control

DON’T COME TO TAME THE CAT

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Red sun burns below a blue moon
and the tiger rips through trees
to escape the cat. Sometimes
small things need to be as sharp
as an icicle even when the sun
comes to burn red beneath blue
moons while she sings of those
crazy cries of Havana’s love.
She sang of Paris once while
somewhere else and California
while in Greece. She was blue too,
like that moon, while in green
and again with those icicles
and no baby for birthday clothes-
letting go’s a bitch, like moving on,
even if you’re just a fearless pussy
cat and the tiger is too scared
to fuck with you. Earlier, luxuriant
leant in, hissing all over her
manicured lawns of blue pools
and strangling centrepieces.
Always the blue below that burning
sun and those picture-perfect settings
as if to foretell of all that will follow.
Red sun burns below a blue moon
and pussy purrs alone while the tiger
takes cover beneath the shade of
the green cactus tree with phallic
spikes that look like limp icicles.

   

All words and drawings by Damien B Donnelly. Some thoughts inspired by the music and lyrics of Joni Mitchell

SIMPLE

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

  

Love is a simple thing-
a jaded house waiting
to be resold, to be a home again,
you knock unexpectedly
and I utter Enter, please,
much like last time,
already setting the table for two.
Love is a simple thing

fragile and foolish and forgetful.

Love is a simple thing-
a game of tennis,
a juggle of balls back and forth,
the hunger to have the control
of love and all its advantages
before it’s match point
with a set of side-lined backhands
played below the baseline.
Love is a simple thing

blinded by the sexy shorts and those tight strings.

Love is a simple thing
like the heart-
it needs oxygen to survive,
like any organ-
it needs the right fingers
to play it perfectly

Love is a simple thing-
find your oxygen before
laying the table or crossing the court
or reaching for the note
you were never meant to play.

   

All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly

ART ISN’T EASY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Colour
catches on canvas as we lean towards light,
a beam to break the boredom like a breath
above the water after diving up from darkness,
ripples run across the current,
ink spreads out like veins upon this page;

art isn’t easy, breathing isn’t any better-

both come up from down below,
rise through risk into life, into looking lively.
The texture of the wave is as temperamental
as the tone that sets itself out upon the page.
I dab the brush, horse hair taps connections
and colour comes at a gallop. It is clear-

control is not concerned with the creator.

This body needs air, runs broken, breathless-
breath and then less and less and less
and sometimes, sometimes I need to turn back

and teach the lungs how to draw. In.

Ink dries and petals stand, enchanting time
with their dismission of the word wilt.
Colour catches on canvas, clear and captured
and I lean in with the hope of drawing fresh
breath before the dive recalls me to paint
panic.

   

All words and paintings by Damien B. Donnelly

GOING EAST

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

I have crossed oceans
without feeling the weight
washed beneath their waves…

I have cut through clouds
without knowing the worries
they whisper to the stars…

I have flown
from darkening dreams
towards tomorrow’s daylight
and yet

the light is already fading
on front of me

before my past
has even slept

before my future

somewhere far behind me

has even been conceived…

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost for a week looking at clouds

THE BLUE PILL

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Digital download,
activate avatar;
humanoid performance,
interface,
access joy,
bytes to brain,
stream a cloud cover
to convey intelligent thought
and combat subconscious combustion.

Access matrix;

choose the blue pill
and clear the cache.

All movement falls to manual override,
factory settings restored to screen,
reflected appearance is perfected

but the motherboard sparks unseen
and the password is forgotten.

Control has been passed on.

Avatar is now the host
of the show.

Not everything in the matrix
can be saved
because it’s been loved.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

16th poem for NaPoWriMo

CONTROL

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

–

Control.

How to cut deep.

Tipping toes in the tepid

tides of therapy.

We are cunning creatures

in unconscious,

under cover,

cool to discover

the character

beneath the cadaver.

Control.

How to discover,

how to distance the self

from its disguise,

from the depths

we dive to deceive the day,

the way we weave

tepid tales through the tides

of our twisting truths,

ever evolving, ever revolving

in directions we cannot dictate,

covering over shades

we cannot eradicate,

those waves that ruminate,

that sweep through veins

already raging red

before the oxygen

burns the blue. Control.

How to find the true blood

in a body beaten into believing

the truth of what the consciousness

considers to be correct.

–

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

HARD TO SWALLOW

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I bowed on bended knee
on foreign shores             on silk cushions
where no one knew me
to an invisible deity.

Did you see me?
Did I exist for you?
Did you believe in me?
Did you exist within me truthfully, invisibly?

I bowed on bended knee
into the light that flooded the floor.

They told me once you liked floods,
you liked to send floods,
to send down your floods
I never saw it,             did anyone really see it?

But they told me,
they told me as if to flood me with fear,
a flood to frighten the faithful.

I bowed in that foreign land
as the dragon’s breath drew a veil upon the sky
as if to cover the heavens from curiosity,
from temptation,
funny what rhymes with salvation,
salvation from what,             from whom?

There is faith,
there is belief
and then man names it all religion.

I bowed on bended knee
within that temple             that foreign temple,
it was not my temple,
I don’t build temples,
I have palaces in my head,
private palaces             private places,
filled with my beliefs             private,
flooded with my teared steams             private,
flooded with my fate           private,
my faith is not called any religion.

I bowed on bended knee
where others knelt before me
while others knelt behind me

StrangersWorshipersBelieversFaithful

foolish?

In the invisible             we place our fate
in man             we place our control.

Can you see them?
Can you exist for them?
Can you believe in them?
Do you exist within them honestly, truthfully?

Do you exist             as I exist?

I bent and bowed             I lowered my eyes,
I followed the flock of faithful foreigners
I confess it was just to conform
so as not to confront or be confronted.
I was a sheep following the shepherds
who shuffled around me
who looked at me             unsure,
who wondered to themselves
if they were the sheep and I was the shepherd.
Seriously!

Seriously,
how did I end up there,
bowing on bended knee
feeling too fair and too foreign
in that place             within that facade
behind that face             my own facade

and I asked the light

ContritionConfessionCommunionConfirmation

Is it all a Con?

ConspireContaminateCondemnConfineConform

Connect,
remember,
I remember once…

I wore a white suit
at 8, at communion;
my first communion,
I took the white bread,
they told me it was his body;
white, light and pure.

It stuck to the roof of my mouth.

It was difficult to swallow

            even then.

I bowed on bended knee,
I did what I was told,
I did what they expected of me,

I saw what they told me to see,
this religion they called a community,

            no more.

I bow on bended knee
in my own palace
far from their atrocities.

I bow on bended knee
and the light is so much brighter

the light inside me
the light within.

We can be the light
we can always be the light             alone
with our faith             our fate
without the hate             without the fear
            far from the floods.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken at a temple in China.

 

HE TOOK THE LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

He took the light
wrapped himself around it
as the rain fell outside
as the machine beeped
in the room next to him
the same monotonous sound
unchanging, unending, eternal

He took the light
held it to his body
as the darkness fell outside
as the machine beeped
in the room next to him
the same hypnotic motion
sounding, stopping, sounding, stopping

He took the light
down beneath the covers
as if light could conquer darkness
as if light could elevate illness
while all the world was sleeping
but the machine kept on beeping
calling, signalling, coming closer

He took the light
before the light took him…

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly