memory

NORTH OF THE NOISE

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

And so I come north
where the air cuts colder,
where daylight is a breath
that barely bays, night
a blanket bound to days.
I am not here to stay but
on a sway through ticking
time, to see what rests
where the light is less,
where day finds end before
being truly bent, where life
harks to harder as the day
hangs darker, dreams now are
the comings and goings,
the stuffing out of hours
before a bitter blanket of
blinkered blindness. Sad hearts
grow sadder, they say, grow
seasonal into sombre, into
the shadow of a city standing
still, waiting for the will. Days
fall short, are gone before
they can be caught, like hours,
like time, like the hand in that taxi
I once held, like all we cannot
hold, like all that ticks onwards,
all that moves off with the light
while I come here to the land
which time has left behind it.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

From the poetry series A Month With Yeats

THROUGH THE SANDS

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

And when they danced
she would hold him, her
perfume by his face, his
hands as her strength
as they waltzed through
their current as the tides
swept the shore, through
love and labour, to the first born,
still born, through the twins
who stopped the tears
and the girls who tied
the bows as the sands slipped
through time and the pace
became a quick step, through
the hands that held and those
hips that swayed through
the melody they were making
as they danced through
waves of washing houses
into homes, children into
strangers; rarely calling
and barely remembering
but on they danced as red
locks swept into silver strands,
as full head turned to bald head
on an older head as they turned
to the music now made
in the memory, till she left him,
finally, one morning in May,
as he rose to the sunlight but
she had lost to the moonlight
and so he built her an alter
of sea shells and sentiments
and now he turns, alone, across
the sands still slipping,
as the stars plot a path for him
to reach her in eternity.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

From the poetry series A Month with Yeats

TO LINGER, LONGER, MAYBE

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Like a whisper
tissue is painted with purpose,
silk spun from crisp cuts,
white scented with sapphire
parading into Prussian
(fragile of frame and filigree),
like a thought
an image opens, a petal unfolding,
shades seep into substance
as the edges fade
(how quickly we fall to forgetful)
light, liquid, linger, a little longer.
Thoughts tied in twists of emerald
shimmering,
simplicity on a simple stand,
in a liquid light
and the memory leans in.

We are more fragile
than we know.

We could be more lasting
but only time will tell.

Not everything will linger
on after our whispers
fall to a fade…

  

All words and photographs y Damien B. Donnelly

This is a Repost

IN THE ARCHITECTURALLY FASHIONED MEMORY OF WHAT IS NOW MODERN

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

I am of an age that is ageless, the very essence
that lingers somewhere between shadow and light;
that indescribable grey matter separating all that
aligns itself with black from all that derives its purity
from white. I am the illusive thread tying together
the journey, the twisting and twirling of cloths weaving
together past, present and briefly imagined futures.
I am the force between that barely dreamt dream
of what will be and that longing, lodged in the memory,
that leaves logic out to recall that single magical moment
from that day, long ago lived. That room in the mind
that holds so tightly to that taste once passed over lips,
ripe for the tasting, I am the emphasis of purity
in the remembrance of that very taste. All else,
long since, fallen by the wayside or lost out amid
the uncertainty of what’s remembered and what’s real.
I am the playfulness of the light you see cast bright
on your tall towers with their windows onto the world.
I am the linear contrast of urban lines, rising sharp
and structured amid the chaos. I am the smooth sleekness
untwining myself from a frivolous mess. I am
the seduction salvaged from the superfluous. I am
the impression left on the skin long after I’ve parted,
the mark of what once was, what is and what will be.
I am what makes the melancholy magical, every mood
a melody; the manufacturer of the moments the mind
will muster. I am the lines that will lead you on, latitudes
to rise upon and longitudes to fill your form. I am a city,
seen from above, with straights of sky-scraping streets;
lean lines, lengthy and lasting, marching triumphantly
forward as if to herald one’s rise out of confusing chaos
and stake your claim to stand above, alone, assured
and reassured, calm and confident, always exceptional,
occasionally eccentric, uniquely independent and always
individual. Modern made from a blend of what is
both memory and what has yet to be. I am everything
you put on to be who you are. Yesterday you dreamt
of me, tomorrow you’ll remember me, today, you are me.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This is a Repost.

BALLOON

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Balloon,
the balloon,
see the balloon…

see thoughts float
through space,
meander through the mind,
wild thoughts, drifting thoughts,
black thoughts, orange thoughts,
thoughts arriving unannounced,
uninvited, unaware of the current climate,
thoughts that rise like balloons
on silent streets
on sleepy Sundays
in the suburbs
to shock and surprise

(though if no one ever sees it
was it ever really there?)

Thoughts float
through time,
suggestions, signs
from unconscious minds,
disruptive thoughts, distracting thoughts
(I held his hand in a taxi while thinking of another)
Time ticks through thoughts
as we scurry through strange streets
grasping the wrong hands
throughout this diversion,
this constant drawing in of air,
drawing in on inspiration
wherever necessary
wherever noticed

(see the balloon!)

Thoughts float
like balloons,
like bodies,
never knowing
if it’s a considered curve
or just a current we’re caught in

(if it cannot be captured
can it ever be caressed?)

Thoughts float
like balloons
though the air

(oxidising, fuelling, thinking)

Thoughts float
fragile and free

some never to be caught,
some never to be caressed.

Thoughts float
and then fade,

balloons blow
and then burst.

Capture me, it, them, all, everything

before I/we/it all fade

before I/we/it all burst.

Balloon,
the balloon,
see the balloon.

See,
see the being,
see the beginning,
see the beginning of something bright

even on silent streets
in the sleepy suburbs
on Sundays

where simple things can shine…

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost

 

SUMMER SUN IN THE MARSHES

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Three boys and a girl, coasting carelessly
from teens to twenties and coping lazily
with hangovers beneath the summer’s sun.
One blonde and three browns, laughing
amid golden rays that filled the most perfect
of squares in the once marshland of Le Marais
with its cobbled streets, men of elegance
and women who followed their trend.
We were setting no trends, the four of us,
but caught up in the richness and comedy of it all.
We were Irish and English and one of us French,
young, unknown, foolish and arrogant
to everything but ourselves and ignorant
to who it was that we were.
We were like the ground we sat on;
a once sinking mess belonging to a world
of daylight dreaming, where un-cautioned laughter
tickled our sleep though not our feet, but suddenly
we’d found potential in possibilities
seen through slumber-less eyes, far from dreaming.
I was laughing with one, blushing with the other
and was sleeping with the one so typically French.
I’d befriended the one I’d hoped to sleep with
and undressed with the one I should’ve remained
discreet with. I would later miss her, lose contact
with him and wonder how to stop sleeping
with the other. But that day, in that light, in that heat
of that summer, we’d found our way, heard our voices
and finally found what it meant to belong.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a repost of one of my older poems

BEAUTY IN SPACES

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

There is a beauty within this space,
a creation considered
to compliment the concrete,
you can leave if you like
by the stairs or you can rest
for a while on the seat.

There is a soul within these veins,
a creation connected
to more than just the carcass,
you can leave if you like
by letting go or you can stay
for a time in the hold.

There are footprints upon this floor,
tracks that tingle
where others have thread,
weather will wither them
and winds will wear them
but they remain submerged, ingrained.

There are memories within this soul,
impressions that have permeated
and beats that have broken,
they are indivisible from flesh,
they are inseparable from spirit,

they are beauty within the space
of each and every person.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is a re post of one of my older poems

DOWN THE DRAIN

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

My body

my body has a memory
my body has a memory of you
my body has a memory of your skin.

My body

my body remembers
my body remembers how it bent
my body remembers how it bent to your beckoning.

And yet

my mind
my mind has washed itself
my mind has washed itself of your name

like it was no more than scum
to be scrubbed.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a re-post

THE LIGHT IS TOO LIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

Light leaks like water
dripping from the faucet.

You called me baby
before you really knew me
and stopped calling at all,
afterwards
drip…
drip…
nothing.

Light lingers in quite corners
like memories that refuse to flicker,
not acknowledging that the night
has fallen.

We pour over each other
like liquid on a perched desert,
sucking sustenance from substance,
leaching life from any length,
dryer…
dryer…
death.

I dived deep down to the bottom
and found only a drought
drowning on the ocean floor.

Were you the desert or the drought?

Was I the ocean or merely drowning?

Bubble…
bubble…
nothing.

Light lifts the illusions
we sleep upon beneath the darkness,
when everything is possible
and no one ever parts.

I am not one part us,
I am not one part you,
I am not one or the other,
I am the I that was your baby.

Remember?

I was light, you said in the midst
of so much weight but you remained
light on love, regardless.

Light leaks like dripping water
from a faucet
drip…
drip…

onto the broken plates and half eaten hopes
that cannot be either washed or erased.

Light is too light to lift the stains
from the remains of what began
with the words

I want to drown in your eyes.

Light frequently floods
the flaccid lies we feed ourselves
just so we can get from day to night.

    

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a re-post

BERRY KISSES, COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 
Bright red berries
linger on bushes
before sunsets
like lip’s lightness
that lingers after kisses.

Bright red berries
tremble in the afterglow
of careful witness
like mouths that modulate
after tender caress.

Bright red berries
adorn towering twigs
thick and tall
like lips in favour
of that fine flexed flesh.

Bright red berries
slip with the sun
into sleep serenaded
with the day’s delights
like lips that seek slumber
to sweep over skin
as the scent of seduction
sinks between sheets.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly