Silver sky settles over sun-soaked sea
where we watch the future ripple reflections;
cranes in the corner of Korea coming closer
to a mountain once central to the frame.
Silence and simplicity have never shaken
with such an uncertain stillness.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. This week’s ideas come from last year’s travels through South Korea. I took this photo on Jeju Island in South Korea.
Colours catch fire over concrete, catch life, catch the laughter
that will not linger for as long as this concrete. Measure moments
not in length but in weight, weight, don’t wait to catch life;
it is cold to be concrete and watch the flames flicker out,
to be caressed but never considered consumable.
We tried to catch the fire that burnt through our time, tried to clamber up
and over the volcanoes tearing terrifying tracks into all that grounded us.
But there were cracks in our concrete, sparks of colour, yes, but specks
of weight too, too much weight, too little breath. Fire steals oxygen,
colour cannot cover over all the chaos, makeup is something we use
to cover a bruise, colours catch fire even when never considered consumable.
Catch the colours before the fire captures all in concrete.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
This weeks ideas come from last year’s travels through South Korea.
I took this photo at the Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul.
I climbed you today in downpours
and falling snows, no snowflake
ever the same, no footstep ever similar,
I climbed you today in sunlight
and stealing shadows, in strokes of paint
splattered in your memory by artists
as foreign as they are familiar,
I paused upon your steps, your streets
of steps, the steep steps others have taken,
others have trodden on, to take possession,
to take pictures, to take part, to be a part
of all that once was and has fallen to dust
through depression and recession,
no sails blow any longer to the wind’s wills,
the winds upon your hills no longer home
to the mills, no more the spirits linger
green to the fairy’s touch, spirits are in bottles
now, corked and capped and cost too much
and the artists now are but a shadow
of what once was, shadows for sale
on the site of what once held cause,
on this martyred mountain in Montmartre.
I climbed you today in wind and rain,
the past and future present, in a reverie
of what can no longer be, I climbed you
and stood above you and marked out
the steps I had taken along you,
along your lines and lanes that lead me
here, to this day, to this moment,
to this place as this snowflake fell,
this unique particle never to be repeated,
falling through the delicacy of creation.
I climbed you today and could hear
the train beginning to pull out of the station.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
For a week of considering creation.
I
build
sentences
in the mind
that had no
existence before,
a platform to ponder
in a place that doesn’t
exist, in truth, until it’s been told.
I move through this hemeroscopium
like an architect building a house
into a home, unearthing light
to contrast the shadow
my thoughts have
been confined in,
a helix that
spirals out
from within,
that will return
and move on, return
and move on, up towards
that light turning transparent,
sentence into substantial structure,
considerations becoming concrete
clarities that form walls, fold out
into roofs that consider creation
compulsory, stories rising from
basements, tales spinning
off, casting reflections
upon the windows
of this place,
this mind
that watches
the sun rise and set,
time twist and turn, again
and again, the circles, always
the spiralling circles, even in a straight
sentence, even in a slotted surface.
I build spaces to house beds and
beams and bright lights to lie
before this tower of truth
and watch the visions rise
and fall, like the sun, like
the laughter, like life,
like tales, like
sentences
that never stop
while always changing,
an ancient arch now foundation
to modern moment, a true temple
of contemplation in this space holding
space, light and space, shadow and
space, sentence and space, space
between the sofa, space
between the
syntax.
All words and drawing by Damien B. Donnelly
Hemeroscopium is the place where the sun sets. An allusion to a place that exists only in our mind, in our senses, that is ever-changing and mutable, but is nonetheless real.
This is a repost for a week considering Creation
I slipped off to the edge of the city,
this morning, where the stream found a stillness
and the air a crispness that kept confusion at a distance.
I stood beneath the bridge
that took the traffic and its tension far from me
and found the swimming swan rising higher in the stream,
the follow-on from the floods that now seem so far
with these skies of blue, speaks of colour
in a park, on a Friday, in February,
where an artist once came to paint.
A park, in Paris, on an island,
by the Seine, where the waters wash with colour
when you look beyond the shadows, a new rise
basking in the glory of what was once regarded
as great, by those who regarded the value of greatness.
Straight and tall, shiny structures shoot up,
like soldiers, by a stream ever in movement,
ever following the route,
today’s design will be tomorrow’s sign
of an age the river has outrun.
I see trees towering tall in waters,
once rising, now falling, still strong, still weathering
the storm, still willing to be remembered, like an artist
captures beauty, captured beauty, in a park,
once, on a Sunday in a time since parted.
Nature is not in our control,
nature is willing to withstand all our wilfulness,
will not drown in these days of destruction,
will not worry, as we do, will not bend
but will let life flow around it,
in hope, in harmony.
In a park, on a Friday,
on an island, by the river,
in jogging shoes and sweatpants,
I ran through days already distanced
and tried to make connections between the road
winding onwards and the trees rising upwards, like the water,
rushing onwards like time, ever at play with its participants,
with all that it connects, with benches for the breathless
to recapture breaths and wheels
to help us follow the stream.
And in the windows
I saw reflections of those towering trees,
never to be forgotten, blue of sky in the beauty of light,
light and harmony, colour and shade, captured in what is new,
a hint of what knows the bounty of age.
And on the river, by the park, on a Friday, in Paris,
I stopped and saw my reflection in the gentle waters
and in the waters saw colour, colour and light,
by a boat, in a park, in a city ever changing,
where an artist came to capture it all on a Sunday,
a simple Sunday, not a Friday but a Sunday, searching
for something between the shadow and light,
between all that will fade and all
the rest that cannot stay.
All words and photographs of Ile de la Jatte famed by Georges Seurat by Damien B Donnelly
This is a repost for a week considering creation and how it flows around us
We dangle delicacies
(far from looking delicate)
to tempt the beasts
to play ferocious
for our pleasure,
for our entertainment.
We put money
on the beast
who can be more brutal
than the bunch.
We are intrigued
by the beasts
whose nature
we’ve changed,
caught and caged,
who we’ve tempered
and tamed
in our need
to remind ourselves
who is the man and
who is the beast.
We dangle delicacies
(desperately delicately)
on front of animals
so as not look at ourselves
and see the beasts
we’ve become.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
This is a week of considering creation; creative, caged or carnal
We take slow steps into the sweet water, watch the current
caress the dark rock, the volcanic roar no longer rupturing,
its rage now rocked to slumber by this single shore. I lose
my shirt to time’s tide and this shimmering sand, I lift it up
and feel the weight that washed over it as you turn to face
the vast ocean and wonder what the next wave will bring
upon us. We have crossed currents, trained through towns
and cut across mountains, we have laughed at sadness
and cried over cocktails, we have come so far to wade out
into these waters as locals watch us with questions of how
and why. We have come curious to this country, we creep
along its coast like this tide, rummaging over these rocks,
wondering what happened to the heat it once ran with
when man was more forgiving and the mountain more daunting.
We climb the dormant mount, once maker of molten menace,
to watch the sun swim up from the sea and we count minutes
till the darkness will be disregarded as if time is all that’s needed
to destroy depression, decay, dysphoria. This mountain, once
a monster the sea could not settle and land could not control,
this country, once more than a division of north and south,
of emperors and conquers, Confucians and Catholics, devout
and deserted. We were once more than single souls searching
for the way back. We are tides, coming and going along
these beds we find shelter in, arms wrapped around us
like seaweed we equally fight off and hold down, we are lava,
trailing tunnels through our own thoughts, destroying
what we think to be too much but never quite knowing
how to fill the hollowness that’s left behind. We take steps
down into the open earth, adding sweaters to our short sleeves
and I wonder why it grows colder the closer we get to the core.
Isn’t the inferno on fire anymore? Dante will be disappointed.
We look like ants crawling over cobbled rock as we curve
through these corridors created in centuries now cemented
into time and caress these walls and catch our breath
under cathedral ceilings created by no creature but by nature’s
creation. Deeper and deeper still and the silliness is replaced
by a silence in this place where the waters drip from porous rock
and we look smaller, less special, not so strong in this cave
carved by once molten rock, by lines of luscious lava
that laughed as its lungs opened and its power poured. Later,
back at the beach, the tide again tickles our feet as we stand
upon the rock that once before roared. We are equal parts
creator and equal parts responsible for all that we corrupt.
We have come curious to this country but find ourselves
asking more questions about who we are than of this coast
that will still be counted long after we have been smashed
upon our own current. We take slower steps through
the sweetness and my heart beats louder, longer, lighter.
All words and photographs of Jeju Island in South Korea by Damien B Donnelly
This is a repost of a week considering Creation and our position within it.
There is art on walls, winding walls,
in rooms on show with light, luscious light,
and climate controls while she’s side-lined
to the shadows to weep for the darkness
that devours her skin, stuck like tar
and trapped in stone, once tempered
by an artist’s touch now off and absent,
now long grown cold, not being of stone
but breaking bone, while she weeps
beneath polished position on partitioned
pedestal and waits in the shadow of his name
long forgotten from rooms alight with art
on walls, the art of other men,
maybe more remembered
like lands, once considered, now grown
careless in their unions next to nations
who have not nurtured the need to be
noticed for notions long ago set in stone.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
This is a repost for a week of considering all sides of creation
Gone is the garden, we are paved now
in parts no longer potential to growth,
to goodness. And the crow caws
in the corner, flesh festering into feather.
Gone is the garden, we have paved paths
over all that was precious while thinking
thoughtless, if only we’d thought less
about what we wanted and more
about what was needed. And the crow
cowers in the corner, questioning
what has become of its celebrity.
Gone is the garden and we can never
go back; the lock now lost in lyrics
too light, in the songs surrendered
from all that was soul to just sold out.
Gone is the garden, gone to graze
over another galaxy not yet grown
greedy, we are now alien to all
the earth has asked for, strangers
to the simple sand that sweeps the shore,
and stranger still to the starlight
that shines through its last breath burning.
We are the crows, cawing over concrete,
in corners, claws cracking in our chaos
and confused as to where went the worth.
All words and drawings my Damien B Donnelly
This is a repost (from my Joni Mitchell series) for a week of considering creation
And we are all a sum of circles spinning,
spiralling, circling something, orbiting our own atmosphere,
seduced by our own stratosphere, (oh, how we smell)
chasing our own tails; can circles have tails or is it just dogs?
Although Plato portrayed us as circles split apart; restlessly
looking for the rest of ourselves, worrying the best half
is the other half that was snipped away.
So are we circles or just the unfinished sum of a circle?
Are we accounting or just counting our own charisma?
Fragmented fractures trying to add positives with only negatives,
semi-circles circling the greater circle of life, some all-seeing,
some all-knowing, some too wrapped in the self to see the shadow
and oh, how the shadows can settle over the oh-so-indulgent.
And she calls and she cries and she sees nothing and no one
as needy as she caresses her own concerns and she combs
long shining strands of sustained soliloquies over the silence, shivering.
And he sleeps and he cries and he needs all and everyone to see
how suffering stifles his strength to see beyond the self, and he breathes
his burdens over brothers he believes are blind to his behaviour.
Oh the poor ones, oh the pity; pretty girl, pity boy, how they want you
to see them as a star, bold and bright, to see how hard it is to be them,
to stay so bold and…
make way for the music; see the swines strumming the sinew as the crows
cut through callous cords and the vultures make violent overtures
on the violins and cut to crashing crescendo!
If only fortune could free them from the self-satisfying shackles
they slip over themselves. Shackles too shiny to ever enslave.
And she calls and he cries and they see themselves as singularly central
to the circle and not just a number in a sum of an incomplete equation.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
This is a repost of a poem from my Joni Mitchell Series for this week’s stars and moon theme
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
Words about pictures by Michael Scandling
Writing, Poetry & Creativity | Angela T Carr, Dublin, Ireland
Kay McKenzie Cooke Website & Blog
My journey through photography
landscape and change
My poetry is my religion.
Colouring Outside The Lines
Expressing moments of Inspiration within a cozy setting
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ps 147:3
Art • Nature • Exploration
Peter Hillman's Photographic Exploration of South Staffordshire and Beyond (2026)
Poetry inspired by ethereal feelings, life events and personal philosophy.
A Journal of Brief Literature
Film, Music, and Television Critic
Writer
Art and Lifestyle by Brandon Knoll
New Zealand
French magazine - art & visual culture
A palette of general thoughts & travel stories from all around the world
Jack Bennett
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
a writing space curated by José Angel Araguz
Thoughts and Perspectives From the Mind of a Common Girl
Cooking with imagination
Damien B. Donnelly 