Poetry

THE CURRENT OF CREAMY COFFEE

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-08-27 at 22.19.51

I sink beneath your skin
like sea
sweeping over sand,
you, a thousand grains
glistening
while I wash over you
in warm waves,
your salty sweat

sweet

below my current.

I slip between your lips
like cream
coming into coffee,
our senses fired
like frothed fluid
as we pound passion
into fragile
flesh

once fresh,
now feverish,
once timid,

now tasted

once begun,
we can never go back

You are now the sea
and I the sand,
upon your back,

I am now the coffee
and you have taken

to the cream.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

BENEATH THE SKIN

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

I         You         Us
being so much water
and yet the lucky
do not drown
in the very essence
of what they are

I         You         Us
we are all oceans sunk beneath the surface of the skin

I         You         Us
so much water
beneath the skin,
we are movement
cast out
to current curiosity

I         You         Us
all movement
like ripples on the water
and we are water,
and we are as deep
as we dare
to dive

I         You         Us
daring divers
discovering our own
essence in the depths,
the lucky ones rising
like waves,
washing upon the shores of our world

I         You         Us
so capable of watering our waning world.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/beneath-the-skin

 

HANGING ON HAPPY SONGS

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

We hang ourselves whole
by the ropes that we weave
into wishes, veins that vie
like vines by the nooses
we knot around necks,
twisted and tangled
around muscle and tissue
that dries no tears. We
are stained with the tears
the years have taught us
to play with. We try to play
happy songs on hardened hearts
than cannot be healed, cutting
ourselves on cords too costly
to be constant, too broken
to be buoyant.

We hang ourselves whole
thinking hope can fill the hole.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

FORGETTING TO REMEMBER

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

There are words
caught in his throat
that he cannot speak
or swallow,

there are thoughts
once captured
and cradled
now fallen from his mind,

and butterflies flap in the garden.

There are names
once rooted in his heart
now wilting like leaves
at the onset of autumn,

there are places
that once held prestige
that have tumbled from memory
like crumbling ruins.

Butterflies flap in the garden,
and, like all that is fragile,
they will one day fly off on the wind.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/forgetting-to-remember

ACCEPTING UNCERTAINTY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

If this is love
then ask no questions
I cannot answer

so disappointment
cannot distract us
from determination.

Accept the uncertainly
of this rocky road
set out before us

so doubt does not
divine disaster
before it dissolves us.

See today as the future
and tomorrow a bonus

least time tests us
with what has yet to be

and teases us with what
we wasted yesterday.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/accepting-uncertainly

 

IF

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-08-27 at 13.07.58

If
I had wings
the skies would have no limits
if
I had fins
the seas would have no depth
if
I had trust
the clouds could not delude me
if
I had belief
the currents could not drown me

but
I am man
and bound to faults and fears
but
I have eyes
that cannot see through the tears
but
I have feet that tire of walking
but
I have arms that cannot always reach

the things I want to touch
the places I want to see
the person I want to be

and yet
I have a heart

that’s fuelled on hope.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/if

 

THE BURNING WOOD

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

And so man
within his story,
with all his guts
and gluttoned glory,
failed to reach the heavens  
with his flying ships
and roaring weapons,
looking upwards, 
always upwards, 
never sideways,
never backwards,
never wondering 
how he stood
with his feet
in the burning wood,
on this one time fertile Earth
once filled with hope,
once filled with worth.

And the gods
laughed on high
from their positions
around the sky,
from their comets
in the clouds
encircling a world
now laid in shrouds 
and its curious little creatures 
with hungry hands
and augmented features,  
clambering and clawing
over cadavers, though always falling,
trying to catch a glimpse 
of what was lying
in wait on front of them
but missing the destruction
they were leaving
in their disruption.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken from a moving car somewhere near Balmoral, Scotland

AGEING FRUIT IN THE HOT SUN

/ deuxiemepeau / 19 Comments

 

And so my first try at online Magnetic Poetry, at first glance I thought “Well, this is fun,” but I was wrong. A challenge of limitations.

 

 

Beat and blow
and bare away,

let not blood rip beauty black

We watch,
we want,

“I want hot peaches, honey,” you said

“No music for me,

no sun”

 

All Words by Damien B. Donnelly, limitations by Magnetic Poetry.

LIGHT IS TOO LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Light leaks
like water
dripping from the faucet

You called me baby
before you really knew me
and stopped calling
at all, afterwards

Drip…
Drip…
Nothing.

Light lingers
in quite corners
like memories that refuse to flicker,
not acknowledging
that the night
has fallen.

We pour over each other
like liquid
on a perched desert,
sucking sustenance from substance,
leaching life
from any length

Dryer…
Dryer…
Death.

I dived deep down
to the bottom
and found only a drought
drowning on the ocean floor.

Were you the desert
or the drought?

Was I the ocean
or merely drowning?

Bubble…
Bubble…
Nothing.

Light lifts
the illusions
we sleep upon
beneath the darkness,
when everything is possible
and no one ever parts.

i am not one part us,
i am not one part you,
i am not one or the other,
I am the I that was your baby.

Remember?

I was light, you said
in the midst of so much weight
but you remained
light on love
regardless.

Light leaks
like dripping water from a faucet

Drip…
Drip…

onto the broken plates
and half eaten hopes
that cannot be either
washed or erased.

Light
is too light
to lift the stains
from the remains
of what began with the words

I want to drown in your eyes…

Light frequently floods
the flaccid lies we feed ourselves
just so we can get from day to night.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly