ELEMENTS

05/07/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

In the uncertainty
between the darkness
and the dawn
there is the gentle dream
of what might
one day
unfold,
in the wings
of the new born bird,
with feathers still unfurling,
there is the fear
of that first flight
still to be flown,
in the page
that rests before me
there is a story
begging to be told
between the weaving
of words
I’ve yet to find,
in the first kiss
I place on your lips
you may taste
the real truth
of why
one day
I’ll have to
let you go,
in every house
not yet a home
there are walls
newly mounted
waiting for memories
to fill in
the cracks
already forming,
in the taxi
we took together
to somewhere
since forgotten
I held your hand
and thought
of someone else
long departed,
in the woman,
not yet a mother,
breathes the ties
already tethered
to the child
she’s yet to bare,

in the waters
broken with new birth,
in the air
that echoes our secrets,
in the fire
that drives our desires,
on this earth
that we tear through in taxis

there are songs

we’ve never heard
we’ve never known
we’ve not yet rejected

still waiting to be sung.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Tarragona Zoo, over looking Sydney Harbour, Sydney, NSW.

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

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

BOOKS TO READ: Jane Dougherty & Christina Strigas

04/07/201604/07/2016 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

New Reading just arrived:

Today I bought two new books from Amazon:

The first is a new novel from Jane Doughtery, entitled The Pathfinders, Abomination, who you will recognise from http://www.janedougherty.wordpress.com and if you don’t recognise her then go check out her work, go on, move it…

And the second is a poetry book from Christina Strigas entitled Your Ink on my Soul who can be found at http://www.christinastrigas.com so after you’re finished looking at Jane’s site, move directly on to Christina’s and no dilly dallying…

Okay, time for me to read them…

Catch you all later X

THE PRICE OF A STAR

03/07/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

And she sang of hope and harmony
in a borrowed frock on Tuesday nights
in a smokey bar below the Bowery
where the Irish downed their whiskey
while the Italians were always frisky

and they touched her, always, afterwards
her faithful followers fingering flesh
as if to caress the affection
she injected into lyrics, light and loving,
in the bar beyond the Bowery
where she came to entertain
the Irish and the Italians
who joined in the refrain

and they left her, always, afterwards
on Tuesday nights in the smokey light
with hope and harmony already fading
in that bar down below the Bowery
where the laughter never really
managed to linger for long after

and in the silence below the Bowery
as the stars all blew out one by one
she felt betrayed by what they’d taken
by the hope they had mistaken
to be theirs for the taking,
and felt betrayed by herself
by her need to amuse,
to be the muse in the limelight
but then alone in the shadows
that followed, always and forever after,
by that bar below the Bowery
where the light was far too low
to notice that her soul
had left her long ago.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken on the High Line in New York

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-price-of-a-star

THE COURTSHIP OF A QUEEN

02/07/2016 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

I The waiting

And one fine day I will see you there
Where our bench waits by the bend
And the trees will thrill at our tenderness
When my lips find yours to amend

For the distance that’s divided us
And the years that slipped between
When this soldier returns to take your hand
A proven servant fit for queen

II The beginning

Two summers now past she found him there
Perfect prince with pen and prose
Bequeathing his lines to a love unknown
Where the paths bend and courtship grows

While she painted him beds of roses
He sent sonnets to her dreams
The pauper prince and the newly crowned queen
Whose love wrecked rules and rocked regimes

III The Promise

And one fine day I will kiss you there
When the stars return to skies
When the cloaks and daggers have disappeared
As darkness fades and love survives

But your heart I hold by my armour
and your ribbon wraps my chest
while I fight off your foes on foreign shores
till I come home to you to rest

IV The Turning

But today gives way to tomorrow
And no man is made of stone
and wars can be won but love can be lost
When ashes burn from what was bone

V The Ending

And so one fine day she wandered there
To their bench beneath the trees
When the kingdom no longer fought with fire
Although the Queen felt no reprise

And in the wind she heard him whisper
The promise he once had made
But cold is the touch of a dead loves hand
For warmth withers from what has been slayed.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

WILD WANTS

01/07/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

We are wild
We are warriors
We are war

We are wild warriors waging war

We are wild warriors waging war on a world

We are wild warriors waging war on a world weary

We are wild warriors waging war on a world weary of our wants

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ON THE SHEETS

30/06/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

And you
were gone
and we,
and you
and I
were off
and running
in different
directions,
in search of
subsequent
distractions

and you
were gone,
the day
unfolding
and duties
reasoning
chores into
realities
far from
the comfort
of beds
where bodies
were bare,
where tongues
touched thighs,
trembling,

where fingers
found flesh,
feverish,
where lips
licked
the lies
we tell
each other
that time
will last

and you
were gone
and I was
~~empty~~,
had been
emptied,
la petite mort,
unburdened,
lightened
by all that passed
in the passion
and parted
with the dawn
breaking,
with your sweet
sweat still
on my sheets.

All Words and Ink Drawing by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN THE EMPRESS IS REMOVED FROM THE EMPIRE

28/06/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

There is art
on walls,
winding walls,
in rooms
on show
with light,
luscious light,
and climate controls
while she’s sidelined
to the shadows
to weep
for the darkness
that devours her
skin, stuck like tar
and trapped in stone
once tempered
by an artists touch
now off and absent,
now long grown
cold, not being of stone
but breaking bone,
while she weeps
neath polished position
on partitioned pedestal
and waits
in the shadow
of his name
long forgotten from rooms
alight with art
on walls,
the art
of other men,
maybe more remembered

like lands,
once considered,
now grown careless
in their unions
next to nations
who have not
nurtured the need
to be noticed
for notions
long ago
set in stone.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio Version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-the-empress-is-removed

BLUES AT THE BOTTOM

27/06/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Even in paradise,
on paved paths long pillaged,
the palms are no longer placid
and shady skies swell with storms
as rivers rumble with ripples
from ructions bellowing between
the blues at the bottom
and the clouds congregating,
without comfort, by the high heavens
and, blowing on boisterous breezes
nearby, are names I once knew,
faces forming of fidelities forgotten
in the foaming waters
where once there was weight
now withered with ruin
like colours that run
in the wash, in the tempest
that turns through time,
too lost to latch on to,
too fragile to fight
the currents currently pervading
this paradise now paved and perishing
like parts of me long lost
in a sea now swelling beneath me…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Turks and Caicos.

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/blues-at-the-bottom

BITTER BRIDGES

26/06/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Clouds cross the skies
and trains cross countries
while we cross each other
only at jagged junctions
and obstinate intersections,
cluttered with catastrophes
or below bitter bridges
that bridge no boundaries,
basked only in blackness
always shadow, never light,
always almost, never right
here, right now, right moment,