Identity

BURNING STARS 

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

We are liars, all and often, lying

in folds familiar, hoping

for holds to fill the failure,

settled into settlements

we never wanted but thinking

something, anything, this thing

is better than nothing, while

the Poet prefers to pen

the pessimism than to perish

with it. And still we are liars,

the pen turns thoughts

into reasons, into rough sketches

and in turn we soften the edges

with subtle suggestions

to make the truth more soluble,

the lie more acceptable.

We are all laying in masks

of mistrust, mistruths, the more

we take off- the more we build up.

Clothes cover only the concept

of identity; eyes can be distracted, tongues

can be thought to taste

what they are told, ‘I am forever,’

he said and she licked his longing

that left her not long after. ‘I am

comfort,’ she confided as she set

her claws into his confusion.

And the lie goes on forever,

like the sky; consistently blue

until it’s black, streaked

with bright stars already burning out.

 

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

 

WHAT IS POETRY, TO ME, TO YOU?

/ deuxiemepeau / 12 Comments

A few months ago at work, here at our Paris Atelier,  I took part in a workshop on presentation. As a pattern maker by day for the women’s wear brand & Other Stories I don’t really have a need to present. For my job I interpret designs, create patterns; shapes, forms, work out mathematical proportions of the body and then a factory turns my computer-made pattern into a finished product; that dress you needed to have last christmas, that blouse you just couldn’t live without, or so you thought until the following season when the colour was no longer featured in any fashion magazine. So for the presentation, I decided to take my passion and talk about poetry and this is what unfolded…

 

It began as I pulled a mirror onto the stage and asked the audience to tell me what they saw in the mirror. Everyone saw something different. This is what poetry is about, what I see and what you see…

 

1

Poetry is a way for me to share what I see. Poetry is how I share what I see with you.

2

Poetry comes from what I see at the end of the lens, at the fuss when the metro stops moving, in the light that dances in the trees. These are some of the things that I see.

3

I am a writer, I write about what I see, but also how I feel. I am a writer, this is what I do.

4

I am a writer. I write my thoughts and offer them to you, to let you see what you want to see.

5

It all starts with what I see and how I see it and how much I see in it. We all see it, we just don’t all talk about it.

6

As a writer I am constantly questioning the reflections, looking for connections.

7

What I see in the mirror or in reflections is different to what you see. I see a grey car, I see a shadow of something that had meaning, I see a building that is hiding in the sky, I see a city drowning in the water that keeps moving while it cannot move.

34

Poetry is a way of making a connection, between what I see, how I feel and how you react to it.

9

Poetry does not have to be complicated, confusing, only for professors. Poetry for me is simply using words to describe a feeling, a thought, a moment that begs to be shared, a beauty that should not be missed.

99

I am a writer, poetry is my way of connecting with you, the reader, this is my reflection, see me, do you see me as I see me, do you see the world as I see it?

999

We can all see the same things, we can all experience the same feelings but we interpret it in different ways.

9999

I am offering you a reflection of who I am, of what I see, sometimes I am playful and I show you only what I want you to see. It is for you to look deeper if you want to.

99999

What is poetry?

A reflection, a personal beginning that opens up into a universal connection.

 

I am a writer.

You are the reader.

This is who we are.

This is what we see.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

 

TO LINGER LONGER, MAYBE…

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Like a whisper
tissue is painted with purpose,
silk spun from crisp cuts,
white scented with sapphire
parading into Prussian
(fragile of frame and filigree),
like a thought
an image opens, a petal unfolding,
shades seep into substance
as the edges fade
(how quickly we fall to forgetful)
light, liquid, linger, a little longer.
Thoughts tied in twists of emerald
shimmering,
simplicity on a simple stand,
in a liquid light
and the memory leans in.

We are more fragile
than we know.

We could be more lasting
but only time will tell.

Not everything will linger
on after our whispers
fall to a fade…

 
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

Photograph taken at the Dior exhibition Couturier Du Rêve, Musee des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 8; HOURGLASS

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

We are
the hourglass
through which time slips,
love seeps and life is lived
on ever sinking sands, come
see us turning over and falling
down on new stops and false
starts, like tides that sweep
the shore, coming in and
going out with less and
less of more and more,
or is it more and
more of less
and less.
We are
hours of taut
time caught within
glasses of fragile skin,
of breakable bone, fine is
our tiny hold on those golden
grains of complex connections;
I wish, I was, I am, I will, I want, I
am done. We are hourglasses
slipping through scents we
try to make sense of
before they slip
from our
senses.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 2; DRAWN TO THE DEEP

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

In sweeping sprays
the ceaseless sea
is savage to the shore;

bound and breathless,
always and evermore.

Living life on lucent lines
that linger on longing
but are lulled by the lullaby;

that constant cord caressing
the circle ever spinning by.

Ardent amoureux are we all,
ever eager to be eaten
and drawn to devotion,

never quite knowing
if we are the sea;

devouring

or the shore;

devoured by the desires
of our own creation.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

HUNGER IS NOT A HARBOUR

/ deuxiemepeau / 27 Comments

 

Running
to all that is new,
to all I have not yet seen,
attracted to the covered corners
the light can not carve comfort into…

Running
to all I don’t yet know,
to all I have not yet called by name,
haunted by the houses not yet home
and the whispers not yet known…

but what of where I have been,
what of the comfort once created,
what of the stories already told,
what of the lives I held once,
for a time,
in my hold?

Am I bold
to this running,
this longing to be always
up and leaving,
shunning reason
for this constant craving,
for another corner to caress creation,
to suppress starvation?

But hunger is not a harbour,
it is not where still waters rest, still.

It is the rest…

the current
carving chaos
into the crest, craving,
the waves
rushing up and over,
always and ever further,

from the shore.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

JAGGED EDGES

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

We
picture
perfection when
darkness descends
on daylight, when shadows
slip into the unseen, when sharp
edges slide from sinister,
when we cannot see
ourselves in the
glare of the glass that cannot lie.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt form #SenseWrds