naked

TYPES OF DOLLS

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They call them Russian dolls
but there was a shop that sold them
by the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam,
not far from those ruby lit windows
displaying Dutch dolls in de Wallen,
both of which provided excitement
for wet tourists under rain coats
in the soaked summer months
terrified of traffic and tram tracks
and serial cyclists ringing their bells
like they were shooting guns.

The Russian dolls within dolls
within dolls were higher in price
than those locals offerings
you couldn’t bring home with you
after the money was handed over.
I used to see them, in their windows,
in the mornings- reading the paper
with their crispy toast and mint teas
in G-strings and little else.

I find it funny how undressing
reveals even less of the person
than being fully clothed.
I wonder if those Russian dolls
hold more truths in their multiple layers-
building up into a whole
instead of stripping down for a price.

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BOOKENDS; WHEN CONSIDERING WHAT TO WEAR

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I was always looking to find the lighter side,
the brighter side of your cold concrete
cold corpses once carved into your concerns.

You were papered over in such pomp and circumstance,
such rigidity and reformation from centuries since removed

but I found, once we pealed back each other’s layers
that breath lingered behind all that had built up around us.

Naked can be the hardest choice to make but can also
be the most comforting when carefully considered.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about pealing back the Parisian layers and saying a goodbye to all the beauty that lays behind the dust that time has gathered over the gold.

SHEDDING

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When all the fuss has faded
like guilt that glides from gloss,
when I’ve pulled back the hair,
when I’ve crept from the clothes,
when my flesh is all that you see
and there is nothing left
to hide the parts of me
I never wanted to be,
Will you…? Will I…?
When my tears come like the floods
with no temperament to temper the tempest,
when there is no laughter to kneel neath,
when I bare no gift to beg you like me
and there is nothing left
of the roles I’ve roped myself into,
of the masks I’ve twisted my face around
to veil my own identity, Will you…? Will I…?
Will you be able to read
the life lived between the lines,
will you see the soul
that slipped within the shadow?

I wrote it down
but ink fades faster than these pains
that have patterned
themselves into permanent
beneath this skin
I’m now unseasonably
and unceremoniously shedding,
scars that parade now in the spotlight,
in the parts of the play
I have been permitted to perform.
But they are scattered
between the scenes,
broken into awkward acts.
When the curtain finally falls
and I cast off the costume, Will you…? Will I…?

Will you understand what it took to get here?
Will you look further than the festering flesh?

I am more than just skin on the bone.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

From an earlier poetry series entitled Between the Bone and the Broken

TRUST

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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

ONLY AFTERWARDS

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He tasted of pine
pressed into skin,
nicotine fingers
and beer bound breath
naked beneath
the fairy lights
and twinkling balls
as a cat and dog
watched their shadows
kissing on the walls.

She tasted of punch,
cinnamon sticks
and orange scents
with red rimmed lips
and bare naked breasts
to blush the baubles,
suspenders suspended no more
as the cat and dog
played with discarded clothes
on the floor.

New Year’s Eve
had become New Year’s Day
as she took him to her bed
to screw away the hangover
and reason out the resolutions.

It was only afterwards that she asked him his name.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

RED RIBBON

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You opened me
You held my heart
in your own bare hands
beating
I bared all for you
I lay naked for you
I shed my layers
revealing,
I have become undone
loosened, lessened,
I have been unravelled
like ribbon
unrolling,
red knotted ribbon,
like red rotting blood
on the stone cold floor
of a battered heart
barely beating
revealing the emptiness
of our essence.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Break-Up Afters

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It meant nothing and everything-

All at once.

It was filled with what you did not say

And every tale you eyes still told.

Was it too warm

Or too cold?

I remember shivering.

Were you the first

To light my cigarette-

Like you did so long before-

When everything was natural

And comforting?

Was it you

Who suggested

We should go

Or I who said

We should leave?

And then, there we were-

Naked,

So suddently-

I barely remembered the journey,

How we ended up there;

Not mine,

No longer ours-

But yours.

Creating the first soils

On your shiny sheets,

Pressing into them

That already soured scent

Of a past- recently thought expired.

All this within an apartment

So new

That the dust had barely settled

And so far removed

From everything renowned

As us,

That it was unrecognizable

As you.

You blindly found your way

Around my body-

Beneath a darkness

We both felt safe in-

Better than you found your way

To your own light switch;

So new was the home to you

Inhabitating it

And yet so familiar my every curve-

Even the ones gained in your absence;

Those sweet chocolatey replacements.

We’d messaged,

Met, made out, made love,

Measured up a home,

Merged, mortgaged, meandered,

Drifted, dived downwards,

Derailed, deceived, divided,

Divorced,

Forsaken, forgiven, forgotten,

Replaced the physical-

Temporarily and necessarily,

To scratch the itch

Until we resigned,

Released, refreshed, rebooted,

Before ridiculously tempting faith

And each other

And our restraint

With a little calling,

Uncalled for smiling,

A period of careful planning,

A suggestion of a drink-

Casual,

Quick,

Uncomplicated-

In rememberance.

And then,

In the blink of an eye,

We removed the past from our minds

And the clothes from our bodies-

Like all those years before-

But with so much more

Lying between us

Than just our salty skins-

Bollocking our way through break-up sex.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly