Identity

SHANGHAI STREETS; FAR FROM HOME

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

On pressing parades
pedestrian pass on motors,
on mass, in autos,
under umbrellas,
in downpours of flashing lights
of signs I cannot identify,
on roads that have no rules,
with crossings that heed no caution
for those crossing, the tens crossing,
the hundreds crossing,
the thousands trying to get through
with rising intonations 
to parks, to stop on mass,
to push against the air,
to cast shapes,
slow moving shapes,
motions that move into the morning
still in the making
while they are waking
and I wander the streets
in search of lost sleeps,
in search of understanding
the red dragon and his breath that steals
from sight a sky I never see
and yet there is light, electric light,
burning down from buildings, blinding buildings,
as if to shadow all that was once natural,
all that hints at traditional,
and that still echoes with strings of beauty,
stranded streets that should be seen
but are shaded by the gleam
of glorious Gucci and pray to Prada
and all the rest of western delusions
that silence the former oriental infusions.
I am the white man,
the foreign man
trying to find meaning in the madness,
in the movement, clambering to catch comprehension
with nothing but chopsticks
that fail to find favour with my fingers
in this land where the food tastes delicious
and the streets smell atrocious.
Xièxiè and Nín hǎo are the crutches I cling to,
to clamber through,
but, like the chopsticks,
they are too fragile to be stable
and too fickle to be favourable
and I am clearly too used to home
to be truly objectionable.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/shanghai-streets-far-from-home

 

 

 

 

BENEATH THE SKIN

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I         You         Us
being so much water
and yet the lucky
do not drown
in the very essence
of what they are

I         You         Us
we are all oceans sunk beneath the surface of the skin

I         You         Us
so much water
beneath the skin,
we are movement
cast out
to current curiosity

I         You         Us
all movement
like ripples on the water
and we are water,
and we are as deep
as we dare
to dive

I         You         Us
daring divers
discovering our own
essence in the depths,
the lucky ones rising
like waves,
washing upon the shores of our world

I         You         Us
so capable of watering our waning world.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/beneath-the-skin

 

FOR MARIE AND EDDIE; LOVE CAN

/ deuxiemepeau / 27 Comments

A week ago, my sister Marie got married to her soulmate Eddie and I was so proud to see her wearing the wedding dress I had made for her. It’s strange to say my sister got married because I grew up as an only child, but there you go. Life delivers surprises everyday.

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Soulmates

I grew up knowing I was adopted, it was a bedtime story from when I was a little boy; I was told that while my friends all came from their mummy’s tummies, I was different and had been picked in a baby shop, my parents had looked around and chose me. Therefore I was special and grew up thinking adoption was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. And feeling extra special of course. When I was 18, I told my parents I was gay. Actually, I verbally vomited this information up on a Saturday morning, having grown tired of holding it inside for the previous 10 years. After the tears and the hugs and unquestionable family devotion, my mother decided that, as I had shared my secret, she would share her’s with me. I grew up thinking she had never had children but, on that Saturday, amid empty boxes of kleenex, she told me that she had had a baby girl before she was married, in rural Dublin in the 1960’s. More tears ensured, of course. The father didn’t want to stick around and Mum decided that the best gift she could give her baby daughter was to give her up for adoption in the hope that another family would give her the life that she could not provide at the time. That was my mum’s sacrifice and she carried it with her everyday. She still does. Years later, she met and married my father and they tried to have kids but, it turned out, my father wasn’t able to father children and so the circle turned and the beginning met the end and they adopted me.

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Mother and Son

Just over 10 years ago, my sister came looking for her natural mother and another circle completed its turn. Unfortunately Marie lost her own mother just months before finding Mum. Life takes away and gives back to those who are fortunate. Mum and Marie are peas in a pod. Their not only share blood, but mannerisms, laughter, the same sense of style, the same hand movements which you think are learned from your everyday environment but it turns out not to be the case. Mum also has two gorgeous Grandchildren so I’ve been let off the hook for not providing her with any and I got two nieces into the bargain.

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Marie’s daughters/bridesmaids, Mum’s grandchildren and my nieces 

This picture below is Mum and her daughter last Saturday in Dublin on the morning of the wedding in Marie’s bedroom.  Mother and daughter united again and my Mum got to walk down the aisle with her daughter on her wedding day with Marie’s adopted Dad on the other side.

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If you look out the window, the building opposite is a nuns convent, Temple Hill. That’s where I started my life. I told you, Life always delivers surprises.

My sister asked me to speak at the wedding ceremony. These are the words I wrote for my sister Marie and her new Husband Eddie, with love…

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He gives her his hand
not to take hers
but to place his heart in her hold

She gives him her heart
not because she doesn’t need it
but to let him know she needs him more

He stands beside her
not to sink in her shadow
but to rise higher together

She kisses his lips
not to take his breath
but to share his soul

He gives her his hand
she gives him her heart
they share their souls.
These are their best offerings
they are not money
they are not material

because material
can never hold your hand
and money
can never warm your heart

the way Love can…

This is how unions are made…
This is how families grow…

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All Words and Pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

 

FESTERING FRUIT

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Berries blacken in the bowl,
their scent no longer salivating
summer’s sweet seductions,
winter withers in the distance,
while fervent flies are fluttering,
wings flapping to the rotting
arousal of carnality lost
to natures once fair bloom.
Tastes are truly to the barer born.
Bitter berries are black in the bowl,
their flesh no longer fresh but
turned, they are turning
bruised attention to things
with darker tendencies,
igniting interest in insects,
finding themselves delicious
to diptera’s wavering wings
now deciphering detours
to decomposing juices of festering
fruits who’ve waned in worth.
Black berries, once in bloom,
are eager to be devoured
before their time dissolves.

Are we but berries
battling in this bowl of life;
thirsty to be tasted and tried
before we are aged and expired.

If only we could be grapes
that age in barrels and bottles.

All Words and Drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/festering-fruit

WILFUL IN THE WILD

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Wilful in ways worrisome 
like in the wilderness weaned,
he was born of the breeze
and bound from baby to be breathless 

and when they caught him he said;

‘When I lay me down
let the ground make of me what it wants,
let the soil seek substance beneath my skin.’

Reckless in ruthless rebellion
like the river ravages routes,
too timid to be touched
and too tormented to be tamed 

and when they chained him he said;

‘When I lay me down
let the sun make of me what it wants
let its rays find rest on my remains.’

But as they strung him up
he heard, in the distance, the feathers running restless,
and as they pulled the rope
he knew, in the mountains, the vultures were hovering

eager, at last, to make a meal out of what was a beast of a man.

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken just outside of Galway in Ireland.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

BEAUTY IN SPACES

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There is a beauty
within this space, 
a creation considered
to compliment the concrete,

you can leave 
if you like 
by the stairs 
or you can rest
for a while
on the seat. 

There is a soul
within these veins,
a creation connected 
to more than the carcass,

you can leave
if you like 
by letting go 
or you can stay
for a time 
in the hold. 

There are footprints 
upon this floor,
tracks that tingle 
where others have thread,
 
weather will wither them
and winds will wear them

but they remain
submerged
ingrained. 

There are memories 
within this soul,
impressions that have permeated 
and beats that have broken,

they are indivisible from flesh
they are inseparable from spirit,

they are beauty
within the space
of every person.

All Words and Photography by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in the gardens of La Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporian, Paris 

 

LIPS AND KISSES IN WAVES

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

On foreign soil
I laid my feet
in foreign arms
I kissed on foreign streets.

In other beds
I gave my body
on other beds
locked in naked bodies.

In fleeting holds
I found my needs
while fleeting was
the hold that let me feed.

In other hands
I saw you take
wondering what
hold in mine you’d make.

On tender lips
I left my taste
on other lips
I lingered long on waste.

On sleepless nights
I laid awake
twisting nights
the darkness could not break.

On salty sands
I walk on waves
and salty tears
I cast for time and tide to fade

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FIELDS OF HINDSIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

There are fields beyond the trees,
fertile fields never turned or sewn,
ploughed or pillaged, lands his course
never crossed. If he had hindsight
would he still till the same lands,
plant the same roots, seek substance
in the same sunlight, find a farmer’s
favour with the familiar falling rain?
If he had hindsight would he seek
solace in the same fire that favoured him
in winter, in those fantastical flames
that nourished him, revived him,
that thawed his sorrow, caressed him
to comfort? There is music
in other rooms, alive on other keys
and strings he never played,
he never knew, he never cared for
or considered. If he had hindsight
would he still sing the same song,
words that were whispered to him,
music that made him, moulded him,
find reason in the same rhythm,
character in the same chorus?
If he had hindsight what use
could it be, what peace could it bring,
what would it make of him,
how would it change who he was,
who he loved and all he has still to be?
There are fields beyond the trees,
fertile fields never turned or taken,
their grass has other offerings,
their leaves all sway to other sounds,
their fortunes spark other interests,
there is music in other rooms,
alive on keys and strings, tunes
of other tenors, sounds from other
singers, they are not his sounds,
just as they are not his fields,
they have not made him,
will not tempt him, they can never
change him; hindsight is to hopeless
as happiness is to hopeful.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken just outside of Lisbon, Portugal.

SHADES OF METROS MOVING

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I take the metro and tour the world
on one single line, in one single hour,
I am south and white, not so south 
that I am ghetto, but I’m still south
so I start in paler shades, fragile skin,
freckled skin, skin burnt by sunlight
and I travel central to chicer centres,
to tote bags, Chanel bags, Prada bags,
bags so cool they don’t have names
carried with character and sun glasses
worn indoors over eyes, on the head,
and all through life, I cross the Seine
and the current now changes to casual
as the youth descend from Les Halles;
the track suits and highheels, gay boys
with toned tops, crew cuts in J crew’s,
chiseled cheek bones and trendy setters
with Asian angles, before I move north
again, further up the line and I darken,
in one stop; I am urban now, ethnic and 
eager with attitude, edgy, and on I go
until I’m swayed, suddenly, in shawls
and in wraps and in colours so bright,
I am now a kaleidoscope of carriages 
going north, tearing up into the ghetto,
of the greatness, of the gangs, the guts,
I am metro madness in one line of life.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly