Identity

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO 2, NAPOWRIMO

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

You cannot go back,

to return does not mean to rerun,

I recognise these streets,

recall a certain laugh,

a twisted lie,

an open door,

but my footprints have changed,

I cannot find the same sunflower

I drew when I was younger

than this youth I now cling to

and so many 

of those old doors have twisted

and the lies opened out to be

nothing more than lessons.

I cannot go back,

the streets now wear shadows 

that never fell from my form.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

SEARCHING TO BE SMOOTH

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

See
the simple stream;
current crashing
into character

See
the mouths of babes;
wishes whispering
of their will in waiting

Rough
runs the water
falling to find its force

Smooth
as our skins
we are not

We are curt corners created,

counting on the current
to carve us into caress-able.

 

All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly

TO THE WATER

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

I have taken to the water,
am running toward reckless
and dissolving the wreckage.

I have taken to the water
even on this land
of cracks and grumbles
(slippery under snow
or shadowed by a sun
we can’t outrun)
I still hear the water
rushing amid all that is restless
(am still bound to rest less and less)
as this will whispers within
to ‘follow the water’
in place of drowning
in a desert of dry doubt.
I have taken to the water,
corners caught on a current
clear in it’s translucency
as if to reveal the truth
beyond the abstrusity
of the boulders once blocking me.
I have taken to the water,
to it’s meanders of movement
(I move toward what is meant)
I turn and twist
and forget tastes once treasured,
I am flying fluid
(a flood of fluidity)
I cannot hold everything
(catch the kiss before it capsizes)
there are no pockets
in paradise
(babies are born naked;
only man dresses the dead
as if to ignore the death).
I have taken to the water,
reckless is running
right on front of what is left
of all that’s looking for rest
(while I swim toward the rest of me).
I am a small storm
in the steady stream,
I am the stream
storming into sturdy.
I am change.
I am unstoppable.
The truth lies
not in the bank,
but lays in the trust I place
on this translucent trickle
tracing my paths
upon the water.

I have taken to the water,
ripples running through reflection,
cutting the connection
of what once was,
I am catching on current-
all else will drift to dissolve.

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All words and photography by Damien B Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/to-the-water

 

CAST OFF

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

–

Along the river bed,

long running with water

already washed through our hands,

–

long is not the hold we have to harbour,

–

long running with this water

no longer light at its level,

no longer smooth along its sands,

–

along this bend of river

I cast into the current, like a kiss

no longer catchable,

this weight no longer workable,

now on route to dissolvable.

–

From breath to bubble,

bobbing

bubbles,

from breath to bubble and then trouble,

then off they blow,

splashing as they sparkle

and splutter on to spent.

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I cast you into this current,

where shamrock slips to sapphire,

to let the past depart,

not sad of heart, not hard,

just a shadow of blue

in a bend of the bank

at the edge of expire.

–

To slip from soul like a skin

now shredded from recognition,

a cast off of character no longer cast

in this current condition.

IMG_9726.jpg

We knit until we are knotted,

we weave patterns;

loops locked under chains,

some stitches saved and others slipped,

connected to a comfort

until they struggle under strains,

–

a fragile filigree

we cannot always wear,

hands can only hold

what wants to be held,

we are not fortunate

for the future to foresee,

IMG_9728

we can not always follow,

sometimes even sheep

must make their own route

before they are wound as wool

or substance to swallow,

–

even the river bed must turn, in time,

twist at others, we are no straight line

but a collection of corrections

cast on and cast off,

kick off

pay off

drop off.

–

We are more than characters

or thinly drawn caricatures,

I am more than this flesh you see,

you see; I can fester or I can be free.

–

I shed this skin of a former self,

here by the edge of this river running,

running onwards, searching for its shore,

searching for something more,

for its share of the truth,

I shed this skin to let the other

parts of me find their sea.

–

I cast into the river bed

this weight so the rest

can float and form and be.

IMG_9727

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/cast-off

CRACKS

/ deuxiemepeau / 17 Comments

 

I had you,
for a while, at hello
till I turned out
to be someone
you didn’t know

as the sun set
and the shadows
slipped over uncertainty,
like obscurity
was a form of security
to cover those curt corners
you’ve learned to conceal

instead of trying to heal,

concerns you’ve turned
into crutches,
crushed within stubborn fists
at the end of well worn wrists.

You can clamber
in the scullery,
clap and crash the cutlery

but you cannot drown out
all matter

not all can be washed away
with the dish water.

I cannot be mounded
having, of late,
just unfolded.

I have cracks

like the plates
you are washing,

as if weights
were dissolvable,

as if this liquid fairy
could wipe away
the weary.

I am porcelain;

chipped and torn,
trying to accept
the fragility of this form

still unfolding.

I have stains on my skin
like tattoos of my disorder,

I have shadows on my skin
that will not be kept in a corner.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/cracks

TEDDIES AND TIDES

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

–

I held on so long to a comfort

stuffed into the curve of my arm,

on nights when no one noticed

the child behind this mask of man.

I held on to a space outdated,

to a void I thought I’d vacated,

crouching into a cramped corner

of considered claustrophobia,

convinced I was more the victor

than the victim

–

(at times we can be both).

–

I held on so long to a tear

I thought time had torn but tides

are temperamental, unlike teddies,

they fold back on themselves

and we are swept again under, later,

long after, as if they had waited

to defy expectation

–

(we are experts at expecting to be the exception).

–

No one and nothing drowns

in the first wave. All and everything

is a cycle, tides come and go

and then return to take some more.

We are children and then adults

until adults lost in longing,

longing to understand the hold

of the child behind this mask of man.

–

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

CONTROL

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

–

Control.

How to cut deep.

Tipping toes in the tepid

tides of therapy.

We are cunning creatures

in unconscious,

under cover,

cool to discover

the character

beneath the cadaver.

Control.

How to discover,

how to distance the self

from its disguise,

from the depths

we dive to deceive the day,

the way we weave

tepid tales through the tides

of our twisting truths,

ever evolving, ever revolving

in directions we cannot dictate,

covering over shades

we cannot eradicate,

those waves that ruminate,

that sweep through veins

already raging red

before the oxygen

burns the blue. Control.

How to find the true blood

in a body beaten into believing

the truth of what the consciousness

considers to be correct.

–

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

CONCRETE CANDY

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Perfumed kiss and velvet poison,

caramel can be a concrete candy,

I blush, almost broken,

a prisoner to this ocean

of long grass and liquid sky,

this smoky glass, darkly dazzling.

 

A wild flower is not a sister of peace,

fire is not a dance easy to put out.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly, with the aid of Magnetic Poetry