I have crossed oceans
without feeling the weight
washed beneath their waves…
I have cut through clouds
without knowing the worries
they whisper to the stars…
I have flown
from darkening dreams
towards tomorrow’s daylight
and yet
the light’s already fading
on front of me
before my past
has even slept
before my future
somewhere far behind me
has even been conceived…
All words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
On pressing parades
pedestrian pass on motors,
on mass, in autos,
under umbrellas,
in downpours of flashing lights
of signs I cannot identify,
on roads that have no rules,
with crossings that heed no caution
for those crossing, the tens crossing,
the hundreds crossing,
the thousands trying to get through
with rising intonations
to parks, to stop on mass,
to push against the air,
to cast shapes,
slow moving shapes,
motions that move into the morning
still in the making
while they are waking
and I wander the streets
in search of lost sleeps,
in search of understanding
the red dragon and his breath that steals
from sight a sky I never see
and yet there is light, electric light,
burning down from buildings, blinding buildings,
as if to shadow all that was once natural,
all that hints at traditional,
and that still echoes with strings of beauty,
stranded streets that should be seen
but are shaded by the gleam
of glorious Gucci and pray to Prada
and all the rest of western delusions
that silence the former oriental infusions.
I am the white man,
the foreign man
trying to find meaning in the madness,
in the movement, clambering to catch comprehension
with nothing but chopsticks
that fail to find favour with my fingers
in this land where the food tastes delicious
and the streets smell atrocious.
Xièxiè and Nín hǎo are the crutches I cling to,
to clamber through,
but, like the chopsticks,
they are too fragile to be stable
and too fickle to be favourable
and I am clearly too used to home
to be truly objectionable.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/shanghai-streets-far-from-home
Moving, still moving on metros, more metros, more sturdy, more stable, more directive, less suggestive, people, more people, less strangers, more familiar on metros still moving through motions of settling, the notions of belonging to lives above these lines, above these metros still moving like my life that’s still changing, new lands, new lines, same lines, different names, sometimes sturdy and stable, more times suggested than directed, catching connections in the passing, holding hands, holding tight, losing grip, letting go of these lines of our life that we mark into memory like the tracks under ground where we scuttle and scurry on metros, still moving…
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/still-moving
Changing currents,
currently, body and soul
converging concurrently,
control lost to illusion;
divinity divining, dividing delusion
directing hands of fate
or falling me from faith,
body leaning in
bending to all beckoning.
Was it I who let go
of love’s hand or had fate decided so?
Was there a choice,
considered, consecrated, a confession
would I, could I be called up for blame?
In letting go,
I fell to freedom,
funny how freedom drops you,
seemingly untangled,
from the knot undone and I come undone,
at a loss, undefinable or redefined?
Partially salvageable, this time.
Selfishness slipping into single state
celibate, (sold a lot)
with no one to consider,
to hold, to cherish, to love.
What is love when you lay alone?
Where does love lay when you are alone?
Alone, love is where there are no more lies.
.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Even in paradise,
on paved paths long pillaged,
the palms are no longer placid
and shady skies swell with storms
as rivers rumble with ripples
from ructions bellowing between
the blues at the bottom
and the clouds congregating,
without comfort, by the high heavens
and, blowing on boisterous breezes
nearby, are names I once knew,
faces forming of fidelities forgotten
in the foaming waters
where once there was weight
now withered with ruin
like colours that run
in the wash, in the tempest
that turns through time,
too lost to latch on to,
too fragile to fight
the currents currently pervading
this paradise now paved and perishing
like parts of me long lost
in a sea now swelling beneath me…
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken in Turks and Caicos.
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/blues-at-the-bottom
I’m flying though time,
drawing on daylight
to the west of me
while in the east
darkness descends,
the light already shadow,
the sun already set
but here, by the heavens,
there is only more and more
light, a day without dusk,
a journey without ending
yet I am not ageless.
I’m flying through time,
drawing on daylight
that rests with me
as west takes east,
courting cotton clouds
that blow through blues,
couriers of careful candy
we cut through curiously
and climb upon cautiously
as altitude tests turbulence
while I know nothing is certain
and I am not ageless.
I’m flying through time,
gaining hours on hours,
unending light from the sun
teasing, while the moon
is missing from movement,
I’ve seen sky slide into sea
seamlessly caressing currents,
I’ve seen sinking sands seep
from salt spits and dissolve,
to rise and shine and die,
while I chase the sun
but I am not ageless.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio available on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/chasing-the-dawn
Moments on the metro
still moving
still cruising
still choosing
still cosy with commuters
who don’t communicate,
why does commuter
look like communication
when no commuter
communicates?
Moments on the metro
still moving, still stopping
still breaking, still taking chances
still stealing glances
penning poems
nodding into naps
bags loaded into laps.
Moments on the metro still
madams with makeup
making faces
like painting Picasso’s
checking mirrors
to see if the eyes line up,
lines, lines of metros, moving
moving down the carriage
of non communicative commuters
cool, classy, kookie, crazy,
the man behind who smells
of starvation and stale streets,
buskers belting out bad notes
and getting bad looks
instead of crisp notes,
the red hat with the short skirt,
the tall ones, the tired, the tourists
plotting their positions on plans
too small to make sense of
too much to capture,
Moments still moving on metros
trailing tracks through tunnels
on the underground
under the ground
under the cars and the bikes
and the feet walking and taxis swerving
and cursing at bikes and pedestrians crossing
the wrong way, the wrong side
as rain falls and puddles
splashing into gutters
as water trickles down
from daylight into darkness
onto tunnels where it finds us
moving still, on metros.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
There is a part of me still there
with you
below the bridge
by the river
smiling
as the water rushed past us
and time flowed through us.
There is a part of me there still
in you
below the water
by the bridge
drowning
as time washed over us
and the river trickled onwards.
There is a part of you still here
in me
standing still on the bridge
and moving, like the water
through time
while the river never considered us.
There is part of you
in me, still
no matter what bridge I stand on
no matter what waters I drown in
no matter the time I am lost in.
There is a part of you,
there is a part of me
still
watching me from the waters I gaze into
to find reflections of where we lost our course.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken in Hammersmith, London, England.
It was this morning and yesterday again,
a smell, a scent, on the metro, in my nostrils,
a decent into the memory, a revery playing, replaying
while the crows counted Round Here, they sang,
this year and that other year, all at once,
we sang our own song, once, once, once
but time, like the metro, took us off and on
into different directions, obligated to other distractions,
men and marriage, movements and meanders,
an Irish song we sang, you sang, I listened
and then I left while you stayed on,
stayed on track in that other year
but I came back and you were still there
still here, Round Here, as the crows sang,
are still singing, those counting crows
their words still ringing
in my ears, today, on the metro,
with that scent, that odorous accent
that opened a gap in time between yesterday,
when we were young, and today,
grown worldly and wider,
this morning as my mind rushed
and passengers crushed onto carriages
commuting, lines crossing, junctions joining
as I went to work remembering who we were,
I wore waistcoats even then and you a brown coat
that caressed your curves and concerns,
I went to work while traveling onwards,
along the same rails,
in the same direction
as before but different too
some things old
and some things new,
still me on the metro,
still me and there’s you.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
And so lives sound,
a chorus of sound, a glorious cacophony, a clatter,
a sound of ladies looking, laughing, touting, shouting
a shuffle of feet, tiny feet, tiny ladies, on a tiny street, on the ladies street
with brollies, bright brollies, tartan brollies, cheap brollies, silly brollies,
bending brollies, brollies broken by the sound of the rain falling down,
of the ladies laughing, of the buyers buying, of the colours clashing,
brollies battered by the weather, polyester being pelted, pounded,
brollies held by ladies, as they barter, as they battle for the better buy,
the ladies at the ladies market, in Hong Kong, on a Sunday
and I’m jet lagged and bargained out
and that bitch saw me coming
and is laughing at me going,
holding all my money
in her hands, not mine!
And so lives sound,
raindrops on tartans
and high pitched voices,
squeezing, screeching
and giggling, always giggling
and golden cats nodding,
nodding at golden dreams
as tiny feet plod in puddles,
ladies feet in little puddles
that are free, the only things
that are free on Sundays
in the rain, at the market,
the ladies market and I bought too much Kitty,
too much kitsch, too much crap but it’s market day
and I’m jet lagged and the little ladies are scary
and my head is weary, big feet in little puddles,
foreign puddles, in China, in far away China, big trouble in little China
although it’s not so little but filled with big chips and cracks
and nodding cats grinning in glaring gold,
do you need shades? They have shades
on a tiny street with towering blocks chipped and cracked
and looming overhead, in the clouds, drowning in the dragon’s breath
but there are lights and movement,
a chorus of lights, a cacophony of movement
and the lights are bright and the buildings broken
but the movement is magical.
A dragon starts dancing in the distance
with men underneath, a polyester dragon,
a pink polyester dragon with many legs
moving, marching, mens legs on the ladies street,
on the ladies market, winding through the ladies faces
and shouting and bartering and rubbish,
in my bags there is rubbish, seriously overly priced rubbish
but I’m smiling at the faces of the ladies and the dragons and the legs
and dodging the brollies, the bobbing bright brollies, all racing with the dragons,
on Sunday, at the market, and the dragon is marching onwards, ever onwards
and the cats are forever nodding or bowing or laughing on the dark side of the day,
on this ladies day, on this Sunday, at this market, while the foreign rain is falling.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photograph taken at the Ladies Market in Hong Kong.
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/cats-and-dragons-and-brollies
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