Development

CYCLE

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Start. Stop.
Repeat.

Start. Stop.
Return. Rerun.

We are movement broken down
Into stages,
On stages

Persons performing their pieces
In spaces,
Persons in pieces
Often in the wrong places.

Start. Stop.
Release.

Start. Stop.
Rethink. Reread.

We are short stories bound in books

Looking for readers,
Looking for worship,
Looking for our worth,

We are sentences unseen.

Start. Forget. Remember. Forget. Stop.

I was a hand being held
In hope,
In haste,

I held a hand while thinking of another
Since forgotten.
Then remembered.
Now lost.

I remember more
Of what didn’t happen
Than I do of what did,

Subconscious is subversive,
Conscious does not always question.

Stop. Start.
Lay down.

We are the truth of our lies,

We lay lie between what we believe
And what we know to be reality.

Stop. Start.
Throw out.

We are clothes cut and cluttered,

We have forgotten to be sustainable,
To be recyclable,
We have been pressured into polyester.

Start. Stop.
Repeat.

Not retrain. Not relearn.

We are beings bound to repetition

We take foolish steps
Into fallen footprints
we haven’t understood,
we haven’t forgiven,

Be become the ghosts
That cloaked our childhood.

We have not been thought to think.

Stop. Start.

Rely.
Repeat.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BREAK OF LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

I choose the path;

this winding way

though the midway,

battling though the brambles and briars,

I have stains on my soul,

I have splinters in the tissue of my beating breast,

beating, breaking, panting,

I have moments

when my feet no longer feel their footing,

when falling is all I can handle,

I choose this path;

this way of winding words,

stringing sentences into steps

that carry me to places

I never knew existed,

I have ink stains on my insides,

I have empty areas that have been erased,

their only trace now a vacuum

where vanity once ventured,

I choose this path;

this winding way

of silent shadow

and am grateful

for the break of light.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly 

TO EACH HIS TIME TO SHINE

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Silent under summer sun
I slip back
to where the shadows
snatched older days,
Boho days
in soho
and then that shift
further south;
so south of centre,
I slip back
and see you
in the spotlight
that surrounded you
and see myself; sidelined
into abstractions
and decorating diversions;
building barricades
while you shone above them
I was swimming in subtle shifts
barely susceptible to both,
seeking out shadows
of a former self
that had shifted
like a current
you can’t control
We had removed
a sea of division
but had no idea
what has been lost
in the crossing.
We were couple content
in musicals and mortgage
but there had been more
standing between us
than just an ocean bed.

I remember you
standing centre stage
in the spotlight
that so suited you
and I was reminded,
there in the shadows
of the dressing room,
that I had yet
to find my character.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

THE RISE AND FALL OF FORM

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Day 23 National Poetry Writing Month #NaPoWriMo

Decades by four
and one year more
have tempered time
to twisting root
beneath this ever
changing shore.

Lands by four
and to one returned
as curious caught
upon my boot
my bags now tipped
with lessons learned.

Summer fires
have blazed this land
flames that fired
forbidden fruit
that etched their mark
upon this sand.

Kisses that sank
beneath the grains
while others I thought
to be absolute
now wait for time
to shift their stains.

The sun has often
turned to storm
hearts were hot
then tears dilute
as I break and fall
and rise through form.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

MUSICAL NYMPH

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A blonde little child
Wearing big girls shoes
With eyes that were eager
To pick out life’s clues.

Playing her music
To brighten the room,
All Mitchell in styling
And sweet to the tune.

A flatmate, a friend,
A flourishing fool,
A daring disaster
All crazy and cool.

Pure in her spirit
And swanlike in flight
She lit fires in the bones
Of wild boys at night.

So gentle of soul,
A foundling, a stray,
A cute little pixie
Just finding her way.

A girl, a woman,
A green mother earth,
A virtuous angel
In a tight fitting skirt.

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