Poetry

THE THAW

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Blue is the breath,
blue is the earth, morning, early,
the sky a clean canvas of white and the earth; blue,

a bed of frozen blues born from dawn’s breath,

a blanket of freshly fallen slow snow,
trembling along the hairs of the land, caught
in the calm before the crunch, before the footprints
mould into mud all that is now a myriad of mystery.

There is beauty in blue,
there can be beauty in being broken,
in time being frozen, in the breath baying.

I twist and tremble between these sheets
still fresh upon these old shadows, still crisp
over this drying skin. I twist and tremble through this season
to be unsure, falling into blue, into time, time is frozen

along with all that is born in this bed,
a blanket of fallen findings; some things
I thought to be more, some things
I hoped to mean less,

like loss; less loss,
less time, less breath, more blue,
the mystery is already moulding into mud.

Blue is the breath and slow,
soft as the early morning snow
so slow, awaiting nothing more than
the affirmation of an approaching melt.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

 

EARLY AUTUMN

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

The sky is burning,

the last light eclipsed by the night
and we stop and stare like fools at its blaze,
not seeing within this gaze possibility falling
though our hands like snowflakes in a season
that has kept captive the summer.

The sky is burning

while we travel in taxis, all of us
back-seat partakers being driven down roads
we know not where they lead as our minds run
tattered threads along all the tracks we wanted to press
with our own print but we cannot choose a direction
like a snowflake cannot control its pattern.

The sky is burning
with a fine filigree of fire and ice,
with thoughts we try to catch hold of but flames
are ever changing as no snowflake is ever the same
and we take hold of other dreams others dreamt of
in other beds, under other skies blazing
through futile snowstorms and we melt,

like a snowflake
in the dry heat of an early autumn.

 

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

ATTENTION

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

I glisten to distract,
like a snowflake;

the sparkle before the melt.

Particles of fleeting perfection
floating through the hands of time,
falling through all these imperfections.
If only my clutch were tighter, truer,
if only I knew more of my own truth,
too many skins already slipped through,
too much prediction put on that perception
of perfection that can never be preserved.

A snowflake
cannot be caught intact. We cannot catch a cloud.

We cannot always clear the way for the truth.
Perfection: a twist of our perception,
a precious perspective from a single point
never again to be seen. What if it’s never seen at all?

Glistening like a snowflake, falling.

A snowflake can be a melting tear
or a tiny miracle on track to disappear.
Truth; an elusive illusion, a deathly desire
tenuously tied to what I present to you
and to how you perceive me.

To what we fear and what we are willing to reveal.

I glisten,
to distract attention
from all about me that doesn’t sparkle.

 

All words and designs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE SWEPT AND THE SWEEPERS

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Fragility falling

through fine flecks of fair filigree,
perfect patterns of individuality speckled
on imperfect individuals.

Snowflakes melt

on steaming skin thin on time,
too thick to break through, you cannot always sink
below the surface of an iceberg,

we cannot break through

all that lays beneath, all the lies below the surface,
it gets hotter the closer you come to the cold truth,
only in space can a spec appear spotless.

Fragility falling

through the folds of a snowstorm,
we are the swept and the sweepers, we must be swift,
icicles can injure, perfection can pierce.

I can be broken,

I can be better, I can be broken, but it takes time
to rebuild. I can be a snow-swept filigree
falling through the perfection of time

and time,

with all its perfection, with its constant movement
and minutes, is as fragile as that snowflake.

 

All words and drawings by Damien B Donnelly

 

A CASE FOR CONNECTION

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

I walk over drying leaves in this season of the fall,
crisp tissue freshly fallen under foot, less colour,
more contours, more concern to be connected

than to be a contrast. At first blast, I was off
and running from connection, the interjection
of other’s concerns, I was not to be collected
in a case, a case of you, this case of me, my case;
gone and grown heavier, come hear this heart
beating faster, this punchbag hung over from battle;
beaten, broken, twelve rounds but still standing,
still falling, like crisp tissue, torn into translucent,
still trying to get away from where it was caught

under foot. Foot, feet, these feet are faster runners
now, to make that racing heart seem slower,
a contemplation of a brighter pace to give way
to panic, a cessation to being a shooting star, shooting,
moving, eluding the truth of who we are, I am,
this case of me, it is okay to be encased in a connection,
to consider catching a breath, catching these contours,
those freshly fallen leaves drying in the rainstorm

I’ve been waiting for. And, as they crunch beneath
the slow shuffle of my shoes, I hear a sound familiar,
a song sung in my younger ears as I stamped first steps
in and over the cobbles of this city I have harboured
my heart to. Somethings stay attached, somethings
change their tempo and others fall beneath the soul.

‘Au revoir’ I whispered, and you smiled,

knowing I’d be back.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

A plane is waiting, wings are warming up. I have said my goodbyes, see you all in a few weeks when i have my feet on the ground again…

BOOKENDS; ALL THE WATER CARRIES OFF WITH IT

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

There will always be a part of me
standing by the water’s edge,
watching how much of us
got washed away and wondering

how much more sunk so deep
below the surface that it is now
a captive more to your careful concrete
than that ever coldly cutting current.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This has been a month of saying goodbye to Living with Paris in order to move on. And so Stephen Sondheim comes to mind and the lyrics of the song Move On from the musical Sunday in the Park with George, based on Georges Seurat…

‘Stop worrying where you’re going, move on…
look at what you want, not at where you are,
not at what you’ll be…

I want to move on, I want to explore the light
I want to know how to get through, through to something new,
something of my own, move on…’

 

Here’s to getting through to the light and the newness and moving on. See you all on the other side… 

Dami xx

BOOKENDS; TIMING IS EVERYTHING

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Coming in

is easy.

Learning when to leave

is an art

not easily understood.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about getting ready to leave Paris, for good. Today will also be my last day as pattern maker at the Paris fashion design atelier of & Other Stories and who can say what the future will bring but, (to wickedly steal a show tune) because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

  

  

 

BOOKENDS; A CITE OR A SHADOW

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 
A city and a shadow, a choice; to stay or leave,

to concede and crown myself as conquered and then be crushed
or to continue on as committed commuter,

to be complacent
or constantly curious for more light so as to comprehend the darkness,

to break down the barrier between all there is to fear
and come, face to face, with all there is to be.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about looking back to see how I can move forward. A final goodbye to Paris before moving to Ireland. 

BOOKENDS; STUMBLING THROUGH THE DREAM, WIDE AWAKE

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I was silent once amid the noise, stumbling through smothering,
a bare canvas cradling nothing in arms that had promised everything.

I circled the globe once to find that home was just a word,
a word that makes a memory to plot a beginning,
not weighted but weightless.

I am, like you all, no more than a burnt-out, used-to-be, fading star,
somehow sparkling in front of you though my future has already faded
somewhere light years away.

As I hurtle through this voyage, my eyes fall sleepy, looking for rest,
looking, always, for the rest of me.

I am the sparrow, lost to its nest, forever flying in circles, catching
your scent on every other breeze with the hope it will, one day,
fly me home on your courant d’air.

For all that I have become, it is because of all you’ve shown me,
for all that I lack, it is everything I left in our bed.
Sleep softly on it.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

 

This month is about looking back at my life in Paris in order to say goodbye and this poem is a collage of a group of poems I wrote just after i left Paris, the first time, in 1999.

BOOKENDS; KISSED BY SOMEONE ELSE’S KING AT CHRISTMAS

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

Lights danced on shivering trees dressed
in a blanket of snow while a tale was told

of a boy, born to be king, to never know choice.

I kissed Christmas in someone else’s shadow
and we whispered in the absence of his voice.

I dreamt of a crib where a kid had kept faith
for a while, as a child, while you watched me

sleeping, naked on a bed still fresh from his folds.

You wished for us longer than a festive fumbling
of flesh in the emptiness of his ephemeral flight

but our fate was like my faith; not as tightly nailed
to a cross as the kid who was crucified as a king.

I waked away from the tinsel toe and your touch

and left you

to smooth out the stains we screwed upon his folds.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about looking back at Paris to acknowledge all that has slipped away, like the lips once kissed, the snowflakes since melted and the faith, since fallen. As a kid I wanted to believe in Santa for longer than my age allowed because I didn’t want to let the magic end, I grew up in the church and tried so hard to see the truth in what I was being taught that it took a long time to see how closely they were wrapped in lies. When I first came to Paris at 22, I had my first kiss on Christmas night. I was alone and living in a hotel and everyone I knew had gone back to Ireland and I wanted to find the magic again, even if it came in the form of three nights in the arms of a man who wasn’t mine, who was lonely because his boyfriend had gone off to see his family for the holidays.

Sometimes we try to find the magic wherever we can and do our best to ignore faith, fate, the fates or the folds we didn’t make.