He was tame, if truth be told-
a curtain twitching kind of fool-hearted
guard dog making studies of how the others
made their way through the humdrum.
He was sturdy in routine, if not stature-
nose in the paper after the Six O’clock news
on the far edge of the sofa every night,
inside-out sweaters on a Saturday
and passing round the basket
in the chapel on a Sunday-
altar boy breeding still beaten into his being
like the scars he wore on his shoulders
of all the things he could no longer put down.
From afar, you could see how fear
had opened itself up within his frame
like a cushion forced to house too much foam
and the stitches strain from the stuffing.
He was tame, of course, but at the time,
I was cautious of his bite.
Connection
The Lounge of No Departures
In the airport bar
he was wearing my eyes;
circles ripped with hurricanes.
The wind reached for my hand,
saw me old,
took contradictions & splashed them
on my brow.
Should I make them valentines;
the trails, the test?
One loves more. One loves less.
This ring we’re in; let them lose, win?
In the airport bar
he was wearing my eyes;
circles ripped with hurricanes
but there was no one left
to leave or land for,
anymore.
Less; just more of less.
There are limits to what we can hold on to
We pick things, pull things,
up from under, roots, weeds,
things we dropped, things to distract,
flowers to fill the spaces since vacated.
We pick things, pull things.
We keep things, store things,
in boxes, under beds, in sheds,
under sheets; your stool of support
where you watched us, running; out, off, gone.
We keep things, store things
things we didn’t know, then
how much we’d miss, later,
things we can’t pull up, now
no matter how deep we dig.
For my Nana Frances who died 13 years years ago on March 30th but is still very much with us, and her stool too.
ORIGINS
Between the Sea and the Stars, There are Bright Lights
For Rhona Greene, Ankh Spice and Matthew M C Smith
Darker days catch brighter lights,
Sitting by bay-windows enriched with hope
Falling
Into dreams.
I close my eyes and we ride bikes
Where the sea sways to the beat of the shore,
We are Sandycove and silly,
We slip south; the sand now snow, a soft shuffle
Over waves now carpets of magic, laughing
At the drunkenness of things.
There is more between here and there, stranger
And strength, light and dark, hope
And the hand you’ve held out.
Giddy on gay, we set down
Where the sea’s swept sand into calcite crystals;
Fire flames under water’s edge reflecting
Where we’ll dance and catch fire before,
We too, expire into the sparkle
Of a star.
Everything is a cycle; the sea, the sand,
These shores, this journey, these holds, our hands
Slipping in and out, our eyes that watch this dream turn;
In the end, it is a kiss goodbye
To ignite a new beginning.
From a dune, that holds the knowledge
The day has not yet come to share,
A goat raises his head and we, to him,
Bow.
This is his shore
And we, now welcome guests.
In the space between us, already lined
With a billion steps of all that flamed before,
Rests the weight of all it took
To get here and the hope
Of all we have yet to unearth.
We are strangers that have known each other
Longer than the fires that will burn
Through our own place, our shared space,
Our already written fate.
We supper on tangerines
And the soft swallow of pink rose petals
That were once something else
And drink incorrigibly
Of this bubbling friendship that dances
On our tongues before we take our leave
While not completely parting.
The sea is now the sky
On the ever-forwarding spiral into what will be,
Almost home, we throw kisses down
to the last land before the air sets us down again
to Earth,
An ancient land where a voice whispers words
Into a bough that will bend forever
With blossom.
Darker days
But there is light in the palms
Of hands, hooves, voices rising up from under cloud,
under land, under time, deep,
Lights that build bridges to lives
And in each life
A house with an open door and a fire,
Burning.
We set down, finally
Upon the shore, Sandycove’s caress,
And Joyce whispering of ghosts
Still tending to the tower;
What is written can never truly expire.
Our bikes await,
Round wheels ready for the rest
Of the journey, those cycles
As the waves return to tickle our toes
With a scent we now know
While the snow falls,
Slow and suddenly
So rich.
WHEN ONE HAS PERSPECTIVE AND THE OTHER JUST THE SHELL
Sun shines over sea shell. One holds an echo
and the other; a memory of how it felt
beneath the wave, before it dug up the word
drought.
From this angle, I can see the water considering
its return, but I hold the perspective of distance
and the shell; only sand. And that echo of the sun
burning.
Sun shines over sea shell and somewhere I recall
how lip trembled at just the thought of your tongue
LEARNING TO CLIMB WALLS
There can be earthquakes
in little towns,
far from tectonic plates,
on little streets, rarely shaken
where we sat, once,
on the wall of a garden
now obsolete,
the summer burning
through our cool-lessness
as we trembled beneath attractions
we didn’t have the words
to understand
while eyes watched from windows,
trying to translate
thoughts tossed
between their local boy
and a sandy-haired student of exchange.
And I wanted to exchange-
to uncover
all that was growing curious.
We sat on this wall, once,
in the kiss
of youth’s sunlight,
in the stifling days
of undulating adolescence
and the growing tension
beneath every question,
and that temptation-
and I wanted nothing more
than to touch that temptation
despite our twisted tongues
and those eyes
always watching, always wondering
what was unfolding between us-
two boys just beginning
to join the colours that made blue,
for a while, beneath the weight
and the worth
of all the nothingness
that never trembled
for longer than a month in the summer
when our legs
occasionally touched, like tectonic plates,
shifting positions beneath
all that was once solid,
sensations rubbing up against
all that we wanted
and what, I suppose we knew,
at the time, we could never really have.
There can be earthquakes, in little towns.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
TO CAPTURE EACH OTHER TOGETHER
I took photos of us once, together, to remember
all I had before I set off to find myself in other fields
that other lands had whispered of other welcomes
across other waves, moments to return to later as I navigated
new roads, strange turns and gates I had to manage alone.
Now, our shadows sing again of the old songs we once sung
when we hadn’t considered to count our connections.
We potter and ponder and eat and gossip and get grumpy
and take to our rooms and then eat again and garden and paint
and re-ponder and thread newly discovered thoughts across
old fields that still hold fertile as a familiar favourite.
When we come now to gates, we have seen what extends
beyond them and appreciate the safety of what exists within them
and so stop and listen to that song, recently resumed,
beneath all this stillness- mother and son, singing slowly
on the same path, somewhere between the coming home
and the lockdown. Someone sent wishes recently and I said-
We’re back together and they replied- You were never apart.
Mother and son, capturing moments because somewhere else,
out there in another field, another town, another land,
another mother has lost another son or a daughter to a gun
or a bomb or a noose or a knife or a knee or a pill
or a pointless moment that no camera will ever
be strong enough to capture how the world just stops,
thereafter
I took photos of us once, but now we simply try to capture
as much time as we can possibly hold.
All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly
TWO NORTHERN MAGNETS
We scold,
even at frightening distances,
you burn, there, at the centre of
the sun
and I roar back across the stars at you,
from this comet that cannot commit,
at how you could run
so cold.
Our landings
were nothing less than lumpy-
you wanted to shine so I caught you that sun
and I wanted to amplify time
so you considered for me
the moon
but were already consumed
by your own blaze
and I caught this cursed comet in its place.
I think of you
as I finally defy time
on the tail end of this burning star.
We lacked the gravity needed
to bring a balance to
any orde
but we each held magnets
that repelled the other to the far ends
of space.
In the distance
I see something great
that might be your light
and smile back
before I spit
across the sky
and wonder if it’s enough
to put you out.
We scold still,
even at these great distances.
All words and photographs by Damien. B. Donnelly
THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF HIS NECK
You had long black hair, a horse’s mane
that I held as we rocked through early years
and a red furry coat I never stopped to question
while we rode across uncertain terrines that echoed
his silence and her longing to not give up anything again.
Even then, even at play, I knew their mask of a marriage ran
short of imagination. I cut your hair later, amid the tension
but before the divorce, when I would have cut any cord
at the time if it meant getting out, getting away, me
and a red rocking horse with a mutilated mane,
wishing, later, that things we cut could find
a way to grow back,
better.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 