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FLUTTERING HOPE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Silence surrounds

this sweet stillness,

icicles are falling;

tears streaming

new paths

down old windows

once home

to fading reflections

and the robin

and his red chested breast;

forever stained, forever beating,

flaps through the open field

in search of a hushed hope

in buds that will soon bloom,

in life that will soon turn

below the hardened earth

and muddied soil.

 

We have spilt blood,

been drunk on its bitterness

and still we parch for more.

 

Sweet is this silence;

these mornings breaking,

crisp and cold,

cutting through the layers

we are desperate to shed,

we too are seasonal;

we rise with a spring

and tumble through each fall,

we are hot headed

and cold hearted

when comfort constricts,

melting pain down windows

too frosty to show any solutions

until we are emptied

and in the silence,

in that slowly

sweetening stillness

we are renewed;

ready to cut new reflections

into the smooth surface

of that shatterable glass,

our faith fluttering

on wings of hope.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud

I DREAM

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Dreaming,

 

seeing time

as something silky

you can slip though,

 

rearranging reality,

 

the hours revolving

around minutes

around molecules

neither past nor present;

 

the future still waiting

to be moulded,

 

dreaming

of tempering time;

 

of breaking it

 

of bending it;

 

redrawing curt corners

into kinder curves,

rerouting long roads

into achievable lengths.

 

I bend time

beyond this bed

of twisted sheets,

 

these withered webs,

 

tired and torn,

 

and mend

in my mind, slumbering,

that which was cracked

 

before the mirror

catches its reflection

of disruption,

of distraction,

of rejection.

 

And I wonder

in all this bending,

in all this mending,

 

how much the mind

will remember

 

and how capable am I,

in waking,

 

to let time forget?

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SLEEPING SEEDS, day 18 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Day 18 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month With Yeats Challenge and today’s quote is: ‘The dews drop slowly and dreams gather’ —W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/a-month-with-yeats-day-eighteen/

My poem is called: SLEEPING SEEDS

 

We are seeds in nesting

spread out over soil now slumbering,

still dreaming in the gentle light,

now resting under winter’s plight.

We are seeds in nesting

seeking solace from this winter solstice

under blade now balancing

the dancing dew. Seeds in nesting,

waiting to come through.

 

all words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

MAGNETIC POETRY: SUMMER STORM 

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Beat away at breast;
a lie of love grown to lust,
grown repulsive,
‘Whisper who we were,’
rose water, a shadow symphony
drunk on a dream,
smooth shot to sordid,
bitter chocolate screams
beneath the sweaty skin
of a summer storm.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by the magnetic poetry oracle

A HOME FOR HOPE

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

There is a gentle light shining
in this place not yet home,
pouring hope into a hold
beginning to pull on my grip.

There is a light, a subtle light
adding a lightness to all
that is weighing; the furniture,
the fittings, the fitting into a city
that has not changed
during my absence while I
have not stopped,
a city often angry
as I search for a place
of solitude amid all that leans
towards arrogance, of comfort
to come in from the chaos
and the clutter and the claws
clutching at scraps in the cold
corners the commenters
are unconcerned with.

Tonight, there is a gentle light
to lay under and dream
of what will go where
in this house soon to be a home.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

OVERTAKING

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

Today is the 2nd year anniversary of part 2 of my life in Paris. I moved here on July 17th 2015. I first moved here form Dublin when I was 22. At that point I knew as little about anyone in this city or the city itself as I did about myself. Two years later London called and I packed a few bags and moved. When Amsterdam called 6 years after that, the bags had become boxes and the identity of who I was, a little clearer. I’d already learned that you can’t hold on to everything, regardless of how hard you try. And then, almost 10 years later, I returned to the city that first captured my imagination and carved so much of itself into the lines now more visible on my features that I could barely distinguish the lines of the city and the lines of the self. Needless to say,  the bags were bigger this time and I don’t just mean the ones under my eyes. From 22 to a month away from 42, all now visible in the partially filled boxes around my feet. Somewhere within these collections, are hints at who I am on route to becoming, I guess…

 

Overtaking

Back to the boxes; finding things forgotten
in seams not yet sealed and finding no room
for other things since stuck with too much tape
that I cannot take any longer in this movement
along another midway, a mild change of track
through to midlife, making home at another station
amid the mayhem of the moment, making room
to make more moments that will momentarily
fill more boxes when another move meanders
my way. We are made of movements from major
to minor and back again; I am right, he has left,
she is nowhere and everywhere and not everyone
understands, they’ve turned back, I’ve carried on,
I can hold happy alongside these boxes; bruised
and battered but far from broken, I can hold it all,
I will hold all that has been left. Back to the boxes;
to the treasures I’ve taken to be true and the truths
that have lead me to the lies I’ve cast to the curbs
I have crawled over and then crossed off. I cannot
carefully wrap each and every delightfully deceptive
distraction that comes a calling, whether correctly
considered or coldly comfortless, I too was created
be cared for, I too need room to be made for me
without the waste of words, do I not deserve a space
to call my space within all space, within all this
fleeting space we are speeding through?

My next bed will spring from my liking as I plaster
my own skin with my own desires. I desire to be
distracted by dreams not too distant. I will not
be packed in a box like these belongings;
longing to be lifted to the light. I am too fond
of freedom to wait for life to find me. I am moving,
with boxes on my back and cartons crammed
into the cracks of my consciousness. I will not wait
for life to come to me; this is me, see me, overtaking it.

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

RELEASED

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

As you
walked away
I watched you
curve through the current
of confusion that had
consumed us.

Once torn on the tide,
I waded out to let our worries
wash off on the waves
as a breeze buried its breath
against my body
like the kindness
that once caressed us
and all hurt once spoken
faded like the foam now dissolving

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter poetry prompt by #SenseWrds

PARIS IN PICTURES

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

After a month of eating, sleeping and drinking poetry (even toilet breaks were scheduled) I’ve decided to start May instead with some Parisian pictures from yesterday morning’s bike ride through this city that you think is unchangable but then you catch it in the still of light and suddenly you notice how the subtleties are shifting. (Even if the politics are falling back to a past best forgotten.)

#NaPoWriMo was a whirlwind of loves, lines, lives, lies, syncopated sentences and non sensical structures. The amount of talented writers here alone on WordPress is mind blowing and reading their creations every day inspired me to want to write better and better. And the support from everyone was incredible. You Three Graces, especially, you know who you are!!
And so a view from an adopted boy in his adopted city…

When you want to study architecture, you go here, Architecture School

I think Street Art like this brings this once grey and neglected district to vibrant life

A sculpture of boats, of course

A new Skyline taking shape in the 13th arrondissement 


Architectural inspiration in the form of the Architecture School, of course!


Books needs paper and paper needs trees so here is the National Library and its garden


Above was a free gift from clothing store ‘Weekday’ when it opened its first Paris store!

Something old amid the new, l’Hôtel Salé now known as Musee Picasso in Le Marais  

Self Portrait, Velo days

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As for the future, it is, as yet, unclear…

(Elections next week- has anyone alerted Beyonce?)

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

LISSOME LIES LIFE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Time waits for
shimmering snows
to melt into memory
like kept kisses
from lost lips.

Time waits
for saturated skies
to seek sustenance
in blushing blues
since stolen
by frantic frost
and fragile freeze
like drawers deserted
of his clothes
and her shoes

as the wind whips
the chasm carelessly.

Time waits
on the sidelines
for shades of spring
to slip over shrubs,
like seductions over skin,

now stilted,
now submerged,
now surrendered to silence,

now frozen in frame
as if posed for a painting
or preparing for purification.

Breath paused
in place of still air

still water

still winter

still single

but life is lissome underfoot.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available at Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/lissome-lies-life

 

 

PAUSE AND POISE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

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Running
through time,
through time
that can never be tempered,
through twisting trees and projected paths,
projecting thoughts yet to be pondered,
through mornings unfolding
while seasons fall to winter
and wither for a while all around me,
crisp carpets crinkle
with what was once light and leafy
but are now scattered sprinkles
of seasons shadows,
like thoughts once tasted
now toppled from the tongue
slipping underfoot;
from roots they rise only to return
as I break the silence
of early morning,
air crisp and clear,
cutting through motions of stillness
colours caught on careful carpets,
rust reigns regal
as orange opens into opulence,
opens into fragrance,
revels in its own resilience,
between the trunks,
below the benches
that have seen more time than I can wait for, than I can capture;
captured kisses,
paused breaths,
hands held,
all now scenes and scents seeping into the seated silence.
Running through forests,
all falling into that perfect promise
of pause and poise
all still while the earth turns, beauty below our feet

while we rage above it.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available at Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/pause-and-poise