A TRILUNE; THREE MOONS

14/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 15 Comments

This poem is in response to Jane Dougherty’s Trilune challenge from http://www.janedougherty.wordpress.com. So check out her beautiful blog and join in…

A trilune is a poem of three stanzas of three lines of 3×3 syllables each (that’s 9 in case you were wondering), circling a central theme. The rhyme is on the third line of each stanza so you get a pattern of abc dec fgc.

Here’s my attempt:

One man promised to catch her the moon
to pull it down from the sky at night
but she feared that the stars would then die.

One man told her he’d buy her the moon
that money was never a problem
but she found out that this was a lie.

The last man never spoke of the moon
but held her as if she were the stars
so to him she never said goodbye.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/three-moons-a-trilune

FESTERING FRUIT

14/08/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

Berries blacken in the bowl,
their scent no longer salivating
summer’s sweet seductions,
winter withers in the distance,
while fervent flies are fluttering,
wings flapping to the rotting
arousal of carnality lost
to natures once fair bloom.
Tastes are truly to the barer born.
Bitter berries are black in the bowl,
their flesh no longer fresh but
turned, they are turning
bruised attention to things
with darker tendencies,
igniting interest in insects,
finding themselves delicious
to diptera’s wavering wings
now deciphering detours
to decomposing juices of festering
fruits who’ve waned in worth.
Black berries, once in bloom,
are eager to be devoured
before their time dissolves.

Are we but berries
battling in this bowl of life;
thirsty to be tasted and tried
before we are aged and expired.

If only we could be grapes
that age in barrels and bottles.

All Words and Drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/festering-fruit

Meet and Greet from Dream Big Dream Often

14/08/201614/08/2016 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

This is Danny’s weekend of Meet and Greet, get to know your fellow bloggers, make new friends, find new followers and new fellows to follow…

It’s the Meet and Greet weekend!! Ok so here are the rules: Leave a link to your page or post in the comments of this post. Reblog this post. It helps you, it helps me, it helps everyone! Edit your reblog post and add tags. Feel free to leave your link multiple times! It is […]

via Meet and Greet: 8/13/16 — DREAM BIG DREAM OFTEN

FEATHERS IN FLIGHT

13/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

We are but fickle fellows,
like feathers that blow
at the beckoning of the breeze
and know not where we land.
We are the folly of fluttering fancies;
a collection of coincidental connections
that we cannot create, keep or control.
I found you once in a far flung field
and fought to find the freedom
to forge in you forever but wicked winds
wound my weakness in greater gales
and I lost my grounding in that garden,
never mine, never thine, never ours,
the petals perishing on prized plateaus
where passion never played to pleasure.
We are fellows of fluttering feathers,
too feeble to fight the forces
that blow us briefly onto bodies bare
and bring us back from that beauty
for fear we might one day
find the force to forge our own flight.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TOPPLING TOWERS

11/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

And so
he built
himself
a tower,
a tall
terrific
tower
on the
tip of a
tumulus
far from
touch and
tenderness,
a non tactile
tower that
nobody
could
topple
as he’d
already
been tripped up
time and time before.
And one day he climbed
to the top of his tower on the tip
of that tumulus far from touch and tenderness
and, true as time can tell, he toppled on the tip of it,

tail over tit, and tripped right over it
with not a single soul to intervene and so thwart his tumble.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

CRASH

09/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Did you wipe your feet
upon my head
before you walked
over me?

Allow me to bend first, at least.

Was I so accustomed
to your disregard
that I could not
feel you

tearing through me,
leaning on me,
raiding me,
raping me?

Did you wipe your sweat
across my brow
to save yourself
time?

Let me fetch you a towel first, my lord.

Was I so unaware
of your self serving scent
that I put myself
forward

in offering,
in sacrifice,
to serve and satisfy?

Was I the fool
you perceived me to be
while you pillaged me
of dignity?

I saw a light
in the beginning
in the distance
and again
at the end

I thought it
to be salvation
but it turned out
to be your reflection
in the mirror

I was standing
behind you
but, as always,
you didn’t see me

you couldn’t see
beyond yourself
and that self-centredness
that took us over

like the sharp glare
from the car light
when it’s too late

and Crash…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

DAYS IN THE DAM

07/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

It’s funny
how you slip in
along the side lines
on days that don’t deliver
that don’t distract.

It’s strange
how you pull me
from the pit falls
on days when I feel undone
when I feel attacked.

It’s alarming
how you linger
in the background.

It’s odd
how you hold me
despite the distance
even though
I thought us done.

It’s funny
how you trickle by
when bikes blow past
and windmills bellow.
Its funny how a land
can be as addictive
as a hand to hold
a tie to bind
and a heart to heal.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

All Photography taken in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

WORDS LIKE THE WALRUS

06/08/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

What are words
when they don’t just
wander in weary

What are words
when not wild waffle
but wonders
weaved with wisdom
and written with worth

Words
are like water
washing over the reader
in warm waves

Words
are like wings
raising the receiver
from worrying days

Words
are the world

Words
can be whispers
that wake you

Words
can be ripples
that shake you

Words
are like the welcome wind
on a warm weekend

Words
can be the witness
to all that must walk to its end

Words
can be weapons
in a world waged on war,
weak and enslaved

Words
can be wonderful,
like a walrus
rising over the waves

Words are the world.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken on the Champ de Mars by the Wall of Peace, Paris

LA MERE ET MOI

04/08/201616/03/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

Last weekend my mother and her two sisters, the identical triplets of Lusk, Co Dublin, the women who shaped my life, came to visit me in Paris for my mums birthday. Mum has been celebrating her birthday abroad with me since I first moved to Paris in 1997, and then to London and then to Amsterdam and now back to Paris again. Some things, it seems, never change. The below poem I wrote 18 years ago after mums first visit…

Mum and I on my street 22 July 2016

The Sisters

Birthday celebrations at La Rotunde, Montparnasse, Paris

Aspirational house hunting by Parc Montsouris

Wishful thinking

Blondes in the Parc

Fairytales

I am sure it was Spring but in the scattered photos
by my slippered feet the weather recalls it winter.
Your first foray into the new world I had run to,
forsaking the familiar for the unknown,
discarding childish ways for other adult desires.

Your glistening eyes lit up as I showed you
the treasures I had found, enlightened eyes that hid
so well the tears reeked down since my departure.
Eyes that frowned upon my green sofa bed
resting but a foot from the floor, that laughed
at the view from my first window; just another window
perched but a hands throw away and loving eyes
that saw through mine and smiled; relieved,
relaxed and enthralled. And quickly you began
to revel amid it all; my new transitory family
who took you to their hearts, tempted you with cocktails,
boat rides and frolics within a Spanish tavern
in the Frenchest of all cities where you slowly found
my raison d’être and the joie that had become part
of ma vie became, as always, a part of yours.
My adventure you, now, a witness to, a part of
and integral to. You had been no more deserted
by me than I by you and so geography became now
no more than a different view and no longer
a means of separation. You floated through the city,
your feet feeling nothing but comfort
even as I dragged you up the steps of Montmartre,
hiding from you the lift behind the trees.
With the wind freezing our faces and tears
streaming from our eyes, we huddled together
in queues filled with adolescent vacationers
and mounted fair Tour Eiffel. Through the night’s
falling darkness the city lit up below us
and I traced for you the paths I had taken.

You left amid only tears of joy, my life no longer
to you an empty canvas a world away, but a painting
being filled up and coloured in, in tri-colour, technicolour,
Damien colour. We painted away the days and nights
ourselves, Mother and son, as inseparable as Mona
from Lisa or the Moulin from the Rouge.

It may have looked like winter but we knew
that behind the wind lay a spring in bloom
for both of us. We had earned our time in the sun
and we would wear its rays like medals of honour.