Here in parks in Paris, France, I potter through a past so old and cold that it cannot be parted, we cannot easily outrun our own ruins while Cali beckons me with her rock and roll band; those make-me-feel-good brothers and sisters since seduced back to their former States and somewhere, in between, the loneliness lingers; the hazy clouds of craziness I have crossed and the curt corners I have yet to console on this journey through time; today, in the blinding light of a frozen park in Paris, France and tomorrow beyond the clouds where Cali is a calling. In shades of blue, ice cold, I see the breath collapsing into weighty snowflakes that makes all movement morose in this Sunday morning of sunshine that somehow still shivers skin on both sides of the ocean, on both sides of these clouds where I’ve looked at love.
Today, I potter through parts of Paris, France, that are pressuring, impenetrable and oh, so pleasurable like cases of bitter sweetness but tomorrow I will come to court the hissing of those Cali lawns that are calling in a Spring called Palm, waiting to ignite a spark from a snowflake.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
I am off to Palm Springs tomorrow so see you all in a week
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…
We carried you, like a child, that day, winter now withered as the bark made a place for the bloom and I wondered if April had ever held so soft a day?
Rough round that rose bordered hem we ran, regardless…
We carried you, like a child, that day, the old village hushed as if all had now been said, as if all had since been seen and I wondered if that stillness amid all the emotion was your soul on the breeze.
Rough round that rose bordered hem we ran, remembering…
We carried you, like a child, that day, our toes retracing your well worn steps, our memory meandering through the journeys you found for us on busses and trains on lanes to foreign towns and holy lands.
Rough round that rose bordered hem we ran, reverberating…
We carried you, like a child, that day and remembered every knee you bandaged, every tear you had dried and every belly you filled with your apple pies and custard bakes those fresh brown breads and coffee cakes.
Rough round that rose bordered hem we ran, repeating…
We carried you, like a child, that day as red roses fell from our hearts like tears as that breeze brushed our cheeks like a kiss.
Rough round that rose bordered hem we ran, in reverence…
We carried you, like a child, that day, your body as weightless as it was lifeless as we covered you in the red petaled ground.
You carried us all, in your arms, and now we carry you in our hearts along our journeys forever more.
By that bed, in the village that housed you and still holds you, hemmed in forever by a border of bright red roses, we sighed by those borders now broken by all we took for granted,
and felt the touch of the torn comes at the fall of that one bright rose.
Last Saturday at 2pm in Ireland, Dublin, in the Phoenix Park, in the shade of a house and in the shadow of a tree in the sunshine, Kevin Bateman gathered together a group of poets for his latest spoken word event ‘I can Dream and You can Love‘ which went out live, as usual, on periscope and every poet was revealed there and then, no pre announcements, no listings of performers beforehand, as is so usual in these days of social media. Kevin indulges ingeniously in the mystery of the moments that unfold when a name is called before the camera rolling and their words fill the air and travel across the skies.
His choices for these locations are often sacred grounds, off the beaten track, forgotten by guide books and now, thankfully, reclaimed as the performances unfold. This last location in the Phoenix park was on the Hill of the Mariners were one of the oldest dolmans in Ireland is located, Knockmaree Dolman. Discovered in the 1800’s, two bodies were found in the tomb which dates back to almost 3500bc and the bodies were suggested to have been sailors, hence the name Hill of the Mariners. Watch the show and you will hear how it took Kevin almost 10 years to find this dolman that has been left to hang beneath a shadow of a tree, in the stillness of the silence, sometimes in the sunshine, often in the shade.
For this event, Kevin gathered 8 poets including himself and you can watch the video which had over 1000 views on Periscope in the first 24 hours of its life. The links below are for Periscope and YouTube.
The poets, who all performed 4 poems, under a theme of love, dreams and the current climate in Ireland, were, in order of appearance;
Kevin Bateman (on Twitter as @Bate_Kevin) drew us into the crime controlled streets of Dublin while leaving us tender with the line ‘…do not let the dead rest in photos, let them move on…’ from his poem A Room of Utter Sadness.
Supriya K Dhaliwal (on Twitter as @supriyadhaliwal) painted for us a cornucopia of Indian colors and tears and whose poem Meet Me in the Morning on No Man’s Land will long linger in my ear as a beacon of hope.
Jasmina Šušić enthralled and captivated us with her raw emotion, passion and her willingness to drop the guard and share her gentle side with We are Soft Animals but Our Hearts are Weak.
I was lucky enough to be invited to perform among these precious talents which made this the first time to ever read my poems in public, to ever read in public! I read 4 poems which you can find here on my blog…
Jessica Traynor (on Twitter as @JessicaTraynor6) struck a fire in our historic hearts with her gem of a poem Matches for Rosa, for Rosa Luxembourg and brought us right up to date into an Ireland of today, questioning the right forindividual choice with her poem Tender Butchery, my own skin still shivering with the powerful line ‘…the world has no business wearing my skin.’
Catherine Ann Cullen (on Twitter as @tarryathome), along with her ever listening dog, carried us around the world on the triple spirals of the triskele and took us out and under the harsh waters of homelessness by the Royal Canal in Dublin with her poem entitled Flood, ‘…and they flooded the walkway… so she might float out of sight…’
Eilín de Paor (on Twitter as @edepaor) pulled us in with unexpected treasures found along the way, a nod to lasting impressions still loved though lost and ‘an intimate poem for such an outdoor area’ Island Life where a woman surrenders to ‘…each suckling lap…’ of the first wave of motherhood.
Maeve O’Sullivan ( on Twitter as @writefromwithin) also brought us to India and returned us to Ireland through two bejeweled haiku sequences and grounded the force of an ocean of love in the sonnet Fathomless ‘…the twist of your hair in my knuckled fist…’
Snow falls and the darkness drowns in silence, a hush from heaven, falling, so slowly, even crystals cry. Are these the tears of angels weeping who’ve watched us falling, like this slow snow, like tears, trembling?
Snow falls and there’s a stillness and still this silence between us. Bruises covered in a cold candid coating of fragility, every day more freezing, more frozen, just not enough to numb. Snow falls and paths disappear.
I thought our tracks ran deeper, like this winter, this weight, like this waiting, behind the window, behind this glass I can’t see through, beyond the storm falling, Slow falls the snow and sorrow slips, cold where once there was comfort.
What happens to my tears, who’ll watch them with wonder as I look out at the snow, slowly falling, and think of angles? Wasn’t I once your angel? Are you watching, now, at some slow distance while these snowflakes concrete all confusion?
In time, this too shall melt and be no more than memory, even snowflakes fall for but a season. Snow, falling, slow. Wishing it were spring. Even white is blue in the falling light.
Day 25 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats and the quote is: ‘And when white moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout.’—W.B. Yeats
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.
It’s day 12 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats where you are asked to be inspired and pen a poem based on a WB Yeats quote. Today’s quote from the poetry of W.B. Yeats is taken from ‘The Rose of the World’. ‘He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet.’
What can I lay by the feet of such beauty? What can I offer my love on this land? A garden of roses, omitting the thorns with this golden ring I hold in my hand.
But a garden of roses, omitting the thorns is barely enough to garland your grace, so I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric, a velvet so sweet to mirror your face.
So I’ll pave you a path in the finest fabric, a cloth of brocade to comfort your cares, a daylight distraction to hold your attention from rebels and riots that are not our affairs.
A daylight distraction to hold your attention to paintings and poems that hang by our side in a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries of a world lost to power and drunk on its pride.
In a tower I’ll build you to keep out the cries and a lark then from the meadow I’ll borrow so she’ll sing of the stars and the moon that is ours as we’ll lay in arms and let love sooth the sorrow.
But restless was her soul on the call from outside, her beauty diminished by the sounds of their cries and one day he lost her where his paved path divided and he cut down her roses with tears in his eyes.
I gave her the finest, the fairest and fancy, I gave her the beating heart of this man, but she was bound to the call of the lost and the lonely which now I have become and therein I see her plan.
Blackened hands hardened over the heart exposed, expunged, red roses rubbed into ruins, ‘We are no more than the dust we leave after death,’ a curse forgotten, a force too rooted to be released. Black heart burnt to broken, banished to the ashes of her aftermath and he cannot cry, but he can crack, like a mirror, now marked, shaped into shards now, splinters to spilt the skin, grown thin, torn. Blackened hands hardened over the heavy heart, bloodless, no longer bound to the beat, no longer whole.
‘Kiss her and curse her,’
and so the curse was cast but they were young and too busy kissing to take time to listen to the whispers of the witches of the wood. All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 