Journey

INNER VISIONS; THE JOURNEY OF PRIDE AND GLORY

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Alone now, walking away
Knowing it to be forever,
Alone and crying now
But shedding
Not only tears of pain
For in crying I am cleansing,
Rejoicing now, feeling strength
That had too long slumbered,
Alone now, but cherishing,
Holding all that is mine.

Alone now, slowly returning
To my natural state,
My own body embracing,
Like the wind, nurturing,
Nourishing myself,
Living alone now, returning,
Slowly all natural states eclipse,
For in returning I am moved,
Almost elevated, parallel
To all I’m destined to become.

Still waters rested, resisted
Temptations to swim
From stream to river
And ocean but, alone now,
Moved on while returning
Through newfound power
I de-slumber the stream,
Angelic visions send ripples
Through the river, mapping
Out my path to the ocean.

From here, I shall be
Deepened, with my freedom,
I shall be welcomed,
In my awareness, I shall be
Gifted, granted innocence,
Awaken now, oh inner child,
Let inner eyes pour grace
And vision, awaken my soul
And evoke my spirit,
Alone, I shall dance
To the music of your words,
Floating, I shall embrace
The reformation of myself,
Alone now, I sing to our glory
Do listen to my words
For this, alone, is my pride, my story.

THE DRAW OF ANOTHER DAWN

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Sitting
Wrapped in blankets,
In search of comfort,
In a corner,
Away from the mirth
And the madness.

Sitting
Wrapped in thoughts,
Distance dividing sorrow,
Tears washing away
Your image.

Sitting
As the piano plays,
Tickling tunes
Taunt with tension,
Tinged with regret.

Sitting
Worrying about
The what has been,
While waiting
For the what will be.

Sitting
As light fades from
Another day,
Waiting
As another dawn
Draws near.

THE STRUGGLE

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To be a poet of
The heart and mind
Is to step away
From all that is close
And to look back
From afar.
To struggle
With the truth
Of what we are told
And to search for
What we believe.
To fall on the road
And document the struggle
To stand again.
To be torn from
The heart of your dearest
By the changing hand
Of that very heart
And find a place again,
In your own, alone.

To breath again
And remind yourself
To do this daily,
To look into the dark
And, in blindness,
Search for the light.

To dream at night
While accepting
The reality
Of the coming dawn.

To open your eyes
To an unknown world
When you were safe
In the one you’d accepted.
To wander
The lonely road
That you must take,
Alone.
To cry,
To shed your pain,
To cleanse your body,
To clear out
So as to move on.
To sob
In the face of beauty
And smile
In the midst of horror
So as to live.

To travel
The mind’s horizons
And discover the bounties
Hidden in its depths
So as to release the poet
Inside lays within us all.

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SHADOW AND LIGHT

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At 22,
I knew as much of myself
As the exotic world
I’d just found
With streets willing me
To walk them
Witness them
And be wooed by them.
My twenties
Had typically emerged
As a decade to be a no one;
An empty slate to be carved upon
Before my thirties would find me
And shout me with substance.

I’d lost parents
Before knowing them; given up
In a sacrifice of selflessness
Almost incomprehensible
And found
In the arms of another mother
A love that would prove
Incontestable.

I searched,
During infantile years,
Amid childish ego
And innocence,
For connections
To those around me;
The mother
Loved so unequivocally
And the father
Aged in aggression,
With a gap too great to bridge
And so I turned to walk
Shadowy miles of roads in my head,
Clumsily cramming teenage years
With classically confusing
Childish dribble,
Trying to sound like a grown-up
In size 6 shoes,
Feeling different,
Unknown,
And, more often than not,
Undiscovered.

Finally,
I braved knocks on dark doors-
Frequented bars in back lanes
And alley ways,
Away from the eyes of the pious
Whose ignorance
Bullied the boys
With different desires.
I kissed
My first boy
At 18
Behind a sofa
As excited as a child
On Christmas morning,
Finding courage
Behind shades and acceptance
In a community I had become
No longer
Soul member of.

Cuddling and kissing progressed,
Over time, to sweaty,
Fumbling, amateur athletics
Behind the lights
Replacing shame and catholic guilt
With newfound feelings of freedom
As I began
To notch my way
Onto bedposts
Of various conquests.

Between courtings
I often cried
For lovers in whose arms
I should never have laid
And wondered why I ran
From others in whose embrace
I should have stayed,
All but memories
Patterned into the tissue
Of my sleeve-worn,
Still learning, heart,
Cherished moments
That wished to be relived
Along with others
That longed for time to fade.

I had assumed these
To be bruises
As I fell upon these new
Foreign streets
But have recognised them since
To be no more than lifelines,
Imprints, echoes merely of
Shadow and light.

They were all
Important diversions
Along the road,
Pivotal points
Goading me
Into this very direction.
Some of them
Fell away by your banks
And others settled in,
Ingrained themselves like streets
That mapped themselves
Out in front of me
And gradually,
Over time,
Carved their way
Indelibly
Inside of me.

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ALONG THE WAYSIDE

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Subdued by circumstance,
Sitting soulfully
In the shadow
Of uncertainty
As situations
Settle themselves
Into scenes played out
Beyond reach of understanding
Or certitude,
I succumb
To the subtle shifts
In atmospherical changes,
Accept the silences
As essential escapism
And shake
In the fallouts from storms
Rained down only
In the calmest corners of the day
As if to test me
And my corroding composure
And question my ability
To remain neutral
As trying themes
Surround me
Without
Directly involving me.

I am the shadow dancer,
Tip toeing over egg shells,
Fighting with a past
That won’t break
With the present
And a present
Too preoccupied
To see the future.

Subdued by circumstance,
Sitting somberly
In the shadow
Of insecurity
As untended wounds
Rise up before me
To cut and criticize me,
Judging me
From a position
Of misperceived perfection.

I have seen,
Before,
The light
And glow
Of a smile
And recognise it now,
Off in the distance,
Lost to the moment,
And worry
How to tempt it home,
To a home that is both
Too new
To be recognisable
And too soon made
To prove enough.

The dust,
Previously formed,
Has not settled
And yet we busy ourselves
Shifting the furniture
Of our current lives,
Sometimes aligned,
Sometimes bumping,
Sometimes
Trying to fit
The clumsiest of cupboards
Into the smallest of spaces.

Only time will tell
What fits where,
What will survive
And what will be
Surrendered
Somewhere,
Somehow,
Along the wayside.

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Toot of Transition

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

How still it is,
Silent
‘Neath the somber shade of night,
Beyond the light
Already long departed
And sleeping in the shadows,
Alone in thoughts
That twist and turn
And dig deep
Amid the this and that,
The important and redundant,
And all the while
The stillness builds-
Oblivious to the restlessness
Beneath my skin,
Between my toes,
A sense of something
In the as yet unseen-
Somewhere out there
My future already on the move,
Shaken into substance,
Substantially self-sufficient,
While I sit in silence,
In stillness,
In waiting,
Wrapped up cocoon-like
Beneath the hibernating blanket
Of this interim-
This condition of considered change.

I will soon slip
Into a sleep
Born of the metamorphosis
Of the moment,
Aware of who I was,
In the knowledge of who I am
And accepting of who I will,
In time,
Grow into.
Tomorrow will be the memory
Of who I was
While today exists only the dream
Of what tomorrow will bring.
This stillness
Is as teasing as the unknown
Route ahead-
The trail my feet have yet to thread,
To carve out a crater
That smacks of existence
Long after
I have journeyed on
And found fresher,
Unexplored lands
I shall,
One day,
For a time
Call home.

Somewhere,
Just out of sight,
On the edge of this stillness
A night Owl
Toots a tale of transition
Above the silent slumber
Of a world
With eyes closed-
Unconscious to the weighty wisdom
Of tomorrow’s light.
The erudite Owl,
Perched once
In another land,
In another time,
On virginal shoulders of Athena,
Who witnesses the world
Through eyes that see
Beyond the darkness
Of all that has been
And has yet to unfold
And carries
In his very presence
On this very night,
In this very stillness,
While all else surrenders to the silence,
A confirmation of the transition
Felt within me,
Sensed around me
And promising to take hold of me
As sure as he will spread
His well-worn wings,
Find his flight
And take to the shadows
Before morning finds it’s light

While all through time
A morphosis is made of me…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Wingless

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I am me but sad,

So recently and gloriously happy,

Now still me- but sad.

 

I am me- but have loved,

Made love and gave it,

I still do, but now angry.

 

I have screamed to deaf ears,

No one listens- deaf ears.

 

I have dreams but not wings,

If i did I would know where to fly,

This is not my dream-

Here and sad,

Here and angry,

Here, where no one listens,

Here, alone while others are flying

Off.

 

Yesterday, I had wings,

Once upon a time

I knew who I was,

Here, in this present-

Who knows?

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Let the Wind Carry Me

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Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 19.47.24

Let the wind carry me, let me not worry about the where and why
build in me the desire the want and the love for lands new and fresh
let me smell it on the breeze bring me the dream on your current of air
I await the sign the yearning the draw
the moment when I know what for wherefore whatever…
 carry it onto me let it embrace itself around me
let it unfold itself within me
carry me forth to tomorrow a new day a new dawn in a new land

A beginning that brings with it the best of my past my roots my memories and all the faces that made me who I am let them live within me as I walk on fresh soil new and unaware childish innocence awash with white
at play with creation while evolving…
like the water to the wheel turning again and again
round and round always the water
but never the same droplet

Let me wash onto a new shore naked just skin and bones flesh just flesh
no clothes or jewels to adorn me cover me or pretend of me
let me be just me breathing fresh moving and happy

let the wind carry me to whatever whoever wherever

my path in its hands

my eyes closed 

my trust in its force

my senses aroused

let the wind carry me
for I am his to command to direct to learn from
to find my way

let me be but a droplet of air
let me feel what it is to be moved
for then I will know what it is

All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

La Mere et Moi

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I am sure it was Spring

But in the scattered photos

By my slippered feet

The weather recalls it winter.

Your first foray

Into the new world I had run to,

Forsaking the familiar

For the unknown,

Discarding childish ways for adult desires.

Your glistening eyes lit up

As I showed you the treasures I had found,

Enlightened eyes-

That hid so well the tears

Reeked down since my departure.

Eyes that frowned upon my green sofa bed

Resting but a foot from the floor,

That laughed at the view from my first window-

All but another window perched

But a hands throw away-

And loving eyes that saw through mine

And smiled-

Relieved, relaxed and entranced.

And quickly you began to revel amid it all-

My new transitory family

Who took you to their hearts

Tempted you with cocktails,

Boat rides

And frolics within a Spanish tavern

In the Frenchest of all cities.

You slowly found my raison d’être

And the joie that had become part of ma vie

Became, as always,

A part of yours.

My adventure- you now a witness to,

A part of and integral to.

You had been no more

Deserted by me than I by you

And so geography became now no more

Than a different view

And no longer a means of separation.

You floated through the city,

Your feet feeling nothing but comfort

Even as I dragged you up the steps

Of Montmartre-

Hiding from you the lift behind the trees.

With the wind freezing our faces

And tears streaming from our eyes,

We huddled together in queues

Filled with adolescent vacationers

And mounted fair Tour Eiffel.

Through the nights falling darkness

The city lit up below us

And I traced for you

The paths I had taken.

You left amid only tears of joy-

My life no longer to you an empty canvas

A world away

But a painting being filled up and coloured in

In tri-color,

Technicolor,

Damien colour.

We painted away the days and nights

Ourselves-

Mother and son-

As inseparable

As Mona from Lisa

Or the Moulin from the Rouge.

It may have looked like winter

But we knew that behind the wind

Lay a spring in bloom for both of us.

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We had earned our time in the sun

And we would wear its rays

Like medals of honor.