He is forward flying,
A novice to noise
And nuances
Of staggering streets
Unknown and numerous,
Honed to the humming
From the surge and speed
Of manoeuvres he can
Meddle through
Mingle through
Move through

He is a nubile note,
A minor chord
In a major movement,
Braced for a rebirth
By foreign fingers
Forging him finally
Into a signature
Of sonic structure,
A rhythm and rhyme,
A tune to tingle
And temper him
And a chorus to call
And encourage him

He is a leaning leaf
Balanced on the brow
Of a branch, braced
For worthy winds
Of foreign fields
To find him, float him,
Carry him to clouds
And dive down deep
Forever after
Into the chaos
And cacophony
Of life and it’s longing
And the lust among the living

He is made of math,
The sum of every smile,
The addition and attrition
Of a world of worries,
The multiplication
Of a multitude of thoughts
Mixed and mumbled
And the subtraction
Of scars and fears,
He is the solution in full
The joy and the tears

He is the beating body
Of festering flesh,
Tasting and tasted,
Touched and taken,
He is the brittle bone
Stretched over skin
And the shroud of skin
Bound to the bone,
He is whole,
Wholesome,
And hungry,
Growing, groaning, gaining,
Rotting, renewing reigning

He is the devil
In the darkness,
He is luminous
In the light,
He is the form
Finding features
In the forces
In between
The growing greys
And the shifting shades,
He is the something still unshaped,
He is the someone still unseen

He is forged of fire,
Flames flickering
In front of him
Fierce and unfailing
As the particled past
Blazes behind him
The life already lived
Echoing all that will finally fall
A hundred years from now
A forgetful fading
Of all he wanted to become
And all he managed to be,
Everything remembered
At once as the light descends
On the rise and fall of he.

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly