THE COURTSHIP OF A QUEEN

02/07/2016 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

I The waiting

And one fine day I will see you there
Where our bench waits by the bend
And the trees will thrill at our tenderness
When my lips find yours to amend

For the distance that’s divided us
And the years that slipped between
When this soldier returns to take your hand
A proven servant fit for queen

II The beginning

Two summers now past she found him there
Perfect prince with pen and prose
Bequeathing his lines to a love unknown
Where the paths bend and courtship grows

While she painted him beds of roses
He sent sonnets to her dreams
The pauper prince and the newly crowned queen
Whose love wrecked rules and rocked regimes

III The Promise

And one fine day I will kiss you there
When the stars return to skies
When the cloaks and daggers have disappeared
As darkness fades and love survives

But your heart I hold by my armour
and your ribbon wraps my chest
while I fight off your foes on foreign shores
till I come home to you to rest

IV The Turning

But today gives way to tomorrow
And no man is made of stone
and wars can be won but love can be lost
When ashes burn from what was bone

V The Ending

And so one fine day she wandered there
To their bench beneath the trees
When the kingdom no longer fought with fire
Although the Queen felt no reprise

And in the wind she heard him whisper
The promise he once had made
But cold is the touch of a dead loves hand
For warmth withers from what has been slayed.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

LOVE IN THE CURRENT CLIMATE

08/06/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

The years are waning
and rivers overflowing,
paths and positions
disappearing
into puddles,
into pools
raging with reflections,
reflections of connections
and rejections,
of what has been
and what’s slipped away;
the debris and decay
as we stop
and stand
and mourn
for all that’s no longer ours,
all that’s been tempted
by the tides touch,
taking pictures
as it passes,
as if the memory
is no longer
canister convenient
to load, to log,
to catalogue
all we wanted
to hold on to
but never thought
important at the time;
the feel,
his taste,
her scent.

And the years
still wane
and the waters
still rise,
taking us deeper
and deeper
from any depth,
from any clutch
to cling to
and the black widows
still throw water
from their balconies
as if draining their hearts,
as if that can save them,
and I catch myself
in those rushing waters
looking up at me
through trickles of time,
a memory now
meandering downstream,
for we are no salmon swimmers,
turning on the ripple
after the stones
been thrown,
after the bloods
been shed,
how much more
can we loose?
and I see myself
in that sinking shadow
caught on the current
of what once was;
back in that taxi
holding his hand
while thinking of another
and wondering,
all the time,
what is love
and where will it take us?

This foolish feeling
that flows recklessly
like this river,
this river I thought
to skate away on
or so she sang,
this all consuming complicity
that floods my heart,
breaking boarders and banks
while I just wanted
to wade for a while
in the warm waters,
to feel its touch tingle
but time is not tender,
tick tock, tick tock
and, in another twist
of the tides,
I see, with my own eyes,
the I who I was
flying through Paris
on the back of that motorbike
that mesmerised me,
holding tight
to the back of that man
that mystified me,
oblivious to how fast
the wheels were turning,
ignorant to how far
time can take us,
to how much
it can take from us,
momentarily
chasing curiosity
and comfort
that lasted no longer
than a single drop
of water
in a river running
forever onwards
and I was never
fast enough
to keep up,
to keep hold,
to draw breath
from a heart
that was always
a stranger to caution
like these floods
that wash over lands
and pour over paths
we’ve taken without hesitation,
breaking the beds
we’ve only newly broken in…

and all the while
the years
keep waning
and the rivers
keep sliding
and the question,
never answered,
never changes;
what is love
and where will it take us next?

Cause I’m back
where I started,
on the same path;
left side, boho chic
where Sartre laughed
and Oscar died
and drinking where
Anais and Miller
lapped up lust
but the heat’s
been turned down
by the rivers rising
and the path’s now paved
in puddles,
Paradise is gone
Miss Mitchell
and 40 is the older 20
and paying for bills
replaced playing at parties
and there are conferences
on climates
and consideration
and conservations
while Paris piles up paper
cause it doesn’t want to change,
as if we ever had a choice,
as if it hasn’t really noticed
the tensions rising
and the people rioting

and
the river,
like the years ,
eroding all that was once familiar

and I wonder
what is left to love
and where do we go from here?

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/love-in-the-current-climate

PAIRED IN PARADISE

15/05/2016 / deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

We walk on soothing sands
in far flung foreign lands
that sweep seductions
over sky and sea, we see,
in loving hands, golden wedding
bands, no tighter knot any sailor
ever made, we walk on beaches
of borders blue, better blues
than any blue has ever been, a better bond
than any eyes have ever seen, eyes
that tickle with tears, eyes that see
a future beyond the years, we twist
and turn to songs serenading the sunset,
a sway of celebration, a joyous jubilation
to court the continuous currents
of the fortunate fate that found you,
a dutch delight and a perfect Per,
here and happy folding hands
around hearts while a certitude
sweeps the shore, connections created
in this paradise where gods have given glory,
where the universe maps out for you
a story, and when the sun sets your foot prints
will settle upon the sand where you once stood,
impressions tied by tides like the rings now worn;
bands to bind the bearers, you are now
like the sea and the shore;
bound to each other, always and forever more…

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TRUST

24/04/201616/03/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Trust me
as I thrust into you,
as we sweetly
split the space
within the identity
that we identify
and the disguise
that we discard in corners
where clothes are cast aside
for more carnal concerns,
born in beds soon to be
bruised and battered
as we bare bodies,
as we bend bodies bare,
tongues tingling to taste
the tender flesh
fresh for plucking.
We tumble and turn
in throbbing thrusts,
in tantalising teases, swaying
to the sweaty surrendering’s
between soon to be scented sheets
and shaking shadows, shy and silent
until I cannot tell
your limbs from my legs,
your hands from my hips,
your taste from my tongue
and in between
we slave and sleep,
and in between
we worry and work,
but before it all
we lay and linger
and before it all
we kiss and cuddle
and I curl beside you
above you, below you, inside you
and even in parting
I still feel your hold around me,
feel your breath upon me,
your scent within me…

Trust me
~~as I thrust~~
as I trust in you too.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

NANA’S STOOL

10/04/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

I imagine you
on a stool,
not a chair,
always a stool,
by a window
smiling
as you watch us
from heaven,

I imagine you
on a stool,
not a chair,
with gentle curls in your hair
and a cardigan for comfort
and a slice of fruit cake,
nothing fancy,
with some butter
watching us
down below
from somewhere above
from somewhere beyond,
rolling your eyes
as our dramas unfold,
tiny little dramas,
family filled dramas,
nothing different,
nothing changed,
like the stool in the kitchen
where I cook now
in your kitchen,
your stool in the kitchen
where once you sat
watching us all,
the comedy of us all,
the tears of us all,
the joy of us all,
altogether,
all the time,
all talking
at the same time,
I imagine you
listening,
perhaps dosing a little
at our delirious dilemmas,
I imagine you listening
and then smiling a little
from up there or over there,
just a touch beyond our skin,
just a breath beyond the breeze,
and then saying our name
so its echo can catch a wing
and sail down to earth,
down to us all,
while you watch
from the stool
from the window
just above

with love…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

In remembrance of Nana Francis Donnelly, 8 years absent from vision but not from heart.

A SHORT MOVEMENT IN TWO ACTS

08/04/201616/08/2021 / deuxiemepeau / 18 Comments

Act 1: Dance into Night

I will call you
like a lullaby
at the end of the day
when the world has hushed
and I will lay you down
into this realm unreal
as the light falls
to the night

Act 2: Movement in Flight

I will kiss you
like morning dew
as the day beckons
and the shadows have settled
and you can fly from this embrace
while its touch still presses
like our lip’s print
upon our skins

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

HEARTSTRINGS

12/03/201625/01/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

When I am broken

I hear the strings of my heart
and its music

moves me.

When I am mended

I forget the sounds
that once resounded

within me.

Perhaps that is why
it breaks

again and again

that my heart
be never far

from the music

~~stung~~

strung upon it.

All word and pen drawing by Damien B. Donnelly.

THEIR SPOT ON THE HILL, 100 WORD STORY

18/02/201616/03/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

The light was losing itself to shadow.
Only a suggestion remained of what had once been.
The seas and the seasons had taken the rest.

He struggled up the hill.
He stood again, after all the years, on their spot,
on the whips of life tenting up through the dead grasses as the ruins watched him.

She’d been 19 when he asked her to marry him there.
She’d worn her mother’s perfume and a smile.

He’d only been 17 but he’d found all he’d ever needed.

Goodbye, he cried into the shadow of the day as he released her ashes.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph of Dunure Castle along the South Ayrshire coastline in Scotland.

THE THINGS THAT LEAVE US COLD, PART 4

11/02/2016 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

If you missed Part 1/2/3, please click on the links below:

https://deuxiemepeau.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/the-things-that-leave-us-cold-part-1/

https://deuxiemepeau.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/the-things-that-leave-us-cold-part-2/

https://deuxiemepeau.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/the-things-that-leave-us-cold-part-3/

The Things That Leave Us Cold

Part 4 of 4(Audio version available to listen to; link at the end of page)

We’d been living together, the monsieur and the boy, for almost 3 months in our apartment when he first witnessed the illusion he’d created for himself of me being this mysterious, aloof, guarded kind of guy disappear beneath a laundrette and a lot of money. The phrase laundering money was never mentioned so literally before and I saw the shock of who I really was hit him, like the balloon falling back down to earth, like the mask had dropped and the man beneath stood revealed in his humble state. Somehow he’d formed this misconception that being a writer meant that I had this air of introverted, introspective, subdued magnificence, that my clumsiness was a charm indicative of my mind being elsewhere, dreaming up characters, scenarios, novels in the planning, when in truth I was just hiding out, settling into shadows, comfortable behind the door instead of walking through one and facing people and their complicated realities. Jesus, you know me, I was happiest sitting in my armchair, in my boxers with a book, although you quickly changed the boxers for fitted briefs, house pants and that ridiculous antique artist’s over-shirt which you thought bestowed me with a certain creative look while I thought it to be the perfect cover for a cadaver in a coffin. And yet I still wear it and the boy always laughs at me when I do as if I’m about to make a study of him for a portrait and I get suddenly defensive, can you believe it? I’m finally defending your choice, your taste, your shirt that I only grew to love grew when you were gone, as if that could somehow bring us closer together. He thinks I bought it for myself. Of course he does, because I told him I did. It was easier telling him that than telling him I wear it because you gave it to me and whenever I wear it I feel like a part of you is wrapped around me. I don’t sleep in it. He likes huggable sleeping positions and I don’t want him to touch you through the shirt. I know, I can hear myself saying it, admitting it to you, of course, not to him, never to him. We are monsieur and boy, sharing a little light on the edge of a life. One of us thinks this is real life while the other is just waiting it out. It’s not all the time, but I still see shadows and wonder, now and then, if they will become you, in time, in hope.

Anyway, back to the boy losing faith in my mystery. The washing machine broke. Saturday afternoon and you know how I like my routine, fresh bread from the bakery on the corner, newspaper, clean the house, do the laundry and head out while it spins to avoid the vibrations. So I went to the laundrette instead, Madame China was setting out her goods on front of her shop and laughed at me which was her way of saying hello. She’s still utterly incapable of speaking french so she just smiles and laughs, well, more like giggles but it still makes me uncomfortable. What do you say to a giggle?
Laundry loaded and left, I headed back to the apartment where the boy was waiting for a promised shopping spree for his birthday. I never have cash on me, these days no one does, its pin this, pin that but for some reason I’d taken out 500 euros the day before thinking it would be easier and fun to shop with cash. I was halfway into the bedroom when I realised, in the rush to grab the dirty clothes for the laundrette, I’d also grabbed my jeans. The jeans I’d worn the day before. The jeans I’d been wearing when I took out the money. The jeans which held my wallet. The jeans which were probably in the last stages of a rinse cycle, in the washing machine, in the laundrette, next to the laughing China woman. And in one single moment, everything changed.
He saw me that day, the real me, a mess of a man on top of a machine, looking more like I was trying to mount it than rid it of money, my money, now laundered money. He saw me and just laughed. I thought he would have panicked, turned and run but he just laughed. He laughed while I cried. The back at the apartment, our old home, his new one, he held me while I sobbed and then he listened while I spoke, broke down, broke it all out, told him everything. Can you believe it? I swear, if the machine hadn’t laundered all my money that day, that ordinary Saturday, I would have stayed, for the rest of my life in the shadows, waiting and wondering. Waiting for you, wondering if you’d ever come back.

But you never could, never would. It’s not possible. So, finally, I find myself here, standing on front of you. Finally back at the last place I left you. We were beautiful, sometimes a mess, sometimes a disaster, it’s true, but we were beautiful all the same. He knows me now. I let him in, can you believe it? I let him into the world I’d kept prisoner in the shadows and strangely, he, the boy, this creature has found a way to let the light in.
I’ll still think of you, I’ll still wear that shirt, sit in your chair, I gave him mine. But I might not think of you all the time.
Well, that’s it, that’s me. I hope you like the roses I brought you. They are white, they are in memory of the light that you once brought to me in a dimly lit bar. I gotta go now, Alex is waiting for me. It feels good to say that. To say that someone is waiting for me now. Alex, that’s his name. He now has a name.

“Au revoir,” he said as he turned and slowly made his way down the sweeping hill and out of the cemetery, feeling a weight lifted off him. Weight, wait, the waiting was over. Death would come for him one day too, just as it came for the others, even those we love and can’t let go of, but for the moment, death would be the one who had to wait because there was still more life to live.

All Words and Photographs of Paris by Damien B. Donnelly

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/the-things-that-leave-us-2

LANES OF LIFE

04/02/201631/07/2018 / deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

Time tears
through flesh and bone
as it moves towards us
through us past us
while we try to
linger longer
onto that fragile hold
we have on love

but we are just
cars and connections
caught up in the cacophony
trying to stand in the right lane
with the right person
at the right time
as the clock ticks on
like a heartbeat
like a time bomb

I captured you
on film in a photo
as they kissed and craved and smiled
while you moved toward them
while you cut through them
then swept past them

before they even saw you.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Hong Kong on a rainy night when two lovers held each other tight and life rushed past them.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/lanes-of-life