Childhood

RIVERSIDE

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

You were my friends, you were my childhood, our beds by the riverside, 
on the north side of the south, far from the troubles, far from the loyalists
and the loss, loyal to what, I ask?

I see us all now from the far side, from another side, you were always on my side, 
even when I wasn’t, sharing treats by the fireside on rainy days after sturdy stews
when even then we were off and running, dreaming in daylight of distance,
of diversions, of dignity, a ship called dignity to sail along our river,
so the deacons in blue sang, taking us away from all that was so simple,
so special, so sincere, our little lives by the riverside on the drives
and the crescents and the groves.

We drowned only our fears in that barely brook by the riverside,
by the Northside, childhood hang ups; being ginger, being tall, being gay, 
being small, I remember it all today, flowing in from yesterday,
bobbing along on the bottom of a beautiful steady stream
of memories, madness, moments, mothers.

I remember you all from here, from the other side of the river, on the far side
of the world, from the far side of growing, accepting, they call it, understanding,
surrendering but not forgetting, never forgetting, the pampering and the parties,
the new years with old friends, Dave’s guitars, John’s fireworks
and everyone’s songs; should old acquaintances be forgot, as if they could.

I see you all there still, even those who are no longer here, for me
you will always be there, be smiling, be eternal; barking, bold, brilliant, beloved,
you can never be missing if you’ve always been loved, and the others;
who blossomed, who grew, who married, who flew, some have children now,
grown from being children into children baring children.

We were friends, once, in the endless summers under tents with no pretence,
singing songs on the radio, singing through our little lives, a family of friends
who kicked our cans, as you said, played chasing, played games, played house,
mowed lawns, walked dogs, swapped toys and clothes, care bares and fancy paper,
next to the power station, ‘I love you to the power station and back again’,
wasn’t that what was said, when the power station was the end of the world.

All those fine families and faithful friends carried on now,
like the flow of the water, carried away from that riverside,
carried away to life on the other side, following along the course
but never once forgetting the source.

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All Words by Damien B. Donnelly. Photographs from back at the Riverside.

THE ECHO OF HIS LAUGHTER

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

He sits
on a bench
on my street
as the cars pass by
and the leaves fall down

in autumn.

He sits
with a girl
on the edge
of his childhood
curiously considering

adulthood.

She talks
and he laughs
and in his laughter
you hear his age, on his face
you see his blush and in his voice;

his innocence.

He hasn’t
yet realised
all the power
of her attractions
but her voice is beguiling
and her face and her smile,
and that dream of what she might

give him.

A life
in bloom
on a street
on the bench
as cars pass by
and leaves fall down
and their laughter is the

only sound.

The bench
will eventually
outlive his innocence
but his laughter will linger
on in the lines on this page, in
the echo of his laughter, his echo,

ever-after.

SHADOW AND LIGHT

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At 22,
I knew as much of myself
As the exotic world
I’d just found
With streets willing me
To walk them
Witness them
And be wooed by them.
My twenties
Had typically emerged
As a decade to be a no one;
An empty slate to be carved upon
Before my thirties would find me
And shout me with substance.

I’d lost parents
Before knowing them; given up
In a sacrifice of selflessness
Almost incomprehensible
And found
In the arms of another mother
A love that would prove
Incontestable.

I searched,
During infantile years,
Amid childish ego
And innocence,
For connections
To those around me;
The mother
Loved so unequivocally
And the father
Aged in aggression,
With a gap too great to bridge
And so I turned to walk
Shadowy miles of roads in my head,
Clumsily cramming teenage years
With classically confusing
Childish dribble,
Trying to sound like a grown-up
In size 6 shoes,
Feeling different,
Unknown,
And, more often than not,
Undiscovered.

Finally,
I braved knocks on dark doors-
Frequented bars in back lanes
And alley ways,
Away from the eyes of the pious
Whose ignorance
Bullied the boys
With different desires.
I kissed
My first boy
At 18
Behind a sofa
As excited as a child
On Christmas morning,
Finding courage
Behind shades and acceptance
In a community I had become
No longer
Soul member of.

Cuddling and kissing progressed,
Over time, to sweaty,
Fumbling, amateur athletics
Behind the lights
Replacing shame and catholic guilt
With newfound feelings of freedom
As I began
To notch my way
Onto bedposts
Of various conquests.

Between courtings
I often cried
For lovers in whose arms
I should never have laid
And wondered why I ran
From others in whose embrace
I should have stayed,
All but memories
Patterned into the tissue
Of my sleeve-worn,
Still learning, heart,
Cherished moments
That wished to be relived
Along with others
That longed for time to fade.

I had assumed these
To be bruises
As I fell upon these new
Foreign streets
But have recognised them since
To be no more than lifelines,
Imprints, echoes merely of
Shadow and light.

They were all
Important diversions
Along the road,
Pivotal points
Goading me
Into this very direction.
Some of them
Fell away by your banks
And others settled in,
Ingrained themselves like streets
That mapped themselves
Out in front of me
And gradually,
Over time,
Carved their way
Indelibly
Inside of me.

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QUESTIONS FOR THE NIGHT

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The trees have lost their branches,
Their leaves long since took flight,
Barren, bare and lifeless they stand
As the mist engulfs the night.

The playground hauntingly sits alone,
Where have your petals gone?
You are the seed upon which they can grow,
Oh, where have your petals gone?

Pools of water lying still on the ground
Reflecting a lonely moon,
Why must your day always be night?
Only the stars can hear your tune.

Through the darkness the nightingale flies,
The nocturnal bird of night,
Yet its song soothes only the lonely
Who search for a soulful light.

Upon a bench a man sits waiting
For the new dawns early light,
But only sounds can give him life
As old years have stolen his sight.

To the naked seat beside him, he asks
Where have my friends all gone?
The ones who laughed and cherished life,
Oh, where have my friends all gone?

The tombstones stand, names form the past,
Where have your spirits gone?
Your memories are safe in a pillar of stone
But where have your spirits gone?

Along dark beaches wise women walk
Their knowledge as great as their years,
But slowly the waves engulf their feet
As they shed half water tears.

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Pride and Prejudice, Beating the Bullies

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

I crept through corridors
Crying as a kid
In the corruption of
Cusses and curses,
Cruel and cringeworthy
Comments carried on carelessly
As comedy from cunning clowns
Whose calculus capabilities
Calculated to nothing more than
Calamitous catastrophes.
And so, to cover up this calamity,
I became their casualty,
Caught up in a cross fire
Of uncultured and uncultivated contempt,
Considering themselves
Capable comedians
And casting me center court
As their callous words
Cut and crippled me,
Corroding the core
Into a clunk of inescapable
And incomprehensible confusions,
Casting a cloud on every class,
A crisis in every playground,
And causing countless
Creative excuses
For cutting school
And cowering
In the cowardice
Of my cursed
Conviction.

You frightened
The fuck out of this
Fellow you named faggot
For nothing more than fun
And festered no more in me
Than a fear for feelings
I was far too young
To figure or fathom,
Forcing me to fight
For a freedom I felt
I freely deserved
But fortune falsely favoured
Fools, back then,
The faculty of footballers
Whose fractions fired
Fantastical favouritism,
The fundamental flaw of the feeble,
And frowned on frail fairies
Who followed the rules
But failed to find
Firm footing
On the field.

I drifted
Through dark days
That dug their way
Into darker nights,
Where dreams drew you
As demons
Distastefully delegated
To degrade me,
Deflate me, detest me,
Depict me
As depraved
Despicable deviant.
I didn’t know
That I’d dared to be
That different
Though I thought myself,
Even then,
More deserving
Than the deluge
Of your devilishly displaced
Discrimination.

I wonder now
If you’ve been
Withered and wizened
By your wicked ways?
Have you watched the world
And witnessed it grow?
How is the grown-up now,
Grown up?
Grown gradually good,
Greater, grateful
Or just more greasy,
Grim and grotesque?

Do they still bark of your bravado
Behind the bikes sheds,
In the bar rooms,
At the ball games?

I am better now,
Brighter and braver,
Reborn from the bullied boy
You couldn’t break,
Built a backbone in spite of all your backlash.
I am better balanced now
And see your barbarian banter
As nothing more than beastly, base, banality.
I am beyond your belligerent beliefs now,
And have broken
From the blemishes
You bored into me,
Bored me with,
By your bigoted bitterness,
Through your blackened brutishness
And see the blasphemy
Not in how bent I was
But in the bloodthirsty bully
The boisterous brotherhood
Begged you to become.

I have since grown
And gained
In all the gaiety
That a graceful God
Once gave me
And I see now,
Nothing more,
Nothing much,
Nothing lasting
In the power
You once pretended to possess
over my Pride and your Prejudice.

Pity be the preposterous
For profanity perishes before it prevails.

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RAIN IN SUMMER

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In the summers heat
The raindrops fall
As the dust of August
Runs down the wall.
Inside the house
Lie endless cries,
Broken hearts
And comfortless toys.
A child on the outside
But silent within,
No one to play with,
No reason to grin.

Sadness falls
Like rain in winter,
Leaves in autumn
And the all too little
The hope of spring.

All she wants
Is to wish on the stars,
To fly with Venus
And twinkle at Mars,
To spread her wings
And take to the skies
To stay above clouds
Where the rain never cries.

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Ireland- The Emerald and I

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And again I found myself,

Of a morning- that morning,

On a winding road, once more,

Meandering like a stream,

Before it opened up to unveil

A vast expanse of stillness

Where brook and lake entwined,

Rugged roads wandered into wilder woods

And the light- that sat

Upon mossy mountain-

Reflected the break of another

Boorishly boisterous day

In a landscape where Yeats-

Having left the Mauds of his world

To fight the battle without him-

Had climbed nightly

The Thoor Ballylee

To find rest and I reveled

In what it meant to be connected

To these often harsh,

Sometimes barren

But seldom anything less

Than breathtaking lands.

 

Immense clouds hanging on the horizon,

Fertile lands out front

Awash with the 40 shades

And a silence amid so much

Awe-inspiring nature

That the Emerald in her name

Seemed so justified.

 

And yet, as if forever ingrained and known

But for a moment forgotten,

From somewhere deep inside

Resurfaced the notion

That it was not these lands

That I missed but

The memory of laughter

That blew above these lands

On the breeze that crossed

Fields of verdant greens,

That skirted over grass

Waiting to be grazed on

And found rest in trees

That longed for lovers to kiss beneath.

 

And then, as normal as the nodding of the cap

To the passing stranger along the roadside,

I was taken back to those lucidly liquid days

Shining from my youth

When the patriotic spirit

Of a nation-

So small but spirited,

More laughed with

Than laughed at-

Doused itself in shamrocks

And drowned itself merrily

In spirits of an altogether other nature,

A time when neighbors knew each other like family

And a new face in town was merely a friend we did not yet know…

 

And there I stood- home again,

Spun on that same laughing breeze

Into the past and I saw before me

The Me of today reflected

In my childhood form of yesterday

With teddy in one hand and Tayto’s in the other

Smiling amid laughter I had heard

But was far too young to understand

In a land that I’ve fled so far from-

Swept up and away

On other breezes-

And yet, however high I fly

Or however  much I roam

I never seem to feel too far

From that Fair Green Isle called home.

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