Identity

OVERTAKING

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

Today is the 2nd year anniversary of part 2 of my life in Paris. I moved here on July 17th 2015. I first moved here form Dublin when I was 22. At that point I knew as little about anyone in this city or the city itself as I did about myself. Two years later London called and I packed a few bags and moved. When Amsterdam called 6 years after that, the bags had become boxes and the identity of who I was, a little clearer. I’d already learned that you can’t hold on to everything, regardless of how hard you try. And then, almost 10 years later, I returned to the city that first captured my imagination and carved so much of itself into the lines now more visible on my features that I could barely distinguish the lines of the city and the lines of the self. Needless to say,  the bags were bigger this time and I don’t just mean the ones under my eyes. From 22 to a month away from 42, all now visible in the partially filled boxes around my feet. Somewhere within these collections, are hints at who I am on route to becoming, I guess…

 

Overtaking

Back to the boxes; finding things forgotten
in seams not yet sealed and finding no room
for other things since stuck with too much tape
that I cannot take any longer in this movement
along another midway, a mild change of track
through to midlife, making home at another station
amid the mayhem of the moment, making room
to make more moments that will momentarily
fill more boxes when another move meanders
my way. We are made of movements from major
to minor and back again; I am right, he has left,
she is nowhere and everywhere and not everyone
understands, they’ve turned back, I’ve carried on,
I can hold happy alongside these boxes; bruised
and battered but far from broken, I can hold it all,
I will hold all that has been left. Back to the boxes;
to the treasures I’ve taken to be true and the truths
that have lead me to the lies I’ve cast to the curbs
I have crawled over and then crossed off. I cannot
carefully wrap each and every delightfully deceptive
distraction that comes a calling, whether correctly
considered or coldly comfortless, I too was created
be cared for, I too need room to be made for me
without the waste of words, do I not deserve a space
to call my space within all space, within all this
fleeting space we are speeding through?

My next bed will spring from my liking as I plaster
my own skin with my own desires. I desire to be
distracted by dreams not too distant. I will not
be packed in a box like these belongings;
longing to be lifted to the light. I am too fond
of freedom to wait for life to find me. I am moving,
with boxes on my back and cartons crammed
into the cracks of my consciousness. I will not wait
for life to come to me; this is me, see me, overtaking it.

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

BORN IN BLUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Muscle in movement to music
as cords are cut from corpse,
‘I was born in blue,’ he said,
‘tender twisting into tune,
I am rags rendered into rich,
suffering surrendering to the song.’
‘I was born in blue,’ he said
And his guitar the guts
through which he bled.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Based on a poetry prompt from @Poetry Portrait 

RESTLESS

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Only shadow remains
as I slip away from myself,
carving new forms
out of old bones,
eager for other arousals
to press through the restless.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Based on a Twitter poetry prompt from #WrittenRiver

UNFINISHED

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

I am a being blown
from baby to boundaries
to bondage and breathless
on contrary winds
that offer no warning
and cast no conscience
towards direction, I am
a wave caught on a current
in a reversed ocean,
swimming up
to dive deeper,
going out
to come undone,
exposed
in my raw
unreadiness,
a photo
that hasn’t been shopped,
an unfinished portrait
of a person
I haven’t quite become.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Based in a Twitter Poetry Prompt for #DimpleVerse

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 19; CONFESSION

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I have been courted
by counts and clowns,
too costly to count,
to considered to be questioned,
too comical to consider courtly
while in cities crowded with crossing carriages
and calm corners curated in comfort.
I have been coloured in, cared for,
cooped up, critiqued, cried out
and carried on, careless at times,
cautious at others,
I am creature creative
within this creation
in constant recreation,
a commuter
on this continuing carriageway
as cryptic as these clouds
of cotton-like complexity I cannot catch,
this carnival carousel of colours
not always complimentary
but of constant curiosity
that keeps on careering
and I am caught, concentric,
in consensual contentment
on its current that cannot be caged.
I came to the city,
this city, a city, other cities,
on a calling caught,
to cast all caution into the chaos
so as to compress the cost,
to consider the curve of common cliche
and covet the calling of the unconventional,
to cast a cry into the canyon
I have cut from my own carcass
so as to be counted as contestant.
I came in from the cold corners of complacency
where the crows were cawing callous
with the canines of carnality
to carve my confession
upon the confines of concrete
so as to comprehend the kisses I’ve captured
and the cords I’ve become a connoisseur of
within these courts that have contemplated me
and these circuses that have certified me
as compliant competitor.
I can only compliment the countless confusions
that called me careless
and I considered too crude to be counted,
but they count as the catalysts
that corrected my compass to
its calling within this circle
I am committed to seeing through
to its conclusion.

Shine on, shadowed sky,
with your stars like songs
singing along their sojourn.
I see sinister no more in shadow
and sight not always in sun.
We are seagulls and snakes
and saints and sinners
in the same situation,
searching for stimulants,
singing in unison
of our struggles and our strengths,
striving to see salvation in the spotlight,
searching out that spark to court
in sex and sense
that will send our souls soaring
into the stratosphere.
We are songs being sung
in a simultaneous serenade.
We are stars.

We are not nothing and never will be.

See how we Shine.

All words and photo collage by Damien B. Donnelly

This is the final poem in the series which has been inspired by the artistry of Joni Mitchell and each poem has followed her albums in chronological order.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 18; TRAVELOGUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I

In the park
bodies are bare and bending
in sweaty forms,
see the skin still salivating
as if fresh from the frolics,
when we were fondled and found,
some born to be bound
and then others;
fickle fools thinking thrusts
were as true as trust.

But truth is told only in time;
touch turns from tenderly
tempestuous to temperamental
and all too temporary.

I had a king
in a castle in London
who showed me Soho
and Shakespeare
and Sondheim and song,
I had a home
in the confines of concrete
with textiles and textures
and people who thought
I shouldn’t want more,
I was a shadow
of winter in summer,
I was a peasant
unprepared for the palace
of people and places and graces.
I was the blue note in a home
where I didn’t belong.

I was caught
and caged in the concrete
I had pasted and painted
with colour to keep out
the cold.
I was the killer
of kindness in the castle
when I couldn’t keep track of the ties
too lonesome to hold.

II

Truth, like ties,
are tenuous,
like I told him once
and he laughed
and I knew I’d already lost him.
We were drunk then,
daily, ravenously rampant
by the river, raising the rafters
of romanticism into something
more erotic as liquor left us
more likeable,
more pliable.
More, you asked,
more of more and more
and we were whores
to the hunger, fools rocking
on a trust, that I had told him,
would turn out to be as tenuous
as it was temporary.

My old man
was a funny one,
a drinking man,
a bottle collector
who liked me like his liquor;
in cabinets next to cast offs
and collectables he could polish
at his pleasure.
My old man
was a fond one
of class and culture
who liked his treasure
in bottomless glasses
and freshly pressed sheets.
My old man
was the party clown
when the lights were leaving
and the drink deceiving
and despondent, at times, I think,
to think that he could have been more,
to think that we could have
had more.
My old man
was a bottle collector,
a drinking man
of class and culture
but there wasn’t enough room
in the bed for us all
with the more and more and more.

The sun is shining now
in this park, over sweating skins
poised for it to be permanent
while I watch the clouds gathering
just beyond the tress

where the vultures
are devouring their own virtues.

III

Alone now,
a flight of feathers
free from all shackles,
walking the single lane,
secure if it is to be
for a single day
or forever.
Alone
and casting off
the cages that once encased me,
feeling strength
that has long since slumbered,
heading along the highway
and holding all that is truly mine,
slowly retuning
to my natural state,
my own body embracing
its bounty, baring its beauty
like the womb; nurturing myself.
Loving alone now,
getting to know the curves
and the quite corners
of this midway of me
and the miles I am making,
true to the tales
of my own travelogue,
all natural states eclipse
for in returning
to this part of me,
once pushed aside,
once cast out of spotlight,
I am moved,
almost elevated,
parallel to that
which I am bound
into becoming.

I am the waters
no longer resting,
I am the stream swimming
from the city to the open ocean
and already I can feel the breeze
that those bound parks can only ponder.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 15; TURBULENT SACRIFICE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Mama was an unmarried mother
at the end of the summer of 75
as Joni hissed of the snakes
in the gardens of complacency
where ignorance was still very much alive.

Mama was only a girl in the growing
and possibly no more than just 18
when she bent down and placed
a kiss on my cheek and whispered
goodbye to her own little green.

Mama is someone who I’ve never met
aside from the dream I once had
of her life in a kingdom that ruled
you could not mother a child unless
at first you were a legitimate wife.

Mama was an unmarried girl one winter
in the arms of a man barely stretched
from a boy, her trust in the throws
that left little to believe in and a pain
that pulled on the strings of goodbye.

Mama was once an unmarried mother
and bursting with thoughts her shape
couldn’t hide, but helpless and hopeless
were not part of her form and so she did
what she could when you can’t be the bride.

Mama was a childless woman
when winter that year came cold with its calling,

and the tears started breaking

and the leaves began falling

like the water that had broken,
like the hold that had not held,
like the hope that was drowned,
and the hand that was expelled…

too short, too quick, too hard
too much to let go for good

and the snakes started hissing on the lawns.

Mamma was the unmarried mother
who gave me the greatest gift
that anyone could, of growing up
knowing that what she had done
was to give me up for a greater good.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 11; CORRECTING CORINTHIANS

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

As a child
was I thoughtless
or just thought less?
Less taught.
Less to think about?
Was there really less to see,
less to love?

For life was never loveless.

As a man
I have given so much away, I guess,
less love left,
less to give,
more gone.

Does it grow back,
like children grow
and learn and know
before becoming thoughtless again,
before taking more of their share,
before leaving less for the rest?

Less to give. More gone. What rests?

But I am not a noisy nothing
because I have emptied love
into other hearts,
hungry,
happy,
heavy,
hard..

But now, with the knowledge
that I no longer know less,
I know this:

I am not less than the child
who once thought less,
I am not less than the man
who once loved more.

I see
in the mirror, dimly,
and sometimes clearly,
those pieces that have parted
and the person that remains,
someone between child and man,
somewhere between innocence
and all the light that is dimmer after its loss,
somewhere between the thinking
and the taking and the being taken,

I am
somewhere
between it all,
looking back, reaching out,
holding up the faith that has fallen
and regarding the fate that is waiting,
reflecting the hope that the child sees
and the one that every man needs,

holding
up the love
that will always be
at home in my heart,
whether or not I am
framed by someone
or single, just me.
just one.

For even if it is just one
it is far from none.

I am not nothing and never will be.
This I used to know in part
but now I know in full.

All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 10; THE SUM OF WHO WE ARE

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

And we are all a sum of circles…

spinning, spiralling,

circling something,
orbiting our own atmosphere,
seduced by our own stratosphere, (oh, how we smell)
chasing our own tails;
can circles have tails or is it just dogs?

Although Plato portrayed us
as circles split apart;
restlessly looking for the rest of ourselves,

worrying the best half
is the other half that was snipped away.

So are we circles
or just the unfinished sum of a circle?
Are we accounting or just counting our own charisma?
Fragmented fractures
trying to add positives with only negatives,

semi circles circling the greater circle of life,
some all seeing, some all knowing,
some too wrapped in the self to see the shadow

and oh how the shadows can settle over the oh so indulgent.

And she calls
and she cries
and she sees

nothing and no one as needy
as she caresses her own concerns

and she combs
long shining strands
of sustained soliloquies
over the silence, shivering.

And he sleeps
and he cries
and he needs

all and everyone to see how suffering
stifles his strength to see beyond the self

and he breaths
his burdens over brothers
he believes are blind
to his behaviour.

Oh the poor ones,
oh the pity,

pretty girl,
pity boy,

how they want you to see them,
to see how hard it is
to be them.

Make way for the music;

see the swines strumming the sinew
as the crows cut through callous cords
and the vultures make violent overtures on the violins

and cut to crashing crescendo!

 

If only fortune
could free them
from the self satisfying shackles
they slip over themselves.
Shackles too shiny
to ever enslave.

And she calls
and he cries
and they see themselves

as singularly central to the circle

and not just a number in a sum of an incomplete equation.

 

All words and wall hanging by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 9; A MUSE ON A ROUGH ROUSE

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

‘You gotta be what you want,’ that’s what they say,
‘You gotta be what we want,’ that’s what they mean
and, brother and sister, they can be mean.

But we can’t all be compliant in complacency, we can’t
all be kept compartmentalised into your conditions,
I have my own conditions. Cotton Avenue has come a calling
with its shiny beat on a changing street and this is the just
the latest edition, fresh off the press and it’s less and less
of before and more and more of more.

So come see me, if you feel it, in the morning light
when I’m musing bright and rough and ripe for the fight
but that reflection will have taken flight by the evening light
when I’m straddling the moonlight naked by your bedight,
twisting temporary between thighs so tight that make us feel so right.

Originality’s been ostracised without being obvious, like wolves
now wet as pets, fractured and folded into fickle formulas
customers can get their claws into, accentuated with sugar
to sooth the jaws into silently submissive but still we can salivate.
 
But you were always looking for the other side of obvious,
breaking down the fences, flipping the B Side to the A side.
They felt you fitted into folk, at first, fragile filigree as a woman
should be, caressing concerns of the passing of casual companions,
the woman’s champion you never wanted to be and so you grew listless
within the laurel and the labels, and turned from the men’s measuring
tables that pulled down from up and turned to rocking restless,
seeking out a new way to swing, but you swayed so far from
their familiar so they dared to deny you, wanted to tie you up
in your old strings of sorrows and musings from the midways.

You had leapt electric and they stood stoic; confused in what they
considered too eclectic. Jazz, like poetry, is the puzzle rarely pondered
by the populous! They hated your hissing as if you were pissing
in your own park and couldn’t pardon Don Juan from this darkened
daughter who was merely looking forward to see what was to follow.
 
‘Stay true’, they say to me and you, but through to who? Wild things
run free, you cannot cage creation even as breeders of a nation without
a notion of what’s possible in lieu of the lie that’s much more popular.
 
I turn to the TV in the impermanent ‘pop-up’ plot by the parking lot
and tune in to see tales twist and spin as CNN flies with fears
and fragility in France, where terror has taken over tourism
while I’ve been in the park in Paris with Parisians still proudly
playing in their paradise. Terror, Trumpers, is tapping on your toes,
a cannonball of chaos careering through your school halls,
and your gun clubs and the bold bravado of your right to a riffle
like life was a raffle. France has fallen to foreign fears and we feel
the tears burning and the eyes watching as metros keep moving
cause commuters have commitments but in your homeland,
in that brave land, Americans are killed more by their own hand
than by any other hand and still you stand and sing
‘land of the free’, ‘home of the brave’. ‘
Political is now popular but god forbid if you try to popularise
being political. Remember; we all have our positions people.

France is fool to its own folly, as the cast-outs camp out
in cardboard boxes they’ve crashed into, hoping for help
and hand outs from the common men because the political ones
are busy building domes of duplicated documents
they’ve demanded you deliver even though they are decades old,
documents that are difficult to keep track of when your home was hit,
your city in shreds and you ran for refuge.
 
Ireland, oh Ireland, it’s a long long way from home,
not sure I can still drink a crate of you but happy I am
to dream you from the distance, to reminisce of your better days
you are now getting back to. Back to basic, like you needed to,
coming closer to the craic you’d cashed in when you had all that cash
to get lost in, the greed that grinded down the greatness and cut
more character from the classes than faith and famine killed the masses.

Sceptical still as to whether racism should be ruled out,
religion is racing towards relic but feet still flow to the masses
like in uniformed formation, as if in some sort of heightened
migration, a hypnosis from on high even if the brothers have abused
and battered all hope of ever being saved and the nuns no better
in their neglect for a nation of unmarried mothers who became
unpaid servants while their babies were left to swim in still waters,
that were far from blessed. Maybe you were right; God must be a boogie man!
 
The green land, the homeland, how time has loosened its hand
on our hold, age informed me while youth had veiled me
from the force of your females eager to remind your males
how they were made to be their meek; men moulded into
money making and quiet keeping. The motherland, indeed,
where the hens hold the cock clenched but I have things to say
just as much as those clocking birds running headstrong through
the homesteads. You can’t shut me up and just talk to me.
That’s not how it’s gonna be! I have options and opinions
and others versions who I’ve yet to be. I am changing sides,
slipping, like she did, the B side to the A side and will not
be pushed aside so perhaps that’s why I’ve taken off to the other side.
 
Cause I gotta be what I want and not what you want to see.

You see?

Gotta be free to muse,
regardless of the roughness,
for this is the justice that the just deserve.

All words and picture-collage by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: