Goodbye

BOOKENDS; AMATEUR STATUS

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November rains in a park, trying to be an artist,
attempting to capture it all in quiet corners,
beyond earshot from anything daring,
sheltered in shadow instead of off in adventure,

thinking I’d found myself but it was safe, fake lies;
a pacifying of the ego, trying to paint a Pissarro
in a Paris park with colourless pencils, not suffering
for art but suffocating in the subject that surrounded me,

your multi-layered character was a daunting place to start
adding colour to this blank canvas, I was but amateur
attempting astounding, dabbling in shadow and shade;
more lifeless than lit, more stilled life than filled with life.

One million options beneath my feet waiting to be walked
and I picked the solitary seat, in the shade of a Saturday,
in a park, in Paris, a spot speckled with strokes of life
but my own form had yet to be found within the frame.

I was as lifeless as the simple scene I had sketched
but I hung you on my wall nonetheless, as a reminder
perhaps; fast movement was needed least winter winds
would wipe this foreigner as forgotten before begun.

   

Words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly. This is a month of looking back at my life with Paris in order to start moving on. I wrote this poem at 23. I was 22 when I first sat in le jardin du Luxembourg and tried to painted a canvas with colourless pencils.

BOOKENDS, STARTS TODAY AT 5PM GMT

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Coming today and everyday at 5pm
for the next 30 days…

BOOKENDS

A GOODYBE TO PARIS

before returning to Ireland after 23 years away

A month of moments and memories, passion and partings

poetry and photography
WordlessWednesdays and StreetScenesonSaturdays

 

By Damien B. Donnelly

A WHITE WING RISING

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A starlit day,
on a distant shore,
as if summer had sent it
swarming like a snowflake;
silken wings to summon the sunset,
a white moth to raise a sweet soul
departing.
And there,
as a star was added,
the bright moon was kissed
in berry blush as the sun settled
beneath the lake where the lost trout
turned through tresses of silver dancing
and he smiled at his love, since lost,
now glimmering
in eternity.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is from the series A Month with Yeats

 

THEIR SPOT ON THE HILL, 100 WORD STORY

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The light was losing itself to shadow.
Only a suggestion remained of what had once been.
The seas and the seasons had taken the rest.

He struggled up the hill.
He stood again, after all the years, on their spot,
on the whips of life tenting up through the dead grasses as the ruins watched him.

She’d been 19 when he asked her to marry him there.
She’d worn her mother’s perfume and a smile.

He’d only been 17 but he’d found all he’d ever needed.

Goodbye, he cried into the shadow of the day as he released her ashes.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph of Dunure Castle along the South Ayrshire coastline in Scotland.

THE REASON AND THE RHYME

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Goodbye he said
As the train door closed
And sliced our world in two

Goodbye I thought
What a word to use
At the end of me and you

Goodbye he said
And I wondered what
Good there was in farewell

Goodbye I thought
As he left me there
Hurt and unhappy in hell

Goodbye they say
When the endings near
Suggesting we can breathe

Goodbye they say
At the curtain call
Signalling the time to leave

Goodbye we say
When it’s time to go
When to stay is far too futile

Goodbye is all
That the heart can hear
When love has been bashed and brutal

Goodbye we say
When there’s nothing else
But a whistle to signal time

Goodbye is all
You have left to hold
When the reason leaves with the rhyme

THE KISS GOODBYE

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I kissed you goodbye
To remind us
Of all that had failed,
Of all that we’d missed
Since we had first kissed,

I kissed you goodbye
For the hunger,
For the itch and ache
That remains unquenched,
Still famished and benched,

I kissed you goodbye
And I held you,
Body on body,
With our breaths combined
And our tongues entwined,

I kissed you goodbye
To test myself
Or just to tease you,
Remember what was,
To stop time, to pause

I kissed you goodbye
Longing, lusting
For to be naked,
For to be sweating,
Fucking forgetting,

I kissed you goodbye
To seal our fate
Now off and flying
In different directions
While hiding erections,

I kissed you goodbye
Your lips on mine,
Your face in my hands,
Your scent, your essence
Left in your absence

I kissed you goodbye
And tasted you,
Then I smiled at you
And then released you
But in reality I’d already I lost you…

Time, Long rested

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I would have laid in your arms,

Tonight,

Right there and then-

Did you know that,

Could you feel that?

Not for the kick of it,

The thrill of it,

Nor for just the fuck of it.

But for that tiny time

We shared in the past

Now set firm in photos,

Misty in the memory

But tingly on the tongue.

I would have kissed you,

Tonight,

There and then,

On the sofa,

In the light-

With the curtains open

And the houselights on.

I would have run my tongue,

So gently,

Along your lower lip

Before sliding it inside you,

To tempt you,

To taste you.

Not because it would be easy,

Not because I have missed it

But because, once, it was mine,

Once,

When you were the smell on my body,

Once,

When you were the warmth beside me.

I would have undressed you,

Tonight,

In the hallway,

Between the rooms-

Along that casual route

From sofa to bed

Where I would have laid you,

Watched you,

Rose for you,

Before I climbed in beside you

And slid myself on top of you

And felt myself beneath you.

Not just to be horny,

Not just to be cheap,

Not to belittle you just to sex,

But to remember

Back to a time

Which was ours,

And to remember-

In this time-

That touch we shared.

I would have wrapped my body

Around you,

Then and there,

Behind the shadows of a time,

Long rested

And nakedly

I would have spooned you

In the sweet, salty, sweaty afterglow

That tickled along our bodies,

Entwined,

As the night found us

And slowly slept us

And then daybreak-

When morning would find us

And I would open my eyes and smile

At you,

And gently,

I would kiss you-

Goodbye

And let you go,

Shut the door,

Drink my tea

And smell you,

Sweetly,

All over me.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Thank you, Nana

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We carried you,

Like a child, that day

As Spring shone around us

And the flowers took bloom

And I wondered if April

Had ever seen so soft a day?

We carried you,

Like a child, that day

And traced each and every journey

We’d made with you along the way,

On busses and trains and airplanes

To foreign towns and holy lands-

Your presence more beloved than the coins you always gave.

We carried you,

Like a child, that day

And remembered

Every knee you had bandaged,

Every tear you had dried

And every belly you had filled

With your apple pies and custard bakes

Fresh brown breads and coffee cakes.

We carried you,

Like a child, that day

As red roses fell

As fluidly as the waters over Niagara

While a breeze brushed our cheeks with a kiss.

We carried you,

Like a child, that day

Your body as weightless

As it was lifeless

While we covered you over with the red petaled ground-

But now we carry you in our hearts forever more.

Mistake me not;

This is no goodbye,

This is just a simple way of saying thank you.

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