Change

LISTEN

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

  

We cannot truly change that which
we are, we cannot really laugh louder,
be brighter, stay longer than our journey
has already jotted down in a journal
whose language is not our own.
We cannot truly change the air,
the ocean, the fire that forges its way
through us, leaving us inspired
or expired, hot or just overheated.
We cannot truly change much
but we can cast corrections
into the darkness caught in corners,
we can see sages that hover over heads
if we need to add meat to the monotony,
singing songs of stories never too old
to be retold, never too new to be anything
more than necessary.
We cannot truly change that which
we are, we cannot promise to hold
any longer than time allows us,
we are tied to the tension of the knot
that knows more than we do,
whose heart lays on a hinge
that hangs both the hope
and the hammer. We cannot truly
change much but we can learn to listen
to lips that have lingered, that have
laughed in the face of lies
and been nourished by the face
of the fortunate who found favour
with who they were and then substance
in the soft stream of steady words.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

From the series A Month with Yeats

 

 

 

BOY SO BLUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Sitting in a park in Paris, France as kids climb
trees they’ll soon outgrow and birds busy
their feathers in a dance of freedom we’ll never know.
I fall through your thoughts as someone tickles
strings on cords too distant to be discovered
and wonder where you sat; on the orange carpet
caressed by concerns of a girl growing
through her own song of sorrow? Next to the guy
with the hat and harmony, no doubt, who guards
his guitar from the bright light, in the as yet
starless sky, as if he knows how celebrity
will one day cripple his creativity. A blackbird
bows before me, burrowing his burdens
into the road, looking for crumbs cast off,
for a little refuge, like you did, like we all do,
a little distraction from the circling sun
and shining skins blustering under bland and blander.
Sitting in a park in Paris, France, as if in a trance
from 22 to 42, when I first found favour
with following you; back room, no light, bedsit;
we were masters of the Marais, simple singletons,
senselessly sinking innocence into the marshes,
courting kisses for a single spark and rising
over all those losses we thought at the time
to be utterly insurmountable disasters.
But they were just dances, like these tiny birds
around me now, prances we perform, up and under,
over and through. We are all naked birds flirting
with honesty and invisibility under the sweltering sun,
sometimes remembered, sometimes forgotten
before begun. Sitting in a park in Paris, France,
still trying to understand the message in the melody
underlying and still trying to comprehend
the cords forged in the flesh of the boy so blue.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost from my Joni Mitchell Series

RUNNING BY THE RIVER OF THOUGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

I slipped off to the edge of the city,
this morning, where the stream found a stillness
and the air a crispness that kept confusion at a distance.

I stood beneath the bridge
that took the traffic and its tension far from me
and found the swimming swan rising higher in the stream,
the follow on from the floods that now seem so far
with these skies of blue, speaks of colour
in a park, on a Friday, in February,
where an artist once came to paint.

A park, in Paris, on an island,
by the Seine where the waters wash with colour
when you look beyond the shadows, a new rise
basking in the glory of what was once regarded
as great, by those who regarded the value of greatness.

Straight and tall, shiny structures shoot up,
like soldiers, by a stream ever in movement,
ever following the route, today’s design will be tomorrow’s sign
of an age the river has outrun.
I see trees towering tall in waters,
once rising, now falling, still strong, still weathering
the storm, still willing to be remembered, like an artist
captures beauty, captured beauty, in a park,
once, on a Sunday in a time since parted.

Nature is not in our control,
nature is willing to withstand all our wilfulness,
will not drown in these days of destruction,
will not worry, as we do, will not bend
but will let life flow around it,
in hope, in harmony.

In a park, on a Friday,
on an island, by the river,
in jogging shoes and sweatpants,
I ran through days already distanced
and tried to make connections between the road
winding onwards and the trees rising upwards, like the water,
rushing onwards like time, ever at play with its participants,
with all that it connects, with benches for the breathless
to recapture breaths and wheels
to help us follow the stream.

And in the windows,
I saw reflections of those towering trees,
never to be forgotten, blue of sky in the beauty of light,
light and harmony, colour and shade, captured in what is new,
a hint of what knows the bounty of age.

And on the river, by the park, on a Friday, in Paris,
I stopped and saw my reflection in the gentle waters
and in the waters saw colour, colour and light,
by a boat, in a park, in a city ever changing,
where an artist came to capture it all on a Sunday,
a simple Sunday, not a Friday but a Sunday, searching
for something between the shadow and light,
between all that will fade and all
the rest that cannot stay.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

A SHIFT TO THE SEASON

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

 

Another oldie as we drift to the end of another season…

—

It happens, now and then,

That slight shift in the season,

A new light, a different dusk,

A gentle breeze that brushes you

Into remembering a moment in the memory,

A time, once far removed,

Now returned, repeated, relived

And there you are, once more,

Back in those arms, looking in those eyes

Or maybe just reading that book,

Wearing that Sweater,

Crossing that bridge.

Time moves and overlaps, all at once,

I am here today, living and yet

A part still of yesterday, re-feeling it now.

I move, change, evolve

Like the weather, as the seasons.

I am summer because Spring bloomed before.

Today it is fine because yesterday I loved.

And then suddenly it shifts again,

A newer light, a darker dusk,

A twist to the breeze and another memory

Melts into the moment and on I go,

As the seasons, changing constantly,

While rarely forgetting that tomorrow,

What we did today, happened yesterday.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A WHITER SNOW

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

As the sun still blazes through the shades pulled low, I found this older poem recalling the sentiment of another season…

—
I saw you,
One morning,
Blanketed in white-
A speckled canvas of virgin purity,
All color lost out
To a simpler shade of simplicity.
No more that magnificent mass
Of contrast and contradiction,
Just quiet and gentle
Unencumbered distinction.
Distant laughter
Sailed on a breeze
That swirled around trees
Caught motionless in time,
With branches bare but for snow
Reaching down to Mother Earth,
So proud to be born from Her roots.
I saw you like this,
One ordinary morning,
Alone,
As tears formed icicles on my face,
While snowflakes fell from your skies
Hiding your valleys and hills
And I watched my feet disappear
‘Neath the snow white earth.
I saw you,
Like this,
That morning,
And that longed-for smile
Returned.
For all has its season that crawls to an end
But the most hopeful in heart can rise again.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE RETURN

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

—

Breezes are back in bloom

and I am caught

by the curl of the curtain

as it catches

in the courant d’air

now coming in

with questions

for all that has slipped

into a sleepy silence.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

UNDER CONCRETE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

We seek shelter from the sudden sun
within this city of concrete class,

everything here is concreted,

change is considered
but takes centuries to occur.
I have been asked for fax numbers,
offered cheque books and been told
that fibre is only forming and would dial-up not do?!

We seek shelter from the storms
here in this city that sites class and culture

above the chaos that is corrupting.

Everything here is cornered in concrete.

Shadows have been whitewashed
and the pigeons sprayed
in a shade of peace
the seers cannot swallow

I watch the streets be swept clean
of history, locals reopening in boroughs
they’ve been blighted to,

to Hell or to Connaught
we were once told in Ireland,

from Paris to the peripherique

is the new phase as designers dig up
the bones of the barely dead,

so our city can look chicer, sweeter, safer.

I seek the only thing time has taken.
The past gets further while the shadows get stronger.

We seek shelter
under palaces still being prized
for their no longer pristine polish.

A second star does not a paradise make.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

MOTION

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We stop and start

like trains

caught between tracks,

caught between the gaps

of where to go

and how to get back.

We stop and start

like trolleys

left wheel veering right,

right wheel now left

of the centre

but the centre falls apart.

We stop and start

like breath

the taking in and letting go,

the filling up and that feeling

of deflation

as the air of our space is dispelled.

I am made

of minor movements

performed at high speeds

on packed platforms,

before halted at temporary stations

that bare no regard to my route

or my rhythm.

I consist of baggages

within carriages,

not always connected,

my head in the trunk

and my feet walking blind

through corridors

that follow no order.

I am oxygen,

a vessel of the big O,

I have no room really

to hoard,

I can only board,

my belongs are as temporary

as this element my lungs;

kiss, caress and release.

We stop and start

and start again

and then stop.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO 2, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

You cannot go back,

to return does not mean to rerun,

I recognise these streets,

recall a certain laugh,

a twisted lie,

an open door,

but my footprints have changed,

I cannot find the same sunflower

I drew when I was younger

than this youth I now cling to

and so many 

of those old doors have twisted

and the lies opened out to be

nothing more than lessons.

I cannot go back,

the streets now wear shadows 

that never fell from my form.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

GROWING GREY

/ deuxiemepeau / 15 Comments

 

Settled in,

window seat,

wet feet flooding past,

fleeting reflections

in the steaming glass,

looking for the light

in this city

now grown grey

like those hairs

to hard to hide

above those lines

the mirrors reveal

below the eyes

grown weary of watching,

how did the road

spread itself out so far,

behind is a distance

too complicated

to comprehend,

too muddled

to measure,

even the mirror,

this glass, this reflection

cannot hold

all that has been lost

from sight.

All has settled in

so deep

it is difficult to see

in the reflection

all we once were

as we make movements

meant to be meaningful,

amid all that has of late

grown grey. Grey is the new

black but we have no time

to mourn,

the track never stops for us,

the herd hobbles

forever onwards,

there is no going back,

no slowing down

regardless of the weight,

we moan like mooing cows

but follow like sleep

ignorant of the slaughterhouse

outside on those wet streets

with those feet flooding past

all those fleeting reflections

falling unnoticed

into this river

of graying blood.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud…