Sun sets
Water retreats
Concrete is cold of comfort
Day is devoured by its swan song.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
cold
BOOKENDS; WHEN CONSIDERING WHAT TO WEAR
I was always looking to find the lighter side,
the brighter side of your cold concrete
cold corpses once carved into your concerns.
You were papered over in such pomp and circumstance,
such rigidity and reformation from centuries since removed
but I found, once we pealed back each other’s layers
that breath lingered behind all that had built up around us.
Naked can be the hardest choice to make but can also
be the most comforting when carefully considered.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
This month is about pealing back the Parisian layers and saying a goodbye to all the beauty that lays behind the dust that time has gathered over the gold.
CALIFORNIAN SPARK
Here in parks in Paris, France, I potter
through a past so old and cold
that it cannot be parted, we cannot
easily outrun our own ruins while Cali
beckons me with her rock and roll band;
those make-me-feel-good brothers
and sisters since seduced back
to their former States and somewhere,
in between, the loneliness lingers;
the hazy clouds of craziness I have crossed
and the curt corners I have yet to console
on this journey through time; today,
in the blinding light of a frozen park
in Paris, France and tomorrow beyond
the clouds where Cali is a calling.
In shades of blue, ice cold, I see the breath
collapsing into weighty snowflakes
that makes all movement morose
in this Sunday morning of sunshine
that somehow still shivers skin
on both sides of the ocean, on both sides
of these clouds where I’ve looked at love.
Today, I potter through parts of Paris,
France, that are pressuring, impenetrable
and oh, so pleasurable like cases
of bitter sweetness but tomorrow
I will come to court the hissing
of those Cali lawns that are calling
in a Spring called Palm, waiting
to ignite a spark from a snowflake.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
I am off to Palm Springs tomorrow so see you all in a week
BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO.21, NAPOWRIMO
Snow is no different to sun;
it falls and we, in turn,
slip silent under its blanket
before it dissolves on skin
still tingling from its touch.
I recall the heat we made
every morning I wake up
and feel the caress
of the cold.
All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly
SEASONS TURNING
Trees tremble
in winter’s clutch,
hardening soil
hardens hearts,
frost will follow
till spring’s breath
beckons icicles
to gently weep.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Inspired by a twitter poetry prompt from #WrittenRiver
FLAP AND SNAP
Daddy
didn’t know how to say it,
didn’t know how to do it,
Daddy didn’t know how to ask it,
but Daddy knew how to break it,
like it broke before, like they
broke him before, like they beat him
to the floor
and the butterfly flaps his wings
in confusion in the garden
they covered in concrete
when they couldn’t afford
the flowers to decorate it.
Daddy
didn’t know how to do it,
how to show it, how to feel it,
and then they thought
he didn’t need it,
cause she didn’t need it,
not then, not later, not after,
not from him who frowned at laughter
and the butterfly snaps her wings
in the back yard that’s soon to be
a cracked yard and she blames him
for all that went wrong as if
she’d never asked him
for anything, ever.
And they’re both
high on lies
in the back yard,
flapping and snapping
and wondering how this all happened.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
COLOUR ME
White light
And blue skies,
Ice cold
And endless goodbyes.
Maybe tomorrows
And meaningful glances,
Everything to risk
So neither advances.
White light
Brightens the skies,
A frozen moment
When eyes are on eyes.
Forbidden fruit
Could taste so sweet,
Getting hard to resist
But never we cheat.
A white light
From a clean heart,
A pure soul
Never falls apart.
Blue,
The colour of skies
At their fairest,
Blues,
The sign of a heart
At its weakest.
I’m white to the world
And freeze myself blue,
But inside I am burning
With a red flame for you.
To the East of Ignorance
I had wanted to show you it all;
For you to revel
As much as I
In the magnificence I had seen
And felt.
Perhaps it was my fault-
In the extreme-
Maybe my blinkered view,
Like the race horse-
Seeing only the green of the track
And the glory of the win ahead
While missing the money hungry betters to the sides
And the jockey with whip behind.
But still,
The entire time your view
Saw only the concrete beneath your feet
As if you feared to place a step
Wrongly
And so lose your American footing.
You proved as cold
And impenetrable
As the surface upon which you walked,
Moved only by a metal banister
That you pleaded with me to photograph
Least your creativity
Failed to capture it.
Yet it was you who’d become captured;
Trapped in a foreign land
That you had longed to see
And yet failed-
So perfectly-
To look upon.
To create means more than just
Standing on the spot of inspiration.
You lolled about
Almost as inanimately
As the statues that surrounded us.
However,
Their shadows appeared to sway
In the sunshine
With so much more gusto than yours-
At least, until you fell needy
And your dull American twang
Rang out monotonously
To disrupt the ambience
And civility
That enchanted me
And washed over you
Like you were oil-based,
Cardboard cut-out,
Dull reflection
Of someone else-
Hardly remembered.
Alcohol loosened you
Along with athletic fumblings
In a beamed ceiling room
In Saint Paul,
But we were neither drunk
Nor naked
All the time,
Although it felt like I had stripped
Bare for you,
To show you my secret
Parisian life
That, malheurusement,
Over half the world shared.
In that tree-lined park
Below the radiant sunshine
I feigned sleep and watched you
Behind darkened shades
And wondered
Where you were.
You noted it strange how the boys played
Football
Instead of baseball
And I realized
That you had not even boarded the plane
Or removed yourself
From your ignorant States.
I chilled in the warmth,
Amid that sun-filled square,
On that Sunday afternoon
In July
As I watched you
Fall intrigued
By little boys at play
And your comic books
Became all the more
Disturbingly understandable.
Damien B. Donnelly 