Falling

ATTENTION

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

I glisten to distract,
like a snowflake;

the sparkle before the melt.

Particles of fleeting perfection
floating through the hands of time,
falling through all these imperfections.
If only my clutch were tighter, truer,
if only I knew more of my own truth,
too many skins already slipped through,
too much prediction put on that perception
of perfection that can never be preserved.

A snowflake
cannot be caught intact. We cannot catch a cloud.

We cannot always clear the way for the truth.
Perfection: a twist of our perception,
a precious perspective from a single point
never again to be seen. What if it’s never seen at all?

Glistening like a snowflake, falling.

A snowflake can be a melting tear
or a tiny miracle on track to disappear.
Truth; an elusive illusion, a deathly desire
tenuously tied to what I present to you
and to how you perceive me.

To what we fear and what we are willing to reveal.

I glisten,
to distract attention
from all about me that doesn’t sparkle.

 

All words and designs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE SWEPT AND THE SWEEPERS

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Fragility falling

through fine flecks of fair filigree,
perfect patterns of individuality speckled
on imperfect individuals.

Snowflakes melt

on steaming skin thin on time,
too thick to break through, you cannot always sink
below the surface of an iceberg,

we cannot break through

all that lays beneath, all the lies below the surface,
it gets hotter the closer you come to the cold truth,
only in space can a spec appear spotless.

Fragility falling

through the folds of a snowstorm,
we are the swept and the sweepers, we must be swift,
icicles can injure, perfection can pierce.

I can be broken,

I can be better, I can be broken, but it takes time
to rebuild. I can be a snow-swept filigree
falling through the perfection of time

and time,

with all its perfection, with its constant movement
and minutes, is as fragile as that snowflake.

 

All words and drawings by Damien B Donnelly

 

LIQUID RHYTHM 

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Expanding on the magnetic poetry oracle…

Need is hard
(to give in to
that craving for connection)
‘Not yet,’ I said (to Time,
teasing along twitching ties),
‘Drink me not, dark angel’
(we are light still and far from brewed).
Joy is a dance
of liquid rhythm
(lithe are we, fluid forms falling into arms
not always favouring hold),
hearts bleed when opened
(steel we are not, though hard are we
to mould into mutual).
‘Make us a secret
though our embrace is concrete
so maybe we (can) linger longer,
(let’s drink ourselves slowly,
regardless of how time ticks roughly).

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

NO ROOM IN THE ARC

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Falling…

through time
that never truly changes
while never really stopping,

through thoughts
that cannot be accounted for,
that cannot be considered
accountable

and still we are counting

but not the cost.

Falling…

through floorboards
of homes that are no more

(did we invent the word war?)

no more the heart at home,
no more the heart of the home;

home now an ocean bed
and no boat big enough
to hold us all

even the arc
only took two of everything

while the heavens ran with rain

yet the heart still beats
like time,

still falling…

through cracks that cannot be closed
and every splinter
splits the skin
of illusion

and we are all a delusion;
a fading reflection
of subjection,
rejection,

speculation and conjecture;
the spectre of conjecture. 

Falling…

through hands
that no longer hold
hearts now hardened

(and they say icebergs are melting)

hearts have grown cold
and have no place in homes.

Drowning…

in shallow shoals
shoals of souls
too shallow to swim in,

too sullied to see survival

as we rewrite the bible.

Drowning…

in the falling rain
too polluted to have faith in,

faith; and so fell faith
fate; and so befell Our Fate

in slow moving tears
on piers were boats are bound
to no harbour,
to no hope,
to no humanity

(christianity was a cross to heavy to bare)

Falling…

while standing up

and yet no one seems to notice.
“I came in bright as a neon light and I burnt out right there before him.’ This line is taken from Joni Mitchell’s song Lesson in Survival

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available at SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/no-room-in-the-arc

 

KISS HIM

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

‘Kiss me
before the light fades
into the dream of what once was’
she pleads.

Kiss him
and fall,
and then look for him, let her look for him,
falling through the fine hold of false hope
as he moves off
to twist through other sheets.

Kiss him
and he is gone
evaporated in a lips touch
not a minute more than much
and yet she looks for him
she still looks for him
as if his breath were traceable
as if his touch was reachable
as if his promise
was trustable

Kiss him
but once
and watch her fall,
identity,
like the dream of what once was,
lost in a single kiss
drowning in dreams that follow
as he moves on
to other dreams
to shatter
with that same kiss.

‘Kiss me,’ she pleads
as the dream finds light and bleeds
onto the folds
in the empty space
on the bed
beside her.

All Words by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

METAMORPHOSES

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Changing currents,
currently, body and soul
converging concurrently,
control lost to illusion;
divinity divining, dividing delusion
directing hands of fate
or falling me from faith,
body leaning in
bending to all beckoning.
Was it I who let go
of love’s hand or had fate decided so?

Was there a choice,
considered, consecrated, a confession
would I, could I be called up for blame?

In letting go,
I fell to freedom,
funny how freedom drops you,
seemingly untangled,
from the knot undone and I come undone,
at a loss, undefinable or redefined?

Partially salvageable, this time.
Selfishness slipping into single state
celibate, (sold a lot)
with no one to consider,
to hold, to cherish, to love.

What is love when you lay alone?
Where does love lay when you are alone?
Alone, love is where there are no more lies.

.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

UNDER, ONWARDS & OVER

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

under onwards colour

Washed over
in whiskey and rum
and falling, on a street,
by a bridge in the lamplight
as the river rushed under us
onwards and out of sight,
falling into each other
in foreign lands
into foreign hands
sliding along foreign bodies,
lean and slender,
twists and thrusts
of bodies curious
to what they’d not yet tasted.
You danced around me
on stages, in my head
in stages, on my bed
above the water
that never stopped moving
under us, onwards and off.
Falling into you,
our own echoes
reverberating into a dance
we were generating,
a tale of three acts;
the fall,
the fairytale
and the future unfolding
more fierce than we’d foreseen
and those hours,
always the hours,
slipping in between,
splitting the space around us
like the water that night
beneath the bridge where we kissed
rushing under us, onwards and over us,
dissolving us without consideration
a gradual obliteration
and yet my lip still tingles 
from all we thought we were
in the moment the movement made us,
falling through time, through a space we couldn’t name, 
stretching skin and bending bone into a structure unstable, insubstantial,
kissing and courting and covering up the parts that could never be,
trying to be what we never were and ignoring the bits that we didn’t want to see. 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph of the Blauwbrug bridge on the Amstel Canal in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

IN FLIGHT

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Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 14.43.55

Movement
matters mainly
amid the currents of air
I caress
in flight
in dreaming
at night
I fall freely
on the breeze
I am taken,
turned, tuned
I am limitless
know no boundaries
I flit and flutter
at my own folly
forward falling,
I am light blazing
a burning star
burnt out, 
barely visible
hardly begun
and yet unstoppable
I am man of the moon
I am the first step
I am freedom in flight
feathers rising in the night
all beneath a blanket of sleep.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE ROAD

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

I,
In the face of all
That came before me,
I,
In the hope of all
To be put before me,
I,
Accepting of the many times
I’ve fallen,
I,
Rejoicing in the many times
I’ve risen
See,
The future as an empty canvas
Stretched before me,
See,
Now the wisdom in all the words
Once bestowed me,
See,
The rhyme and reason to the roads
That lead me here,
See,
The distant faces from my past
I still hold dear.

I,
The inquisitor along the winding road
I’ve taken,
I,
A single soul so often foolish
And mistaken,
I,
The poet penning prose
Beneath the silence,
I,
While wearing masks to be let in,
To shun the violence
Remember,
Each and every laughter
Life has brought me,
Remember,
To raise my head to whatever power
Reins above me,
Remember,
The lengths of love
Which others shared,
Remember,
To see the hope,
To keep the faith
And not be scared.