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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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 forindividual choice with her poem Tender Butchery, my own skin still shivering with the powerful line ‘…the world has no business wearing my skin.’
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…’
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.
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…’
Damien B. Donnelly 