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THE HAND OF HUME

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I was in Paris at the time-
drawing rabbits on chalkboards
in an Irish pub, on a Friday,
in a cut-off corner of Chinatown.
Joanna had studied in Queens,
Mum was over from Dublin
and Anna and I
had promised each other
forever friends
though we barely survived
the slow pull of a decent pint.

Some dreams are not for daylight.

It was Easter- hence the bunnies,
and I dropped the chalk
when the tv turned to home-
suddenly eager for everything
to be penned in permanent.

Later, in Dublin, Mum met him
at a Do at some hotel.
I have to shake his hand, she’d said
and so she did.
The hand of Hume. A hand
that had held itself out to hope.

We were in Paris, at the time
but still the streets hushed
at the hero we’d found in Hume.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

WRECKAGE, AFTER THE REVERIE

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Restless morning after night’s twist.
From day we’d split like shadows
Into the swallow of darkness
But dreams are billowy breaths
That toss ships under sheets
Of stormy seas and we- single sleepers
Under the blindness, washing up
And through time and buried thought.

Restless morning after night’s twist.
Lip trembles at dream’s touch
As I reach out to pinpoint position
Upon this shore of subconscious
Where desire is an abhorrent beast
And we, single dreamers, fooled
Into thinking that one night’s hold
Can stir day into a sweet surrendering

Of the isolation drowning on the shore.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

BIRD SONG

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I stroll in soft sundown across the cushioned grass,
the earth a pillow I never stopped to consider,
I consider going in, inside to where the light looks neat
and named but a bird calls from a branch I cannot see,
sight comes in second after his song- soft, slow
and cycling back on itself like time, tide and your touch,
at times. Time was never our lover until it left us,
until we saw how quickly we aged in its agonising absence.

The night holds less time, with less light to cast shadow over,
with less sight to see the hands surge around the circle.
I move in circles around this garden of cushioned grass
while the moon comes out to feed, we eat what we can,
sleep when we must, the birds sing songs and only when lost
do we permit ourselves to stop and ask of the meaning.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

WHEN WE COME TO PRESS THIS TIME UPON THE PAGE

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Come friends to gather at end of cycle
Spring is done and summer will have new song,
Time will tell of when it all went viral
Of distance that reigned and hold that was wrong.

Come friends to pressure pen upon the page
Thoughtless is time if man won’t leave his mark-
Sing of the stars we’ve lost upon this stage
Yonder moon’s slow to rise so night lies dark.

Come friends as we stand with light between us
Our fighters are saviours in this war’s ward,
Hold a lamp, a candle, come make a fuss
This hope’s not hungry for soldier or sword.

Come friends, let us sing, apart, united
Night is long but dawn will not be blighted.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

SOME THINGS ARE NONSENSE AND FOR ALL ELSE THERE ARE DISTRACTIONS

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

I was tall, when I was a small child,
but stopped later,
somewhere in between adolescence and giraffe.

A giraffe would be impossible to sit behind
at the cinema.

In the cinema, in Amsterdam, people talked
like it was a cafe with an incredibly large background TV
and didn’t seem to nonsense from the hungry mice
beneath the low lighting.

Light can often distract decisions on how to dress
in the murky fog of morning when the mirror won’t help explain
who you are.

I helped a passenger on a plane, once-
I placed their bag in the overhead compartment and felt abused
later when they claimed the total width of the arm rest
as if I was only too willing to be a servant
to their sovereignty.

A king in a castle is not always as fulfilled as a man, quiet,
in his shed or the kid reaching down to grab a hold of happiness
while growing up, somewhere in between adolescence

and the astonishment of a giraffe.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

WHEN THINGS EVENTUALLY GIVE WAY

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We were waiting for the green man beneath the blue sky,
waiting on an open corner to cross over, do you remember?

A simple day of smiling sunshine, an easy lunch of eating
smiles and we were laughing, were laughing at everything
and nothing- at the osteopath and his cracking observations
and the sunshine in that blue sly and your belly getting bigger.

You were listening to me, looking at me telling some tale,
making it taller, I’m sure, but you didn’t see I was floating-
my feet off the ground on that silly day, on that sunny day
of simplistic observations on easy corners with their moments
and movements when I found myself laughing and my feet
no longer weighted- no longer ground down or in or under.

We were bouncy and breathy and your belly- unbreakable,
so delicately unbreakable beneath the blue sky at a crossing
while eating up those bright smiles and breathing in easy air
under all that yellow laughter and realising that the red man,
when given time, will eventually give way to the green.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE LIGHT INSIDE THE BOOKS

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

I found where they keep the light-
here, at the far end of the long road,
just up from childhood summers
near slip-away shores,
contained in a considered space
where books are bound to interest
and cosy corners tipped
in velveteen seductions of blue
that does anything but chill.
Funny,
to find this here, where once this structure
of simple stone held such complicated
conditioning, home once to a bigger book
you daren’t touch and a language
no one understood,
where they performed shows on Sundays
with their asses to the audience,
rattling off the auld Latin, the trail
of the Tridentine, without a single
Shakira shake.

Funny,
to find all this here, now,
this room of light and lending,
where knowledge can be found and held
and taken home and thought about
and brought back, without any penance
or concept of confession, for the next
and the next again.
Funny,
what you find when you let in the light.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

THE SHADOW OF LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Light
is changeable.
Can be changed.
Exchanged.

We cut down stress
in the back garden of our woes,
in the back garden so neighbours
cannot see our fears spread out
across the lawn.

We stew it out
in solitude so we can shine later
after the dust has found its antidote,
after the touch is again tolerable,
after the new grass grows over
these rotten weeds.

Exchanged.
Can be changed.
Light is changeable.

We sit,
this evening,
in the late light of the kitchen
behind the glass partition
and watch the sunset.

Its last light
changing everything it touches

into shadow.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FINDING OUR WAY

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

I woke early, attention tethered to the bird call
as they build their nests within the walls
we once lit fires between. Regardless of season
we must all find ways to shelter and survive.

I ran early, out into the open morning where air
was still yawning and I thought about sleep
and what it takes to catch a dream at the far end
of the wood when you aren’t sure of the way back.

I climbed the slow hill, with flattened breath
and caught two moons under the still grey light
kindly carved into the edges of memory
in this growing garden we water with tears.

I came early, to ponder position by tall towers
no longer watchful with feet that haven’t settled
while the sun, I cannot see, casts its light
onto two white moons above a thousand eyes

no longing seeing.

I woke early and still came up upon the moon.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly