loss

BUOYANT, Day 22 of A Month with Yeats

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Day 22 of A Month with Yeats and the quote from Jane Dougherty is:

‘I wander by the edge of this desolate lake where wind cries in the sedge:’ —W.B. Yeats

My poem is: BUOYANT

 

Is it here where the tears

come to find peace

in this place of serenity?

I lay down this lake of loss,

hope for the soil

to soak up the sorrow,

by the side sedge

I wedge myself up from the waste

and bury all that turned base

at the bottom of this bed,

no longer sheets of cotton comfort

but sludge soon to be swept under,

asunder.

Is it here where reality

ripples into reflection,

the sinking illusion

of what I thought to be perfection?

An impression of light and shade,

now lighter, now shadier,

now just a remainder

waiting for time to submerge.

I lay down in this lake;

a lough of loss, locked, lost,

waiting for the tide

to wash over me,

waiting for the tears

to dissolve within me,

waiting for time

to refine me, re-find me

buoyant instead of beaten.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/buoyant

BORDERED IN, day 14 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 16 Comments

 

It’s day 14 of A Month with Yeats coming to you from a wet, wild and rather wintery -2 degrees of Stockholm. Today’s quote from the genius of Jane Dougherty is: ‘That you, in the dim coming times, may know how my heart went with them after the red-rose-bordered hem.’ —W.B. Yeats.

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/a-month-with-yeats-day-fourteen/

My poem today is called: BORDERED IN

 

Rough round that rose bordered hem

we ran, regardless of where her skirts

did scurry, no fretting to the fraying

of her fringes, never noticing how

nimble had turned to not-so nifty

above that border of red roses, oh

so pretty, on those placid petticoats

until we laid her low, on a hill so high,

hemmed in forever by a border

of bright red roses, and only then

did we sigh, only there, by her final bed,

bordered in by all we took for granted,

did we feel that teary thorn that

comes at the end of every rose.

 

All word and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/bordered-in

 

ILLUSIONS 

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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

MAGNETIC POETRY: SUMMER STORM 

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Beat away at breast;
a lie of love grown to lust,
grown repulsive,
‘Whisper who we were,’
rose water, a shadow symphony
drunk on a dream,
smooth shot to sordid,
bitter chocolate screams
beneath the sweaty skin
of a summer storm.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by the magnetic poetry oracle

POLAROID 

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Camera stands to capture
all the memory cannot hold.

Stand. Strike. Flash
before we fade.

I hold a younger you
in my older hands;

lips
just settling after a smile
and your eyes;

forever with questions
I couldn’t answer

and now
all that stands
is our silence;

for the voice
is never part of the Polaroid.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly.

Photograph taken at the Irving Penn exhibition at Grand Palais Paris

COMFORT IN THE CARDS

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Behind the fanfare we fan the light
to make our way through another day
to night. Behind the fuss we muddle
through movement on route to contentment
caught in quiet corners of unconsciousness,
like that word on the tip of the tongue
we can’t quite pronounce.

On terra-cotta tiles I turn through cards
of comfort from days now distant,
wishes signed with love from names
I can no longer call in this light,
in this life. Far from the fanfare,
far from the fuss, you are all still
somehow a part of each movement
I make, distant stars now that once
held dreams, that once signed cards
of greetings, never thinking how much
one day, beyond the fuss, they would mean.

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

LOST

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Sometimes things just get lost…

like umbrellas in taxis
when cover comes,
like keys in corners
when time is doomed,

like days,
like years,
like faces
once familiar,
like the fate
you once fought for,
like the dream
you since let drown,

like scars,
like tears,
like hearts once essential.

Sometimes
things just get lost.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

RELEASED

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As you
walked away
I watched you
curve through the current
of confusion that had
consumed us.

Once torn on the tide,
I waded out to let our worries
wash off on the waves
as a breeze buried its breath
against my body
like the kindness
that once caressed us
and all hurt once spoken
faded like the foam now dissolving

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter poetry prompt by #SenseWrds

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 16; LILTING LULLABY

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I thought we were templates for tattoos to tell tales on,
I never thought to the tire skids and teeth marks time’s tiger
would temper on our skins. Here kitty, kitty, we call
and curiosity comes crawling out from under as cat with claws uncut.

Cute kitty, come catch, we call through the forest foliage, fooled
into thinking we are the keepers of the cage within this corner
of creation in constant recreation all around us.

I thought us all thoroughbreds, better bred, slices of a bigger plan
but it’s true that thought is not to be trusted, not all that is kneaded
rises as we were led to expect. We are busy bakers, blindly baking
in ovens too hot to hear our hunger, too closed to be open to our urges.

Cast out of kitchen we cower as canines caught between the cage
and the carnal, praying for peace with paws ready to pounce
on all possible prey. Falling on four feet in the forest already fading,
we are shadows of former selves, cut and claimed by the marks
our own malice has made of us. In the forest falling no one hears
the crazy cries of the lives who once howled only for the lilting

lullaby of love.