In sweeping rain
he was swept through streets
in a taxi turning with thoughts
he had not yet learned to express.
Windows can shield
from more than just the weather.
In unswept rain
he was sweeping through streets
that had not yet soaked him,
had not yet drained him
on the storms that were settling
under the shade of summer.
He was a spring in the bloom
in the shadow of a back seat,
speeding through streets
already stained with too many winters.
All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly
In the shadows
not yet departed
from former students
since departed
confined in compartments
the Polish left to the Irish,
red vinegar wine
(as vulgar as the vultures
who drowned in its deluge)
caught itself in corners
still not drunk
by the blow-ins
still bleating
about the burnt beef
and sodden soil
as we made smoke chains
in our simple chambres
to choke a distance
between the homes we had left
and the hands that hadn’t
yet let us go. We may have been
from the same barrel born
but had desires to be labeled
in a better bottle.
All words and drawing by Damien B. Donnelly
Day 7 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s inspirational quote from WB is: ‘…stars, grown old in dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody…’
To join in the creativity or just to discover Jane’s gentle genius, her blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/
My poem today is called THROUGH THE SANDS
And when they danced
she would hold him, her
perfume by his face, his
hands as her strength
as they waltzed through
their current as the tides
swept the shore, through
love and labor, to the first born,
still born, through the twins
who stopped the tears
and the girls who tied
the bows as the sands slipped
through time and the pace
became a quick step, through
the hands that held and those
hips that swayed through
the melody they were making
as they danced through
waves of washing houses
into homes, children into
strangers; rarely calling
and barely remembering
but on they danced as red
locks swept into silver strands,
as full head turned to bald head
on an older head as they turned
to the music now made
in the memory, till she left him,
finally, one morning in may,
as he rose to the sunlight but
she had lost to the moonlight
and so he built her an alter
of sea shells and sentiments
and now he turns, alone, across
the sands still slipping,
as the stars plot a path for him
to reach her in eternity.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Gardens grow,
trees get taller,
clouds gather.
I see you
in the movement,
in the air that rushes past time turning,
in the scent of sweetened summer
now swept into corners now shaded.
Clouds gather,
trees get taller,
gardens grow smaller.
Eden is an illusion lost.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
I choose the path;
this winding way
though the midway,
battling though the brambles and briars,
I have stains on my soul,
I have splinters in the tissue of my beating breast,
beating, breaking, panting,
I have moments
when my feet no longer feel their footing,
when falling is all I can handle,
I choose this path;
this way of winding words,
stringing sentences into steps
that carry me to places
I never knew existed,
I have ink stains on my insides,
I have empty areas that have been erased,
their only trace now a vacuum
where vanity once ventured,
I choose this path;
this winding way
of silent shadow
and am grateful
for the break of light.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
We are liars, all and often, lying
in folds familiar, hoping
for holds to fill the failure,
settled into settlements
we never wanted but thinking
something, anything, this thing
is better than nothing, while
the Poet prefers to pen
the pessimism than to perish
with it. And still we are liars,
the pen turns thoughts
into reasons, into rough sketches
and in turn we soften the edges
with subtle suggestions
to make the truth more soluble,
the lie more acceptable.
We are all laying in masks
of mistrust, mistruths, the more
we take off- the more we build up.
Clothes cover only the concept
of identity; eyes can be distracted, tongues
can be thought to taste
what they are told, ‘I am forever,’
he said and she licked his longing
that left her not long after. ‘I am
comfort,’ she confided as she set
her claws into his confusion.
And the lie goes on forever,
like the sky; consistently blue
until it’s black, streaked
with bright stars already burning out.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Man or machine;
stable steel
or fragile filigree,
spinning through space,
through this space,
life the length of a thread;
never knowing
how deeply the spool is wound.
Man or machine,
we motor and move,
we spin tales
and cross lanes
looking for the link,
the correct cog to coil around,
to lighten the toil
we are threading through.
Man or machine;
one turns
and the other is turned.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
A city
in shadow,
a choice;
to stay
or leave,
to be the inquisitor
or the commuter,
to be constant
in the light
or to comprehend
the darkness, far from it,
to break down the barrier
between all there is to see
and all there is left of us to fear.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
At 9
I wanted to be
19,
at 19
I had no idea
the walls I would climb
to reach
29,
at 29
I had no idea
of the roads that would lead me to
39,
at 43
I’m happy to still know the way home.
All words by Damien B. Donnelly.
Picture is me at home, once upon a time.
We are to the road bound,
paved in method,
measure and movement,
we dig trenches,
turn earth and choke
with cement (no joke).
We are to the light drawn,
toward the harbour,
the heat and the hope,
bound to shore,
to security, to bath
and body (to stroke).
We are seekers of shelter
along this helter-skelter,
cutting comfort
into concrete forms,
wombs become rooms
become homes
filled with customs
we become cocooned in,
a bed to lay our burdens on
and rest our bodies (still stroking) in.
Each morning another blanket
folds over yesterday’s shadows
(light, bright till night finds flight),
each morning another curtain
opens on the dream waiting
at the end of another road
to which we will be,
once again, bound to.
We are bound to follow
the paths we are painstakingly paving.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Poems, Poetry, Poets
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