Connection

JOURNEYS, PART 17, THE BRIGHT RED ROSE

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

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…

We carried you, like a child, that day,
winter now withered as the bark
made a place for the bloom and I wondered
if April had ever held so soft a day?

Rough round that rose bordered hem
we ran, regardless…

We carried you, like a child, that day,
the old village hushed as if all had now
been said, as if all had since been seen
and I wondered if that stillness amid all
the emotion was your soul on the breeze.

Rough round that rose bordered hem
we ran, remembering…

We carried you, like a child, that day,
our toes retracing your well worn
steps, our memory meandering
through the journeys you found for us
on busses and trains on lanes
to foreign towns and holy lands.

Rough round that rose bordered hem
we ran, reverberating…

We carried you, like a child, that day
and remembered every knee you bandaged,
every tear you had dried and every belly
you filled with your apple pies and custard bakes
those fresh brown breads and coffee cakes.

Rough round that rose bordered hem
we ran, repeating…

We carried you, like a child, that day
as red roses fell from our hearts like tears
as that breeze brushed our cheeks like a kiss.

Rough round that rose bordered hem
we ran, in reverence…

We carried you, like a child, that day,
your body as weightless as it was lifeless
as we covered you in the red petaled ground.

You carried us all, in your arms,
and now we carry you in our hearts
along our journeys forever more.

By that bed, in the village
that housed you and still holds you,
hemmed in forever by a border
of bright red roses, we sighed
by those borders now broken
by all we took for granted,

and felt the touch of the torn
comes at the fall of that one bright rose.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

JOURNEYS, PART 12; THE ALMOSTS

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

—

Trust time to remember the dream

where the river was a rhapsody

we attempted to outrun,

never knowing

how much the melody

would meander.

We were minor steps

trying to make our motions major,

swept up in golden grains of thoughts

that slipped through our minds

like the waves along the shore.

—

Trust time to remember

the journeys we never fully dreamt.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

JOURNEYS, PART 11; BEING BOLD

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Beauty is raw
beneath this blood red sky
where we lie delirious,
licking at lazy, drunken ships
trudging through bitter beds,
frantic to find our way to smoother seas.
‘Man is but a whisper,’ the Shadows
sing to the Sun but I
want to milk the storm
before my summer sinks
beneath the shade.
The moon cannot be the only light
to cast its reflection upon these waters.
Surely we too can be as bright
as the night.

Beauty is raw
but bold can be breath-taking.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

JOURNEYS, PART 9; ONCE, UPON A SUMMER

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

It was summer stock
and season of blondes;
darker tones bleached
to an inch of white,
at first so fair and fragile,
translucent tracks
tethered to nothing more than
temporary teases, interval acts
pitching and playing and parting
before the important performers
took their permanent positions.

I was high on a hiccup
of happiness that had long eluded me,
basking beneath the blinding spotlight,
a swing without a line on stale streets
whose stories I envied
as you slipped in between
the numbing neon distractors
and saw the blinkers that floundered me.

I was bound and breathless
before we’d even bent our bodies
into a bed that never quite fitted
the pair of us and yet still I stayed,
as you crept along the curb of the couch
not quite sure if you wanted to catch a star
or just court a curiosity.

We were players of unequal parts,
me too light on lines
and you too too busy
following those fragile white lines
that took you away from me
while I lay there next to you, waiting
to see if you might come back.

We lost each other
on another side street
after sunset, when the light
no longer blinded me
to those darker tones you tried to dye.

It had been my season of blondes;
buffed bodies that blurred lines
but your costume caught on reality
before the curtain made its final call.

We were separate journeys
caught up in the changing of the tracks,
too temporary to be truthful,
too tempting to not to taste.

Memory has not moulded us
into anything more meaningful
than a moment that was never really meant.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A SHIFT TO THE SEASON

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

 

Another oldie as we drift to the end of another season…

—

It happens, now and then,

That slight shift in the season,

A new light, a different dusk,

A gentle breeze that brushes you

Into remembering a moment in the memory,

A time, once far removed,

Now returned, repeated, relived

And there you are, once more,

Back in those arms, looking in those eyes

Or maybe just reading that book,

Wearing that Sweater,

Crossing that bridge.

Time moves and overlaps, all at once,

I am here today, living and yet

A part still of yesterday, re-feeling it now.

I move, change, evolve

Like the weather, as the seasons.

I am summer because Spring bloomed before.

Today it is fine because yesterday I loved.

And then suddenly it shifts again,

A newer light, a darker dusk,

A twist to the breeze and another memory

Melts into the moment and on I go,

As the seasons, changing constantly,

While rarely forgetting that tomorrow,

What we did today, happened yesterday.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A WHITER SNOW

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

As the sun still blazes through the shades pulled low, I found this older poem recalling the sentiment of another season…

—
I saw you,
One morning,
Blanketed in white-
A speckled canvas of virgin purity,
All color lost out
To a simpler shade of simplicity.
No more that magnificent mass
Of contrast and contradiction,
Just quiet and gentle
Unencumbered distinction.
Distant laughter
Sailed on a breeze
That swirled around trees
Caught motionless in time,
With branches bare but for snow
Reaching down to Mother Earth,
So proud to be born from Her roots.
I saw you like this,
One ordinary morning,
Alone,
As tears formed icicles on my face,
While snowflakes fell from your skies
Hiding your valleys and hills
And I watched my feet disappear
‘Neath the snow white earth.
I saw you,
Like this,
That morning,
And that longed-for smile
Returned.
For all has its season that crawls to an end
But the most hopeful in heart can rise again.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TRIGGERS

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

We still taste the scent
of semi lucid laughter
edging over apples
being skinned and sweated
on extra ordinary Saturdays
of sweeping and stews,

still taste the crisp coating
of confusion beneath smiles
barely swimming over tears
there was not enough threat to trace.

We still trace, still blindfolded,
those outlines of imagination
now fading on distant walls
when dreams were seductive serpents
sucking the deafening dullness
out of roast Sundays
seasoned with unsensational rain
falling like the granulated gravy
that drowned our plates
as we looked to escape
the smell of a fear we couldn’t
pull the trigger on.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

IN THE SEOUL

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

This city does not sleep, the wind is as wistful
as thoughts I cannot gather, here on this sojourn
to the south of Seoul. Horns honk along highways
to wake drivers out of day dreams the night cannot
decipher so we buckle up and giggle briefly in back
seats but I cannot see those space bound lanterns
of tied wishes from these knotted sheets I know not
how to untwist. Even on the soft slumbering slopes,
in the shade of the rock bound Buddhas, helicopters
chase the rising sun while you try to chase those parts
of yourself peace cannot pacify. Dysphoria’s the new
mantra. This body won’t sleep, my mind has taken
to meander along this midway, midlife, as trumpets
still announce the coming trains and palaces are filled
with space in place of stained sentiments of wealth,
this eastern stretch of the journey, those cars still honk
in foreign tongues, far from the familiar, all is not what
it once seemed, this mouth no longer makes sense
as I cut across these sweeping vistas of strange words
breathed with bows and ways so traditional they worry
the West. In the North, strange armies are Trumping
in unities many states are too confused to comprehend.
But here, south of these strangled ties and demented
ducks, sitting sweet beneath the stars, the streets awash
with numerous neons twinkling below billowing blankets
of nature’s blossom covering the city in a comfort concrete
can’t squash and man can’t master. My body can’t sleep,
I’ve seen to much but still hope for more while this city
is only now waking up to who it truly wants to be.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/in-the-seoul