Poetry

WHO WE ARE

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I came out;
a silent scream
to summon a voice,

screaming,
a hunger
wanting to be heard.

I came out;
a kept cry, cold to comfort,

aching,
a cry looking for compassion,

I came out
in a time changing,

I came out
from a boy learning,

I came out
to let go of a secret,

I came out
to let the secret let go of me.

We are more than the fears we forgo.

We are more than the tears we trickle through.

It is not over when we tell you what we are

but when we can be seen for who we are.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN SUMMER FINDS YOU

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Water turns on the tide,
roots find ways through the rubble.
Nature is adaptable.

But the body is bound to the bone,
movement moulded to our muscle
and the shadow cannot de deceived

and yet you itch.

You claw at this fleshed reflection
on front of you
and see in its faults
the fraud of its form.

Nature is nurtured by adaption,
not blood tests
or mind games.
Nature does not wait,
is not answerable to anyone.

Skin softer than before,
you paint yourself into a portrait,
waiting to be a person,

wanting to be seen,

not sneered,
no longer sad.

Shapes shift
in clouds crossing,
in rivers winding,
in the bloom breaking into beauty.

But this skin restricts
and these angles
arch out as obtrusive.

Masculine is the mould
now marked like measles
that no cream can quickly cure.

There is an itch.

I know you want to pull
a finer form from this flesh
that no longer fits to your feelings.

The air too stale
within this shape
for it to be any longer sustainable.

Nature is easily adaptable
but you too will find your way into beauty
before your summer is up.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FRIENDS FOR A SEASON

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They were just girls in a stifling city,
each but a slip of the seasons,
baring a hope for what they might see
and running for different reasons.

Jenny was winter and already withered
and looking for comfort from the cold,
she was journey and distance all rolled into one
and the secrets she stored had never been told.

Mary was springtime and fragile under foot
yet thoughts took root in her head,
she was innocence dressed in a short mini skirt,
a fledgling of faith, a seedling to be fed.

Sarah was stuck in a summer since parted
always looking for what she had lost,
as illusive as tides that trickle through time,
she sunk beneath skin now frozen from the cost.

Together they lived and together they fought
for a season on the old river lane,
but when fall came calling all connection unraveled
and the three girls parted with their bags still full of pain.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TURNING CARDS

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In tarot
I turned over cards
like time turns darker days
into enlightening nights,
fortune found me first
in the Fool’s hold;
a kiss of ignorance
upon freedom’s feet,
a deep dive into depths
I processed no questions for.
In the World
I saw the circle close in to caress,
a formation of balance
at my finger tips,
the elements clear
in corners to comfort,
a sphere of strength;
a celebration of the fine fragility
of my frame, naked
as it found its form
before the scales of Justice,
judgement residing
in my own hands
so long abandoned
by the satisfaction of self serving
while Doubt; the dark knight
in a brighter battle,
cast his concern to the cracked cup
and not the chalice overflowing.
Later, the Lovers
watched the light in its rising,
no longer grounded
by the mountains I had to climb,
no longer fearful
to let the light shine
while a family
stood beyond the bluebirds,
below the rainbow of 10 chalices,
waving me onwards
or calling me back to a home
I had never known;
accept the unexplored
or set a quest to uncloak the confusion.
I turned careful cards
like age turns knowledge
into something more tangible,
more truthful, and I saw myself in the end;
man-child on the back of the bravest of beast,
casting off the shroud of scarlet,
sighing under the glow of the internal Sun
as flowers bloomed over a library
of words waiting to be written.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Tarot reading by Alice.

NOSTALGIA

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Nostalgia
is what we try to believe,

the truth
is what we try to escape.

Curious how comfort
can often be found cowering
in the corner of a cell.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ANCIENT THING

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You can bury only bone,
battered and broken,
with a rose to bounce
upon the cut of the coffin,
but this ancient thing
that sways day into night
will not wither as our flesh
falls from the light.
Into the open earth
we cast our demise
as time turns onwards,
even in a box of stilled eyes.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ATOMS

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You there, yes, you,
checking out your hairdo
with your books begging to the opened
or your totes from Thomas’
cutting across this triskeled campus,
teacher or seeker or refugee looking for a rest
along the rocky road of resistance,
stand still for a moment and see beyond yourself,
your day, your demands, beyond all these fleeting reflections,
stand here, in the stillness of our spinning space
and see Einstein’s apple orbiting all that has now become known as Nobel,
in the almost saturated silence listen out to the whispers
that first became wit and then became wonder,
that gave Walton reasons to ponder.
See multiples of yourselves
in these spheres as singular blocks
building on our ability to be better beings,
to give more meaning to all this matter, here,
in these courtyards of conversations
housing halls now held in high esteem.
Can you see, within these curves of light leaning,
along these lines of longitude cutting through latitudes,
the circles through which we navigate,
the atoms, the Adams, the objects,
the Eves, the masses pushing outwards,
the energy pressing inwards, the people passing on.
Stop, for a moment and release all that you were
and make a place for all that you will become.

The atoms came first and then we bit into the apple.
I wonder if it made us any brighter, lighter?
When you look into these globes, do you see a reflection
of all our energy or is it a projection of what is still to come?

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken from the internet of Apples and Atoms, a sculpture by Eilís O’Connell at Trinity College, Dublin, commemorating Ernest T S Walton (1903-95), physicist and Nobel laureate and the first person in history to artificially split the atom.