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REGARDING REFLECTIONS, day 16 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Day 16 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry Challenge and the quote today comes from ‘He Mourns for the Change That Has Come Upon Him and Longs for the End of the World’: ‘Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?’—W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blogs is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/a-month-with-yeats-day-sixteen/

My poem today is called REGARDING REFLECTIONS

 

What follies the daylight

carries when then,

before the darkness,

a blindness banishes

the glitter we have

heaped onto our horns.

the night has no light

for lies and disguise.

Blood runs black

in the moonlight

and no one can

see your fear.

 

And there you stood,

somehow in the shade

of shadow, somewhat

in the mirror watching

and I, leaning on the light,

by the doorway, waiting

to enter your world,

your skin, your body,

and I saw your breath

as it billowed in the glass

all frosted, all fuzzy

and I took in your scent

there in the room

now vacant of all else

but you looking out

to see what the pale

reflection could offer

of the inside and me;

waiting for you

to come back from

that frosted reflection

within the mirror, darkly

shadowed by all that lay

unsolved, by all as yet

unresolved and then

we revolved and it was I

watching and you, my dear,

waiting for me to find you

and lead you back home.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/regarding-reflections

NORTH OF THE NOISE, day 15 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Today’s quote for Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge is from the ‘The Rose of Battle’ by WB Yeats: ‘You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring the bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/a-month-with-yeats-day-fifteen/

My poem today, penned in Stockholm Arlanda airport, is called NORTH OF THE NOISE

 

And so I come north

where the air cuts colder,

where daylight is a breath

that barely bays, night

a blanket bound to days.

I am not here to stay but

on a sway through ticking

time, to see what rests

where the light is less,

where day finds end before

being truly bent, where life

harks to harder as the day

hangs darker, dreams now are

the comings and goings,

the stuffing out of hours

before a bitter blanket of

blinkered blindness. Sad hearts

grow sadder, they say, grow

seasonal into sombre, into

the shadow of a city standing

still, waiting for the will. Days

fall short, are gone before

they can be caught, like hours,

like time, like the hand in that taxi

I once held, like all we cannot

hold, like all that ticks onwards,

all that moves off with the light

while I come here to the land

which time has left behind it.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERED IN, day 14 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 16 Comments

 

It’s day 14 of A Month with Yeats coming to you from a wet, wild and rather wintery -2 degrees of Stockholm. Today’s quote from the genius of Jane Dougherty is: ‘That you, in the dim coming times, may know how my heart went with them after the red-rose-bordered hem.’ —W.B. Yeats.

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/a-month-with-yeats-day-fourteen/

My poem today is called: BORDERED IN

 

Rough round that rose bordered hem

we ran, regardless of where her skirts

did scurry, no fretting to the fraying

of her fringes, never noticing how

nimble had turned to not-so nifty

above that border of red roses, oh

so pretty, on those placid petticoats

until we laid her low, on a hill so high,

hemmed in forever by a border

of bright red roses, and only then

did we sigh, only there, by her final bed,

bordered in by all we took for granted,

did we feel that teary thorn that

comes at the end of every rose.

 

All word and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/bordered-in

 

TOPPLING HIS TOWER, day 12 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

It’s day 12 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats where you are asked to be inspired and pen a poem based on a WB Yeats quote. Today’s quote from the poetry of W.B. Yeats is taken from ‘The Rose of the World’. ‘He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet.’

Jane’s blog so you can follow read or join in is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/12/29181/

My poem today is called TOPPLING HIS TOWER

What can I lay by the feet of such beauty?
What can I offer my love on this land?
A garden of roses, omitting the thorns
with this golden ring I hold in my hand.

But a garden of roses, omitting the thorns
is barely enough to garland your grace,
so I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric,
a velvet so sweet to mirror your face.

So I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric,
a cloth of brocade to comfort your cares,
a daylight distraction to hold your attention
from rebels and riots that are not our affairs.

A daylight distraction to hold your attention
to paintings and poems that hang by our side
in a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries
of a world lost to power and drunk on its pride.

In a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries
and a lark then from the meadow I’ll borrow
so she’ll sing of the stars and the moon that is ours
as we’ll lay in arms and let love sooth the sorrow.

But restless was her soul on the call from outside,
her beauty diminished by the sounds of their cries
and one day he lost her where his paved path divided
and he cut down her roses with tears in his eyes.

I gave her the finest, the fairest and fancy,
I gave her the beating heart of this man,
but she was bound to the call of the lost and the lonely
which now I have become and therein I see her plan.

All word and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US, day 9 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

It’s day 9 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote to inspire something new is: ‘Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and Usna’s children died.’ W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US

 

We are the tales

our children will tell of us,

our mystery and musings

bound to a cord we hope

was not cut too deep,

those not bound to bare

will be buried in the hearts

of those who loved them

more than in the earth

that will eat them,

the worms that will weave

trails through their tissue

now taunt, their flesh

now fallen to fodder.

We can be glorious

if they can recall our goodness,

or a rouser of war if they grew

weary of our tales before

time grew tired of us. We make

what we can out of time, but our

legend is what time will make out of us.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THROUGH THE SANDS, Day 7 of A Month With Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 14 Comments

 

Day 7 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s inspirational quote from WB is: ‘…stars, grown old in dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody…’

To join in the creativity or just to discover Jane’s gentle genius, her blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THROUGH THE SANDS

 

And when they danced

she would hold him, her

perfume by his face, his

hands as her strength

as they waltzed through

their current as the tides

swept the shore, through

love and labor, to the first born,

still born, through the twins

who stopped the tears

and the girls who tied

the bows as the sands slipped

through time and the pace

became a quick step, through

the hands that held and those

hips that swayed through

the melody they were making

as they danced through

waves of washing houses

into homes, children into

strangers; rarely calling

and barely remembering

but on they danced as red

locks swept into silver strands,

as full head turned to bald head

on an older head as they turned

to the music now made

in the memory, till she left him,

finally, one morning in may,

as he rose to the sunlight but

she had lost to the moonlight

and so he built her an alter

of sea shells and sentiments

and now he turns, alone, across

the sands still slipping,

as the stars plot a path for him

to reach her in eternity.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHILE YOU WERE DREAMING, day 6 of A Month with Yeats.

/ deuxiemepeau / 14 Comments

 

Day 6 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and the prompt is as follows: ‘Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My Poem today is called While You Were Dreaming

 

And as you dove through distant dreams

just beside me, you left to my center,

I woke to the night sky splitting above me,

the stars were burning, bleeding through

the darkness as the heavens opened,

their gates no longer golden as the

rooks took flight, soaring into my fright

here in this cold night as you tossed

through thoughts and I watched mine

beating, beaten with feathers on fire, 

the disparate darkness drawing delight 

in my downfall, in my blindness and you

turned in sweeping motions, your back 

to me as I should have done, as I could not

and I wondered where you had wandered

as I was culled into consciousness, frozen

by the flames and shivering, were you

moving through memories we made 

or making room for more to come 

in other beds, in other arms, and then

befell the bodies, bound, in chains locked,

in flames crying, cursing, trying to pull

apart bonds that should have broken, 

and you turned again and your arm 

came over my chest and the vision 

was smashed in contact, reverie 

retreating but the burning continued…

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FOLD

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

And further we fold

deeper into flesh,

finding favour with all

that is now familiar,

with all that has chosen to linger.

 

And further we fold

into commitments

now concerned with connections;

I will fight dragons for you, I said

and you laughed once

but now you listen

for the flapping in the wind

so wonders can be witnessed.

 

And further we fold,

we are onions in opposite,

building up the layers of truth,

of trust and those thrusts

still trembling, we do not peal

but prop potential up

against promise.

 

And further we fold,

finally, into the cocoon

we are the creators of,

your head in the crest

of my comfort, my arm

the holder of your hope.

 

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

LIQUID RHYTHM 

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Expanding on the magnetic poetry oracle…

Need is hard
(to give in to
that craving for connection)
‘Not yet,’ I said (to Time,
teasing along twitching ties),
‘Drink me not, dark angel’
(we are light still and far from brewed).
Joy is a dance
of liquid rhythm
(lithe are we, fluid forms falling into arms
not always favouring hold),
hearts bleed when opened
(steel we are not, though hard are we
to mould into mutual).
‘Make us a secret
though our embrace is concrete
so maybe we (can) linger longer,
(let’s drink ourselves slowly,
regardless of how time ticks roughly).

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

TOO MUCH SALT IN THE CARAMEL 

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Inspired by the magnetic poetry oracle and filling in the gaps between the lines…
Remember the magic
(even malicious learns to linger)
marble smoke in sacred sky
(we twisted like timbers burning into embers)
candy kissed in caramel
(no support can be so sweet)
a dark poison
(my veins, your vice)
blushed and broken;
we were a prisoner to your perfume
(my hold and hope; both haemorrhaging)
bleeding on bluegrass
(sharp notes plucked on tender strings)
no peace in her poetry
(even her pen grew to pierce)
desire devours delicious
(hunger harbours not a healthy hold)
porcelain can be as cool concrete.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly