Poetry

SUNSHINE AND SNOWFLAKES IN MONTMARTRE

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sunshine and snowflakes in montmartre

I climbed you today
in downpours
and falling snows,
no snow flake ever the same,
no foot step ever similar,
I climbed you today
in sunlight and stealing shadows,
in strokes of paint splattered in your memory
by artists as foreign as they are familiar,
I paused upon your steps,
your streets of steps,
the steep steps
others have taken,
others have trodden upon,
to take possession,
to take pictures,
to take part, to be a part
of all that once was
and has fallen to dust
through depression
and recession,
no sails blow no longer
to the winds wills,
the winds upon your hills
no longer home to the mills,
no more the spirits linger
green to the fairy’s touch,
spirits are in bottles now,
corked and capped
and cost too much
and the artists now
are but a shadow
of what once was,
shadows for sale
on the site of what once held cause,
on this martyred mountain
in Montmartre.
I climbed you today
in wind and rain,
the past and future present,
in a reverie of what can no longer be.
I climbed you and stood above you
and marked out the steps
I had taken along you,
along your lines and lanes
that lead me here, to this day,
to this moment, to this place
as this snowflake fell,
this unique particle
never to be repeated,
falling through time and space.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

 

MINUTES MOVING

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minutes moving

There are but minutes now,
minutes in motion on metros, 
minutes moving in on me,
on my identity 
on my mark, on my leaning,
on my meaning, 
meaning I am moveable
like a feast, as he said,
A Moveable Feast,
meaning I am manageable 
malleable,
maybe unremarkable, mistakable.

There are but minutes now, 
minutes moving in
on my metamorphosis,
on my undoing,
on my unbecoming,
is it unbecoming? 
on my being misunderstood, 
misinterpreted, misrepresented, 
missing.

I am famished,
the feast has moved,           on
mindless to the matters
that manipulate me
mould me
remodel me.

Minutes, there are but minutes
multiplying on metros moving,
on me, in motion

minutes making minutes minus minutes.

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in the Arts et Métiers Metro Station, Paris, France.

HEARTSTRINGS

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

When I am broken

I hear the strings of my heart 
and its music

                                        moves me.

When I am mended

I forget the sounds
that once resounded

                                        within me.

Perhaps that is why 
it breaks 

again and again

that my heart 
be never far
 
from the music

                                       stung

                                                            strung upon it. 

All word and pen drawing by Damien B. Donnelly.

SNAKES AND SHEEP

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

We slither and snake
in united unison 
past the signals
and the stations
and the beggar
with his chanson,
trying to get
his chance on,
clambering to get
his way on,
chancing his way
on into pockets
of passengers
loosing patience.

We slither and snake
our manoeuvres 
along the carriages
of commuters 
preoccupied by i-tunes
on iPhones and
hand held computers
and fold away scouters
while a girl eyes a guy
in a muscle bound shirt
as another guy notices
the mini of her skirt
and dreams of dessert,
dreams of slithering,
sensual and slow,
along her carriage,
to drive his train
into her station
like he were Spartacus,
the Thracian,
now riding high
on the train’s vibration.

We slither and snake
through the darkness 
on tracks laid and loyal
unlike our own tracks
seasoned to spoil,
we light upon
platforms packed
with people panicking 
fretting about fitting,
fitting on, fitting in,
into trains and tracks 
and skirts and holes,
cyber lives
make us whole.

We slither and snake
and stand closer, 
strangers coming closer
to scents and smells
and stenches 
that choke us,
breaths breathing
on the backs
of tensed up necks
of strangers
struggling,
slithering and snaking 
on tracks that take us
back and forth
to and fro,
to work, to home,
to him, to her,
to passing parties
and improbable
possibilities.

We slither and snake 
as strangers we make
but we follow
the same track,
blind to the future
and who stands
behind our back.

We slither and snake 
and sheep,
baa baa
baa baa…

All Words by Damien B. Donnelly

UNDER LEAF IN THE GARDEN

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Here in this garden
beneath the trunks of trees, towering;
like funnels stretched to sun, suckling,
under a lid of leaves,
little leaves, light leaves,
the leaves of grass,
precious petals procure colour,
caresses of colour bursting bright
as if tempered by a tenuous touch,
like tears on the angel’s cheek at night
no longer seen, no longer heard,
colour, crawling through the chaos,
fragile flickers of faith
falling under footsteps.

I hear the heavens wail as you walk,
walls falling under flattening feet
as what was light and life
returns to soil,
fowled and foiled from strife.

We are all petals in the garden,
in this garden of greed and glory,
looking for a leaf to live under,
as we unfold the shrouds of our story,
ravenous to raise our arms to the sunlight,
striving to be seen in bolts of colour, bright,
breathtaking colour,
brilliant colour,
before we fall under foot
and return, once again,
to the waste and the worms
already twisting and turning,
already sensing our scent,
so confident they are
to conquer our carcasses
when our dreams are done
and our names carved into cement.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

When the rain pours in torrents

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

A powerful poem of rain recollection by Jane Dougherty

Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

909px-Johannessen_-_Kräftiger_Sturm_-_1918-22

When the rain pours in torrents,

And thunder chases lightning through the trees,

When running feet pound the rain-slick road,

And the frightened bark of the fox tears the night,

When wet gravel squeals and squeaks beneath heavy tread,

And boots clump through muddy pools,

When doors slam, and children cry into damp pillows,

I remember your face, moon-pale,

Bland as a salt pan,

And loveless as the chill mists of autumn.

I remember the thin black line of a mouth that never spoke,

Tight closed, a crack in a mud-parched riverbed.

I remember dark eyes, slipping and sliding,

That couldn’t see to tell the truth,

The tangling words and lies and flying hands.

I remember the weeping and wailing and the sharpening of teeth,

The night you went away.

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SHINING SHADOWS

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

And so falls
a fleet of rain,
another sheet
to soak the street,
another sheen
to shine up shadows,
to wash away the steps
others have taken
along your paths,
to wash the traces
of all that came before.

And so falls
a ray of light,
another shimmer
of the summer,
another colour
to coat the concrete,
to sink into skin,
to bronze bodies
and burn away
the whimpers and whines,
to forget the sorrows
and let the shadows shine.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

LINGER LIGHT, LONGER

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-02-27 at 12.28.15

Linger 
longer 
in this light,
this fragile luminosity, 
let me be your curiosity, 
shun the shadows for sadder days
for more somber sighs when it’s again the time to cry

but for now

linger
longer 
in this light, 
in this simplicity,
this momentary tranquility, 
entreat me your tenderness, 
your warm caress against my being, my body

linger
longer 
on the faces,
the passing faces,
the faces of people pacified,
of people satisfied in this light,
in this sun where shadows sat before
where shadows will rise again in minutes, in seconds

but for now,

it’s just light
not just light, LIGHT
radiant LIGHT casting reflections 
on what has been and what can be
on what is probable and all that is possible. 

Linger
longer LIGHT
Oh lovely LIGHT.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photographs taken on Ile de la Grande Jatte, Paris.