Poetry

SOMETHING MORE

/ deuxiemepeau / 12 Comments

screen-shot-2017-02-26-at-22-06-16

If I asked you
would you sever the skin
from your body
            layer by layer
and blanket me
in your living flesh?

Maybe the nights would feel warmer.

If I asked you
would you bleed the blood
from your body
            value from veins
and feed me
with the liquor that lives in you?

Maybe the pain would taste different.

If I asked you
would you ease your eyes
from your body
            sight from sockets
so I that maybe
I could understand your vision?

Maybe the emptiness would look like less

and less
            endless
the end of less and less.

I never asked you
but you fucked me over
anyway

to pleasure your flesh
to boil your blood
to darken your eyes

I never asked you!

Maybe
I should have asked
            for something more!

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/something-more

 

PATTERNS

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

screen-shot-2017-02-19-at-22-19-48

Patterns
pick themselves together
on the ground
through the pitter patter
of rushing feet, wet feet,
feet wishing themselves
to be warm
as the rain
rings winter wet,
wetter,
not better
for shoppers
and strollers
and businessmen
with briefcases
briefly blowing smoke
up their own asses
while waiters
wait
to be commanded,
wait for orders
from others
while watching the rain
washing down windows,
wondering
when they can become
a part of other patterns
assembling into something
on the ground
just out of reach
just under foot,
under feet,
pitter patter,
patterns in puddles
patterns that have matter…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

IN THE SHADE

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

There was a heart
like a plant
in a garden
watered
tended
in a garden
like a plant
growing
a heart
beating
under sunlight
and sometimes shade
a gentle shade.

A heart
nurtured
in a garden
a quiet garden
with a fence
a pretty picket fence
around a house
around a home
and that garden
tending to the heart
planted
like a flower
beating
under sun
and sometimes shade
the gentle shade.
A heart
blooming
in the garden
like a flower
till someone picked it

pulled down the fence
and picked it

still growing
still beating

and then dropped it
on the sidewalk
in the shadows
when they saw
across the street
something different
something else
something new.

There was once a heart
growing in a garden
but cut
like a flower
and now
no water
no waiting
no nurturing
no tending
can bring it back to life.

A heart once
growing in a garden

now only a hole
that never seems to fill

untended in the shade…

 

All Words and Paintings by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/in-the-shade

THE GREEN BELT

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Like bodies for burial, on belts
conveying commodities
to congested communities,
shrubs are shrouded
in sheets of plastic
that will not perish,
in weather
that can now only wither,
along concrete
too painful to penetrate,

as brick and beast
tower over twig and tree.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FEATHERS IN FLIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Falling
from new lows
cawing and flapping
through clouds of chaos
through crowds clambering
at connections now carelessly closed

Doves
let fly the doves
open the columbarium
souls have the right to flee
the broken have the right to be free

from this folly

Flapping
with frail feathers
the eagle’s eating itself
and the hawk grown hungry
see it feeding on the fragility

on the fears of the feeble

Doves
let fly the doves
free from the floods
from the lands they have lost
safe from saviours now savage
is there no refuge from the ravages

no end to the deluge?

Picasso
has departed
and La Colombe
has been pinned down
on postered walls for too long

who’ll pluck
the olive branch
from the promise
of paradise if it reappears?

Doves
let the doves fly
return them to the gods
were we ever ready to receive
ever worthy to watch wings unfold

Didn’t we know…

we were the tears
we were the flood
and the onlookers too
of the drowning dozens,
hundreds, thousands, millions,
billions, religions, refugees, righteous

all falling
on foreign soils
on broken wings
now turned away!

Now voted away!

These
are not
the days
of the righteous
for peace has fallen
and the doves departed

The doves…

all hail the hawk
shitting on humanity

Show me we are worth more?

img_6530

All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/feathers-in-flight

 

DEEPLY ROOTED

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

In a patch of the park
bench and bark are bound
like hands that once held hearts
on seats in summer
when days were only dawning

in times now twisted
into memory like roots
now turning in the turf
beneath bench and bark
in a patch of the park.

In a patch of this earth
shadows slip over soil
and all that once was
whispers on the breeze…

Break the benches
where we once rested,
cut down the trees
where we once sheltered

but roots,

roots are like hearts held

their impressions last longer
than benches and barks
in patches on parks.

All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/deeply-rooted

#WeRemember

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

#WeRemember 

Hashtag your photo with the words #We Remember to join the global event and show how we will never forget. 27th January, Holocaust Memorial Day. 

The loss did not start in the gas chambers; it started with words of hate.

PARTICLES

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Particles of what once was
whisper on the wind
Hush and listen!
See it dance in the light
faint though familiar
fragile but fading

As if to say goodbye
particles of what once was
caress my cheek
stop and feel it
as they catch the wind
and like wings take flight
and darker falls the night

To shine on other sands
to rain down on other skins
hear it falling
while on mine, I see lines,
indelible lines etched over time
the precious particles of what once was…

All Words and Photographs by Dami en B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

BALLOON

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Balloon, see the balloon, see thoughts float through space, meander through the mind; wild thoughts, drifting thoughts, blue thoughts, white thoughts, read thoughts, thoughts arriving unannounced, uninvited, unaware of the current climate, thoughts that rise like balloons on silent streets, on sleepy Sundays in the suburbs, to the south of her centre, where it’s slow to shock and surprise, though if no one ever sees it, was it ever really there? Thoughts float through time, suggestions, signs from unconscious minds, disruptive thoughts, distracting thoughts; I held his hand in a taxi while thinking of another and then came back but he was gone or I had changed or the memory was never a true account of the reality, maybe he’d held mine. Thoughts trickle as I float through strange streets, mounting Montsouris and its misplaced meridian on a Sunday, drawing conclusions of held hands next to monuments out of line, drawing on inspiration wherever necessary, wherever noticed; see the balloon! Thoughts float like balloons, like bodies, like taxis, never knowing if it’s a considered curve or just a current we’re caught in and if it cannot be captured, can it ever be caressed? If I leave will I be remembered, if I run will I be missed, if I come back, could it all have been a dream before? They thought this was the centre once, drew lines to draw them back to where positions could be measured, redrew them later when location fell from their favour. Thoughts float like balloons though the air, oxidising, fuelling, thinking, thoughts float, fragile and free, some never to be caught, some never to be caressed. Thoughts fade; even the marker on this monument has been ground down, thoughts float; balloons blow and then burst, roads lead out and to reverse is not to replay. Capture me, it, them, all, everything before I, we, it, all fade, before I, we, it, all burst. Balloon, see the balloon, see the being, see the beginning, see the beginning of something bright, even on silent streets, in the sleepy suburbs, on Sundays, south of all that seemed, once upon a time, to be central, see it all, where simple things can shine. See it all now, here, on front, before it bursts.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly