Photos from 7am walks last week in Shanghai before going to the office…
grey mornings
rainbows before the sunshine
All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
China
BEFORE THE RUSH
Pause and push
move and be moved,
people push air
push breath
push will
on paths
in parks,
pushing moments
slow moving moments
unfolding
in parks
where breath is paused
where time is teased,
as if turned back,
as if tempered
move and be moved
pause and push
before the rush.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available at Soundcloud:
SHANGHAI STREETS; FAR FROM HOME
On pressing parades
pedestrian pass on motors,
on mass, in autos,
under umbrellas,
in downpours of flashing lights
of signs I cannot identify,
on roads that have no rules,
with crossings that heed no caution
for those crossing, the tens crossing,
the hundreds crossing,
the thousands trying to get through
with rising intonations
to parks, to stop on mass,
to push against the air,
to cast shapes,
slow moving shapes,
motions that move into the morning
still in the making
while they are waking
and I wander the streets
in search of lost sleeps,
in search of understanding
the red dragon and his breath that steals
from sight a sky I never see
and yet there is light, electric light,
burning down from buildings, blinding buildings,
as if to shadow all that was once natural,
all that hints at traditional,
and that still echoes with strings of beauty,
stranded streets that should be seen
but are shaded by the gleam
of glorious Gucci and pray to Prada
and all the rest of western delusions
that silence the former oriental infusions.
I am the white man,
the foreign man
trying to find meaning in the madness,
in the movement, clambering to catch comprehension
with nothing but chopsticks
that fail to find favour with my fingers
in this land where the food tastes delicious
and the streets smell atrocious.
Xièxiè and Nín hǎo are the crutches I cling to,
to clamber through,
but, like the chopsticks,
they are too fragile to be stable
and too fickle to be favourable
and I am clearly too used to home
to be truly objectionable.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/shanghai-streets-far-from-home
CHINA IN PICTURES; SHANGHAI STORIES
Last week I was in Shanghai for work and met jet lag straight on, here are some of the pictures from that week, including 6am walks through the city while it was waking and I was searching for sleep…
The mountains of the clouds
The customary gas mask in your room for emergencies, wrapped in a velvet pouch
Jing’an Temple
Waiting to something to clean
The new climbing over the old
Morning rituals
Nanjing Road
Dali time
Start of the morning commute
new mode of transport
Japanese dining
Concept store Corso Como
Passion Fruit Cocktail in the Coconut Paradise Restaurant
new buildings and old ways
The People’s Square
Red Queue and phone box
Market streets
Smoke and Flowers in the floor
Funky food plates and twisting cutlery
Da Dong restaurant and our own Duck being sliced
The Dragon’s Breath stealing the view on the Bund
The year of the rain
Old Town umbrellas
City God Temple of Shanghai
And ending with a little consideration for the bottom…
All Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
CATS AND DRAGONS AND BROLLIES
And so lives sound,
a chorus of sound, a glorious cacophony, a clatter,
a sound of ladies looking, laughing, touting, shouting
a shuffle of feet, tiny feet, tiny ladies, on a tiny street, on the ladies street
with brollies, bright brollies, tartan brollies, cheap brollies, silly brollies,
bending brollies, brollies broken by the sound of the rain falling down,
of the ladies laughing, of the buyers buying, of the colours clashing,
brollies battered by the weather, polyester being pelted, pounded,
brollies held by ladies, as they barter, as they battle for the better buy,
the ladies at the ladies market, in Hong Kong, on a Sunday
and I’m jet lagged and bargained out
and that bitch saw me coming
and is laughing at me going,
holding all my money
in her hands, not mine!
And so lives sound,
raindrops on tartans
and high pitched voices,
squeezing, screeching
and giggling, always giggling
and golden cats nodding,
nodding at golden dreams
as tiny feet plod in puddles,
ladies feet in little puddles
that are free, the only things
that are free on Sundays
in the rain, at the market,
the ladies market and I bought too much Kitty,
too much kitsch, too much crap but it’s market day
and I’m jet lagged and the little ladies are scary
and my head is weary, big feet in little puddles,
foreign puddles, in China, in far away China, big trouble in little China
although it’s not so little but filled with big chips and cracks
and nodding cats grinning in glaring gold,
do you need shades? They have shades
on a tiny street with towering blocks chipped and cracked
and looming overhead, in the clouds, drowning in the dragon’s breath
but there are lights and movement,
a chorus of lights, a cacophony of movement
and the lights are bright and the buildings broken
but the movement is magical.
A dragon starts dancing in the distance
with men underneath, a polyester dragon,
a pink polyester dragon with many legs
moving, marching, mens legs on the ladies street,
on the ladies market, winding through the ladies faces
and shouting and bartering and rubbish,
in my bags there is rubbish, seriously overly priced rubbish
but I’m smiling at the faces of the ladies and the dragons and the legs
and dodging the brollies, the bobbing bright brollies, all racing with the dragons,
on Sunday, at the market, and the dragon is marching onwards, ever onwards
and the cats are forever nodding or bowing or laughing on the dark side of the day,
on this ladies day, on this Sunday, at this market, while the foreign rain is falling.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken at the Ladies Market in Hong Kong.
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/cats-and-dragons-and-brollies
Damien B. Donnelly 