Connection

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 1; AND SO WE BEGIN

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

And so we begin; the light freshly falling
on newfound flesh, clouds breaking over
a sea breeze gliding in over giddy grass,
a giggle in its thrill, bright bodies bending
lending limbs to longing, every touch
a tiny tickle as naked truths twist and turn;
turn on, turn hot while hands draw hope
as we grope the layers, as we undress
a barrage of barriers now newly broken
on the floor by the bed with less room
but more comfort to caress, cum and cuddle,
each to the other a curious new creature,
new waves washing along the other; under,
over, into as we dare each other to dive
deeper, each breath a new scent to sink
below, a salty seduction, a sweeter sweatiness
like salt that settles in the afterglow
on the shore of this new light, bright
is the beginning, I want to say more,
but no, linger only in this fair light,
rare light, rare is the time for this light
that time will not spare, take time to taste
the temperature, between thighs we tumble,
between each pause we laugh lightly,
pulses pressing into parts pulsing, we learn
how far we can push, how deep we can dive
down, I rise up to speak again, but no,
not yet, be still, let us feel, let us feel
how much we can open up below
the light, this new light, just beginning.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

 

LOST

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Sometimes things just get lost…

like umbrellas in taxis
when cover comes,
like keys in corners
when time is doomed,

like days,
like years,
like faces
once familiar,
like the fate
you once fought for,
like the dream
you since let drown,

like scars,
like tears,
like hearts once essential.

Sometimes
things just get lost.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 18; TRAVELOGUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I

In the park
bodies are bare and bending
in sweaty forms,
see the skin still salivating
as if fresh from the frolics,
when we were fondled and found,
some born to be bound
and then others;
fickle fools thinking thrusts
were as true as trust.

But truth is told only in time;
touch turns from tenderly
tempestuous to temperamental
and all too temporary.

I had a king
in a castle in London
who showed me Soho
and Shakespeare
and Sondheim and song,
I had a home
in the confines of concrete
with textiles and textures
and people who thought
I shouldn’t want more,
I was a shadow
of winter in summer,
I was a peasant
unprepared for the palace
of people and places and graces.
I was the blue note in a home
where I didn’t belong.

I was caught
and caged in the concrete
I had pasted and painted
with colour to keep out
the cold.
I was the killer
of kindness in the castle
when I couldn’t keep track of the ties
too lonesome to hold.

II

Truth, like ties,
are tenuous,
like I told him once
and he laughed
and I knew I’d already lost him.
We were drunk then,
daily, ravenously rampant
by the river, raising the rafters
of romanticism into something
more erotic as liquor left us
more likeable,
more pliable.
More, you asked,
more of more and more
and we were whores
to the hunger, fools rocking
on a trust, that I had told him,
would turn out to be as tenuous
as it was temporary.

My old man
was a funny one,
a drinking man,
a bottle collector
who liked me like his liquor;
in cabinets next to cast offs
and collectables he could polish
at his pleasure.
My old man
was a fond one
of class and culture
who liked his treasure
in bottomless glasses
and freshly pressed sheets.
My old man
was the party clown
when the lights were leaving
and the drink deceiving
and despondent, at times, I think,
to think that he could have been more,
to think that we could have
had more.
My old man
was a bottle collector,
a drinking man
of class and culture
but there wasn’t enough room
in the bed for us all
with the more and more and more.

The sun is shining now
in this park, over sweating skins
poised for it to be permanent
while I watch the clouds gathering
just beyond the tress

where the vultures
are devouring their own virtues.

III

Alone now,
a flight of feathers
free from all shackles,
walking the single lane,
secure if it is to be
for a single day
or forever.
Alone
and casting off
the cages that once encased me,
feeling strength
that has long since slumbered,
heading along the highway
and holding all that is truly mine,
slowly retuning
to my natural state,
my own body embracing
its bounty, baring its beauty
like the womb; nurturing myself.
Loving alone now,
getting to know the curves
and the quite corners
of this midway of me
and the miles I am making,
true to the tales
of my own travelogue,
all natural states eclipse
for in returning
to this part of me,
once pushed aside,
once cast out of spotlight,
I am moved,
almost elevated,
parallel to that
which I am bound
into becoming.

I am the waters
no longer resting,
I am the stream swimming
from the city to the open ocean
and already I can feel the breeze
that those bound parks can only ponder.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 16; LILTING LULLABY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

I thought we were templates for tattoos to tell tales on,
I never thought to the tire skids and teeth marks time’s tiger
would temper on our skins. Here kitty, kitty, we call
and curiosity comes crawling out from under as cat with claws uncut.

Cute kitty, come catch, we call through the forest foliage, fooled
into thinking we are the keepers of the cage within this corner
of creation in constant recreation all around us.

I thought us all thoroughbreds, better bred, slices of a bigger plan
but it’s true that thought is not to be trusted, not all that is kneaded
rises as we were led to expect. We are busy bakers, blindly baking
in ovens too hot to hear our hunger, too closed to be open to our urges.

Cast out of kitchen we cower as canines caught between the cage
and the carnal, praying for peace with paws ready to pounce
on all possible prey. Falling on four feet in the forest already fading,
we are shadows of former selves, cut and claimed by the marks
our own malice has made of us. In the forest falling no one hears
the crazy cries of the lives who once howled only for the lilting

lullaby of love.

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 14; TWO ROOMS IN THE LAND OF THE FROGS

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

In days now distant we were back side, one-up,
apartment dwellers whose viewless windows
enabled us to see more through the darkness
than the light that might have deceived us.

Tambourine Therese tapped her tunes of truths
not yet tasted, sweet tumble leaves freshly fallen
from the trees in the apple orchard with the pink
ladies and golden greens begging to be bitten into,
we were innocence eased into a micro mini
of voluptuous velvet and the brown eyed boy
already broken on blue, we were scavengers
seeking the scent of salvation on the shiny streets,
saving up to buy into beginnings we could cut
cords on, we were lyrics yet to be licked
looking to Mitchell as muse; we were wild
in the old days and covering Carey and cases
of whoever might come calling on the Casio
in our little corner as we careered through
the no longer muddy marshland in search
of suggestions to rise in us seductions, thirsty
for tattoos to plot paths along our pale pinkness
so we could track our trajectory. Gone
from the garden we were growing into city,
held up at first in a hotel, hostages of homelessness
were we sang songs in the ignorance of our sorrow,
sweet birds of youth busy building nests
in the confines of concrete, blind to the battery,
we were born for the bloom but forging
that famed forever on a friendship
that failed us like the lie of a lead balloon.

In days now distanced from all that was once dream,
I have found form as lonely painter on a canvas
of winding words, the connoisseur of cutting cords,
often curt and callous, in the challenge to manage
the malice, trying to be fateful only to the fate
that awaits but caught at times, by cords
that cannot be cut, whose curious concerns
come a calling from cold corners I’d considered
closed. I hear you on the wind sometimes
still tapping those tunes I thought I’d forgotten,
as veins rethread the trajectories already taken
through my skin, no more so pink, no more
so fresh. Fruit fades but we find ourselves
reformed into fractures of what once was,
fragments unfinished, like filigree too fine
to unfold, like a dance as yet undone, a song
we had still to sing in this city I’ve now returned to
while moving on, slipping forward through shadows
now past, still building nests, still seeing better
in the darkness and touched, in that half-light,
by the purity of your sprite, once so fair, one so rare.
We fell so fast to finished and yet, as she sings
of the songs like tattoos, I’m reminded
of that one flight up that can never be diminished.

All words and photo collage by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 13; CAPTURE BEAUTY

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Beauty is breathtaking
where breath is less
and beauty is all.

Beauty is breathtaking
before it’s been taken from you,
then we are no longer bound to blind
and breath is less and less and less.

We breathe in beauty
in excess
as if it were endless,
as if we were never bound to be less and less and less.

We are chalk
marked for a rainstorm.

We breathe beauty with every breath,
with every kiss caught from lip’s press,
we press beauty into flesh,
flesh fresh on beauty that is fleeting.

Kiss him back,
Kiss her again

before it’s gone.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispers with eyes eager
and he kisses her eyes
and her lips grow eager
to feel the beauty that is breathless,

that draws in each breath, less and less and less.

We are not bound to be endless,

we are chalk
marked for the rain storming in the distance.

And so we press more and more and more

falling into the fragile fold
that holds beauty as it is falling,

for we are falling
into life,
into lust,
into love,
into loss,
into all that will fade
when the rainstorm has fallen,

for we all are fragile.

Capture beauty
before the breath grows less and less and…

All words and mini college by Damien B. Donnelly

All poems/visuals in this series are inspired by the artistry of Joni Mitchell.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 8; TAXI DRIVER

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

A constant darkness,

the future unfolds like the road;
route unknown,

the past ever present
but kissed goodbye;

my lips still taste of yesterday,
my hips the heat of your caress
that has since slipped from these sheets.

I was always bound to restless,
to rest less and less,
I am creature creative;
a constant recreation concerned more with shadow than light,

more with what I don’t yet know
than where I have already been.

I am taxi traveller,
I will take you with me
naked under the sweating sun,
tender under starlight

but you are only fair;
you are the hitchhiker
along my highway,

a distraction on route to destination.

We are not destiny,
no two are designed alike,

every soul a single sojourn.

I am city when you are desert,
I am sand when you are stone,
I will have dried up
before you learn to open up.

I will meet you
under moonlight,
by the gaslight
already flickering in the morning light,

only the stars will see us burning bright
for we are stars;
rising in the darkness,

this constant darkness,

I will drink you and then discard you
when the dawn calls me back to destination

before you break me,
I will set off before you slow me,
before you show me who you want me to be.

I am everything and nothing
in your eyes, all lies,
we are only reflections,
projections of hope and hurt,

How can I be all you want
when we don’t really know who we are?

We are starlight, like I said,
already burning out before begun,
drawn to distraction
and drawing on our own dust.

But I am constant, now, to the calling,

am free to flight and fall,

I will love you forever
and yet leave you
before you’ve even considered it
a compliment to concern yourself with who I am

because all we have learned
is to look for ourselves in each other.

And yet I am other. Another.

No other,

bound to no body and everybody,

at home in hotels
that hold me for hire,
every stop another station in the formation,
every sheet another burn as we twist and turn

and then, in twisting, we turn,

we are roads constantly crossing,
trying to get to the other side

to see if the darkness is lighter, brighter,

but this darkness,
this constant darkness
is not a dark abyss,

this constant darkness
can only be conquered at the check out.

A constant darkness,

we are all travellers on a road
making moments, making magic, making mistakes
believing the future is forever.

But I am not concerned or consoled by forever,

I am here now,
running reckless along these roads,
seeking sustenance, seeking solace,
and occasionally a comfort from the cold that comes a calling,

(I will give you what I have willingly
if you promise not to take it unevenly)

seeking satisfaction in things temporary,
leaving a part of me in everything I touch,

hoping it’s enough,
hoping you will remember
the scent of my skin
though we were too thin to be true,
too fragile to be anything more than a fickle tickle,

trying to understand the sweet sorrow,
the ebb and flow, the hope and the hurt.

Goodbye can be a greeting as warm as hello.
Good boy, I am trying to be a good boy

burning through this constant darkness

and smiling as I soar and sizzle.

 

A constant darkness

so we can gaze at the stars in their glory.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 7; THE HISSING IN THE SUMMER

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Summer
as the city
slips into slumber,
after last night’s thunder,
as skin slides from winter’s
shawls and shackles and pitches
itself proudly in parks where not even
dogs bark, where shadows have sunk
into sweaty
soil as feverish
fingers smooth skin
with soothing oil. Summer
in the city and temperatures
are oozing over bodies, all tease
and no breeze to appease. Summer
in the city and the music mellows as fellows
fold frowns
into bottom drawers
with winter wishes and curate
concerns toward sunset kisses. Summer
in the city and she unfurls her curls like foliage
finding form over greedy grass, and he goes green
with envy and furrows his frenzy as the fountain flows
with full force, unabashedly, and he grows as greedy as the grass
while her
curves caress
his consciousness
and he wilts in watchful
wantonness while I wait for kisses
caught on Spanish lips that creep along
the current of sweeping storms and sensual
shifts, we are ships crossing under starlight, snakes
slivering over sheets, I am not his, he is not mine, he is not
hers and still not mine, we cast concern into the ripples that sink in ocean
beds
too deep
to remember and
too cold for concern,
ripples that are arousing now
beneath these fountains now flowing,
in the park, in the sunlight, in the summer,
in the city. Summer in the city and babies are sleeping
in buggies buried under bushes while nannies dose and daddies
delight in their sweet blooming rose. Summer shines on the city and
streets slip
from worries
and rushes to brushes
with light and lazy, humming
hazy harmonies like he once strummed
upon my strings a serenade sweet enough
to sweep us to older days, other days, days of revolution
and voices that shone as bright as this burning sun, and on
to simpler days of lemonade and laughter. Remember laughter,
back before the pitter patter of drought and disaster? We are just people
passing
through parks,
looking for stars
in between the sunlight,
looking for fleeting kisses,
treats that are never free, saints
and snakes all hissing across lawns
in summer. Summer in the city but somewhere
out there, beyond the sleeping stars and the deep blue sky,
someone is probably crying and another, senselessly, about to die.

All words and paintings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 5; COULD HAVE BEEN MORE

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

We held hands over hearts
housed in other folds, ink
had tipped another name
into your flesh as we fell
into holds, harbouring no more
than musing moments, the south
going north for something different,
something foreign, someone fresh,
perhaps that was all we ever were;

a diversion from all that was defined,
from all that was assured. I was never
going to be anything more than something
to adorn an ordinary day in a city far away,
I would never be ink penned in permanent,
signed in the shade of your skin where
sorrow had somehow settled into shadow,
we were too thin to be anything more
than temporary, a painting the artist
considered too crude to be continued,
too confrontational to be anything more
than crass. We were hearts folded
into the hands of other houses, however
hopeless, however harmless, however much
we kissed and cavorted, teased and
twisted, we were branches bound
to other roots, ties are eternal to the trunk;
foolish is the fragile foliage that always falls.

Time turns tides, suns set,
touch is only temporary,
a kiss can be enough to curse.

I hear you, in the wind, at times, messages
that come calling from places I cannot picture,
from sheets I have never set my skin to,
from sweltering stones I will never step upon,
whispers of what once was, a wish
for something that was momentary
to have meant something more monumental.
But not every harbour hides hope, not every
hope is enough to hold a heart. We were
brushes, tipped with colours that weren’t
compatible, merely complimentary enough
to court a spark in a corner where comfort
felt a little less cold for a while. You called me
beautiful, at midnight, on a Monday
and I called you mine neath the gaze of your eyes
and we laughed our way through all that was truth
and all that lingered on the other side of our lies.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 1, A SONG FOR THE SLEEPING BEE

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

There was a man I used to know,
who came a calling long ago,
back in the days when I didn’t know,
when I didn’t know the truth of me,
when I didn’t know who I could be.

There was a boy once, long ago,
fragile as filigree and falsetto,
there was a boy I used to know,
who didn’t know, I didn’t know.

I am a man now not from here,
who’s watched the shadows disappear;
the jeers and shame for being queer,
I’m not that same boy anymore,
I’ve set my sail to another shore.

If you said ‘home boy’, I wouldn’t know,
if you said ‘go boy’, I would not know

I couldn’t say which way to go.

I came a calling long ago,
I caught a calling that pulled me so,
came from inside and would not let go,
and now I can’t let it go,
can’t let the calling, can’t let it go.

I had a hero long ago,
he played me music sweet and slow,
I was the string at the Château d’Eau,
I was a puppet in his travelling show.

There was a puppet he used to know,
of sugar sweet and gentle snow,
but strings grow cold over melting snow,
and so he had to let me go,
he had no choice but to let me go.

I will not keep you, you have to know,
you’re just a pull of my cross and bow,
i’ll release the string and watch you go,
I will not want you to know me so,
we’ll let it burn out in the afterglow,
that’s the blow, but this I know,
and here I am to tell you so.

So you can love me before I go,
and you can taste me but then forego,
you can hold me like Calypso
did so long ago till she let go,
for this I know, I will let go,
of all I don’t know, this I know.

There was a man I used to know
who came a calling long ago,
I loved him so and yet I let him go,

I couldn’t say; ’I cannot stay’
but now he knows and so it goes.

There was a boy I used to be,
silent and still like a sleeping bee,
trying to hide behind a nobody,
but now he’s no more a part of me,
I see him sometimes out at sea
and in the shade of what used to be.

But he’s not me, that sleeping bee,
just thought it was who I was meant to be.

But it was not me, he was not me.
You see; that nobody; it wasn’t me,
there was a boy I used to be
but now this man, this man is me
or at least the only part I’ll let you see,
for all the rest, all the rest,
I’ve learned to keep that just for me

I learned you gotta keep something
because love;

It don’t come free.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: