BORDERS

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO.16, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

For every push,

for every jibe,

for every spit

upon my childhood,

my conditioning,

my inability to conform,

I kept walking onwards 

believing I was better,

never being allowed 

to acknowledge

how I’d been broken,

how I’d carry 

these bullies like bites

to forever sting 

beneath the skin.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO. 14, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

I hear you crying

from the runway,

as you tried to run away,

I was already off 

a fold on the wings of flying

while you sat there, waiting

and crying,

wishing colour was

no more than a past 

you could turn from.

I hear you crying 

above these clouds 

I am trying to reach 

the other side of,

moving west from east

as you fall south of north,

shivering in a skin 

you cannot slip from,

in a city with a grip 

to quickly crippling,

but geography is not 

morphology, we are bound

to the bones we are born of,

we cannot kill our kin 

to be kinder or simply 

slip from our skin to be whiter.

I hear you crying 

but I was already off

flying, we are the creators 

of our own clouds 

and can only conquer them 

with a calm courage and not 

just a quick comfort

that comes a calling 

in the cold corner

of our own confusion.

I heard you crying 

and wonder 

if I will remember you 

when you have taken to flying?

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO.12, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

I had a hand 

in every bone 

that was broken 

on this body.

I had a hold

of every hack

that was heaped

into this heart.

I held that hand

while thinking of another 

once forgotten

before imagining someone else

I hadn’t even met,

as you watched out the window

as connection passed you by.

We are not broken by others,

it all depends on how willing

we are to bend, be bent

or play blind.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO. 10, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

I hear you

preaching

still

from your performance 

pulpit,

the shit-pit of sermon 

where you scared 

the simple man.

I hear you 

still

preaching 

of parish and prayer

with your manners moody 

at mass 

with the mouldable masses.

Years later

over dinner 

and before dessert 

you spilt your sins

between the bread and wine,

your collar in the car

and your blessed ring

upon your manhood.

We can dress in robes,

we can fuck who we want,

but you can’t preach before the choir 

if you take boys in for hire.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO. 8, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

In sweeping rain 

he was swept through streets 

in a taxi turning with thoughts

he had not yet learned to express. 

Windows can shield 

from more than just the weather.

In unswept rain

he was sweeping through streets

that had not yet soaked him,

had not yet drained him

on the storms that were settling

under the shade of summer.

He was a spring in the bloom 

in the shadow of a back seat,

speeding through streets

already stained with too many winters.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO. 7, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

In the shadows

not yet departed

from former students

since departed

confined in compartments 

the Polish left to the Irish,

red vinegar wine

(as vulgar as the vultures 

who drowned in its deluge)

caught itself in corners 

still not drunk 

by the blow-ins

still bleating

about the burnt beef

and sodden soil 

as we made smoke chains

in our simple chambres

to choke a distance 

between the homes we had left

and the hands that hadn’t 

yet let us go. We may have been 

from the same barrel born 

but had desires to be labeled 

in a better bottle.

All words and drawing by Damien B. Donnelly