WAVES OF IDENTITY

27/01/201816/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

I
identity
my entity

empty.

Build bond break

break out
break away
break down

drown.

Resume
resolve
revolve
rotate

we are circles encircling

ripples in a small pond

revolving
evolving

dissolving into the careless current

less and less and less

we come up on the curve;
the comeback,
still seeking
a connection

attraction = distraction

subtraction
more and more of less and less

to be less
so as to become more

to come to understand

to take more of a stand
in this sinking sand

of time ticking,

to stand under
to be left alone
to miss
to misunderstand
to be misunderstood

to be missed.

I
miss
me.

This entity, this endless identity

this ripple on the water
I cannot catch.

Catch.
Throw.

We put so much trust
in every thrust
not to be thrown

not to be let down

let drown.

We adapt

to be apt

to hide
to assimilate
to cover up

makeup mask masquerade.

You cannot hurt what you cannot see.

You cannot hurt me if you cannot see me.

If I cannot see me.

I
me
this identity

this entity washing away on this current.

We are stones
cast careless into the current

we ripple
and fall.

Can you catch a wave
before it’s washed away.

Can I?

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

THE STORY

10/12/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

How does

the heart

still pump,

how does

the blood

still run

when these

feet won’t move?

How do

the bones

not break,

how does

this skin

not shed

when these

hands cannot hold?

We dress

ourselves in

solid shields

of security

(see this shining steel)

that cannot sooth

the single soul

still shivering

in a body

still pumping,

still running,

still searching

for the answer…

are we

a whole story

here alone

and naked

and beating

and pumping

and bleeding

and crying

and crawling

through the hope

or just a half truth,

never truly told,

never really held,

never fully realized?

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

DUALITY, day 28 of A Month with Yeats

28/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

Day 28 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats and our quote today is: ‘I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West and had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky’ —W.B. Yeats

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

My poem is called DUALITY

And here

is where we battle

the truth;

east or west,

the sun’s heat

or the moon that spies

on our rest.

And here

is where our paths

divide;

the war to be won

or the human

we are fighting

to become.

And here

the Indian

draws the honor;

mild man stands

in the boar’s breath

with integrity

in hands.

And there

in the east

with helmet high;

fearless fighter

bares the beast

and blunders into battle

as bloody blighter.

Are we then

of both moon

and sun;

tied tightly

to burning planet

and that eye

watching nightly?

Can we

be honest

behind the armor;

can the blood

we gorged

be erased

by a single flood?

Can we

be both brave

and beast,

can we cry

for the famine

and still eat

at the feast?

Are we not

confusions caught

between the confines;

are we not stars

burning bright

like the sun

but in the falling night?

Are we born to be beasts

or born to brave the beast?

Let us be wild boars;

fearless

in the face

of our foe,

gregarious

in our greed

to grow.

All words and paintings by Damien B Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud…

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

THE CHILD INSIDE THE MAN, day 27 of A Month with Yeats

27/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

It’s day 27 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats which means all of us who’ve taken part in this fantastic poetry challenge have created 27 new poems inspired by Ireland’s greatest poet. Today’s quote is: ‘Once more the storm is howling, and half hid under this cradle-hood and coverlid my child sleeps on.’ W.B. Yeats

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

My poem today is called THE CHILD INSIDE THE MAN

Oh child, sweet child, sleeping so

beneath these big shoes and ties

knotted to a life of change and choice,

but we had to run, had to keep going,

didn’t we have grow up so quickly;

stand up, show up, give up, pay up.

Oh child, sleeping child, so sweet

beneath this bitter battle we must wade

through, the waves come not solely

on the current, not timely like the tides

but in the solitude, in the silence

we thought to be a comfort, I feel you

twist through the dreams you still dream,

that I have lost hold of, that I have let

slip from a grasp now older, less bolder.

But you, dear child, sweetly sleeping

as I make movements meant to be manly,

meaning to be mature, how I hear

your voice, amid the louder, broader,

vulgar tones beyond the preying

playgrounds of concrete corporations

and communal conformity, yours

so soft and gentle amid the riots

and the roars, yours so soothing

amid all that is smothering. I see you

too sometimes, in the mirror, briefly,

a spark of what was once a projection, now

but a reflection; wide eyed

and hearty of hope, I see you, laughing

at my troubles, calling me to come play,

to see the adventure in the danger,

to see the impermanence of these little

interruptions that come a calling.

Oh child, sweet child who painted

pictures to make the grey days

more grand, who penned poems

to let the pain find its place to perish

on the page instead of in the person.

Oh child, sleeping child of my youth,

how much I still have to learn from you.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph from my first day at school, aged 5.

Audio version available on SoundCloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-child-inside-the-man

IF ONLY, day 26 of A Month with Yeats

26/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

Today’s quote for Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats is from ‘The White Birds’: ‘I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!’ W.B. Yeats

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

My poem today is called IF ONLY

We are land birds,

bound birds,

we have made homes

in twisted trees

growing hallow

growing hard.

We are land birds,

ground birds,

we have been deluded

by illusions

growing careless

growing cold.

We are land birds,

drowned birds,

in a dying desert

growing doubtful

going dry.

If only

we had been sea birds,

crowned birds

in a current caressing,

wings wild

at the will of the waves,

weightless instead of weighty,

free falling

on a bed of floating foam,

flexible instead of friable.

If only…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/if-only

BUOYANT, Day 22 of A Month with Yeats

22/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

Day 22 of A Month with Yeats and the quote from Jane Dougherty is:

‘I wander by the edge of this desolate lake where wind cries in the sedge:’ —W.B. Yeats

My poem is: BUOYANT

Is it here where the tears

come to find peace

in this place of serenity?

I lay down this lake of loss,

hope for the soil

to soak up the sorrow,

by the side sedge

I wedge myself up from the waste

and bury all that turned base

at the bottom of this bed,

no longer sheets of cotton comfort

but sludge soon to be swept under,

asunder.

Is it here where reality

ripples into reflection,

the sinking illusion

of what I thought to be perfection?

An impression of light and shade,

now lighter, now shadier,

now just a remainder

waiting for time to submerge.

I lay down in this lake;

a lough of loss, locked, lost,

waiting for the tide

to wash over me,

waiting for the tears

to dissolve within me,

waiting for time

to refine me, re-find me

buoyant instead of beaten.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

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

LISTEN, day 20 of A Month with Yeats

20/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

It’s day 20 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote is: ‘Out of the dark air over her head there came a murmur of soft words and meeting lips’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/a-month-with-yeats-day-twenty/

My poem today is called: LISTEN

We cannot truly change that which

we are, we cannot really laugh louder,

be brighter, stay longer than our journey

has already jotted down in a journal

whose language is not our own.

We cannot truly change the air,

the ocean, the fire that forges its way

through us, leaving us inspired

or expired, hot or just overheated.

We cannot truly change much

but we can cast corrections

into the darkness caught in corners,

we can see sages that hover over heads

if we need to add meat to the monotony,

singing songs of stories never too old

to be retold, never too new to be anything

more than necessary.

We cannot truly change that which

we are, we cannot promise to hold

any longer than time allows us,

we are tied to the tension of the knot

that knows more than we do,

whose heart lays on a hinge

that hangs both the hope

and the hammer. We cannot truly

change much but we can learn to listen

to lips that have lingered, that have

laughed in the face of lies

and been nourished by the face

of the fortunate who found favor

with who they were and then substance

in the soft stream of steady words…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

REGARDING REFLECTIONS, day 16 of A Month with Yeats

16/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Day 16 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry Challenge and the quote today comes from ‘He Mourns for the Change That Has Come Upon Him and Longs for the End of the World’: ‘Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?’—W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blogs is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/a-month-with-yeats-day-sixteen/

My poem today is called REGARDING REFLECTIONS

What follies the daylight

carries when then,

before the darkness,

a blindness banishes

the glitter we have

heaped onto our horns.

the night has no light

for lies and disguise.

Blood runs black

in the moonlight

and no one can

see your fear.

And there you stood,

somehow in the shade

of shadow, somewhat

in the mirror watching

and I, leaning on the light,

by the doorway, waiting

to enter your world,

your skin, your body,

and I saw your breath

as it billowed in the glass

all frosted, all fuzzy

and I took in your scent

there in the room

now vacant of all else

but you looking out

to see what the pale

reflection could offer

of the inside and me;

waiting for you

to come back from

that frosted reflection

within the mirror, darkly

shadowed by all that lay

unsolved, by all as yet

unresolved and then

we revolved and it was I

watching and you, my dear,

waiting for me to find you

and lead you back home.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud…

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/regarding-reflections

THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US, day 9 of A Month with Yeats

09/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

It’s day 9 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote to inspire something new is: ‘Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and Usna’s children died.’ W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THE LEGEND TIME WILL TELL OF US

We are the tales

our children will tell of us,

our mystery and musings

bound to a cord we hope

was not cut too deep,

those not bound to bare

will be buried in the hearts

of those who loved them

more than in the earth

that will eat them,

the worms that will weave

trails through their tissue

now taunt, their flesh

now fallen to fodder.

We can be glorious

if they can recall our goodness,

or a rouser of war if they grew

weary of our tales before

time grew tired of us. We make

what we can out of time, but our

legend is what time will make out of us.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE BEAT OF THE BAT, day 2 of A Month with Yeats

02/11/201716/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

For Jane Dougherty’s Yeats poetry challenge today’s quote is: “… the dark folk who live in souls of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;” —W.B. Yeats

To read Jane’s WB inspired gems or to join the other poets in this adventure check out her site at: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com

My poem today is called THE BEAT OF THE BAT

The brighter man, the lighter man,

the darker truth, the deeper vein,

bind me to the rough, the real man,

I beat as a bat.

The clearer glass, elusive glass,

the broken bed, the better lay,

tie me to the rider, all night,

I beat like a bat.

The gentle rose, considered rose,

the troubled torn, the rotting root,