humanity

WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE, day 8 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

For Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge, today’s quote is taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem is called: WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE

 

Was it not all an ocean once

before bodies forged out land

for feet to fondle, to flatten?

Was it not all trickling tide once

before hands hunted harbors

for bellies to fill, to fatten?

Was it not all blue waters once

before creatures courted color

to devaluate, to distinguish?

Was it not just wind and wave

before man thought to wonder

what on earth he could extinguish?

What will ripple on the waterfront

when the tides turn on time

and man is pulled asunder?

What will be the second coming

when man is taken down for all

his pillage and all his plunder?

When rivers rise all red and roar

to wash away the tarnished trace

of the soiled sand we ravaged,

will it carry on it’s current

the power to plant a second seed

on the land our deeds have damaged?

Time turns on every twist,

tides rise after every fall

but we can never get back to before.

Innocence, once lost,

is quickly forgotten.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-there-was-but-a-wave

WHITE NIGHT, day 4 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Day 4 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Challenge and in a day behind but onwards we roll. The quote comes from To some I have talked with by the Fire “…till the morning break and the white hush end all but the loud beat of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.” W.B. Yeats

The link to Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/a-month-with-yeats-day-four/

My poem is called White Night

 

We are vessels

either being filled

or being emptied,

portraying pretty

or rotting as rebels.

 

We are angels

dancing in the darkness

of our own worth,

feet of feeble footing,

flapping wings

within our cages.

 

We are flowers

never quite knowing

our beauty,

pruning the potential

out of others,

never the full bloom

unfolding,

fighting the true nature

that is ours.

 

We are winged warriors

flying through the fog

of our fate,

not knowing

that decision and destiny

are like oil and water,

like light and dark,

like love and hate,

like hush and horror,

like a beginning

and an end,

beating breasts

to be fighters

instead of followers.

 

We can be angels

but choose too often

to be anger.

 

We live in dark days

and only dream through

the white night.

 

All words and photographs by damien B. Donnelly

IMAGINE 

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Imagine…
precious petals

pouring from pistols

instead of pain
instead of panic
instead of man gone manic?

Can you
Imagine…
floral falls of fine fragility,

falling over hostility,

over tears,
folding over fears.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

Photograph taken at la Musee de la Vie Romantic, Paris.

BEING BETTER 

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Beat down, beat deep

below the root, there is work

to be done, there is dirt

to be drawn from this soil,

this stench, this space made

for more than just a trench.

Beat down, beat deep

under skin grown pale,

grown greedy under ale,

there is movement still

to be made, meaning to be

molded from all this matter

lately grown lazy, grown fatter.

There is more to be made

of the soil, of this soul

than simply burying

bodies within it.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE KIND OF CREATURES WE ARE 

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Strange are the creatures we are
beyond the bones that break
and the backs that bare,
striving to question our own conception
within this creation ever depleting

(and yet we all want more).

Strange are the creatures we are
beyond the fingers that fondle
and the footprints that fade,
striving to find a love completely,
a comfort to cover the concrete

(that we poured on the soil ourselves).

Strange are the creatures we are
beyond the blood that feeds
and the flesh that festers,
striving to hold the stars in our hands
now that our planet we’ve pulled apart

(the greener grass of another galaxy).

Strange are the creatures we are
beyond the tongues that taste
and the eyes that envy,
striving to have all that we can hold
not thinking what we’ll leave behind

(not thinking of those we leave behind).

Strange the creatures we are
beyond the heart that hurts
and the needs not enough,
striving to stay afloat within the fear
yet laughing as we’re carried away.

Strange the creatures,
these creatures we are.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

I, YOU, ME

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

I, you, me,

I, you, me,
fear, fight, fade,
I, you, me,
black, white, grey,
I, you, me,
happy to harbour hope,
I, you, me,
happier heaping hurt,
I, you, me,
birth, life, death
I, you, me,
unique below the uniform,
I, you, me,
straight, gay, unboxed,
I, you, me,
happy, hopeful, hurt,
I, you, me,
flesh, bone, break,
I, you, me,
living, longing, leaving,
I, you, me,
crawling, climbing, falling,
I, you, me,
victor, victim, vanquished,
I, you, me,
blaming, burning, bombing,
I, you, me,
nothing lasts forever.

I, you, me, no one lives forever.
I, you, me, I who am nothing,
you who are nothing,
and yet all we see is the Me.

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

 

DIFFERENCES 

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Nature is not alike;

red reigns over green,
browns bend to blend
and lilac leans,
perfect petals poised
over tiny tufts, trembling,

buds unfold from
stretching stars.

Nature is not alike.

Humanity could be harmonious
if we delighted in our differences

with dignity.

Nature is not alike. Why should we be?
All words and photography by Damien B. Donnelly

WALLS

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

We build walls
and barricades
to hide from our fears
of what might be outside.

We build walls
and barricades
and are left

trapped

with the evil within.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Based on a poetry prompt from #Poetheme

FROM AFAR

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

In Space

is the silence so sacred
that stillness is a solace
to the spinning?

Are star lights
like dainty daisies that illuminate the night?

Is the earth
but a beacon of beauty
when viewed from afar,
so far that you cannot hear
Man and his kind
screaming?

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter Prompt from #ShapePoetry

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 16; LILTING LULLABY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

I thought we were templates for tattoos to tell tales on,
I never thought to the tire skids and teeth marks time’s tiger
would temper on our skins. Here kitty, kitty, we call
and curiosity comes crawling out from under as cat with claws uncut.

Cute kitty, come catch, we call through the forest foliage, fooled
into thinking we are the keepers of the cage within this corner
of creation in constant recreation all around us.

I thought us all thoroughbreds, better bred, slices of a bigger plan
but it’s true that thought is not to be trusted, not all that is kneaded
rises as we were led to expect. We are busy bakers, blindly baking
in ovens too hot to hear our hunger, too closed to be open to our urges.

Cast out of kitchen we cower as canines caught between the cage
and the carnal, praying for peace with paws ready to pounce
on all possible prey. Falling on four feet in the forest already fading,
we are shadows of former selves, cut and claimed by the marks
our own malice has made of us. In the forest falling no one hears
the crazy cries of the lives who once howled only for the lilting

lullaby of love.