single day;
a snowstorm
in the stench of summer, in moments overlapping,
burning flesh on ice cold streets (Paris can perish you
behind its postcard perfection), springs of hopeful holds
that fall to less likely,
there is an unbreakable blossom
in this heart that covers the precious particles,
like once perfect snowflakes that have since been shattered,
strings that have been strung;
strung out, strung up,
turned to taunt,
I recall the harmony
but am a stranger to the words we wound into songs,
stretched into surrenders.
Your calls now drown us both
from the far end of another ocean I thought to be tempered
with tepid time, phone floods forage where even distance
cannot dissipate the despair that settles on the floor beside me,
a shallow pool of strangulation after the hang-up that always feels
somehow lighter at your end.
So much falls away,
so much falls to the ground;
shattered shards no longer capturing its distant promise.
I watch the snowflakes catch the wind carefully, glisten for a moment
before it’s beauty losses breath on the trodden tracks
of these treadmills that take us to nowhere
and back again
as the bluebird sings her song
and the moon, even in the bright sky,
still retains its shadow, ever watchful, ever wondering
when we too will find our time,
in this fall,
to fall.
All words and collages by Damien B. Donnelly
WHEN WHITE FALLS BLUE
Snow falls and the darkness drowns in silence,
a hush from the heavens falling, so slowly,
even crystals cry. Are these the tears
of angels weeping who’ve watched us, falling,
like this slow snow, like their tears, trembling?
Snow falls and there’s a stillness and still
all this silence between us. Bruises covered
in this cold cotton candy coating of fragility,
every day more freezing, more frozen,
just not enough to numb. Snow falls
and all paths disappear, I thought our tracks
ran deeper, like this winter, like this weight,
like this waiting, behind the window, behind
this glass I can’t see through, beyond the storm
falling, slowly. Snow falls and the sorrow
slips in, cold where there used to be comfort.
What happens to my tears, who will watch them
with wonderment like I look out now at the snow,
slowly falling, and think of angels?
Wasn’t I once your angel?
Are you watching at some slow distance
as these snowflakes cover my confusion?
In time, this too shall melt and be no more than memory,
even snowflakes fall for but a season. Snow,
falling, slow. Already wishing it was spring.
Even white is blue in the falling light.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
DREAMS AND DRAGONS
I stepped into the storm and took the path between the pines,
and curved along the bank of which the riverbed defines.
I watched the falling snow bequeath a blanket on the bark,
the water formed a wave and then that wave became an arc.
I noticed how the birds had long since taken from the trees,
the current held no caution and the arc held no appease.
I stopped within the storm among the silent pillared pines
and held my breath by the bank as that arc unfurled its spine.
I watched the wave turn wing and saw the tide become a tail
and from the sky came down the snow on the wind, now a wail.
I’d stepped into the storm between the pines along the path,
and t’was there by the bank where I saw myth lay down with wrath.
A tarragon arose, had drawn breath upon the rivers,
a dragon of the snow and my skin awash with shivers.
I wondered if the birds had since foreseen in the future
this dragon from the tide find its form as snow-capped creature.
I tried to run, run away, from this basilisk of snow
but when its eyes fell open, I sensed that this was no foe.
I stood upon my tracks and felt my foolish fear descend,
no fire this beast did bare and no danger his snout distend.
This dragon of fair flakes, this mammoth mythos flushed in white,
no monster of the dawn and neither demon of the night.
I’d stepped into the storm and found my fate transform from snow;
for this vision from the water had a tale for me to show.
I’d fallen from the magic and been jolted out of joy,
had grown into a man who’d lost the dreams he’d held as boy.
But there in the clearing I sat and watched my fear take flight
from a ripple on the river as the dragon seized the night.
This poem was originally inspired by a photograph from the wonderful photographer Pete Hillman http://www.petehillmansnaturephotography.wordpress.com
and a nudge from the ever inspiration Liz Cowburn from Exploring Colour and this link brings you to Liz’s gorgeous wordplay poem based on the same photograph… http://www.exploringcolour.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/ode-to-snow-dragon
All words and drawings by Damien B Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 