Identity

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 8; TAXI DRIVER

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

A constant darkness,

the future unfolds like the road;
route unknown,

the past ever present
but kissed goodbye;

my lips still taste of yesterday,
my hips the heat of your caress
that has since slipped from these sheets.

I was always bound to restless,
to rest less and less,
I am creature creative;
a constant recreation concerned more with shadow than light,

more with what I don’t yet know
than where I have already been.

I am taxi traveller,
I will take you with me
naked under the sweating sun,
tender under starlight

but you are only fair;
you are the hitchhiker
along my highway,

a distraction on route to destination.

We are not destiny,
no two are designed alike,

every soul a single sojourn.

I am city when you are desert,
I am sand when you are stone,
I will have dried up
before you learn to open up.

I will meet you
under moonlight,
by the gaslight
already flickering in the morning light,

only the stars will see us burning bright
for we are stars;
rising in the darkness,

this constant darkness,

I will drink you and then discard you
when the dawn calls me back to destination

before you break me,
I will set off before you slow me,
before you show me who you want me to be.

I am everything and nothing
in your eyes, all lies,
we are only reflections,
projections of hope and hurt,

How can I be all you want
when we don’t really know who we are?

We are starlight, like I said,
already burning out before begun,
drawn to distraction
and drawing on our own dust.

But I am constant, now, to the calling,

am free to flight and fall,

I will love you forever
and yet leave you
before you’ve even considered it
a compliment to concern yourself with who I am

because all we have learned
is to look for ourselves in each other.

And yet I am other. Another.

No other,

bound to no body and everybody,

at home in hotels
that hold me for hire,
every stop another station in the formation,
every sheet another burn as we twist and turn

and then, in twisting, we turn,

we are roads constantly crossing,
trying to get to the other side

to see if the darkness is lighter, brighter,

but this darkness,
this constant darkness
is not a dark abyss,

this constant darkness
can only be conquered at the check out.

A constant darkness,

we are all travellers on a road
making moments, making magic, making mistakes
believing the future is forever.

But I am not concerned or consoled by forever,

I am here now,
running reckless along these roads,
seeking sustenance, seeking solace,
and occasionally a comfort from the cold that comes a calling,

(I will give you what I have willingly
if you promise not to take it unevenly)

seeking satisfaction in things temporary,
leaving a part of me in everything I touch,

hoping it’s enough,
hoping you will remember
the scent of my skin
though we were too thin to be true,
too fragile to be anything more than a fickle tickle,

trying to understand the sweet sorrow,
the ebb and flow, the hope and the hurt.

Goodbye can be a greeting as warm as hello.
Good boy, I am trying to be a good boy

burning through this constant darkness

and smiling as I soar and sizzle.

 

A constant darkness

so we can gaze at the stars in their glory.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 4; BOY SO BLUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

Sitting in a park
in Paris, France
as kids climb trees
they’ll soon outgrow
and birds busy
their feathers in a dance
of freedom we’ll never know.
I fall through your thoughts
as someone tickles strings
on cords too distant
to be discovered
and wonder where you sat;
on the orange carpet
caressed by the concerns
of a girl growing through
her own song of sorrow?
Next to the guy with the hat
and harmony, no doubt,
who guards his guitar
from the bright light,
in the as yet starless sky,
as if he knows how celebrity
will one day cripple his creativity.
A blackbird bows before me,
burrowing his burdens into the
road, looking for crumbs cast off,
for a little refuge, like you did,
like we all do, a little distraction
from the circling sun and
shining skins blustering under
bland and blander. Sitting in a park
in Paris, France, as if in a trance
from 22 to 42, when I first
found favour with following you,
back room, no light, bedsit;
we were masters of the Marais,
simple singletons, senselessly
sinking innocence into the marshes,
courting kisses for a single spark
and rising over losses we thought
at the time to be insurmountable
disasters. But they were just dances
like these tiny birds around me now,
prances we perform, up and under, over
and through. We are all naked birds
flirting with honesty and invisibility
under the sweltering sun, sometimes
remembered, sometimes forgotten
before begun. Sitting in a park
in Paris, France, still trying
to understand the message in the
melody underlying and still trying to
comprehend the cords
forged in the flesh of the boy so blue.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 2; POTTERS ON THE ROAD

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

I am free in the morning,
in this morning town,

waking,

slipping from slumber
like skin from sheets,
like wings above clouds

conquering concerns that come a calling

and I am falling

upwards,

falling in love with light

can feel it sparkling,
even at day break,
even when days break,

falling for all that caresses carefree,

I am not constant,
no longer, not caught,
I am on course like the stars

I course through clouds, up from down,

I am clear of connection, of weight,
of all that heaves over heart,
I am more made of mind,

romance redirected in songs scripted
from memories and moments measured

in the heights that held us
and not the fights that harmed us.

I am cutting from my own carcass my own canyon

in the soil of the soul,
more whole than helpless,

brave the bird that breaks
from the nest
to find fortune in freedom.

Freedom is a solo flight;

to touch the stars
you have to know how to hold the night.

I am man now,
brave begotten from boy,
gotten braver, better, broader,

brought back to basic; the characteristic core of all creation.

Shadows are quaint covers now
that come in from the cold
when comfort is called.

Shadow is not all sinister, sun is not always safe.

We are starlight
making our way
through the darkness,

before we fall to dust,

trying to decipher the difference
between delight and distraction
along the paths we are potters on.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 1, A SONG FOR THE SLEEPING BEE

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

There was a man I used to know,
who came a calling long ago,
back in the days when I didn’t know,
when I didn’t know the truth of me,
when I didn’t know who I could be.

There was a boy once, long ago,
fragile as filigree and falsetto,
there was a boy I used to know,
who didn’t know, I didn’t know.

I am a man now not from here,
who’s watched the shadows disappear;
the jeers and shame for being queer,
I’m not that same boy anymore,
I’ve set my sail to another shore.

If you said ‘home boy’, I wouldn’t know,
if you said ‘go boy’, I would not know

I couldn’t say which way to go.

I came a calling long ago,
I caught a calling that pulled me so,
came from inside and would not let go,
and now I can’t let it go,
can’t let the calling, can’t let it go.

I had a hero long ago,
he played me music sweet and slow,
I was the string at the Château d’Eau,
I was a puppet in his travelling show.

There was a puppet he used to know,
of sugar sweet and gentle snow,
but strings grow cold over melting snow,
and so he had to let me go,
he had no choice but to let me go.

I will not keep you, you have to know,
you’re just a pull of my cross and bow,
i’ll release the string and watch you go,
I will not want you to know me so,
we’ll let it burn out in the afterglow,
that’s the blow, but this I know,
and here I am to tell you so.

So you can love me before I go,
and you can taste me but then forego,
you can hold me like Calypso
did so long ago till she let go,
for this I know, I will let go,
of all I don’t know, this I know.

There was a man I used to know
who came a calling long ago,
I loved him so and yet I let him go,

I couldn’t say; ’I cannot stay’
but now he knows and so it goes.

There was a boy I used to be,
silent and still like a sleeping bee,
trying to hide behind a nobody,
but now he’s no more a part of me,
I see him sometimes out at sea
and in the shade of what used to be.

But he’s not me, that sleeping bee,
just thought it was who I was meant to be.

But it was not me, he was not me.
You see; that nobody; it wasn’t me,
there was a boy I used to be
but now this man, this man is me
or at least the only part I’ll let you see,
for all the rest, all the rest,
I’ve learned to keep that just for me

I learned you gotta keep something
because love;

It don’t come free.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: 

 

 

TO EACH HIS TIME TO SHINE

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Silent under summer sun
I slip back
to where the shadows
snatched older days,
Boho days
in soho
and then that shift
further south;
so south of centre,
I slip back
and see you
in the spotlight
that surrounded you
and see myself; sidelined
into abstractions
and decorating diversions;
building barricades
while you shone above them
I was swimming in subtle shifts
barely susceptible to both,
seeking out shadows
of a former self
that had shifted
like a current
you can’t control
We had removed
a sea of division
but had no idea
what has been lost
in the crossing.
We were couple content
in musicals and mortgage
but there had been more
standing between us
than just an ocean bed.

I remember you
standing centre stage
in the spotlight
that so suited you
and I was reminded,
there in the shadows
of the dressing room,
that I had yet
to find my character.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

BEAT ON; STILL MOVEMENT AFTER THE DANCE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

We evolve
from wombs to rooms
we revolve around, a space
within space where we whisper
tender tales into tight twists
in curt corners crammed
with comfort and chaos,
this shifting space whose sides
echo with movements that time
has noted but pain
has not yet processed…

Fragility unfolds
throughout space;
my space, your space, the space
that used to be our space, their space,
space now displaced, washed down
with whispers that were once wishes,
that was once laughter, light and liquid,
liquid days when you drowned
in the other’s desires that drove
toward lust, that dove toward love,
that fell, thereafter, toward tired
and toxic; tender turns
toward twisted,
tick tock.

Tick tock.
How time tolls
over hold. Hands
hold and time turns and then
time folds and hands turn
taunt through this place,
this space, once our space,
their place, now displaced, this room,
once loved, now rarely reserved.

We lay, we lie, we fall, we fight
until we leave a weight
behind us in our flight.

Whispers of loves now lost
rattle in a past still present,
not yet processed, pain permeating
into pattern, tissues soak
up solitude, torn tissue, twisting
and turning like the hands
of time as we try to find ourselves
again, trying to become a whole
within the hole, trying to clutch
hope again, however hopeless
it is to hold hope
within the hole
that houses us.

We connect and come loose,
we break (each other often,
accidentally on purpose)
and feel the noose pull tighter,
pull us further from the other.

Left are we with lines drawn
by love’s touch, like trees are we;
after each struggle more circles,
after each encounter more lies lines
spiralling us further from thoughts
thought to be central. I am anger.
You are sadness. We are over.
They are done. Who is sorry?
Is it important anymore?

We are whispers whispered
in rooms disjointed, reflections
cracking under the hunger
and heartbreak, the love and loss.

We are music in the making
until the melody meanders off,
until the cords are cut, until
the harmony is too harsh to hold.

We fall, we let go, we fall, we let go…

we continue, we are a continuum
of connection and confusion,
curious concern and self obsession.

We are whispers of the noises
and nooses we navigate in
and under, over and through.

We are particles of passion
and pain that penetrate the self,

that identify us, that mark us,
that make us who we are.

Particles so primal that we would perish
if they ever departed from our persona.

And so we persist, are persistent.

And so we beat on,
beat bruises onto our own flesh.

Beat on. Beat. Beat.

We are nothing if not beasts
with breasts bare;

beating to be broken.

All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly. Inspiration by Giulio D’Anna.

So, where did this poem come from:

Last Monday night, here in this city of light and shadow, I was one of the fortunate spectators at Espace Pierre Cardin, Theatre de la Ville (a single movement away from an unusually still place de la Concorde) to witness choreographer Giulio D’Anna’s post-modern dance theatre entitled OOOOOOOO. It was bare, bold and breathtaking and, with Giulio; it always is. I can call him Giulio because I knew him when that was his name. Now he is Giulio D’Anna, visionary! Quotation mark intended.

Giulio, originally an Italian student of ballet (and medicine), found favour with contemporary dance in Florence, studying with Simona Bucci, before moving to Amsterdam to study at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) and his career has not stopped since he graduated, although some of us were lucky enough to see it taking off even beforehand!
Now an award winning choreographer, he is paving this occasionally unsettling but always intriguing journey through what he calls the dramatic body. Parkin’son is possibly one of the most moving pieces of dance theatre I have ever witnessed. The truth and emotional strings that carried each movement of the duo onstage was that said duo was Giulio and his actual father who is actually living with Parkinson’s himself. A moment of blood and bone, father and son, battles and bonds, youth and all that comes after.

This piece on Monday night, was inspired by a visit Giulio made to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb (and I though that’s were I lived, poetically at least!). A piano on a bare stage in shadow and light gradually fills with 8 characters whose loves and losses unfold through the physically and emotionally charged 1 hour and 10 minutes. We are introduced to them by a collection of truths appearing on a screen at the back of the stage; a collective CV; where they came from, what they believe in, how they love, who they love, how they have broken and if they still hold hope. At the same time as being unnerving, unsettling and uncomfortable, it is engaging, enthralling, stirring, thoughtful, compassionate and, just at the right moment, hilariously funny. D’Anna’s ensemble opens us, the viewer, to our own feelings of how we hurt, who we hurt and asks us the question to which there is no truthful answer; what we would be without that beating heart that trembles and terrifies within each one of us. What if we didn’t beat?

There is beauty and colour in the Museum of Broken Relationship, shades of light and laughter putting a pattern onto pain. In this piece too, on Monday night in the city of shadow and light, beauty resonated in all its rawness. I was already writing in my head on the metro home.

His website is simply http://www.giuliodanna.com but this choreographer, creator, questioner, philosopher, dancer, carer, and friend, is far from simple. You can find him online, on YouTube and certainly, one day soon, in your local theatre. Book early!

OOOOOOOO will have its final performance on the 29th May 2017 at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb. A fitting completion of a circle for a piece of post modern contemporary dance/comedy musical whose inventor is only just beginning.

Watch the trailer for OOOOOOOO here: https://vimeo.com/76032170

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 8; HUES OF WHO WE ARE

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Blue boy
harbouring at hints
from other hues;
breathless to be breezy,
tu sais? A longing
to lay with lavender,
on a lawn of iris
and amethyst,
to be lyrical with lilac
in its supple shade,
to whisper over walls
like blankets over bodies,
like worry over waves,
ready to be ruby
in red,
ripe and raw
like the apple
in the orchard;
teasing temptations,
like willing wine
on the tip of the tongue
flowing like blood
through the body,
glad to go towards green,
to the shamrock and the sage,
to be mellow in the moss
and jovial in the juniper,
to gain again on the grounding
that was my fertile founding,
bounding back to the beginning,
(we can never go back to before- really?)
to venture back to the verdant valleys,
face to face with the unearthing
of all that came after
in cut and colour of that solid soil
from the cedar to the ochre
(are my eyes hazel
because you are their home?)
returning to the roots
of my becoming,
see them still turning
in the bright bog,
Eire and her energy,
and the emerald smile
that still shines on me
so far from that distant isle.
The green light, that orgastic future,
(he called it), we beat on
but are bound back
to where we began.
.
Blue boy
with green eyes, (hidden in hazel)
white skin
and the orange;
(my diversion with the Dutch?).
Now I am red
and white and blue,
blue again, you see;
you can always go back to before!

Blue boy
harbouring at hints
from other hues.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly. Picture taken in Ireland in 2003.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/colour-on-curt-corners-part-8-hues-of-who-we-are

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 3; LINES AND LANDSCAPES

/ deuxiemepeau / 15 Comments

What are we
but lines crossing,
lanes connecting,
leaning on lovers
lying next to us?
What are we but colours
caught out of context,
in corners too curt
for comfort, so often
a reflection already faded,
a ripple unreadable,
a trace too tepid
to be touched, a shade
too subtle to be seen. Blue,
like she said, this is the rhyme
we’ll leave them in time,
a hue of blues on the water,
colour cast into the current
of consumers too caught up
to be concerned. What are we
but tall tales towering
over twisted truths,
echoes that ache more
with their passing
than their lack
of permanence.
What are we
but bright colours
bolt upright, trying
to make our way
through a landscape
that now shadows the day?

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: