Identity

TRIGGERS

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We still taste the scent
of semi lucid laughter
edging over apples
being skinned and sweated
on extra ordinary Saturdays
of sweeping and stews,

still taste the crisp coating
of confusion beneath smiles
barely swimming over tears
there was not enough threat to trace.

We still trace, still blindfolded,
those outlines of imagination
now fading on distant walls
when dreams were seductive serpents
sucking the deafening dullness
out of roast Sundays
seasoned with unsensational rain
falling like the granulated gravy
that drowned our plates
as we looked to escape
the smell of a fear we couldn’t
pull the trigger on.

—

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

TO COME CURIOUS

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We take slow steps into the sweet water, watch the current
caress the dark rock, the volcanic roar no longer rupturing,
its rage now rocked to slumber by this single shore. I lose
my shirt to time’s tide and this shimmering sand, I lift it up
and feel the weight that washed over it as you turn to face
the vast ocean and wonder what the next wave will bring
upon us. We have crossed currents, trained through towns
and cut across mountains, we have laughed at sadness
and cried over cocktails, we have come so far to wade out
into these waters as locals watch us with questions of how
and why. We have come curious to this country, we creep
along its coast like this tide, rummaging over these rocks,
wondering what happened to the heat it once ran with
when man was more forgiving and the mountain more daunting.
We climb the dormant mount, once maker of molten menace,
to watch the sun swim up from the sea and we count minutes
till the darkness will be disregarded as if time is all that’s needed
to destroy depression, decay, dysphoria. This mountain, once
a monster the sea could not settle and land could not control,
this country, once more than a division of north and south,
of emperors and conquers, Confucians and Catholics, devout
and deserted. We were once more than single souls searching
for the way back. We are tides, coming and going along
these beds we find shelter in, arms wrapped around us
like seaweed we equally fight off and hold down, we are lava,
trailing tunnels through our own thoughts, destroying
what we think to be too much but never quite knowing
how to fill the hollowness that’s left behind. We take steps
down into the open earth, adding sweaters to our short sleeves
and I wonder why it grows colder the closer we get to the core.
Isn’t the inferno on fire any more? Dante will be disappointed.
We look like ants crawling over cobbled rock as we curve
through these corridors created in centuries now cemented
into time and caress these walls and catch our breath
under cathedral ceilings created by no creature but by nature’s
creation. Deeper and deeper still and the silliness is replaced
by a silence, a stillness in this place where the waters drip
from porous rock and we look smaller, less special, not so strong
in this cave carved by once molten rock, lines of luscious lava
that laughed as its lungs opened and its power poured. Later,
back at the beach, the tide again tickles our feet as we stand
upon the rock that once before roared. We are equal parts
creator and equal parts responsible for all that we corrupt.
We have come curious to this country but find ourselves
asking more questions about ourselves than of this coast
that will still be counted long after we have been smashed
upon our own current. We take slower steps through
the sweetness and my heart beats louder, longer, lighter.

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At the end of our holiday in South Korea we crossed over onto the Island of Jeju, UNESCO world heritage site and walked down into the Manjanggul lava tubes, underground caves dug out by lava while Trump and Kim had their summit. We waded out into blue waters lined with the remains of volcanic rock as the locals wondered how we’d gotten there and then climbed Seongsan (now dormant) volcano to watch the sun rise at 4.30am. The sun rose at 5.22am although the clouds arrived at 5.10am. This is why I offer a picture I took of the sunset the night before. You can’t have a sunset like this and still expect more, even if you hiked in the darkness.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/to-come-curious

 

HALF OF THE WHOLE

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Lanterns are tied around hope like we twist naivety
around the truth, like we twist around arms as if
we can strangle more comfort out of complacent,
the need to hold onto something regardless if fragility
is tied to a breeze we cannot keep at bay. Winds
are blowing in the northern skies while the breath
is held on these southern sands where freedom
is more reachable. This half has not forgotten
what it was to be a whole. Plato said we were split
in two, cast off towards a constant search
for the other half of that whole that is now a hole.
We curve around carvings time will not release,
we twist and turn through roots the soil has long
shown the light, we rise and fall to rise again
where treetops bow towards a beauty, untampered,
where tiny birds breathe life into wings at the will
of the wind, fragile creatures who know our fragility.
We sit and share food and smile at this simplicity
bowing under tended wood on mountain sloops
time has taught to be tender. We are reflections,
fleeting through finite flickers, we court each spark
hoping for a chance to be brighter than before,
hoping to be carved into something as lasting
as these rocks. We still dig despite the doubt,
lighting lanterns tethered to a half hope, half held,
ignoring how light the light that remains. We smile
when asked our opinion, a unity of north and south,
there is no answer, this is only a circus of showmen
blowing out their balls and so we bow out and tie
our own hopes to the bark of a branch of a tree
that has seen the whole and stood strong over the time
that dug out the hole. We are circles struck in two,
massaging our fractured diameter in case it will one day
be the position of a joint. And another lantern is lit.

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All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Lanterns from the Bulkuk Temple, Gyeongju, South Korea

300 year old tree with paper wishes from the Hahoe Folk Village, Angdong, South Korea

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/half-of-the-whole

 

THE CARETAKER

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

High on a hilltop you rise above your age
and you offer your wisdom of the ancients
(hush, I say, to hear the humble) to ears new
to these old whispers that are now as woven
to the earth as the tress rooted below it, as you
are driven now to plod along this mountain path,
a former teacher and now caretaker of the history
time might have let slide but your mind will not
let fade while I wonder where I was a year ago,
a month ago, a day ago? High on a hilltop
we lean in and listen as you describe what we
have recently found indecipherable. And again
we follow footsteps imprinted into the soil.
We take the right side and bow, thrice, as memory
recalls the emperor taking the central path
while the guards, armed with their faith in the form
of the dragon, harmony in the form of their music
and strength in the size of their sword, ward off
the demons and welcome in the inner light.
There is light here, gentle light, a subtle light
to caress the skin, to sink within as we mount
and meditate on how we got here, to this hill,
to this land, to this life, to this breath. High
on the hilltop we take in the scent of incense
as the chimes ring out to remind us we are not
one, alone, but one single part of the whole
and we bow again thrice and follow the flow
of the stream that knows more about its route
than we ever be able to know about our own.

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All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photographs from Beomeosa Temple, Busan, South Korea and special thanks to this wonderful man who was on the bus with us and then gave us a private tour

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-caretaker

 

A SLIP AWAY FROM BLUE

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Eyes a slip of grey from blue in a city
not known as home, on a mountainside
to shelter a temple, she is as welcome
as the wind is warm. She was there before
us and we were caught before we knew it.
She carves a life, carefully, like those Buddhas
carved into stone, the chisel is the compliment
to the rock and not the ruin, an outer expression
of inner contentment, this monastic monk
on a meditative mountain and I fall beneath
her gaze, slip between the stillness that rests
behind each word. Did her mouth smile
or just her eyes that shade of grey a brush away
from blue as she called us to her quiet castle
of wood and wonder and fed us this feast
on a hot day in her temporary temple
along the trail, a rest on the journey, a moment
to bare witness; not to be greater than the Buddha,
not to raise up, not to worship but to reflect on
what we can become. We climb over rock
and broken earth, we diverge through dead ends
that still deliver more light than loss, we thirst
and tire and then take in another treat; another temple,
another tree, a smile from the locals as I offer
my four Korean words and they giggle and talk back
as if I can understand but I don’t and we all laugh.
We travel on and place our tired feet into holds
others once held to as we witness wonders
so many others may never see. We have sat
and shared joy like food, laughter like it was love
and drank coffee like it was an elixir to let us in
on the light that lingers over life and those eyes,
of this gentle light from Lithuania, a slip of grey
from a sea of blue seeing the simple synchronicity

In all that is true.

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This is Chilbulam Temple where a young monk and four wonderful lay women bequeathed us lunch during our hike up Namsan Mountain, in Gyeongju, South Korea.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/a-slip-away-from-blue

 

HUMBLE AT THE HEART

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Humble at the heart of this landscape, this dreamscape
I’m training through, I’m taken by its blossoming breast;
forests firing up like volcanos that have shun their rest,
luscious leaves of lava sweep through cities, for man
has no control over the mountain just as nature has no
defence against the molten flame, as fiery as the kimchi
I am trying to come to terms with. This one’s a little more
digestible, you tell me but I know you’re teasing. Beyond
our feasting over meals bigger than our bellies but smaller
than our budgets, skyscrapers attempt to shoot up over
mammoth mountains, a competition man has really no time
to master while in homes, humble, calmness is harboured
to counteract consumer clutter. Humble resides in the heart
of this Republic once ravaged, often raped, now a melting
pot of mystery; many foreign feet of soldiers stamping
have dug their shadow into all that now shines. Museums
have wings for Japan and China and for those Mongols
who molested these mountains still standing, still growing,
still calling us to come and climb and see the world from
another point of view. Tourists now willingly trudge through
tunnels dug out by that luscious lava, we take turns taking
pictures and laugh as its resemblance to a giant turd. We
come to the call of the mountains, all sweaty chested
and dosed in awe, my heart is held at this height, it trembles
beneath this fragile flesh and I hold on tighter to each grip
of grandeur and wonder how long my footprints will be
cemented in this soil. From here, high above the crow’s nest,
where Buddha rests with all that remains, where fortresses
have been forged and since forgotten, these cities sweep
away from who they were and show themselves as who
they are becoming. We are not who we were but what we
have made out of what has been, in dusted days, done to us.

All words and photographs of South Korea by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/humble-at-the-heart

IN THE SEOUL

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

This city does not sleep, the wind is as wistful
as thoughts I cannot gather, here on this sojourn
to the south of Seoul. Horns honk along highways
to wake drivers out of day dreams the night cannot
decipher so we buckle up and giggle briefly in back
seats but I cannot see those space bound lanterns
of tied wishes from these knotted sheets I know not
how to untwist. Even on the soft slumbering slopes,
in the shade of the rock bound Buddhas, helicopters
chase the rising sun while you try to chase those parts
of yourself peace cannot pacify. Dysphoria’s the new
mantra. This body won’t sleep, my mind has taken
to meander along this midway, midlife, as trumpets
still announce the coming trains and palaces are filled
with space in place of stained sentiments of wealth,
this eastern stretch of the journey, those cars still honk
in foreign tongues, far from the familiar, all is not what
it once seemed, this mouth no longer makes sense
as I cut across these sweeping vistas of strange words
breathed with bows and ways so traditional they worry
the West. In the North, strange armies are Trumping
in unities many states are too confused to comprehend.
But here, south of these strangled ties and demented
ducks, sitting sweet beneath the stars, the streets awash
with numerous neons twinkling below billowing blankets
of nature’s blossom covering the city in a comfort concrete
can’t squash and man can’t master. My body can’t sleep,
I’ve seen to much but still hope for more while this city
is only now waking up to who it truly wants to be.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/in-the-seoul

WHO WE ARE

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

I came out;
a silent scream
to summon a voice,

screaming,
a hunger
wanting to be heard.

I came out;
a kept cry, cold to comfort,

aching,
a cry looking for compassion,

I came out
in a time changing,

I came out
from a boy learning,

I came out
to let go of a secret,

I came out
to let the secret let go of me.

We are more than the fears we forgo.

We are more than the tears we trickle through.

It is not over when we tell you what we are

but when we can be seen for who we are.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN SUMMER FINDS YOU

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Water turns on the tide,
roots find ways through the rubble.
Nature is adaptable.

But the body is bound to the bone,
movement moulded to our muscle
and the shadow cannot de deceived

and yet you itch.

You claw at this fleshed reflection
on front of you
and see in its faults
the fraud of its form.

Nature is nurtured by adaption,
not blood tests
or mind games.
Nature does not wait,
is not answerable to anyone.

Skin softer than before,
you paint yourself into a portrait,
waiting to be a person,

wanting to be seen,

not sneered,
no longer sad.

Shapes shift
in clouds crossing,
in rivers winding,
in the bloom breaking into beauty.

But this skin restricts
and these angles
arch out as obtrusive.

Masculine is the mould
now marked like measles
that no cream can quickly cure.

There is an itch.

I know you want to pull
a finer form from this flesh
that no longer fits to your feelings.

The air too stale
within this shape
for it to be any longer sustainable.

Nature is easily adaptable
but you too will find your way into beauty
before your summer is up.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FRIENDS FOR A SEASON

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

They were just girls in a stifling city,
each but a slip of the seasons,
baring a hope for what they might see
and running for different reasons.

Jenny was winter and already withered
and looking for comfort from the cold,
she was journey and distance all rolled into one
and the secrets she stored had never been told.

Mary was springtime and fragile under foot
yet thoughts took root in her head,
she was innocence dressed in a short mini skirt,
a fledgling of faith, a seedling to be fed.

Sarah was stuck in a summer since parted
always looking for what she had lost,
as illusive as tides that trickle through time,
she sunk beneath skin now frozen from the cost.

Together they lived and together they fought
for a season on the old river lane,
but when fall came calling all connection unraveled
and the three girls parted with their bags still full of pain.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly