All words and artwork by Damien B. Donnelly
lost
FROM THE SILENCE
There is silence
As if all the world is hiding
As if every soul is sleeping
As if every breath is breaking
As if every person’s perishing
In the silence
There is silence
As my eyes they drown in tears
For the loss of days and years
For the thoughts that became fears
While the energy disappears
Before the silence
There is silence
And all I know is dissolving
And all I had is disappearing
As if every fear is unfolding
And every tear is falling
Within the silence
There is silence
As if all my thoughts are tiring
And all my dreams are drowning
As if all my hopes are hiding
And all my buttons are breaking
And still the silence
There is silence
In the distance I’ve put between us
And in the things we can’t discuss
In the floods that try to drown us
In the frailty, in the fear and the fuss
Behind the silence
There is silence
In a city that’s turned against me
With it’s tone, stone cold and angry
A city that had failed to hold me
While another is waiting-
Hoping to set me free
From the silence
ALL THAT REMAINS
I walked to you today
Along the rocky shore
As the winds roared
And the rain fell,
Soft upon my face.
I walked to you today
In hiking boots
And specs of snow,
Though hills and dales
And pools of tide.
I walked to you today
To where you stood,
To the cliff you’ve claimed,
To the earth you’ve clung to
Through the raging storms,
Through the dawns and deaths,
Through the hope and hurt,
Through the tides and tears.
I walked to you today
Now but a shadow
Of your once gallant glory,
Now but walls of stone
Devoid of laughter and life,
No roof to cover you,
No door to open you.
I walked to you today,
A ruined remains
Of all that once was
To remind me
Of all that still can be,
To reassure me
That not everything
Must be lost to the raging sea
ALONG THE WAYSIDE
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.
RAIN IN SUMMER
In the summers heat
The raindrops fall
As the dust of August
Runs down the wall.
Inside the house
Lie endless cries,
Broken hearts
And comfortless toys.
A child on the outside
But silent within,
No one to play with,
No reason to grin.
Sadness falls
Like rain in winter,
Leaves in autumn
And the all too little
The hope of spring.
All she wants
Is to wish on the stars,
To fly with Venus
And twinkle at Mars,
To spread her wings
And take to the skies
To stay above clouds
Where the rain never cries.
Wingless
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?
Remember
Do you remember Paris on occasions when Spring winds
Wash in from the east and the sound of drinks on terraces
Sweep over the city, recalling those lazy days- a lifetime ago,
Before we knew London together or what it would be like to part?
Do you, do you remember Paris, my room, our love
And all those carefree dreams we shared and found
As we lay at night in that single bed, in the corner, wrapped-
Not just due to lack of space- so tightly in one another,
Long before I lost myself and you lost me?
Do you dare to look back on those weekend meanders
Through the cobbled streets that I thrilled to show you
And you longed to see through my eyes, as well as yours?
Those early days of bloom that fell so timely to nights
Back at the water castle, a name-deceptive metro stop,
Where kisses would take us through to the dawn.
Remember our first Spring and how it warmed into Summer
As we sailed through the city like no one else existed
And no time could have been more suited to such a pair
Who fell in love with dogs in pet shop windows as we strolled
To Pont Neuf, to sip on wine, wave farewell to the sun and sleep
Under the shade of a tiny park, at the bottom of the bridge
On the first site of the city, by the walls of its Musee du Louvre.
Remember that rainstorm, that marvelous Sunday; we woke up
As the lightening struck and birds flapped wildly to find reason
Amid the mornings madness why their feathery wings failed
To find flight. Funny how I missed any warning in their fluttering.
I remember your first night in my city- deep in The Banana
In Les Halles, with Yasmine’s infectious grin, boys in towels
On table tops, the piano, the dancing and the DJ who sang
And the morning that found us before we had stopped.
Remember La Grande Jatte, in the shadow of Seurat,
On a sleepy Sunday morning when we stopped
To make connections beyond what the eye could see-
To remember what the painter had seen? You sang
Of the colors between the water and the sky, ignorant
To all but us and the music that filled our minds on that ordinary day,
In a simple Summer, during a Sunday stroll, on an isolated island,
Where everything seemed more and more extraordinary.
On Hugo’s trail, we searched out the ghosts of a Paris long fallen to history-
Stench filled sewers, Luxembourg gardens and finally, and above all,
By a tree in the far reaches of LaChaise where Val Jean had laid
His miseries to rest. Was it later that night I confessed to be falling
While in your arms and your eyes replied that you were already there?
Do you remember that time at Disney? You, the one with the Mickey ears and I,
The one with the childlike fears till the valium kicked in- your treasured
And unused stash- an airplane’s roar enough to set your hairs on end.
Do you still remember those endless nights in the Tropic; sipping on Gin Fizzes,
Fresh from the cinema, sandwich grec’s on the way home along rue saint Denis-
It’s ladies only then awaking to their nocturnal life?
Remember that single bed in the corner; I always woke up stuck to the wall
Or wedged somehow between bed and brick. The sofa, the table
And the sunflowers of plastic- so not what you’d imagined at all.
Remember those early wake-up calls as Monday morning broke our spirits
And sounded a parting- a rush to the station and tears as you left me
Wondering, always, when you’d return.
Do you dare to venture to the times we shared
In what seems like a lifetime ago when not a minute suggested
What time would design and we’d one day have to let go?
Remember Paris,
Remember you,
Remember me,
Remember us.
Ripples…
I drifted away once,
Carried off by a delusional dream
Of how it all could be-
Consumed and captured,
Completely confused
And so far removed
From everything
Palpable
And intrinsically valuable
That I forgot for a while
Who I was,
What I had
And how to return.
I was swept away once, long ago,
By everything I’d ever imagined
That I lost sight of everything
I’d ever had or held.
I’d cast myself somehow
Off into an infinite ocean,
Driven to dive deeper by desires
But only to find that down deep,
In the dark,
Every excessive dream loses luster
And fades forever
Amid the fathomless
Faith of the forgotten
But alas,
I did not wake until the bottom found me
And roared its laughter in my ears
And then,
In those too few precious moments
Of understanding-
When the truth finally surfaced within me,
So deep below,
Every movement made to swim back
To the comfort of your shoreline
Sent such ripples all around me
That I lost sight of where you actually lay.
Will you ever know how the sorrow
Grows within me
As time passes
And we remain
Parted.
I let myself drift away, once,
Only to fail later in finding favor with the shore.
If I were an ocean
I would send ripples
Through the waters
To warn you of my sinking.
But I am mere man,
Trapped inside a body
Of drowning emotions,
Looking always and evermore
For that selfishly forsaken shore.
Courant d’Air
Lost somewhere in love’s language
Between bonjour and au revoir.
How is it I have strayed so far
From what was once so important?
I have travelled land and sea
But with each step
A part of you approaches from the past,
Present and possible future
To remind me of your existence,
To recall how much of you
Is rooted deep within me
And to confirm how much of me
I left behind in you in that time we had
And shared and made;
On your banks, along your cobbled streets,
Within your bars, on the lips of your men
Whom I kissed and your ladies who I danced with
And behind that grey door
And up along that wide wooden staircase
Which spiralled its way to my first home
Nestled in the oldest part of you.
It was here where Joni Mitchell
Rang out in my ears for the first time
Through the angelic tones of the blonde creature
Who lulled me from laughter to chaos
On that old templed street-
A stones throw from my first hotel,
The scene of my first French kiss,
Tucked away behind my favoured park,
Resting under the watchful ghost of Picasso
Where I would soon burn to a crisp
As summer’s sun found Irish skin to roast on.
How we laughed in that living room
With its viewless windows
Letting in only the bare minimum of light
As my musical Nymph rehearsed
Endless Irish dirges that would pay the rent
While the spritely hippy
That hid beneath her voluptuous body,
In green velveteen bell-bottoms
And tasseled honeyed hair,
Begged her to let loose, break free and fly like a bird.
I remember that morning as spring arrived
And I opened the windows to find warm air
Perched on our sills before I read her
My first French penned poem;
The Traveler Lost;
A young man drowns amid foreigners
Without words to express himself.
She laughed till her eyes brimmed with tears
And I, almost unable to finish,
Sobbed in a likewise comic and uncontrollable state,
Indulging in the unconsciously humorous overkill
Of the self-indulgent prose of a 22 year old child
Dancing about in grown up shoes.
And yet, in that very fact;
In the acceptance of our naivety and innocence,
We laughed our way, amid childish ignorance,
Through the best of times and dared each other not to care.
And yet now, so far from that very home,
How close its infamous memory
Ventures to mock me
For the distance I have let slip in between.
In all my dreams of traveling and exploring,
How was I to know that my feet would fall
So fast in love with that first touch
Upon your cobbled streets?
I am the sparrow, lost to its nest,
Forever flying in ascending circles
And catching your scent on every other breeze,
Unsure of why it calls me still,
But hopeful to one day be flown home on your courant d’air.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 