Identity

Identifying Parts of You in Plays

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after Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams

Violet descending, grieving light in the white shade
of a jungle that strangled the dinosaurs,
Venus; the fly trap for a summer’s notebook
of fine young cannibals along a coast of blazing sands
where saint Sebastian dug down into sin
and beak broke into the belly of all they had named
as enchanted.

The Blue jays had departed to other places;
blond shores after a season of too many browns.

In the operating room, sugar is a dose of doctor
caught between cause and the cost of being peaceful
after the dry heat of all that horror,
of sliding desire back into the parts it cannot dissect
and the Drum not bright enough to silence.

Rainbows were only reflections of light
before they became pathways of pride.

Suddenly, in the last summer of kindergarten,
I am closeted case in the examination room of teenager;
turning Tennessee pages tentatively,
dreaming of tasting how it would feel to catch fire
for a moment, in a summer that didn’t burn,
on a faraway beach that stank of wolf’s breaths
and flesh eating birds; a desire to be torn
from the choke of all those Venable pearls.

Lonely is deeper than death, alphabet blocks
are only clutter in the darkness of a closet.
A lobotomy is a cut cold to consideration.

This was one of the first plays I saw the movie version of when I was trying to come to terms with my own identity. It’s difficult to understand who you are when on TV or stage they were not even allowed utter the word gay or homosexual and a lobotomy was ordered for someone who tried to explain it- Let’s just cut it out! I read this poem on the Pride episode of Eat the Storms, the podcast podcast, one of two poems I opened the show with. Spotify link below but also on Apple, Anchor, Google, ITunes, Breaker, Castbox, Overcast, Pocket Cast…

To be able to Identify ourselves in Books

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

We are still, all of us, hungry.

We are, all of us, today, Hungary;

wanting to be able to open a book,
in the early days of trying to identify
who it is we’re on route to becoming,
and find a reflection of that self
smiling back at us from the inside pages
we can easily open out.

We are still, all of us ,
trying to teach the others how to spell Pride.

He Didn’t Bite, NaPoWriMo

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

He was tame, if truth be told-
a curtain twitching kind of fool-hearted
guard dog making studies of how the others
made their way through the humdrum.
He was sturdy in routine, if not stature-
nose in the paper after the Six O’clock news
on the far edge of the sofa every night,
inside-out sweaters on a Saturday
and passing round the basket
in the chapel on a Sunday-
altar boy breeding still beaten into his being
like the scars he wore on his shoulders
of all the things he could no longer put down.
From afar, you could see how fear
had opened itself up within his frame
like a cushion forced to house too much foam
and the stitches strain from the stuffing.
He was tame, of course, but at the time,
I was cautious of his bite.

SEASONS OF THE FALL

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

I climb things, climbed things, out of warm womb,
fresh from first hold into new arms
already breaking, wondering about climbing back up.

I climb things, climbed things, chimneys in a child’s mind
looking for traces of reindeer and reasons
to still believe in faith and family and catching flight.

I climb things, climbed things, out of closets
and their cluttered comforts, out of skins I’d slipped into
to confuse the conscious and the curiosity
of others that could be cruel. Climbing can often cut.

I climb things, climbed things, into beds that didn’t know
any better, mouths that choked and fingers
that felt familiar, for a time, holding me
to ledges of love and lust and the lies in between.

I climb things, climbed things, over waves that didn’t drown
but even the sea comes over you in cycles,
some you win, under others you sink, like losses
and lovers and faith and fate. Sometimes climbs are a descent.

I climb things, I climbed things without ever looking back.

Now, I move forward through backward steps,
through chimneys and out into flight, into folds
and then out further, drawing in trust
and expelling worn waves, blind to coming corners
while studying the method I used to survive the last fall.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

BLACK BEAUTY, THE LIGHT IN LOUGHSHINNY

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Clouds congregate under summer skies, standing towers,
still, waiting for Napoleon’s rise. Up close, only echoes
of history hit the hollowing rock below- coming in
to slip out with more, in search of possession on another shore.

There are footprints on the beach- horses hooves
whose metal shoes now feel the rust of the sea’s salt.
Up close, the scent of his wet coat is carried on the current
like a boat that twists and turns until it hits someone, out of sight,
who wonders why the wind carries on it the might of something wild.

I watch from the seat of a bike, wondering why I fear the water
and if I will end up as a ghost to the island that watches me
from every cut of this curious coast. Up close, my heart begins to trot,
in anticipation of movement, of having undone the knot, seeking out
new scents, climbing old towers where well-sighted soldiers
where once posted, spreading my footprints along the edge
of the tide before the waves wash them far and wide.

Black horse dances where windows once watched for war.
                      After falling, you can only surrender to beauty.

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All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly

LEARNING TO CLIMB WALLS

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There can be earthquakes
in little towns,
far from tectonic plates,
on little streets, rarely shaken
where we sat, once,
on the wall of a garden
now obsolete,
the summer burning
through our cool-lessness
as we trembled beneath attractions
we didn’t have the words
to understand
while eyes watched from windows,
trying to translate
thoughts tossed
between their local boy
and a sandy-haired student of exchange.

And I wanted to exchange-
to uncover
all that was growing curious.

We sat on this wall, once,
in the kiss
of youth’s sunlight,
in the stifling days
of undulating adolescence
and the growing tension
beneath every question,
and that temptation-
and I wanted nothing more
than to touch that temptation
despite our twisted tongues
and those eyes
always watching, always wondering
what was unfolding between us-
two boys just beginning
to join the colours that made blue,
for a while, beneath the weight
and the worth
of all the nothingness
that never trembled
for longer than a month in the summer
when our legs
occasionally touched, like tectonic plates,
shifting positions beneath
all that was once solid,
sensations rubbing up against
all that we wanted
and what, I suppose we knew,
at the time, we could never really have.

There can be earthquakes, in little towns.

  

All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly

RED

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

We strike matches
along the shiny skins
of polished apples,
bite into the heat
of burning coals
that hold no seeds
within their core,
watch our reflections
on the heavy skins
of those ripening fruit
as if it will show us
a truer representation
of who we might be
because it too holds
a core beneath its skin
while the ashes add
a bitter fruitlessness
to the taste now thick
upon our tongues.

If we were obliged
to share, perhaps
we’d take more time
to peel back slowly
instead of striking
all those matches
that burn too quickly
while guiding blindly
all those ashes into
our oh so open mouths.

 

All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly