Tides roll in, roll out,
waves recall not where they’ve been
but to where they’re bound.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Ireland
BACK TO THE BANKS OF THE GRAND
Water catches light
Like I once reached out
To catch a wave
Along this same stretch of water,
This same cosy current of canal
That has slowed, now,
Like my footsteps,
Like my stokes;
Coming back on the bend,
Finding favour
In the freshness
Of all that was once familiar,
Letting go of the longing
To swap steady stream
For seductive sea,
Finding comfort, now,
In the light
I’ve already swam in.
Settling back now,
Sitting down,
Watching the waters
Carefully caress that light.
All words and photograph by Damien B Donnelly
Photo taken earlier this week along the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin, opposite the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design where I studied and dreamed of the future over 24 years ago.
SUMMER STORM for Poetry Day Ireland
It’s Poetry Day Ireland so I am supporting from abroad. This year’s theme is Truth or Dare so throughout the day I will be posting a few of my older poems on Truth and a few more on being Irish…
Summer Storm
Beat away at breast;
a lie of love grown to lust,
grown repulsive,
‘Whisper who we were,’
rose water, a shadow symphony
drunk on a dream,
smooth shot to sordid,
bitter chocolate screams
beneath the sweaty skin
of a summer storm.
All words and photographs of Dublin by Damien B. Donnelly
WORDLESS WEDNESDAY part 1, CATCH THE COLOUR
Colour caught on the lens…
All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
THE GREYING MIST OF MEMORY
I’d never heard the call of the green
though my eyes caress it
in a certain light
and so many walls I’ve covered
with that same colour
to curate a comfort from the cold.
I’d never heard it, till now,
till the windows stopped
keeping out that chill.
Blue, I never found blue cold,
on the contrary, I see the sky
coming down to caress the seas I’ve crossed
in a coating of calm encouragement,
even in the snow, in the moonlight,
that blue light connecting its contours
like icy jazz notes on a single saxophone
on a smoky soirée, in a time the greying mist
of memory hasn’t quite drained.
Blue never, but white; chills.
I had red walls once and, at the time,
thought them a tribute
to my, as yet unexposed, pride.
I since recall them
as something more melancholy;
a call in themselves,
but in my child’s mind
I was scarlet conquering
on Sunday afternoons
on the inside of the rain
as oldies played across the tv screen
long before I even heard the song
from the singer in blue.
Blue, songs are like…
songs are like souls catching flight,
in my mind they are shadows;
black and white blurs,
but in the air they take flight
like cormorants of colour
over those green lands
my eyes are seeing
with more interest than ever before
as I come to drink again from that case.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
14th poem for NaPoWriMo
GRAZING GREENS
I set down
upon your shores,
those grazing greens
of my childhood memory
displaced as tears rained
over the darkness
of your sleeping fields,
once seeping with humble hope,
once filled with a fine blood
even famine could not blight,
now flooded with a feeling of regret or relief,
too dark to tell,
too changed to recognise,
not knowing if you were crying
because I had found my way home
or that I’d once found a home in other fields.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Poem for Day 8 of National Poetry Writing Month
THE ANNUAL OFFERING OF ATTENDANCE
We sit in rows, in reverie, with reverence,
neighbour to defender and defiant,
some say the saved above and the rest below,
new coat and scarf on the shoulders of one,
the timings of the turkey and its trimmings
in the head of another, already ticking,
already thinking of some other wonder
needing worship while the choir continue
to carol higher than some notes should be heard,
not all those singing have a sense of themselves,
minds are off on soufflés instead of solos
and outside the bandstand plays an empty tune.
We speak in tongues, thoughts we were taught,
lessons that were learnt; that protection from all anxiety
and yet pills rattle in my pocket, no talk of the patterns
we discovered, no pause to the path we paved
beyond this parish and its prejudices,
its own pockets filled with coins that don’t jingle,
my tongue now tickles other languages,
in other fields I felt I had to find freedom in;
that kingdom, that power and that glory,
my tongue still tackles, in these times, the old ways,
the old words since thought to be too confusing,
service is now simplified to satisfy this new society
of social-media mongers in the spotlight
of the internet and the camera rolls for those
who could no longer find a foothold in their home
and across the empty bandstand a wall recalls
the names of those who fought the fight
one Easter, once remembered, now forgotten,
when we wanted to be a Republic, a Nation,
a Brotherhood, an allegiance and not just a flock
of flag waving celebrities. We sit in rows at the beck
and call of the rising and the falling, being forced
backwards into an innocence we believed
was beyond question when Adam gave Eve
a rib and a virgin gave birth to a baby
they hung on a cross. Some are still nailed
to the truth of the church as much as one man
was nailed to the wood he once carved,
one sacrificed for the sin of us all and the others
sacrificed to be sinners ever after. We sit in rows
where the wafers choke us on the truth
while the bandstand’s tune has been forsaken
and no closeted confession to a priest still closeted
into conformity will ever bring the names of the souls
on the Easter wall back to life on this Christmas Eve.
And the priest leaves us with a joke
and I wonder if he can see the irony behind the idolatry.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Get Voting for the Saboteur Awards
Hello Readers and Writers,
We need your help.
Voting has opened for 2018’s Saboteur Awards and celebrated Irish Surrealist Poet Kevin Bateman and his beautiful spiritual events in forgotten places where voices dance have been nominated.
Please take a moment to click on the link below and nominate him and his writers for these sacred events in beautiful spiritual places that people have forgotten to visit.
The link is:
https://form.jotformeu.com/80625273550353
You have to vote in at least three categories so type his name into 3 or all of the following and let’s keep poetry and places far from being forgotten…
Best spoken word performer
Best wildcard
Best spoken word regular night
Best spoken word show
Best collaborative work
If you missed his last event “I can Dream and You can Love’, which I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in, then here is the link below. Over 5000 views already on Periscope…
I CAN DREAM AND YOU CAN LOVE: A KEVIN BATEMAN SPOKEN WORD EVENT
Last Saturday at 2pm in Ireland, Dublin, in the Phoenix Park, in the shade of a house and in the shadow of a tree in the sunshine, Kevin Bateman gathered together a group of poets for his latest spoken word event ‘I can Dream and You can Love‘ which went out live, as usual, on periscope and every poet was revealed there and then, no pre announcements, no listings of performers beforehand, as is so usual in these days of social media. Kevin indulges ingeniously in the mystery of the moments that unfold when a name is called before the camera rolling and their words fill the air and travel across the skies.
His choices for these locations are often sacred grounds, off the beaten track, forgotten by guide books and now, thankfully, reclaimed as the performances unfold. This last location in the Phoenix park was on the Hill of the Mariners were one of the oldest dolmans in Ireland is located, Knockmaree Dolman. Discovered in the 1800’s, two bodies were found in the tomb which dates back to almost 3500bc and the bodies were suggested to have been sailors, hence the name Hill of the Mariners. Watch the show and you will hear how it took Kevin almost 10 years to find this dolman that has been left to hang beneath a shadow of a tree, in the stillness of the silence, sometimes in the sunshine, often in the shade.
For this event, Kevin gathered 8 poets including himself and you can watch the video which had over 1000 views on Periscope in the first 24 hours of its life. The links below are for Periscope and YouTube.
The poets, who all performed 4 poems, under a theme of love, dreams and the current climate in Ireland, were, in order of appearance;
Kevin Bateman (on Twitter as @Bate_Kevin) drew us into the crime controlled streets of Dublin while leaving us tender with the line ‘…do not let the dead rest in photos, let them move on…’ from his poem A Room of Utter Sadness.
Supriya K Dhaliwal (on Twitter as @supriyadhaliwal) painted for us a cornucopia of Indian colors and tears and whose poem Meet Me in the Morning on No Man’s Land will long linger in my ear as a beacon of hope.
Jasmina Šušić enthralled and captivated us with her raw emotion, passion and her willingness to drop the guard and share her gentle side with We are Soft Animals but Our Hearts are Weak.
I was lucky enough to be invited to perform among these precious talents which made this the first time to ever read my poems in public, to ever read in public! I read 4 poems which you can find here on my blog…
Spelling Peace https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2017/11/19/spelling-peace-day-19-of-a-month-with-yeats/
Carved In https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2015/12/05/carved-in/
Salmon Dancers https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2017/11/03/salmon-dancers-day-3-of-a-month-with-yeats/
Wilful in the Wild https://deuxiemepeau.blog/2016/07/27/wilful/
Jessica Traynor (on Twitter as @JessicaTraynor6) struck a fire in our historic hearts with her gem of a poem Matches for Rosa, for Rosa Luxembourg and brought us right up to date into an Ireland of today, questioning the right for individual choice with her poem Tender Butchery, my own skin still shivering with the powerful line ‘…the world has no business wearing my skin.’
Catherine Ann Cullen (on Twitter as @tarryathome), along with her ever listening dog, carried us around the world on the triple spirals of the triskele and took us out and under the harsh waters of homelessness by the Royal Canal in Dublin with her poem entitled Flood, ‘…and they flooded the walkway… so she might float out of sight…’
Eilín de Paor (on Twitter as @edepaor) pulled us in with unexpected treasures found along the way, a nod to lasting impressions still loved though lost and ‘an intimate poem for such an outdoor area’ Island Life where a woman surrenders to ‘…each suckling lap…’ of the first wave of motherhood.
Maeve O’Sullivan ( on Twitter as @writefromwithin) also brought us to India and returned us to Ireland through two bejeweled haiku sequences and grounded the force of an ocean of love in the sonnet Fathomless ‘…the twist of your hair in my knuckled fist…’
Periscope link: https://www.pscp.tv/w/bVcMWDFlUkV4cVlWVnhQUXd8MXZPeHdBTFhwRE1HQs6p0u7wzeWUvfUmOmse42HeaA_-COCeSHxdhfL9zQuH
YouTube Link:
Extra photos of the group are curtesy of Harry Browne who can be found on Ficker.com
And you can just see the deer above that was watching over us from the not too far distance…
GPO, PAST POST, POETRY DAY IRL
A Poem about the GPO, Dublin’s iconic General Post Office
a site that’s seen more than just letters of love in its time…
for Poetry Day Ireland 27th April 2017
1
Beneath the pillars
of your past,
I posted letters
between your walls
and wondered
if they rubbed up against
the souls of your saviours,
if they met with memories
that were made and measured,
bruised and battered,
between your bricks and mortar
before being buried in blood
2
How many letters of love,
lined in lust and longing,
have perfumed your pillars
working their way
through your worthy walls
and haunted halls
in search of hungry hearts
to hold them,
to open them,
to hear them.
All Words by Damien B. Donnelly. Photograph borrowed from internet (I will give it back)
Damien B. Donnelly 