Poetry

THE BREAKING OF THE BLUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Tall is the man
willing to rise before the break of day
beneath the blanket blackness
and tip toe into the still untempered tide
blindly, current cast as yet unclear,
and trust in time
to lean in with light.

We can be cold creatures
staking our claim
with breath of blue
into our ever-shortening shores
but quickly warmed and welcomed
when we see beyond the shallow
and dig beneath the depths.

We are not owls
who serve the night
but oceans
brought to life
with the breaking of the blue.

 

This photograph is of St Clair beach, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand and was taken by Nigel and used by his wife Liz for her blog exposing all that is colourful and beautiful Exploring Colour. Recently Liz asked me to give the photograph some thought with regards to a poem and this poem above is what I penned while on route to San Francisco last week. The original link to Liz’s blog post is;

https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/still-standing/

Nigel’s Landscape Architecture blog is;

https://growplan.wordpress.com/

CALIFORNIAN SPARK

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

IMG_7140

Here in parks in Paris, France, I potter
through a past so old and cold
that it cannot be parted, we cannot
easily outrun our own ruins while Cali
beckons me with her rock and roll band;
those make-me-feel-good brothers
and sisters since seduced back
to their former States and somewhere,
in between, the loneliness lingers;
the hazy clouds of craziness I have crossed
and the curt corners I have yet to console
on this journey through time; today,
in the blinding light of a frozen park
in Paris, France and tomorrow beyond
the clouds where Cali is a calling.
In shades of blue, ice cold, I see the breath
collapsing into weighty snowflakes
that makes all movement morose
in this Sunday morning of sunshine
that somehow still shivers skin
on both sides of the ocean, on both sides
of these clouds where I’ve looked at love.

Today, I potter through parts of Paris,
France, that are pressuring, impenetrable
and oh, so pleasurable like cases
of bitter sweetness but tomorrow
I will come to court the hissing
of those Cali lawns that are calling
in a Spring called Palm, waiting
to ignite a spark from a snowflake.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

I am off to Palm Springs tomorrow so see you all in a week

FALLING THROUGH SPACE

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

 

Ghost clouds gather

over an ice-cold ocean of marble

we cannot break through.

Maybe there is something deeper

within its depths

that we have missed.

 

All breath is naked.

Movement has been muffed.

The air rigid.

Nothing left to cover up.

 

I blush under your absence

or do I blush

before the cold truth;

this is it, we are alone,

we will end one day.

All we have failed to learn

will fall through space

like stars,

burnt out

before they’d even begun.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

BEFORE THE SONG

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Cold clouds burrow beneath the forest,
the spirits have taken cover,
peace and fruit now buried
beneath a bed of lichen,
summer’s rose too ruined to redeem,
her last scent is now a dream.
Love has been lost here too
on a wind that wandered
from wondrous to winsome
beneath a bed of burlap
that burrowed the bone
down to brittle.
Neither body no longer a bucolic bounty
in this season of saturation,
blue is in bloom though not
as calming sky or comforting wave
but icicles bending branches
into less fertile fields. Less.
Not more. No more.
The fall has been frozen.
Cold clouds burrow,
clouds burrow into the cold
beneath the forest bed,
beneath the bodies
digging in these frozen fields
for the sound of the cycle being sung
in a distant spring not yet sprung.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A PANICKED PULL

/ deuxiemepeau / 12 Comments

—

Beat. Break. Beat. Break.

—

Is there a monitor of these movements

                that shift beneath the skin? A rummaging

within the ribs. I hear a broken bird

                beating against the bars of its cage,

broken.

–

All organs and organisms need oxygen and optimism.

—

Panic. Breathe. Panic. Breathe.

—

I shift within skin whose movements

                I cannot monitor. I have mounded

matters into metal I cannot master. Alchemist

                is not altruist. I can be an organ

of oxygen

–

but cannot count on optimism.

–

Breathe and so fill my lungs, air entering,

                blood flowing through arteries, the rising

and falling, the beating and beating

                and for every beat; a break, for each breath of air;

a drowning.

–

A bird was not born to fly under water.

—

Beat. Break. Beat. Break.

—

Medical is not the same as mental but mental

is now being measured out by medicinal.

—

Run. Rest. Run. Rest.

—

Running from the nest, the rest, the rest of me,

                    the mess that has been left in place

of all the rest that has left.

–

What has been left?

–

I stop in the park and watch the rest, watch a bird

                break from perch, bold and brave, unfold

against the force, feathers in flight, feathers in fight,

                winded in the chest. Pushed back. Pushing forward.

Pushed back.

—

Beat. Back. Beat. Back.

—

I cannot handle heights, I have felt too much

                the fall, my feathers are for fancy now.

I am done with flying. I am digging, deep

                within the ground, deep within the body.

–

I will pull out every root

till I pluck the panic

and catch a breath again that I can breathe.

—

Pull. Panic. Pull. Harder.

—

All words and photographs 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 we present and how you perceive.
To what we fear and what we are willing to show.

I glisten,
to distraction attention
from all that doesn’t sparkle.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE ANNUAL OFFERING OF ATTENDANCE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

We sit in rows, in reverie, with reverence,
neighbour to defender and defiant,
some say the saved above and the rest below,
new coat and scarf on the shoulders of one,
the timings of the turkey and its trimmings
in the head of another, already ticking,
already thinking of some other wonder
needing worship while the choir continue
to carol higher than some notes should be heard,
not all those singing have a sense of themselves,
minds are off on soufflés instead of solos
and outside the bandstand plays an empty tune.
We speak in tongues, thoughts we were taught,
lessons that were learnt; that protection from all anxiety
and yet pills rattle in my pocket, no talk of the patterns
we discovered, no pause to the path we paved
beyond this parish and its prejudices,
its own pockets filled with coins that don’t jingle,
my tongue now tickles other languages,
in other fields I felt I had to find freedom in;
that kingdom, that power and that glory,
my tongue still tackles, in these times, the old ways,
the old words since thought to be too confusing,
service is now simplified to satisfy this new society
of social-media mongers in the spotlight
of the internet and the camera rolls for those
who could no longer find a foothold in their home
and across the empty bandstand a wall recalls
the names of those who fought the fight
one Easter, once remembered, now forgotten,
when we wanted to be a Republic, a Nation,
a Brotherhood, an allegiance and not just a flock
of flag waving celebrities. We sit in rows at the beck
and call of the rising and the falling, being forced
backwards into an innocence we believed
was beyond question when Adam gave Eve
a rib and a virgin gave birth to a baby
they hung on a cross. Some are still nailed
to the truth of the church as much as one man
was nailed to the wood he once carved,
one sacrificed for the sin of us all and the others
sacrificed to be sinners ever after. We sit in rows
where the wafers choke us on the truth
while the bandstand’s tune has been forsaken
and no closeted confession to a priest still closeted
into conformity will ever bring the names of the souls
on the Easter wall back to life on this Christmas Eve.
And the priest leaves us with a joke
and I wonder if he can see the irony behind the idolatry.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BROKEN BUT NOT BITTER

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

I beat back the blues
by licking fingers
on this honeyed language
we spread over the dawn
of each dark day.
We can be drunk on symphonies
of sentences
that slip shadows into sleep,
I whisper of rain
and you twist another truth
through its tendrils
to tell of something drier,
warmer, more lasting
than a droplet of despair
dissolving in the air.
We can be drunk on the words
we sip slowly in the storms,
we take torrent thoughts
of thunderous terror
and turn them
into diaphanous diamonds;
everything is an experiment,
a reaction,
a chemical coming to terms
with its contemporary,
a dictionary is a sentence
awaiting a structure,
the moon is a callous clump of coal
until your eyes spark it
with suggestions of significance.
So much can be broken
and the rest appear so bitter
but I come willingly
to lick the dark chocolate
of these words
and see what structures we can build
together between all this
broken bitterness.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

BLINDING LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Blanket light,

blinding

in the back seat,

not all light is light,

the sun can burn through its beauty,

the mind can tear through its thoughts

as wheels will themselves

across these bridges,

feet too far from the ground

to feel its gravity,

we build our own graves

along these roadside reveries.

Blanket light,

burning

in the back seat,

leather licks skin,

we cannot wash away the dust,

we cannot break away

from that grey light

burning bright behind the sunlight,

we are desert bound or ocean open;

we either dry up or seek salvation

in the comfort the current creates.

Blanket light,

a burning blindness breaking

through the open window

on this back-seat taxi-taker.

Destination is not always the desire

when running from reason.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BLUE MOON

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

The moon was a blue whisper
and beauty a delirious ache
even the breath could not crush,
a sorrow born in summer
under a sky of shadows.

I picture you;
petrified over a pool of pulsing pain.

I run,
often to leave
before being left.
Like once I was left?
And the moon was a whisper in blue.

I run,
to get away quicker
this time.
Than that time?
When beauty was a delirious ache.

I outrun
not this skin,
not this being I have become
of years and tears and tensions,
but a feeling
that has festered
since I was fostered.
And somewhere still is a sky of shadows.

I leave
through the open door,
somehow left ajar
as if someone
might one day
return through it.
To release the breath that was crushed.

As if someone
might one day remember
what they had left behind
when summer gave birth
to sorrow for a season,
for some still unknown reason.

But what if,
in all that time,
in all that motion,
I have run
too far to be found?
And you remain
in that pulsing pool of pain.

I run
with little thought
to where I am going
but with every effort
to hide what I am too frightened
to find.

The moon was a blue whisper
and beauty a delirious ache
even the breath could not crush.
A sorrow born in summer
under a sky of shadows.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly