Poetry

LISTEN

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

  

We cannot truly change that which
we are, we cannot really laugh louder,
be brighter, stay longer than our journey
has already jotted down in a journal
whose language is not our own.
We cannot truly change the air,
the ocean, the fire that forges its way
through us, leaving us inspired
or expired, hot or just overheated.
We cannot truly change much
but we can cast corrections
into the darkness caught in corners,
we can see sages that hover over heads
if we need to add meat to the monotony,
singing songs of stories never too old
to be retold, never too new to be anything
more than necessary.
We cannot truly change that which
we are, we cannot promise to hold
any longer than time allows us,
we are tied to the tension of the knot
that knows more than we do,
whose heart lays on a hinge
that hangs both the hope
and the hammer. We cannot truly
change much but we can learn to listen
to lips that have lingered, that have
laughed in the face of lies
and been nourished by the face
of the fortunate who found favour
with who they were and then substance
in the soft stream of steady words.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

From the series A Month with Yeats

 

 

 

THE BEAT OF THE BAT

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The brighter man, the lighter man,
the darker truth, the deeper vein,
bind me to the rough, the real man,
I beat as a bat.
The clearer glass, elusive glass,
the broken bed, the better lay,
tie me to the rider, all night,
I beat like a bat.
The gentle rose, considered rose,
the troubled torn, the rotting root,
plant me in the wild field, riled field,
I beat as a bat.
The sweetest light, the sun light
the witching hour, the darkest night,
pitch me in the rainstorm, windstorm,
I beat like a bat.
The house plant, the tendered plant,
the raging bark, the twisted branch,
nature’s not calm, not quiet, nor I;
I beat as a bat.
An angel rises to heaven’s skies,
bats hang downside, looking inside,
teach me what’s inside, light the dark side,
I’ll see like a beating bat.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is one of the poems from the A Month with Yeats series

RECALLING THE RAINSTICK

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The Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, on Westmoreland Street, Dublin, across from Trinity College, currently has a thoughtfully touching exhibition of the Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) entitled Listen Now Again. On the wall, next to his poem The Rainstick sits an actual rain stick which you can turn and listen to the rain fall or whatever drifts into your mind’s ear. This is what I heard…

 

Recalling the Rainstick

I turn the stick
And hear the rain fall.
There are whispers
In its movements
And there,
Still,
Betwixt it all;
the echo of your words.

     

Words by Damien B Donnelly. Photographs from the exhibition ‘Listen Now Again’

BACK TO THE BANKS OF THE GRAND

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Water catches light
Like I once reached out
To catch a wave
Along this same stretch of water,
This same cosy current of canal
That has slowed, now,
Like my footsteps,
Like my stokes;
Coming back on the bend,
Finding favour
In the freshness
Of all that was once familiar,
Letting go of the longing
To swap steady stream
For seductive sea,
Finding comfort, now,
In the light
I’ve already swam in.
Settling back now,
Sitting down,
Watching the waters
Carefully caress that light.

 

All words and photograph by Damien B Donnelly

Photo taken earlier this week along the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin, opposite the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design where I studied and dreamed of the future over 24 years ago.

CURLS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

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The breath is stilled, life is sea and sky bound in a blanket
of both current and cloud, moments are just
impressions, reflections of all that has fallen
and all that floats on the future’s feather;
a fragile fluttering to
the left of frame.
Still is
the breath,
thoughts unfurl;
curls of creamy consciousness,
there is darkness, floating, certainly,
but peal it back and there is light lingering
in an unconsciousness we have yet to caress

with consideration.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

TO LINGER, LONGER, MAYBE

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Like a whisper
tissue is painted with purpose,
silk spun from crisp cuts,
white scented with sapphire
parading into Prussian
(fragile of frame and filigree),
like a thought
an image opens, a petal unfolding,
shades seep into substance
as the edges fade
(how quickly we fall to forgetful)
light, liquid, linger, a little longer.
Thoughts tied in twists of emerald
shimmering,
simplicity on a simple stand,
in a liquid light
and the memory leans in.

We are more fragile
than we know.

We could be more lasting
but only time will tell.

Not everything will linger
on after our whispers
fall to a fade…

  

All words and photographs y Damien B. Donnelly

This is a Repost

OUR SHADE IN TIME

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Look for me
in the layers lost,
in the careful caress
that concerns the contours
of form and finesse. The million
meters mounded into magic, turned
and twisted into tastes now termed timeless,
look for me in the yards that yield towards yellow,
that burn into beauty, like ochre opening, that grow towards
the gleam of green, that flit and flow like a feather in flight, like rays
of the old days that ripple on the water. Look for me by the curt corners
of concrete where complacency converges, look for me where the columns congregate,
creation is not just a concept concerned with procreation
but with the colours and costumes

we claim to parade our personality.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a Repost

 

THE NEW LOOK

/ deuxiemepeau / 20 Comments

 

I am
that fine line
that divides
what is feminine
from what is
futuristic.
That fine line
that flushes
the fabulous
out the fickle.
The reflection
of what once was
encased
in something else
that might
one day
be called
another new look.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a Repost

 

IN THE ARCHITECTURALLY FASHIONED MEMORY OF WHAT IS NOW MODERN

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

I am of an age that is ageless, the very essence
that lingers somewhere between shadow and light;
that indescribable grey matter separating all that
aligns itself with black from all that derives its purity
from white. I am the illusive thread tying together
the journey, the twisting and twirling of cloths weaving
together past, present and briefly imagined futures.
I am the force between that barely dreamt dream
of what will be and that longing, lodged in the memory,
that leaves logic out to recall that single magical moment
from that day, long ago lived. That room in the mind
that holds so tightly to that taste once passed over lips,
ripe for the tasting, I am the emphasis of purity
in the remembrance of that very taste. All else,
long since, fallen by the wayside or lost out amid
the uncertainty of what’s remembered and what’s real.
I am the playfulness of the light you see cast bright
on your tall towers with their windows onto the world.
I am the linear contrast of urban lines, rising sharp
and structured amid the chaos. I am the smooth sleekness
untwining myself from a frivolous mess. I am
the seduction salvaged from the superfluous. I am
the impression left on the skin long after I’ve parted,
the mark of what once was, what is and what will be.
I am what makes the melancholy magical, every mood
a melody; the manufacturer of the moments the mind
will muster. I am the lines that will lead you on, latitudes
to rise upon and longitudes to fill your form. I am a city,
seen from above, with straights of sky-scraping streets;
lean lines, lengthy and lasting, marching triumphantly
forward as if to herald one’s rise out of confusing chaos
and stake your claim to stand above, alone, assured
and reassured, calm and confident, always exceptional,
occasionally eccentric, uniquely independent and always
individual. Modern made from a blend of what is
both memory and what has yet to be. I am everything
you put on to be who you are. Yesterday you dreamt
of me, tomorrow you’ll remember me, today, you are me.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This is a Repost.

TURBULENT SACRIFICE

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

Mama was an unmarried mother
at the end of the summer of 75
as Joni hissed of the snakes
in the gardens of complacency
where ignorance was still very much alive.

Mama was only a girl in the growing
and possibly no more than just 18
when she bent down and placed
a kiss on my cheek and whispered
goodbye to her own little green.

Mama is someone who I’ve never met
aside from the dream I once had
of her life in a kingdom that ruled
you could not mother a child unless
at first you were a legitimate wife.

Mama was an unmarried girl one winter
in the arms of a man barely stretched
from a boy, her trust in the throws
that left little to believe in and a pain
that pulled on the strings of goodbye.

Mama was once an unmarried mother
and bursting with thoughts her shape
couldn’t hide, but helpless and hopeless
were not part of her form and so she did
what she could when you can’t be the bride.

Mama was a childless woman
when winter that year came cold with its calling,

and the tears started breaking
and the leaves began falling

like the water that had broken,
like the hold that had not held,
like the hope that was drowned,
and the hand that was expelled…

too short, too quick, too hard,
too much to let go for good

and the snakes started hissing on the lawns.

Mamma was the unmarried mother
who gave me the greatest gift
that anyone could, of growing up
knowing that what she had done
was to give me up for a greater good.

     

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost form my Joni Mitchell series.

Last month I added my name to the National Adoption Contact Preference Register in Ireland. Maybe the story still has a tale to be told, time will tell…

Sometimes knowing where you came from gives you an idea of where to go. This coming December, after 23 years living abroad, I will move to Ireland to start a whole new adventure in my home country that now feels like an exciting new land waiting to be discovered. I am looking back, at the moment, but seeing in that vision, only where the future will take me. Thanks to you all for listening on along the way,

Love Dami xx