Man

WHEN LOOKING UP; DON’T LOOK BACK

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One born to song and sorrow
One killed by serpent’s bite
One lost to hands of Hades
One walk from dark to light

If I could say to hold the note
If I could say to keep the chord
If I could say that she will follow
And that fear should be ignored

One descends to catch the hand
One walks by light of moon
One leads and plays the lyre
One follows and trusts the tune

If you can trust that she’ll follow
If you believe the devil’s dare
If your song is true and steady
You can escape the Cerberus snare

But Orpheus was melody
And Eurydice his muse
But Mr. Hades was conductor
And kept the band beating blues.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

SHORT STORIES OF FEAR; THE MONSTER IN THE MAN

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Was he not tied
and turned on the tide,
was there not light 
and dark by his side,
though the morning’s sun
rose as his bride
twas the black of the moon
at night that found stride.

Was he not washed
and worn on the waves,
was he not cracked
like the sea cuts the caves,
in the morning did he count
the slaughter, the saves,
was he ashamed of how many
he’d laid in their graves?

Was he not just a reed
washed over the sand,
was he not just a vessel
on an ocean unmanned,
controlled in the day
where blood was banned
but unbound in the night
the beast took his hand.

Was he not just a man
who’d from day lost sight?
Was there not to be compassion
for the monster in the night?
But the hunger he managed
to contain before the light
was too much in the darkness
to put up a fight.

The best of a man,
a wolf of a beast
but never the two
could ever find peace,
Helios held famine,
Selene supplied the feast
but not a single God
could offer a release.

A savage surrender
into the sea was swept,
the hair of the hound,
the soul that now wept,
a man and the monster
drowned in the depth
and in their beds, his children,
safely then slept.

And was he not tied
and turned on the tides
like the rise and fall
of a twist that divides
as the nature of man
and monster collides
but when the darkness descends

the light

it subsides.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

TO SLIP BENEATH REFLECTION

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Drawn to the river
where the sunlight bends to bleed
as the hush on the water
finds a hold among the reeds.to 

Caught by the current
as if to slip from this climate,
as if we could lose what we’ve learnt,
as if all noise could fall to silent.

To wade into the water, 
to slip between the stream,
to break from beg and barter, 
to dive, to drift, to dream.

Drawn to the river
where the leaves lean in to whisper
to the salmon swimming silver
of the truth we failed to figure.

Caught by the current
as its trickle threads my toes,
we were good till we weren’t
and this the riverbed; it knows.

To wade into the water,
to slip beneath reflection, 
to swim from all man’s slaughter,
to be cleansed of all infection.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/to-slip-beneath-reflection

THE MONSTER IN THE MAN, day 10 of A Month with Yeats

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

It’s day 10 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s quote is as follows: ‘And he saw how the reeds grew dark at the coming of the night tide’

Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/a-month-with-yeats-day-ten/

My poem today is called: THE MONSTER IN THE MAN

 

And was he not tied

and turned on the tide,

was there not light

and dark by his side,

though the morning’s sun

rose as his bride

it was the moon o’er his hand

at night that died.

And was he not washed

and worn on the waves,

was he not crushed

like the sea cuts the caves,

in the morning did he count up

the slaughter, the saves,

was he ashamed of how many

he’d laid in their graves.

And was he not just a reed

washed over sand,

was he not just a vessel

on the ocean unmanned,

controlled in the day;

all blood was banned

but unbound in the night

the beast took his hand.

And was he not just a man

who’d lost his sight?

Is there passion for the monster

lost in the night?

But the hunger he was bound

to before the light

was too much in the darkness

to put up a fight.

The best of a man,

a wolf of a beast

but never the two

could ever find peace,

Helios held the famine,

Selene supplied the feast

but not a single God

could offer a release.

A savage surrender

into the sea was swept,

the hair of the hound,

the soul that now wept,

a man and the monster

drowned in the depth

and in their beds, his children,

safely then slept.

And was he not tied

and turned on the tides

like the rise and fall

of a twist that divides

as the nature of man

and monster collides

but when the darkness descends,

the light it subsides.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

MOTOR AND MOVEMENT 

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

 

Man or machine;
stable steel
or fragile filigree,
spinning through space,
through this space,
life the length of a thread;
never knowing
how deeply the spool is wound.
Man or machine,
we motor and move,
we spin tales
and cross lanes
looking for the link,
the correct cog to coil around,
to lighten the toil
we are threading through.
Man or machine;
one turns
and the other is turned.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

NATURE HAS HUNGER

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Nature has hunger

Leaves unfurl
like an opening
of an umbrella
with the opposite
intention.
Nature has hunger
and already tastes
the roaring rain
still in the distance
of the coming clouds.

Nature has hunger
and opens up while man
has fear and covers over.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter prompt from #ShapePoetry

LIMITLESS

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

I am older now,
wiser now,
time has folded
over fears and foolishness,
I am man now,
boy now; nowhere to be seen,
I can gaze back
at who I’ve been
but can only wonder
at what I’ll become.

Time folds
but life yearns to be limitless.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a three word Twitter prompt ‘Folded. Nowhere. Gaze’ from @_Sense_Wrds

INSIDE THE MAN

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Day 20 National Poetry Writing Month #NaPoWriMo

What is it
when he looks at me
that makes me want to
love him

and when he cries
that makes he want to
hold him

and when he hurts
than makes me want to
heal him

and when he lets me in
makes me want to

run and hide?

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FRIVOLOUS PHILANDERERS

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Day 14; National Poetry Writing Month 30 new poems/30 Days #NaPoWriMo

I listen
to the river rushing,
pushing, washing,
I listen
to the water slipping,
seeping, weeping
over once regal rock
now withering, wuthering,
whispering.
I listen
to the water
trailing the last vestiges
of its veins
through what remains
of the terrains we’ve choke’n
taken and broken.
I listen
to the ferocious sound
of nature’s force
and hear the horse’s
gallop along the course;
the gallant getaway,
no longer blindly blinkered
to the frivolous philanderers,
the malicious meanders
of the bystanders
and their current commanders,
and in its hooves
I hear a wilderness at run
from the trampling of the gun,
the so-called fun
that has too soon undone
what the gods once begun.
I listen
to the rivers running
and realise
you can’t see the end
but you can hear it coming.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/frivolous-philanderers

 

THE GREEN BELT

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Like bodies for burial, on belts
conveying commodities
to congested communities,
shrubs are shrouded
in sheets of plastic
that will not perish,
in weather
that can now only wither,
along concrete
too painful to penetrate,

as brick and beast
tower over twig and tree.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly