BLINDING LIGHT

13/12/201813/12/2018 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Blanket light,

blinding

in the back seat,

not all light is light,

the sun can burn through its beauty,

the mind can tear through its thoughts

as wheels will themselves

across these bridges,

feet too far from the ground

to feel its gravity,

we build our own graves

along these roadside reveries.

Blanket light,

burning

in the back seat,

leather licks skin,

we cannot wash away the dust,

we cannot break away

from that grey light

burning bright behind the sunlight,

we are desert bound or ocean open;

we either dry up or seek salvation

in the comfort the current creates.

Blanket light,

a burning blindness breaking

through the open window

on this back-seat taxi-taker.

Destination is not always the desire

when running from reason.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Exploring Colour, Featured Guest, Poetry, Time in Two Hemispheres

31/08/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Ladies and gentlemen,

I give you the link to Exploring Colour, a beautiful blog from Liz, in New Zealand, as she shares her colour experiences, thoughts and, today, her poetry. A greeting for the dimming lights of the northern hemisphere from the buds and blossoms finding the light in the south…

Clink on the link below and explore the other side of the world…

https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/poem-time-in-two-hemispheres/

Poem: Time in Two Hemispheres

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Northern hemisphere folks in my experience are apt to forget their current time and season are totally opposite to our current time and season in the southern hemisphere…even those of us aware of this dichotomy can find it pretty weird!

Time in Two Hemispheres

——

Up There, in the Northern Hemisphere

Time trickles through the Hourglass

You’re falling into Fall

Days are shorter

Longer nights

Less Light

Less time

Less

More

More time

More Light

Shorter nights

Days are longer

Roots are reaching

Buds are breaking
Blossoms making
Scents awaking

Spring has sprung

Down Here, in the Southern Hemisphere

You can find the background of the poem and the rest of Liz’s inspirational blog at this link below. Please take a moment to visit the other side of the world…

https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/

JOURNEYS, PART 11; BEING BOLD

30/08/201816/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Beauty is raw
beneath this blood red sky
where we lie delirious,
licking at lazy, drunken ships
trudging through bitter beds,
frantic to find our way to smoother seas.
‘Man is but a whisper,’ the Shadows
sing to the Sun but I
want to milk the storm
before my summer sinks
beneath the shade.
The moon cannot be the only light
to cast its reflection upon these waters.
Surely we too can be as bright
as the night.

Beauty is raw
but bold can be breath-taking.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BLACK AND WHITE; SHADES OF PARIS

18/08/201816/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

THE CITY OF LIGHT AND SHADE…

All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO.25, NAPOWRIMO

25/04/201831/03/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Doubt

is not a cloak of black

without light

but a brilliant light

unveiling on a tiny spec

of darkness.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES, NO. 3, NAPOWRIMO

03/04/201826/03/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

In many rooms

in multiple houses

in a dozen cities

I pulled shadows

over the light

mistaking the darkness

to be a better blanket

to twist around the truth.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

HALF LIGHT, HALF NIGHT, day 17 of A Month with Yeats

17/11/201722/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

Today’s quote for Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats comes from ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’. ‘The blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and the half-light,’ —W.B. Yeats

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/a-month-with-yeats-day-seventeen/

My poem is called HALF LIGHT, HALF NIGHT

And time finds them folded

between all that had been lost

and the hope of what yet might come.

And night finds them falling

between the dark clouds covering

and the hands that caress their bodies.

And the kiss finds them feeding

on a hunger they thought exhausted

beneath the truth the darkness can’t hide.

And in the half light,

half starved,

he fell beneath her dark cloths

cast in shadow

as if half forgotten,

half starved

for that blue light

once burning bright

in the dimming night.

And in the half light,

half jarred,

she sank beneath his old hold,

reborn in bold,

no longer

half accepting

that half starved

was the whole picture

as their hunger

pulled them tight.

And in the half light,

half scarred

from being alone but not alive

in this scrapyard,

they each half held

that half light,

half bright

and held each other

in a hope

below the night.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE MONSTER IN THE MAN, day 10 of A Month with Yeats

10/11/201722/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

It’s day 10 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote is as follows: ‘And he saw how the reeds grew dark at the coming of the night tide’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/a-month-with-yeats-day-ten/

My poem today is called: THE MONSTER IN THE MAN

And was he not tied

and turned on the tide,

was there not light

and dark by his side,

though the morning’s sun

rose as his bride

it was the moon o’er his hand

at night that died.

And was he not washed

and worn on the waves,

was he not crushed

like the sea cuts the caves,

in the morning did he count up

the slaughter, the saves,

was he ashamed of how many

he’d laid in their graves.

And was he not just a reed

washed over sand,

was he not just a vessel

on the ocean unmanned,

controlled in the day;

all blood was banned

but unbound in the night

the beast took his hand.

And was he not just a man

who’d lost his sight?

Is there passion for the monster

lost in the night?

But the hunger he was bound

to before the light

was too much in the darkness

to put up a fight.

The best of a man,

a wolf of a beast

but never the two

could ever find peace,

Helios held the famine,

Selene supplied the feast

but not a single God

could offer a release.

A savage surrender

into the sea was swept,

the hair of the hound,

the soul that now wept,

a man and the monster

drowned in the depth

and in their beds, his children,

safely then slept.

And was he not tied

and turned on the tides

like the rise and fall

of a twist that divides

as the nature of man

and monster collides

but when the darkness descends,

the light it subsides.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BREAK OF LIGHT

28/10/201712/03/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

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

LIQUID RHYTHM

20/10/201713/03/2019 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Expanding on the magnetic poetry oracle…

Need is hard
(to give in to
that craving for connection)
‘Not yet,’ I said (to Time,
teasing along twitching ties),
‘Drink me not, dark angel’
(we are light still and far from brewed).
Joy is a dance
of liquid rhythm
(lithe are we, fluid forms falling into arms
not always favouring hold),
hearts bleed when opened
(steel we are not, though hard are we
to mould into mutual).
‘Make us a secret
though our embrace is concrete
so maybe we (can) linger longer,
(let’s drink ourselves slowly,
regardless of how time ticks roughly).