I thought we’d carved
our lines into hearts,
sentences poured
over favoured flesh,
I etched eternal but you;
ink tipped temporary.
All words by Damien B. Donnelly
Inspired by a Twitter prompt Ink from #Microprompt
Love
A COLD KISS
I hung you
from the rafters
in the corner by the door,
the flower
all fine and false
that you thought I would adore,
but your hand
was all I wanted
and your kiss to keep the most,
but I was dead
and you were living
and you said you wouldn’t
kiss a ghost.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Inspired by a Twitter prompt “Ghost” from #Micropoetry
BODY BOUND
I cast myself mesmerised
by your movements, the curse
of your curves as you covet
my consciousness, as you
unbutton my willingness
to submit, to sink between
these sheets of submission,
to succumb to every single
suggestion that oozes
from the aura you amplify
behind the clothes, beyond
the flesh. We are both body
bound to the other, unable
to ascertain who is handcuffed
and who holds the key.
All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly
Inspired by a 3 word Poetry Prompt “Cast. Unbutton. Aura” from #SenseWrds on Twitter
TO EACH HIS TIME TO SHINE
Silent under summer sun
I slip back
to where the shadows
snatched older days,
Boho days
in soho
and then that shift
further south;
so south of centre,
I slip back
and see you
in the spotlight
that surrounded you
and see myself; sidelined
into abstractions
and decorating diversions;
building barricades
while you shone above them
I was swimming in subtle shifts
barely susceptible to both,
seeking out shadows
of a former self
that had shifted
like a current
you can’t control
We had removed
a sea of division
but had no idea
what has been lost
in the crossing.
We were couple content
in musicals and mortgage
but there had been more
standing between us
than just an ocean bed.
I remember you
standing centre stage
in the spotlight
that so suited you
and I was reminded,
there in the shadows
of the dressing room,
that I had yet
to find my character.
All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
BY THE PARTING
Being young
we bent by bench
and placed our kisses
on love,
growing old
I lost the strength to follow,
so you left me
by the parting of the trees,
shaded in loss.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Poetry prompt from VerseReversal on Twitter
THE THORN OF THE ROSE, a haiku
A rose blooms on bush,
colour catches consciousness;
leave me not the thorn.
All words and phtographs by Damien B. Donnelly
BEAT ON; STILL MOVEMENT AFTER THE DANCE
We evolve
from wombs to rooms
we revolve around, a space
within space where we whisper
tender tales into tight twists
in curt corners crammed
with comfort and chaos,
this shifting space whose sides
echo with movements that time
has noted but pain
has not yet processed…
Fragility unfolds
throughout space;
my space, your space, the space
that used to be our space, their space,
space now displaced, washed down
with whispers that were once wishes,
that was once laughter, light and liquid,
liquid days when you drowned
in the other’s desires that drove
toward lust, that dove toward love,
that fell, thereafter, toward tired
and toxic; tender turns
toward twisted,
tick tock.
Tick tock.
How time tolls
over hold. Hands
hold and time turns and then
time folds and hands turn
taunt through this place,
this space, once our space,
their place, now displaced, this room,
once loved, now rarely reserved.
We lay, we lie, we fall, we fight
until we leave a weight
behind us in our flight.
Whispers of loves now lost
rattle in a past still present,
not yet processed, pain permeating
into pattern, tissues soak
up solitude, torn tissue, twisting
and turning like the hands
of time as we try to find ourselves
again, trying to become a whole
within the hole, trying to clutch
hope again, however hopeless
it is to hold hope
within the hole
that houses us.
We connect and come loose,
we break (each other often,
accidentally on purpose)
and feel the noose pull tighter,
pull us further from the other.
Left are we with lines drawn
by love’s touch, like trees are we;
after each struggle more circles,
after each encounter more lies lines
spiralling us further from thoughts
thought to be central. I am anger.
You are sadness. We are over.
They are done. Who is sorry?
Is it important anymore?
We are whispers whispered
in rooms disjointed, reflections
cracking under the hunger
and heartbreak, the love and loss.
We are music in the making
until the melody meanders off,
until the cords are cut, until
the harmony is too harsh to hold.
We fall, we let go, we fall, we let go…
we continue, we are a continuum
of connection and confusion,
curious concern and self obsession.
We are whispers of the noises
and nooses we navigate in
and under, over and through.
We are particles of passion
and pain that penetrate the self,
that identify us, that mark us,
that make us who we are.
Particles so primal that we would perish
if they ever departed from our persona.
And so we persist, are persistent.
And so we beat on,
beat bruises onto our own flesh.
Beat on. Beat. Beat.
We are nothing if not beasts
with breasts bare;
beating to be broken.
All words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly. Inspiration by Giulio D’Anna.
So, where did this poem come from:
Last Monday night, here in this city of light and shadow, I was one of the fortunate spectators at Espace Pierre Cardin, Theatre de la Ville (a single movement away from an unusually still place de la Concorde) to witness choreographer Giulio D’Anna’s post-modern dance theatre entitled OOOOOOOO. It was bare, bold and breathtaking and, with Giulio; it always is. I can call him Giulio because I knew him when that was his name. Now he is Giulio D’Anna, visionary! Quotation mark intended.
Giulio, originally an Italian student of ballet (and medicine), found favour with contemporary dance in Florence, studying with Simona Bucci, before moving to Amsterdam to study at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) and his career has not stopped since he graduated, although some of us were lucky enough to see it taking off even beforehand!
Now an award winning choreographer, he is paving this occasionally unsettling but always intriguing journey through what he calls the dramatic body. Parkin’son is possibly one of the most moving pieces of dance theatre I have ever witnessed. The truth and emotional strings that carried each movement of the duo onstage was that said duo was Giulio and his actual father who is actually living with Parkinson’s himself. A moment of blood and bone, father and son, battles and bonds, youth and all that comes after.
This piece on Monday night, was inspired by a visit Giulio made to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb (and I though that’s were I lived, poetically at least!). A piano on a bare stage in shadow and light gradually fills with 8 characters whose loves and losses unfold through the physically and emotionally charged 1 hour and 10 minutes. We are introduced to them by a collection of truths appearing on a screen at the back of the stage; a collective CV; where they came from, what they believe in, how they love, who they love, how they have broken and if they still hold hope. At the same time as being unnerving, unsettling and uncomfortable, it is engaging, enthralling, stirring, thoughtful, compassionate and, just at the right moment, hilariously funny. D’Anna’s ensemble opens us, the viewer, to our own feelings of how we hurt, who we hurt and asks us the question to which there is no truthful answer; what we would be without that beating heart that trembles and terrifies within each one of us. What if we didn’t beat?
There is beauty and colour in the Museum of Broken Relationship, shades of light and laughter putting a pattern onto pain. In this piece too, on Monday night in the city of shadow and light, beauty resonated in all its rawness. I was already writing in my head on the metro home.
His website is simply http://www.giuliodanna.com but this choreographer, creator, questioner, philosopher, dancer, carer, and friend, is far from simple. You can find him online, on YouTube and certainly, one day soon, in your local theatre. Book early!
OOOOOOOO will have its final performance on the 29th May 2017 at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb. A fitting completion of a circle for a piece of post modern contemporary dance/comedy musical whose inventor is only just beginning.
Watch the trailer for OOOOOOOO here: https://vimeo.com/76032170
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
FIRST THRUST
There
in the crook of hope,
like fluff caught
in the navel,
of youth barely tasted,
(I had barely licked air)
of freedom newly found,
(note: first flights often fail)
of fulfillment
before it failed
(before we faded),
I am in a bed
in Belfast
no longer bloody
(the city not yet I)
no longer blown to bits
(the streets not yet my hope)
and we are better
than I believed,
trusting in our thrusts,
truer than we were
and more lasting,
more intact
than reality
left that first kiss
(already gone once it’s given)
of something bright,
of freedom felt
before it was shattered
on my bed;
bloody
and blown to bits,
I, not the city.
We were never
more than momentary
(a training ground
for grown-up toddlers),
a meeting at Bewelys
(when it was creative
and cozy like cuddles
when it’s cold
and still accommodating
after clubs)
when Dublin
was still my day,
was still within interest
(when its size didn’t matter;
isn’t it all relative?)
a courting over coffee
(footsies in the shadow
of a table that wobbled
on the third floor
near the theatre
and therein the warning;
unstable and all an act)
in the afternoon,
in the aftermath
of my outing;
freshly feathered bird
on the first flight
from the nest
from the tit;
the search
for something new
to suck from,
so full on faith,
so blind to the fall
but eager to climb
over dreams,
over desires,
over you in the end,
(or up from under you)
obstacles to rise to,
to arouse me
(did you arose me
or just your attention
to trembling erection?)
obstacles that came
until they were gone
and other conquests
(obstacles become conquests)
took their place
in my head,
in my bed
after I’d cleaned up
what had been left
broken
by our blast.
A bright wave
in the dark enlightenment
of a Dublin night
by the shore
swept off the ring
that wrapped us
(faith falling from finger)
when your wandering ways
and hands and eyes
(that turned like tides)
washed over
my innocence
(my Disney-like devotion)
and drowned
your deviations
and my dedications
to the blind side.
We’d been better
in Belfast
after the conflicts,
in that bed
that night
before our conflict,
but that was just one act,
one thrust
before dublin
demolished
the trust
that was an illusion
revealed
behind the crook
of the curtain
of our pale play
with too trite twists.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
FLEETS OF TIME
Touch tenderness
such tenderness
touch time
such fleeting time
tender the time we take to touch
we touch so tenderly through fleeting time
through fleets of time
like sailing ships
caressing seas
amid serenity
amid storms
such storms
stay the storms
time will teach us what we can weather
whether the waves will wash over us
or tear us down
each tear can fill an ocean with tears
each touch can bring us closer to the shore.
We sink or swim in time
though time
through this fleeting time
in tender holds
caressing
and touching tears
digressing.
Touch tenderness
touch time
so tough to hold tenderness throughout time.
All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available at Soundcloud:
LEFT OVERS
Soft skin, like silk, draws hands caress
in darkness as we warp and weft
our fragile frames in gyrating games,
crisscrossing lust with lies and trusting thighs,
ties.
We are bruised blankets baying
on beds of yesterday’s toils;
cotton soils and sweaty spoils.
Silk, like soft skin, slips from touch
too swiftly, too much sewn between seams
emblazoned with who we have become
and who we had before; I held his hand
in a taxi while thinking of another,
long departed.
We kiss alone but there is an orchestrated
orgy of others in every embrace, like a hunger
that cannot be abated, like a stain that cannot
be shifted from sheets we once saturated.
In the darkness, beneath the hands caress,
on silk, soft like skin, so supple, we slip
into gullible folds of flesh, not quite fresh,
trying to spell new names on withered frames
from those left over letters of old flames.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
Damien B. Donnelly 