Act

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

Washed over
in whiskey and rum
and falling, on a street,
by a bridge in the lamplight
as the river rushed under us
onwards and out of sight,
falling into each other
in foreign lands
into foreign hands
sliding along foreign bodies,
lean and slender,
twists and thrusts
of bodies curious
to what they’d not yet tasted.
You danced around me
on stages, in my head
in stages, on my bed
above the water
that never stopped moving
under us, onwards and off.
Falling into you,
our own echoes
reverberating into a dance
we were generating,
a tale of three acts;
the fall,
the fairytale
and the future unfolding
more fierce than we’d foreseen
and those hours,
always the hours,
slipping in between,
splitting the space around us
like the water that night
beneath the bridge where we kissed
rushing under us, onwards and over us,
dissolving us without consideration
a gradual obliteration
and yet my lip still tingles
from all we thought we were
in the moment the movement made us,
falling through time, through a space we couldn’t name,
stretching skin and bending bone into a structure unstable, insubstantial,
kissing and courting and covering up the parts that could never be,
trying to be what we never were and ignoring the bits that we didn’t want to see.