Poetry

REMEMBERING FRIDAY NOVEMBER 13th, 2015. NOUS SOMMES PARIS.

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In the supermarket
on Saturday
in the 14th, 
on the 14th,
in numb November,
in Paris, their Paris,
our Paris, my Paris,
people push grief 
in comfortless trolleys 
down shadowed aisles 
of silence, strangers
claiming their spaces
in solidarity, in queues 
of slow moving sorrow,
seeing shadow in places 
where once there was light, 
terror in crowds 
where once there was music,
death in their streets
where once there was life.
In a supermarket
in the 14th,
on the 14th,
as the numbers rise
on a Saturday morning,
there is nothing available 
on a single shelf
to fill the void
of what we lost
in the night.

It’s not the whole world 
It’s not the end of the world
but it’s far too far from a perfect world.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Published in Nous Sommes Paris, a Poetry book commemorating the November 13th, 2015 Paris attacks, by Eyewear Publishing

FALLEN FROM FABLE, day 13 of A Month with Yeats

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It’s day 13 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats and today’s inspiring quote is from ‘The Hosting of the Sidhe’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘Away, come away: empty your heart of its mortal dream.’

My poem today is called: FALLEN FROM FABLE

 

When this mortal coil uncurls

is it a fall into a feathered freedom

we fly, away from the cry and the critic

of this shell of an earth, this hell

on earth, do we really need to reiterate

the ferocious fable of that inferno below?

It’s here, burning through the seeds

we failed to sew and we are both

the basis of its bloodbath and

the ashes of its aftermath.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/a-month-with-yeats-day-thirteen/

TOPPLING HIS TOWER, day 12 of A Month with Yeats

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It’s day 12 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats where you are asked to be inspired and pen a poem based on a WB Yeats quote. Today’s quote from the poetry of W.B. Yeats is taken from ‘The Rose of the World’. ‘He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet.’

Jane’s blog so you can follow read or join in is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/12/29181/

My poem today is called TOPPLING HIS TOWER

What can I lay by the feet of such beauty?
What can I offer my love on this land?
A garden of roses, omitting the thorns
with this golden ring I hold in my hand.

But a garden of roses, omitting the thorns
is barely enough to garland your grace,
so I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric,
a velvet so sweet to mirror your face.

So I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric,
a cloth of brocade to comfort your cares,
a daylight distraction to hold your attention
from rebels and riots that are not our affairs.

A daylight distraction to hold your attention
to paintings and poems that hang by our side
in a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries
of a world lost to power and drunk on its pride.

In a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries
and a lark then from the meadow I’ll borrow
so she’ll sing of the stars and the moon that is ours
as we’ll lay in arms and let love sooth the sorrow.

But restless was her soul on the call from outside,
her beauty diminished by the sounds of their cries
and one day he lost her where his paved path divided
and he cut down her roses with tears in his eyes.

I gave her the finest, the fairest and fancy,
I gave her the beating heart of this man,
but she was bound to the call of the lost and the lonely
which now I have become and therein I see her plan.

All word and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SURVIVAL OF THE WITLESS, day 11 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

It’s day 11 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats. Today’s quote is from ‘The Harp of Aengus’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds and Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,’

Jane’s blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/a-month-with-yeats-day-eleven/

This morning I was watching Planet Earth, and so followed the poem.

My poem today is called: SURVIVAL OF THE WITLESS

 

And swept is the land

over the Okavango,

water washing once more

over earth that was once arid,

Impala in movement;

hind legs on the hop

dogs on their tales

in packs panting

along their ranks

as the hunt for hunger

breaks through bushes

newly beating, boughs

bending over fresh bones

licked bare after yesterday’s scare,

nature’s race is a rough one

from the sun’s rise

till she is toppled

by the moon’s eyes,

watching, observing the order

of hurt and hunger;

who is the bravest,

who can last the longest,

who can seek out the scent

of something stirring

on the curling wind of the Kalahari,

who can catch the perfume

of prey prancing, dancing

through the ignorance

of what lies in wait

on the sacred sands

once devastated, now saturated.

And swept is the land

as time turns to toil

over ancient soil,

its reckless routine returning

like the water returns, like the

rivers refill, like the impala prance

and the dogs devour their dance.

And so swept is the land

and turned is time

but the moon’s eye

will tell in turn

of the beasts, like you and I,

who walked on two paws

and shot each other

with pistols in the other,

survival of the fittest

now lost in the hands of the witless.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE MONSTER IN THE MAN, day 10 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

It’s day 10 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote is as follows: ‘And he saw how the reeds grew dark at the coming of the night tide’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/a-month-with-yeats-day-ten/

My poem today is called: THE MONSTER IN THE MAN

 

And was he not tied

and turned on the tide,

was there not light

and dark by his side,

though the morning’s sun

rose as his bride

it was the moon o’er his hand

at night that died.

And was he not washed

and worn on the waves,

was he not crushed

like the sea cuts the caves,

in the morning did he count up

the slaughter, the saves,

was he ashamed of how many

he’d laid in their graves.

And was he not just a reed

washed over sand,

was he not just a vessel

on the ocean unmanned,

controlled in the day;

all blood was banned

but unbound in the night

the beast took his hand.

And was he not just a man

who’d lost his sight?

Is there passion for the monster

lost in the night?

But the hunger he was bound

to before the light

was too much in the darkness

to put up a fight.

The best of a man,

a wolf of a beast

but never the two

could ever find peace,

Helios held the famine,

Selene supplied the feast

but not a single God

could offer a release.

A savage surrender

into the sea was swept,

the hair of the hound,

the soul that now wept,

a man and the monster

drowned in the depth

and in their beds, his children,

safely then slept.

And was he not tied

and turned on the tides

like the rise and fall

of a twist that divides

as the nature of man

and monster collides

but when the darkness descends,

the light it subsides.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US, day 9 of A Month with Yeats

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It’s day 9 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote to inspire something new is: ‘Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and Usna’s children died.’ W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US

 

We are the tales

our children will tell of us,

our mystery and musings

bound to a cord we hope

was not cut too deep,

those not bound to bare

will be buried in the hearts

of those who loved them

more than in the earth

that will eat them,

the worms that will weave

trails through their tissue

now taunt, their flesh

now fallen to fodder.

We can be glorious

if they can recall our goodness,

or a rouser of war if they grew

weary of our tales before

time grew tired of us. We make

what we can out of time, but our

legend is what time will make out of us.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE, day 8 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

For Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge, today’s quote is taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem is called: WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE

 

Was it not all an ocean once

before bodies forged out land

for feet to fondle, to flatten?

Was it not all trickling tide once

before hands hunted harbors

for bellies to fill, to fatten?

Was it not all blue waters once

before creatures courted color

to devaluate, to distinguish?

Was it not just wind and wave

before man thought to wonder

what on earth he could extinguish?

What will ripple on the waterfront

when the tides turn on time

and man is pulled asunder?

What will be the second coming

when man is taken down for all

his pillage and all his plunder?

When rivers rise all red and roar

to wash away the tarnished trace

of the soiled sand we ravaged,

will it carry on it’s current

the power to plant a second seed

on the land our deeds have damaged?

Time turns on every twist,

tides rise after every fall

but we can never get back to before.

Innocence, once lost,

is quickly forgotten.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-there-was-but-a-wave

THROUGH THE SANDS, Day 7 of A Month With Yeats

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Day 7 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s inspirational quote from WB is: ‘…stars, grown old in dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody…’

To join in the creativity or just to discover Jane’s gentle genius, her blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THROUGH THE SANDS

 

And when they danced

she would hold him, her

perfume by his face, his

hands as her strength

as they waltzed through

their current as the tides

swept the shore, through

love and labor, to the first born,

still born, through the twins

who stopped the tears

and the girls who tied

the bows as the sands slipped

through time and the pace

became a quick step, through

the hands that held and those

hips that swayed through

the melody they were making

as they danced through

waves of washing houses

into homes, children into

strangers; rarely calling

and barely remembering

but on they danced as red

locks swept into silver strands,

as full head turned to bald head

on an older head as they turned

to the music now made

in the memory, till she left him,

finally, one morning in may,

as he rose to the sunlight but

she had lost to the moonlight

and so he built her an alter

of sea shells and sentiments

and now he turns, alone, across

the sands still slipping,

as the stars plot a path for him

to reach her in eternity.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHILE YOU WERE DREAMING, day 6 of A Month with Yeats.

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Day 6 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and the prompt is as follows: ‘Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My Poem today is called While You Were Dreaming

 

And as you dove through distant dreams

just beside me, you left to my center,

I woke to the night sky splitting above me,

the stars were burning, bleeding through

the darkness as the heavens opened,

their gates no longer golden as the

rooks took flight, soaring into my fright

here in this cold night as you tossed

through thoughts and I watched mine

beating, beaten with feathers on fire, 

the disparate darkness drawing delight 

in my downfall, in my blindness and you

turned in sweeping motions, your back 

to me as I should have done, as I could not

and I wondered where you had wandered

as I was culled into consciousness, frozen

by the flames and shivering, were you

moving through memories we made 

or making room for more to come 

in other beds, in other arms, and then

befell the bodies, bound, in chains locked,

in flames crying, cursing, trying to pull

apart bonds that should have broken, 

and you turned again and your arm 

came over my chest and the vision 

was smashed in contact, reverie 

retreating but the burning continued…

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SUNKEN SHIPS AT SEA, day 5 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Day 5 of Jane Dougherty’s poetry challenge A Month with Yeats. Today’s quote is from The Wanderings of Oisin: Book One: “and like a sunset were her lips, a stormy sunset on doomed ships; a citron colour gloomed in her hair,” W. B. Yeats.

Below is the link to Jane’s blog: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/a-month-with-yeats-day-five/

My poem is called: SUNKEN SHIPS AT SUNSET

 

 

And down fell the sun

and drowned within the sea

and rough raged the wreckage

as the sailors tried to flee.

 

And down fell the sun

as a storm claimed the skies

and water stole the rafters

and silence crushed the cries.

 

And down fell the sun

as the sirens swam to shore

and laid down the bodies

of the lives that were no more.

 

And down fell the sun

and a sorrow filled the air

as the sirens sang their song

combing cords through golden hair.

 

And down fell the sun

as their tears flowed like waves

and they kissed the fallen sailors

on the sand, now their graves.

 

And down fell the sun

as the sirens said goodbye

to the men mortal men who loved them;

the sea’s sad sirens who cannot die.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly