JONI MITCHELL

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 6; EVERYTHING COMES AND GOES

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Part I…

Everything comes and goes,

you can’t court without a spark
but nothing lasts as long
as that first light, that first night,
already fading before the morning
finds us fumbling, trying to get through,
to get on, to something shinier, to something more new.
Something more new.

Everything comes and goes

like those lines we never got to cross
though we prayed and paced ourselves
like panthers on the prey. ‘Stay time,’
we beg, ‘and I will bend to your will,
if you are willing,’ but it doesn’t and we can’t
get back to where we started, to that point where hope departed.
Where hope departed.

Everything comes and goes

and trains change tracks along the midway
and beauty is dying in the cut bouquet
as we change carriages for convenience
to be closer to connections, but touch, like time,
is temporary and every stop sees another petal
fall to the stoop, we are dying to be held but by death propelled.
By death propelled.

Everything comes and goes

and we are people parading in parks
in technological bubbles that bind us
to a common blindness, courting on computers,
arousals now viral and no virtual, thinking
time is to be trusted, trains will take us where we want
but time is not ours, lines get lost and petals continue to fall from the flowers.
Fall from the flowers.

Everything comes and goes

but I’ve become accustomed
to carrying carriages inside me
for the colours I’ve collected
and the connections now curated,
nothing I no longer leave as refuge on the road.

Even the lines I managed to miss have become moments I cannot dismiss…

 

Part II, The missing line…

Everything comes and goes;
a hot summer night long ago,
when my mind’s eye let my finger
linger on the line of hair that chased
a fleeting care along your chest
as the breeze blew bodies bare
and I was caught your smile
as you read my thoughts for a while.
 
You with your short dark hair
amid a season of bland blondes,
you, who I never kissed or lay with,
who I never undressed outside a dizzy dream
of sweat and steam. You, with your eyes
a subtle shade of blue in green. You,
in that red shirt and tight fitting jeans.
 
You were the first man I’d seen
in such a long time, having been lost for a while
in arms as harmless as they were hairless
while I cavorted about their baby soft skins
with a caress cornered in careless.
 
You looked like something rare
on that night as the setting sun sizzled
and breezes briefly blew that body bare.

That tremendous night
with the light already fading
when nothing really happened
except for the soft touch of that line
I never managed to upset and,
more importantly, never managed to forget.

Everything comes and goes…

All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 5; COULD HAVE BEEN MORE

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We held hands over hearts
housed in other folds, ink
had tipped another name
into your flesh as we fell
into holds, harbouring no more
than musing moments, the south
going north for something different,
something foreign, someone fresh,
perhaps that was all we ever were;

a diversion from all that was defined,
from all that was assured. I was never
going to be anything more than something
to adorn an ordinary day in a city far away,
I would never be ink penned in permanent,
signed in the shade of your skin where
sorrow had somehow settled into shadow,
we were too thin to be anything more
than temporary, a painting the artist
considered too crude to be continued,
too confrontational to be anything more
than crass. We were hearts folded
into the hands of other houses, however
hopeless, however harmless, however much
we kissed and cavorted, teased and
twisted, we were branches bound
to other roots, ties are eternal to the trunk;
foolish is the fragile foliage that always falls.

Time turns tides, suns set,
touch is only temporary,
a kiss can be enough to curse.

I hear you, in the wind, at times, messages
that come calling from places I cannot picture,
from sheets I have never set my skin to,
from sweltering stones I will never step upon,
whispers of what once was, a wish
for something that was momentary
to have meant something more monumental.
But not every harbour hides hope, not every
hope is enough to hold a heart. We were
brushes, tipped with colours that weren’t
compatible, merely complimentary enough
to court a spark in a corner where comfort
felt a little less cold for a while. You called me
beautiful, at midnight, on a Monday
and I called you mine neath the gaze of your eyes
and we laughed our way through all that was truth
and all that lingered on the other side of our lies.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

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

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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 3; GONE, THE GARDEN

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Gone is the garden,

we are paved now
in parts no longer potential
to growth, to goodness.

And the crow caws in the corner,
flesh festering into feather.

Gone is the garden,

we have paved
paths over all that was precious
while thinking thoughtless,

if only we’d thought less
about what we wanted
and more about what was needed.

And the crow cowers in the corner,
questioning what became of its celebrity.

Gone is the garden

and we can never get back;

the lock now lost in lyrics too light,
in songs surrendered from soul to sold out.

Gone is the garden,

gone to graze
over another galaxy
not yet grown greedy,

we are now alien
to all the earth has asked for

strangers to the simple sand
that sweeps the shore,

and stranger still to the starlight
that shines through it’s last breath burning.

We are the crows, cawing
over concrete, in corners
claws cracking in our chaos

and confused as to where went the worth.

Al words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

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

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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

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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: 

 

 

TILL IT’S GONE

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Day 16; National Poetry Writing Month 30 Days/30 Poems #NaPoWriMo

One last lollipop stands
on the building lot,
stands on the parking place
paradise fast forgot.
So come take a good shot,
take a final swing shot
at this hot sweet spot cause
the stick in the ground
ain’t gonna stick around.
Yes, you got it, this black
and white bull’s eye
underneath the grey sky
hasn’t missed the cages
crushing down
beneath the weight
of a concrete crown.

Ladies and gentlemen,
there’s a new show in town
(in the musuems; trees, but pricey
if you wanna see ‘em, please!)
is about to shut down
this one last sweet spot,
this swinging hot spot,
so come on now, take a pop
while it’s all that you got,
this lollipop ticking down
on the grey parking lot
that paradise left to rot.

Taxi!

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

REDUCING HIS REPUBLIC TO A PUPPY

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We’re designed by definitions
and, by definition, ill designed.

We call ourselves a Society,
a sect of superiors,
(selfish, salivating and sexed up)
a body of brutish beings,
complex communities
searching for beauties
in platitudes, pondering Paradise
and placing Plato as a pet name for puppies,
naval gazing into our own Nirvana
while we paint our pads
and position our acquisitions
as if arranging our own Arcadia.

We sleep in the Shangri-la,
the hotel, not the ideal
while dreaming of that remote Utopia
with heads hanging humble
on thousand dollar pillows.

We are soldiers in line up
(overly eager and trigger happy)
waiting for the invite to heaven
where the righteous can be redeemed
in the hope of rising again
(in the hope of being forgiven for being fucking fools)
as if this was all just a waiting game,
a sojourn in a waiting room called life,
a select room where society decides
who can stay and who we should slay.

Nirvana was just a band on the radio
and Paradise is still just a paved up lot to park in.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Plato the Puppy was seen in on the streets of Antwerp, Belgium.

Joni on the Mantelpiece

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They met in Paris, first, temple street, 2nd floor,
Capricious teenagers cavorting into their twenties,
Ardent and ernest, like you were once, in Greece,
In Californian climes, casually cruising that fragrance
Of embryonic adulthood, a god-fearing blonde
And a darker haired homo reading her his poems,
Pathetic irrational rhymes while she postulated
His meaning, his leaning, his lust, his hunger,
Different to hers, he was meat and she vegan,
Excessively, and a virgin, implausibly, but they danced
For a while, boho style, in their condo by Picasso,
In that marshland, tumbling through your tunes,
Cords you’d constructed, teased and twisted
Around your fingers, round your head, birthing
An early cognisance for that circle game,
The courting of the carousel they considered not
In their templed tower, seeing not the jest of life,
The godforsaken gamble, that game with terminus
At the top, where someone wins and the other one whines.

They slept in Paris, France, hitched up in a hotel,
On a rainy night, duetting in a double bed, withered
Wallpaper wilting over them as she caressed the keys
Of her Casio, covetous to sink between the sheets,
Descend within his dreams, distant and different to hers,
She sensed an extrinsic eroticism in every opposite,
An insatiable enigma in all that was alien, she giggled
Girlishly at the sumptuous sadness of the songs she sung
While it aroused in him a wilfulness, a wonder, a world
To be part, he drifted through dreams where fingers,
Other fingers, not hers, not his, freshly fervent fingers
Pressed him, played him, taught him, turned him on
As she lay, sidelined, solitary, single, sitting up
All the night, just like you said, to see who in the world
He might be, as if that might, in turn, unveil the truth
Of who was she. She was beautiful, he wanted to say,
But he could never tell her, truthfully, she could never
Understand his appreciation at a distance, his admiration
Without temptation but she drew him in, nonetheless,
Thrilled him with her air of ease, the breeze she swept
Into a single shift of the hand, flicker of the finger
As she perfumed, pouted, played the blues, blue,
Your Blue, hey blue, here is a song for you, you said.

They lived in Paris, once, in the 3rd, 2 rooms, a comical
Shelter that boycotted sunlight and a battered boiler
She duelled with at dawn with a horned heel
Of a working girl’s shoe as if to shock him from slumbers
Of wet dreams, far from her unspotted longing,
They were living together but a world apart, searching
For something to seduce them, a crown to anchor them
From the force that pulled and pushed them apart,
She was Marcie in her coat of flowers, dusting tables
With his shirt, just like you foretold, and he the fool
Trying to satisfy her by filleting her fish for her friends
To eat, concocting cakes of chocolate towers to sooth
Untapped temptations, too tempting to be taken.
They were Adam and Eve, teasing each other
Without promises, naked on hissing lawns, brother
And sister, devouring early orchards of adulthood.

They played in Paris, that pair, carrying cases
Of choruses to back street bars, decorated
In shadow and light, like you too, in Canadian days,
Cascading blonde curiosities before the camera
Found you and music makers moulded you
Into all you never wanted, never treasured,
The pleasure to try ‘em, the trouble to leave ‘em,
They knew nothing, either, about the want
But the spotlight, it was tempting, back then,
The applause, the rounds resounding, you said,
But she was more classic than celtic, more Mitchell
Than McCarthy, the green fields were almost foreign
To the fairytale Irish drifter and her keyboard carrying
Pansy who missed nothing of the cow shite and
Colleens of their native land. They were deserters
In post war days, fleeing only peace and potatoes,
Looking for a longing to dissipate complacency,
They’d been train travellers, plane passengers,
Black crows with sights on something shiny,
Motivated movers, climbing corners to catch a taste,
A scent of what was yet to be and they found each other
Like that, bold, bare and brave for a while,
On their templed street, she was his Sharon
And he, the Joni, but they were destined
For only a 45, no 33 long player and the needle
Cut through the rhapsody that ruffled them,
Aroused them, but they were too lost in the song
To notice they were singing a solo now, serenading
Themselves in a self-important spotlight, red is
Angry, green is jealous, or so you said, so she fled
The tower and left him with Joni on the mantelpiece
Singing;
‘I can’t go back there anymore
You know my keys won’t fit the door
You know my thoughts don’t fit the man
They never can, they never can.’

 

All words and artwork by Damien B. Donnelly with a helping of Joni too.

JONI ON THE WALL

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After years of painting you
Tones of turbulent indigo,
Tending and transforming you,
I’m busy building you back
To basic, a fresco of freedom
For us both in walls of white,
Whittled back to what it was
Before I splashed a signature
Of substance and delight, hoping
A house could be a home, hanging you
With shadow and light, filling you
With finite fragments of all that I’d known,
Looking for a secret place, a sanctuary
For a certain time, placing Joni’s
Travelogue, framed in browns
On the bedroom wall, reckless
Daughter and muse of mine, parcelled,
Packed and now waiting removal
From this very sojourn, this song
About the midway, this intersection
Of 30 and 40, a reflective pause
In this tiny town where I never
Thought to stay, this hallow place
That prickled like a cactus tree
Till I heard it in the wind, that
Hissing, that constant twisting
Urge for going, back to the road
That lays in wait for me, cursed and charmed
But there are those who are born to stay
And others who are born to take the highway.

In that reoccurring dream
Beneath the constant darkness
Of the night, I see myself, still
Smiling as the free man in Paris
And I can hear it, even in the light,
Despite all your lofty protestations
That this place could be my place,
Soulful solace amid the hookers
And hash, but the eyes of the woman
Of heart and mind on the wall
Foretold the fear that we now face;
I am a prisoner of the white lines
On the freeway, bound not to permanent
Position, slowing down long enough to find
A place to come in from the cold,
To rest amid the warmth, a refuge
From the road, a lesson in survival,
A need for nutrition, but I am flesh
And blood and creature curious, craving
More and more from this Hejira, this journey
Not destined to be here and always,
Forever was never our factor, bound
To your tiny rooms and hallways
I’ve seen it all from both sides now
And all I want is not here growing crabby
But there and hungry and happy.

I know you will haunt me, shadows
Circling my final flight like Amelia
Lost out on her search for shore
While the black crow flies towards
The something shining, something
Seen long ago and now felt even more.

We’ve been good friends, indeed,
A fact not fiction, a love not lost
But you’ve been a mere chapter
All the same, a long season of blondes
I’ve tired of but words run short
In me now, in this place where I’m
Paying the cost, in these rooms
That have closed in on me
As time slipped by so suddenly,
So I strip you back to before,
Yet different somehow, similar
Though faintly forever changed,
The footprints never fully fading,
This flight tonight will be final
Though the sky is ablaze with stars
That never burn brighter than when
They’re already fleeting and falling.

I laid for too long neath your roof,
Dreaming of another, darker, wondering
About the what if and what could be
But let’s not talk about fare thee wells
For the wind is in and it’s set me free,
Packed with a case of you to last me
Well as I spiral through this Circle Game,
This carousel of life that looks back on itself
Through time, returning to pivotal points
Already changing and bringing me
Back into frame, to something
Once remembered, something
That can hold me, something
To inspire me, something
To encourage me.

After years of painting you
Tones of turbulent indigo,
Turning and transforming you,
I am busy building you back
To basic, finding a freedom
For us both in walls of white
But no canvas is truly the same
After it’s first been rendered,
There’s always the shadow and light,
Always something that slips away,
Always the rest that sinks within,
Always the parts that cement and stay…

While the lady sings…

“I am on a lonely road
And I am travelling,
Travelling, travelling, travelling,
Looking for something
What can it be…
All I really, really want
Our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you.”