Connection

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO.12, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

I had a hand 

in every bone 

that was broken 

on this body.

I had a hold

of every hack

that was heaped

into this heart.

I held that hand

while thinking of another 

once forgotten

before imagining someone else

I hadn’t even met,

as you watched out the window

as connection passed you by.

We are not broken by others,

it all depends on how willing

we are to bend, be bent

or play blind.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

CONCRETE CANDY

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Perfumed kiss and velvet poison,

caramel can be a concrete candy,

I blush, almost broken,

a prisoner to this ocean

of long grass and liquid sky,

this smoky glass, darkly dazzling.

 

A wild flower is not a sister of peace,

fire is not a dance easy to put out.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly, with the aid of Magnetic Poetry

THE STORY

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

How does

the heart

still pump,

how does

the blood

still run

when these

feet won’t move?

 

How do

the bones

not break,

how does

this skin

not shed

when these

hands cannot hold?

 

We dress

ourselves in

solid shields

of security

(see this shining steel)

that cannot sooth

the single soul

still shivering

in a body

still pumping,

still running,

still searching

for the answer…

 

are we

a whole story

here alone

and naked

and beating

and pumping

and bleeding

and crying

and crawling

through the hope

 

or just a half truth,

never truly told,

never really held,

never fully realized?

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A WHITE WING RISING, day 25 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Day 25 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats and the quote is: ‘And when white moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout.’—W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is called A WHITE WING RISING

 

A starlit day,

on a distant shore,

as if summer had sent it

swarming like a snowflake;

silken wings to summon the sunset,

a white moth to raise a sweet soul

departing.

And there,

as a star was added,

the bright moon was kissed

in berry blush as the sun settled

beneath the lake where the lost trout

turned through tresses of silver dancing

and he smiled at his love, since lost,

now glimmering

in eternity.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

IN DREAMS, day 23 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Today’s quote for Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats is from ‘He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead’. ‘…your hair was bound and wound about the stars and moon and sun:’—W.B. Yeats

Jane’s beautiful blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/23/a-month-with-yeats-day-twenty-three/

It’s been a challenging 24 hours but at least this poetry challenge has let me tune out to some of the chaos.

Today’s poem is called IN DREAMS

 

If to sleep, if to dream

was to live, was a part of life,

was left to the living

and not just the dreaming,

then how close we would be,

you and your smile of the summer,

you with those eyes, brighter

than all the stars,

you; no longer a dream

below the gentle moonlight,

so subtly deceptive,

but we live in a light

that is blinkered

and see our souls only

while sleeping neath the stars.

We are bound to dreams

that whisper wishes

we cannot always reach,

like stars we cannot touch,

like holds we cannot have.

I held you once, in a taxi

turning through time,

neither yours, never mine.

We were star crossed,

blazing a trail towards other sparks

we thought we needed more

than each other.

If to sleep was to live,

then in dreams we could be more

than life allows.

But no, we live in this blinkered light,

never quite seeing the whole picture,

never quite knowing

who is standing beside us

until they are gone.

 

We are sleeping stars,

sometimes we are bright,

sometimes we are no more than a blink.

 

all words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

LISTEN, day 20 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

It’s day 20 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote is: ‘Out of the dark air over her head there came a murmur of soft words and meeting lips’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/a-month-with-yeats-day-twenty/

My poem today is called: LISTEN

 

We cannot truly change that which

we are, we cannot really laugh louder,

be brighter, stay longer than our journey

has already jotted down in a journal

whose language is not our own.

We cannot truly change the air,

the ocean, the fire that forges its way

through us, leaving us inspired

or expired, hot or just overheated.

We cannot truly change much

but we can cast corrections

into the darkness caught in corners,

we can see sages that hover over heads

if we need to add meat to the monotony,

singing songs of stories never too old

to be retold, never too new to be anything

more than necessary.

We cannot truly change that which

we are, we cannot promise to hold

any longer than time allows us,

we are tied to the tension of the knot

that knows more than we do,

whose heart lays on a hinge

that hangs both the hope

and the hammer. We cannot truly

change much but we can learn to listen

to lips that have lingered, that have

laughed in the face of lies

and been nourished by the face

of the fortunate who found favor

with who they were and then substance

in the soft stream of steady words…

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly