Poetry

WHITE NIGHT, day 4 of A Month with Yeats

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Day 4 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and in a day behind but onwards we roll. The quote comes from To some I have talked with by the Fire “…till the morning break and the white hush end all but the loud beat of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.” W.B. Yeats

The link to Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/a-month-with-yeats-day-four/

My poem is called White Night

 

We are vessels

either being filled

or being emptied,

portraying pretty

or rotting as rebels.

 

We are angels

dancing in the darkness

of our own worth,

feet of feeble footing,

flapping wings

within our cages.

 

We are flowers

never quite knowing

our beauty,

pruning the potential

out of others,

never the full bloom

unfolding,

fighting the true nature

that is ours.

 

We are winged warriors

flying through the fog

of our fate,

not knowing

that decision and destiny

are like oil and water,

like light and dark,

like love and hate,

like hush and horror,

like a beginning

and an end,

beating breasts

to be fighters

instead of followers.

 

We can be angels

but choose too often

to be anger.

 

We live in dark days

and only dream through

the white night.

 

All words and photographs by damien B. Donnelly

SALMON DANCERS, day 3 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

Jane Dougherty’s 3rd poetry challenge based on a quote from WB Yeats is as follows: “With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,”—W.B. Yeats. Follow Jane and her inspiring poetry at her blog, link below, where you can also see a photograph from Paul Militaru which influenced today’s poem: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is entitled SALMON DANCERS

 

And so swim the salmon, against

the rising stream, foam flushing

against fins as falcons fly overhead

in the fight for freedom, destiny

is not a dance that can long

be distracted, shiny specks of silver

dancing, darting, borne to beat back,

to wage against the rushing waters

as they make their way west. And so

swim the salmon, along the corroded

current of Connacht, that Atlantic

sojourn, that shore still swaying

in the shadow of those ancient songs

when souls set off in search of security

overseas, burdened boats battened

down with the beaten and the broken,

culled like cattle in the rain, boats

with bodhrans and fiddlers, singing

and dying through their dreams

of a new world, already mourning

the old lands, the homelands

they’d been swept from, kept from.

And so swim the salmon

as the storms rage, as they battle

onwards, salmon dancers, skating

on the waters, leaving trickles like stones

once tossed by hands now lost, tracks

to follow for others who’ll follow,

as others have followed, as others

who’ve fallen, their faces now faded.

And so swim the shining salmon,

off into the world with the sound

of home in every stroke.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Picture from the internet of the Salmon of Knowledge.

THE BEAT OF THE BAT, day 2 of A Month with Yeats

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For Jane Dougherty’s Yeats poetry challenge today’s quote is: “… the dark folk who live in souls of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;” —W.B. Yeats

To read Jane’s WB inspired gems or to join the other poets in this adventure check out her site at: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is called THE BEAT OF THE BAT

 

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 bat.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BIRTH, SO STILL. Day 1 of A month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 16 Comments

 

Jane Dougherty is not doing NaNoWriMo, let’s be clear about that. But she is busy doing something else equally inspiring- spending a month in the company of W.B. Yeats and asking us to join her- each day this month Jane will pick a line from a Yeats poem and write a new poem inspired by it and wants us to join in too! Below is the link, not only to this adventure but also to her wealth of poetry and short stories and links to her own novels- there are even wormholes! https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/november-yeats-challenge-day-one/

Today’s quote is: “they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, with heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:” —W. B. Yeats

My poem is entitled: Birth, so still

 

And the babies were born, broken,

while the seasons still turned, maiden

mothers moved from baring to being left

barren as cowering cloaks cut through

cords, bitter brides in black, climbing

on their crosses, splitting the sin

from the so-called sinner, discarding

the truth with the afterbirth, no grace

for the births so still, no remorse

for the innocence expunged, the girl

grown woman too soon. ‘Fly north

little ones,’ the mourning whispered,

‘take comfort in the bright star,

the North Star, freedom lies beyond

the blackened wings these withered

women wear, they have not lost

to love, they have not shivered

in the absence of that first cry.

The eagle is on the rise in the night

sky and on his feathers you will soar.’

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Picture from the Net.

Audi version available on Soundcloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/birth-so-still

FOLD

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And further we fold

deeper into flesh,

finding favour with all

that is now familiar,

with all that has chosen to linger.

 

And further we fold

into commitments

now concerned with connections;

I will fight dragons for you, I said

and you laughed once

but now you listen

for the flapping in the wind

so wonders can be witnessed.

 

And further we fold,

we are onions in opposite,

building up the layers of truth,

of trust and those thrusts

still trembling, we do not peal

but prop potential up

against promise.

 

And further we fold,

finally, into the cocoon

we are the creators of,

your head in the crest

of my comfort, my arm

the holder of your hope.

 

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

ILLUSIONS 

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Gardens grow,

trees get taller,

clouds gather.
I see you

in the movement,

in the air that rushes past time turning,

in the scent of sweetened summer

now swept into corners now shaded.
Clouds gather,

trees get taller,

gardens grow smaller.
Eden is an illusion lost.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BEAT 

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We are all of us bats

beating against the darkness
happy 
to be closer to the heavens 

than the dungeons
hardly hanging on 

to tissue taunt
beaten down 

but not broken.
We are bats 

beating on
with a hope held out 

for that white night.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly 

BREAK OF LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

I choose the path;

this winding way

though the midway,

battling though the brambles and briars,

I have stains on my soul,

I have splinters in the tissue of my beating breast,

beating, breaking, panting,

I have moments

when my feet no longer feel their footing,

when falling is all I can handle,

I choose this path;

this way of winding words,

stringing sentences into steps

that carry me to places

I never knew existed,

I have ink stains on my insides,

I have empty areas that have been erased,

their only trace now a vacuum

where vanity once ventured,

I choose this path;

this winding way

of silent shadow

and am grateful

for the break of light.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly