PLAYING GAMES

 

When I was a child,
was I thoughtless or taught less
or was there less to think about,
less to love?
Though life was never loveless.
When I was a child,
did I dream less because
I didn’t know any more?
When I was a child,
I lied without knowing
the truth of a lie.

As a man,
the closer I come to the truth,
the more I turn to the dream,
for now there’s less to love,
less to give,
for so much more
has been taken.

When I was a child,
I held trust like it were breath,
ever buoyant,
flirted with faith
as if it were a fountain
that could never fail.

As a man,
breath grows cautious
to capture
and faith has fallen to faithless,
has fallen to fate, to fear.

When I was a child
a puzzle held 10 simple pieces
and when combined
they formed a whole.

Now, as a man,
the pieces are countless
and this puzzle
is far from complete.
When I was a child,
I played like the sun
would never settle,
now playing is paused
as paws are poised
for the running,
running to catch the light
before it falls off a horizon line
they tell me is not a flat drop off,
but this is a truth
I must see for myself
so as to know it’s not a lie.

Time falls
into something, off something
and we are runners in races
whose finish-lines
we don’t want to face.

The truth
is not what we dreamed of
when we knew not
the value of that dream.

As a child,
finish was never a word
that took flight in dreams,
no bird flaps its wings
with desires to meet its end.

I see, in the mirror,
dimly, and sometimes clearly,
pieces that have parted
and the puzzle that remains
between child and man,
between innocence and all the light
that grew dimmer
after the loss,
and between the thinking,
the taking and the being taken.

And somewhere
between it all, I am there,
looking back at who I’ve become.

  

All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly

WRECKAGE, AFTER THE REVERIE

 

Restless morning after night’s twist.
From day we’d split like shadows
Into the swallow of darkness
But dreams are billowy breaths
That toss ships under sheets
Of stormy seas and we- single sleepers
Under the blindness, washing up
And through time and buried thought.

Restless morning after night’s twist.
Lip trembles at dream’s touch
As I reach out to pinpoint position
Upon this shore of subconscious
Where desire is an abhorrent beast
And we, single dreamers, fooled
Into thinking that one night’s hold
Can stir day into a sweet surrendering

Of the isolation drowning on the shore.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

WHEN I DREAM OF WHO WE WERE

 

We used to hold hands, a quiver
along the skin
at touch,                     do you remember?

You handled me like I was food,
to be prepared pealed back,
to find the taste within.

I was advised not to- but I had hungered,
had grown ill                      without.

A cold cut cannot survive without the fold

of the fridge.

Or were you the oil and I                     the onion?
Having already been cut,

sliced before being found. Remember?

But we’d been spared                     the tears.
We tasted of a thousand nights
that had never known                     any stars

and then we wanted to taste                     it all.

Do you remember? No,
you don’t.                        I forgot.

We only held hands in my head
in that room I shared

with the one                     I shared the tears with.

Still slicing.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

SHORT STORIES OF FEAR; A MATTER OF MUD

 

A Short Story

The Americans and British were bent on finding Jim Morrison while the Irish and Japanese, for some reason, longed to add more kisses to the now ball-less Sphinx lingering over the long decayed body of Wilde, who probably watched down over their stupidity, proffered some wicked wit as their rouged up lips found a free side of the concrete to consecrate. Kissing a carcass is much like kissing an ass, you come away from both with a distinct desire to rinse your mouth immediately.

At one point, somewhere amid the ongoing battle of trees reclaiming the conquered landscape, I took a turn into the shadows and a darkness fell as if a cover had been placed over the sun like one drapes a cloth over the cage of a bird mid song and suddenly the silence is stifling. Darkness comes over you in the same way when unannounced. The weight of its dominance takes on a persona as its very essence runs its icy touch along your skin. Under its spell, and there was a spell upon me, I lost sense of direction, trapped strikingly between the desire to run towards life and the horrid reality that I was standing upon so much death. I didn’t believe in ghosts, not because I was sure they didn’t exist, but because I’d never allowed such superstition to cross my path. But there, in that twist of day and night, amid the moss-covered beds of those who’d long since reached out their hands to eternal rest, everything was open to suggestion.
I twisted and turned over directions in my mind, the routes I had taken that brought me there, literally and figuratively. I’d come for the fun, to find the forever flames of the famous, now fruit for roots and worms. I’d come also to escape the daily drab of life; the 9 to 5, rush hours, traffic jams, gossip, crowded metros and shoulder shrugs. I’d come to death to escape life and lost my way beneath its shadows. I’d wanted something different and found something terrifying instead, mortality. Under the silence of the surreal, I heard bones rotting, flesh festering, souls scratching, my heart beating and watch ticking, teasing me with every minute I’d wasted seeking diversions from the right roads, the real roads. The track trembled before me. Tombs lay broken and open, dark holes reaching into darker realms that only Dante had dared to dwell on in life and all that watched me were birds; black birds, sinister sentinels and not a single dove to drown out the darkness.
I felt my skin tighten around tensed muscles, my pulses pounding around veins starved for blood, as if my whole body feared its finality, foresaw what would one day become of it, here in this place of buried beds and eternal sleeps where the angels creep and mourners weep.
Suddenly I heard a child’s voice laughing and turned and ran towards its distant direction, but my feet heeded not my mind and my footing fell upon a broken branch of nature and the break of my ankle echoed through my frustration as I fell while nature itself looked and laughed at length. I fell upon a grave. I fell upon an open grave and lost sight of the cemetery. I lost sight of the trees fighting the concrete columns. I lost sight of the weeping Madonnas. I lost sight of the stone eyes angels and so, as I plunged down, deep down, I closed my eyes and waited to be swallowed by the bowels of the earth.

With a shock, I jumped up, in bed, at home. My bed, my home, not a grave, not the end, not Dante’s inferno. My breath could not find itself in the confusion, still stuck in the dream, that nightmare disguised as dream, down in the layers of hell. Eventually, in a sweat, I made it to the bathroom and turned on the tap to wash my face in cold water and drown myself back into the security of reality. I looked in the mirror; it was still me, still my refection, my face. I looked down to turn off the tap and noticed the dirty water running down the drain. Then I saw my hands; covered in muck, my body; covered in muck, my feet; covered in muck.
What in hell is going on, I asked myself? What was happening, had it all been real, had I actually been to the cemetery somewhere under the cover of night and nonsense? I looked back into the mirror at my reflection and it smiled back at me. My heart stopped. My skin tensed, just like in the dream. My reflection was smiling but I wasn’t.
I wasn’t anymore.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE GARDEN OF THE MOON

 

There is a shadow,
like a dream too delirious to light with language,
whispering more of what swam away
than what smears this still water
I trudge through below a bitter moon
that has made his garden in this breast of man.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost for a week of moon and stars

THE PRICE OF A STAR

 

And she sang of hope and harmony
in a borrowed frock on Tuesday nights
in a smoky bar below the Bowery
where the Irish downed their whiskey
while the Italians were always frisky
and they touched her, always, after;
her faithful followers fingering flesh
as if to caress the affection she injected
into lyrics light and loving, in that bar
beyond the Bowery where she came to entertain
the Irish and Italians who always joined in the refrain.
Though they left her, always, after,
on Tuesday nights neath the smoky light
with hope and harmony already fading
in that bar below the Bowery where the laughter
never managed to linger for that long after
and in the silence below the Bowery
as the stars went out one by one
she felt betrayed by what they’d taken; by the hope
they had mistaken to be theirs for the taking,
and felt betrayed by herself; by her need to amuse,
to be the muse in the limelight but then alone
in the shadows, always and ever after,
by that bar below the Bowery where the light
was far too low to notice that her soul
had left her long ago.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost of a week of moon and stars 

THE DREAM; SUNDAY NIGHT, ALMOST LIGHT

 

The Dream; Sunday Night, Almost Light.

I dream of dark nights
that cannot hold their identity tight,
that break into tight pieces of light
when mind succumbs to dream’s dimension
and stumbles (still sweaty under sheets)
upon hidden altar in open field,
light cast as day amid dark of night,
depth of dream, this stone altar cast of granite grey
and cold where congregation gathers,
each pebble imprinted with the palm
of every parishioner now present before me,
though I know no rock embedded in this sacrificial table
(where body is broken and blood is drunk)
is a captor to my own print
because still I sleep somewhere
above the grey clouds turning translucent
like my skin in this dream
and grass burning green behind the hazel of my eyes
that know this sight is not sound in sense.
Children come to candle
and their faith gives way to flames fired from fingers
in this field of unfavourable familiarity,
in this night of broken light
where community comes together to confess,
confide, comfort or criticize my coming.


I dream of day borne in a twist of still night,
stilled light, still strange in fields I’ve flown from
and now flung back to where heads turn
below those clouds, low and grey, baying,
still grey, stilled breath, as if all colour
(except the growing grey and grinding green)
have not yet been considered.
Stony eyes, cast in concrete that could crush,
cower upon my questioning
of how I fled so far from all that stands so close.


I dream of dark nights
on old roads I could walk blindly,
your cold caress of cross now left behind me
in that stone-cold field now returning to shadow
that the night somehow chose to light for me,
I shiver beneath the darkness,
on this shady street where I stand
and somewhere, in the distance, in the bed,
I lie looking for shelter beneath my blanket of sleep.
I come upon a clearing,
a turning, a returning, I am home,
not my home but a house called home,
that old home I no longer hold the keys to
(though my pockets tingle with too many connections
to other doors now closed).
But it is the home recalled
only in photographs now fading,
not in the building still standing,
a meander of the memory
I barely have the right to call mine
like this skin turning translucent,
twisting off the bone, falling and fading
from a form I seem to not recognize in this sleep.
Still, I search in pockets
hoping to pull out not another cross
to carry on shoulder, to bear down on this tight chest,
growing tighter under this night, now darker,
on this dark night once somehow light,
in this twisting dream
I am both aware of and oblivious to.
I find no key or single soulful saviour
in this starless night,
even the simple sailor had at least the stars
when lost at sea, what hope is there to be found
when one is lost in the dream
he never deemed desirable to dream?

__
And I stop,
time stops, breath stops.
I stop on front of open door,
wide open in this still night,
still a dream, still asleep,
but I did not open the door,
I did not break handle upon floor
or toss dishes from dresser
or painting from wall.
I did not.
I did not ache for the field
or the weary worshipers watching me
find footing upon a land that has forgotten my print,
whose eyes still creep across my flesh,
sensing its scent to be something foreign,
something to fear.
I did not come willingly
within this nightmare
to stand before this open door,
this battered threshold,
this scene that has lost all soul.
I did not come to drown within the dream
but then came the scream,
behind my ears,
tearing through this dark night,
dark dream, once for a time light,
that scream creeping along the covers,
slipping through time and its displaced dimensions
and settling upon my mouth as I open my eyes
from all that was a dream,
open eyes to the sound of my own scream
beneath the stilled light,
filled with a stilled fright,
below the darkness
that uncovers the stillness of this night,
almost light.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FOR A WHILE, TO DREAM

 

I of soft nights dream
above a sea of harpsichords,
where clouds are cooling caramel
and the stars set alight with the scent
of a pristine perfume deemed delectable.

I of soft nights dream
neath a curve of cloistered courtyards,
drunk on desires dawn will deliver
as dusk dressed Diana sets to slip
my careless catastrophes far upriver.

I of soft nights dream
on a bed of chamomile seats
where leaves lean in to comfort from cold
and fine floret rays of petals white
dance around the apple scented hearts of gold.

I of soft night dream
through this climate’s current chaos
of laughter lines beneath sweet thy smile,
of caress, kiss and chorus of choir
and the comfort that comes to call for a while.

I, of soft nights, dream…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspiration for today’s poem must be given to Nigel Cowburn from Growplan; https://growplan.wordpress.com/. His wife Liz from Exploring Colour; https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/ told me last week that his response to my poem Solo Sail was that it reminded him of harpsichords, chamomile seats and cloistered courtyards! I couldn’t let those images be passed up on. Thank you Nigel.

NOSTALGIA

 

Nostalgia
is what we try to believe,

the truth
is what we try to escape.

Curious how comfort
can often be found cowering
in the corner of a cell.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

I CAN DREAM AND YOU CAN LOVE: A KEVIN BATEMAN SPOKEN WORD EVENT

Last Saturday at 2pm in Ireland, Dublin, in the Phoenix Park, in the shade of a house and in the shadow of a tree in the sunshine, Kevin Bateman gathered together a group of poets for his latest spoken word event ‘I can Dream and You can Love‘ which went out live, as usual, on periscope and every poet was revealed there and then, no pre announcements, no listings of performers beforehand, as is so usual in these days of social media. Kevin indulges ingeniously in the mystery of the moments that unfold when a name is called before the camera rolling and their words fill the air and travel across the skies.

His choices for these locations are often sacred grounds, off the beaten track, forgotten by guide books and now, thankfully, reclaimed as the performances unfold. This last location in the Phoenix park was on the Hill of the Mariners were one of the oldest dolmans in Ireland is located, Knockmaree Dolman. Discovered in the 1800’s, two bodies were found in the tomb which dates back to almost 3500bc and the bodies were suggested to have been sailors, hence the name Hill of the Mariners. Watch the show and you will hear how it took Kevin almost 10 years to find this dolman that has been left to hang beneath a shadow of a tree, in the stillness of the silence, sometimes in the sunshine, often in the shade.

For this event, Kevin gathered 8 poets including himself and you can watch the video which had over 1000 views on Periscope in the first 24 hours of its life. The links below are for Periscope and YouTube.

The poets, who all performed 4 poems, under a theme of love, dreams and the current climate in Ireland, were, in order of appearance;

Kevin Bateman (on Twitter as @Bate_Kevin) drew us into the crime controlled streets of Dublin while leaving us tender with the line ‘…do not let the dead rest in photos, let them move on…’ from his poem A Room of Utter Sadness.

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Supriya K Dhaliwal (on Twitter as @supriyadhaliwal) painted for us a cornucopia of Indian colors and tears and whose poem Meet Me in the Morning on No Man’s Land will long linger in my ear as a beacon of hope.

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Jasmina Šušić enthralled and captivated us with her raw emotion, passion and her willingness to drop the guard and share her gentle side with We are Soft Animals but Our Hearts are Weak.

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I was lucky enough to be invited to perform among these precious talents which made this the first time to ever read my poems in public, to ever read in public! I read 4 poems which you can find here on my blog…

Spelling Peace https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2017/11/19/spelling-peace-day-19-of-a-month-with-yeats/

Carved In https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2015/12/05/carved-in/

Salmon Dancers https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2017/11/03/salmon-dancers-day-3-of-a-month-with-yeats/

Wilful in the Wild https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2016/07/27/wilful/

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Jessica Traynor (on Twitter as @JessicaTraynor6) struck a fire in our historic hearts with her gem of a poem Matches for Rosa, for Rosa Luxembourg and brought us right up to date into an Ireland of today, questioning the right for individual choice with her poem Tender Butchery, my own skin still shivering with the powerful line ‘…the world has no business wearing my skin.’

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Catherine Ann Cullen (on Twitter as @tarryathome), along with her ever listening dog,  carried us around the world on the triple spirals of the triskele and took us out and under the harsh waters of homelessness by the Royal Canal in Dublin with her poem entitled Flood, ‘…and they flooded the walkway… so she might float out of sight…’

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Eilín de Paor (on Twitter as @edepaor) pulled us in with unexpected treasures found along the way, a nod to lasting impressions still loved though lost and ‘an intimate poem for such an outdoor area’ Island Life where a woman surrenders to ‘…each suckling lap…’ of the first wave of motherhood.

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Maeve O’Sullivan ( on Twitter as @writefromwithin) also brought us to India and returned us to Ireland through two bejeweled haiku sequences and grounded the force of an ocean of love in the sonnet Fathomless ‘…the twist of your hair in my knuckled fist…’

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Periscope link: https://www.pscp.tv/w/bVcMWDFlUkV4cVlWVnhQUXd8MXZPeHdBTFhwRE1HQs6p0u7wzeWUvfUmOmse42HeaA_-COCeSHxdhfL9zQuH

YouTube Link:

Extra photos of the group are curtesy of Harry Browne who can be found on Ficker.com

And you can just see the deer above that was watching over us from the not too far distance…