night

BEAT 

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

We are all of us bats

beating against the darkness
happy 
to be closer to the heavens 

than the dungeons
hardly hanging on 

to tissue taunt
beaten down 

but not broken.
We are bats 

beating on
with a hope held out 

for that white night.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly 

STILL NIGHT

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Still night,

still light
in corners
not yet caressed
by shadows,

in thoughts
not yet crushed
by dreams

that will never
see the light,

that stilled light
that lingers

beneath
the stillness
of the night.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

THE REALITY OF DREAMS

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I can move mountains
At night,
In the darkness,
Within the costume of sleep

I can part the seas,
Call the currents,
Will the waves
Beneath the waves of a duvet

I can save the world,
Untie the menace
From the mission
With the hero of my dreams

I can find my voice
Bold and brave,
Protect and save
When I am sound asleep

In the light
I take steps,
Singularly significant,
To wake the dream to the day

 

All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly

QUESTIONS FOR THE NIGHT

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The trees have lost their branches,
Their leaves long since took flight,
Barren, bare and lifeless they stand
As the mist engulfs the night.

The playground hauntingly sits alone,
Where have your petals gone?
You are the seed upon which they can grow,
Oh, where have your petals gone?

Pools of water lying still on the ground
Reflecting a lonely moon,
Why must your day always be night?
Only the stars can hear your tune.

Through the darkness the nightingale flies,
The nocturnal bird of night,
Yet its song soothes only the lonely
Who search for a soulful light.

Upon a bench a man sits waiting
For the new dawns early light,
But only sounds can give him life
As old years have stolen his sight.

To the naked seat beside him, he asks
Where have my friends all gone?
The ones who laughed and cherished life,
Oh, where have my friends all gone?

The tombstones stand, names form the past,
Where have your spirits gone?
Your memories are safe in a pillar of stone
But where have your spirits gone?

Along dark beaches wise women walk
Their knowledge as great as their years,
But slowly the waves engulf their feet
As they shed half water tears.

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Toot of Transition

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

How still it is,
Silent
‘Neath the somber shade of night,
Beyond the light
Already long departed
And sleeping in the shadows,
Alone in thoughts
That twist and turn
And dig deep
Amid the this and that,
The important and redundant,
And all the while
The stillness builds-
Oblivious to the restlessness
Beneath my skin,
Between my toes,
A sense of something
In the as yet unseen-
Somewhere out there
My future already on the move,
Shaken into substance,
Substantially self-sufficient,
While I sit in silence,
In stillness,
In waiting,
Wrapped up cocoon-like
Beneath the hibernating blanket
Of this interim-
This condition of considered change.

I will soon slip
Into a sleep
Born of the metamorphosis
Of the moment,
Aware of who I was,
In the knowledge of who I am
And accepting of who I will,
In time,
Grow into.
Tomorrow will be the memory
Of who I was
While today exists only the dream
Of what tomorrow will bring.
This stillness
Is as teasing as the unknown
Route ahead-
The trail my feet have yet to thread,
To carve out a crater
That smacks of existence
Long after
I have journeyed on
And found fresher,
Unexplored lands
I shall,
One day,
For a time
Call home.

Somewhere,
Just out of sight,
On the edge of this stillness
A night Owl
Toots a tale of transition
Above the silent slumber
Of a world
With eyes closed-
Unconscious to the weighty wisdom
Of tomorrow’s light.
The erudite Owl,
Perched once
In another land,
In another time,
On virginal shoulders of Athena,
Who witnesses the world
Through eyes that see
Beyond the darkness
Of all that has been
And has yet to unfold
And carries
In his very presence
On this very night,
In this very stillness,
While all else surrenders to the silence,
A confirmation of the transition
Felt within me,
Sensed around me
And promising to take hold of me
As sure as he will spread
His well-worn wings,
Find his flight
And take to the shadows
Before morning finds it’s light

While all through time
A morphosis is made of me…

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Fading

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

In this empty room

Sits your lonely soul,

In this silent night,

In this lonely night.

Whilst lovers are loving

And people are laughing,

But not around you,

But not beside you,

But not for you.

 

Through the shadows dancing

And the breezes blowing

Creep lonely chills

And darkness flowing.

In this empty space,

In this endless night,

While people are laughing

And lovers are loving-

You sit alone,

 

Like your room-

Alone.

 

Like the night-

Alone.

 

Like the shadows-

Always fading.

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Haunted Heart

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What particular particle

Of the self

Left itself behind

In your absence?

What form of matter

Is this

That moves

When all else in the night

Sleeps soundly?

Because here I am,

Stirred so,

My body jerked alert,

My eyes wide open

And my senses

Shouting to me

That you’ve just left the room.

And yet,

I know deep within

The deception

That resides in this thinking,

I know this feeling

Lacking in fact,

I know this belief

To be hallow of truth.

It is not

And cannot be,

In any reasonable way,

Your scent I can smell

Still sitting in this now chilly air.

It is not,

And likewise should not be,

The soft shuffle of your shoes

I can hear crossing the hall.

Tell me now,

In all seriousness-

With my conscious mind in control,

How I could believe it to be

The touch of your hand

That brushed me from slumber

Or the gentle kiss of your lips

On my neck, so soft,

That teased me out of a dream?

Why is it that now,

So much more than before,

You are the resonance of every

Waking thought,

As if all else

Were but secondary servings

Of something less substantial.

I am failing

In these nocturnal

Awakenings

To understand

How your absence

Speaks more about you

Than your presence,

All memories

Now more concrete fact

Than what was formerly a reality.

How does this present

Present you

More to me now

Than in the past?

I held your hands,

In those final moments,

Before you found your freedom

As the darkness

Released you finally

While everything else lost itself-

For what seemed like forever-

To silence

And a darkness of another sort

Fell upon my life

In your passing

And floundered to find its exit

Within me,

For so long after.

You see,

My dilemma,

My dearly departed-

I thought you gone,

I thought us done,

I thought our forever, over.

And yet,

Here I am-

Sitting up alone

Where once we lay together-

Blind to the sight of you

But convinced

Deep down,

In the depths of my soul,

That you feel me,

Hear me

And see me.

I know, with every ache of this solitary existence,

That you have left this earth for good,

But I cannot explain,

In any humanly perceivable way,

How much I feel you haunting my heart.

photo-33

Nothing of Noise

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I awoke last night-

Still drowsy from dreaming-

To be enveloped instantly

By a surreal silence

As the darkness

Carried the weight of your absence

To the depths

Of its sulking shadows.

I sat there,

Alone and shaking-

Upright in the bed-

Blanketed

In an all too restrictive covering

Of icy cold, concrete-like blackness-

Unable to breath,

Too fearful to move-

For so long had I been with you

That without you

Was so much more

Than my being could possibly

Comprehend.

It was palpable

Your loss-

And I was un-comforted

By this dead air

That lingered

In the wake of your exodus.

The constant company

Of your companionship

Had been so normal,

So ordinary,

Such a daily acceptance

Of my waking life,

That to be deprived

Of all imaginable sound

Felt, last night,

In that newly prisoned room,

Like flesh ripped from bone,

Sight removed from eye,

Sense depleted from skin-

How powerfully your presence

Had domination over me

And how foolish I was

In my failure to notice.

I awoke last night

Distracted by a dis-ease

That slithered itself around me

Like a soiled serpent

As I fought my way

Through random reasons

Why you’d decided to dis-passionately desert me.

Fled fast- had you

After what you’d decided was our last act?

Had enough,

Had your fill,

Composed your composition upon me

And now

No more was I someone to muse over,

No more to play upon,

Practice upon,

Empress your tune upon.

Silence.

Was this more commonplace

Than I dared

Imagine

Or understand?

Had there been others before,

Others left behind,

Before me,

By you,

Left alone and abandoned

In the vicious vacuum

Of emptiness

That your departure creates?

I awoke last night-

But you being so far removed would have never known-

And all I could muster

Were tiny inaudible breaths

As my skin prickled over

In goose flesh

To amplify the remaining senses

While the hair rose high on the back of my neck.

For a moment,

I thought I detected your return

And darted from bed to window

To welcome you joyously-

Honestly and hole-heartedly

Yet it was all but hope

Highlighted by memory

Without a single footing in reality.

But I stood there,

In silence-

Standing still,-

Watching,

Wishing,

Waiting,

Willing you, silently

To show your head,

Sound the alarm,

An alarm, any alarm.

Re-claim your position at the top of the senses.

Re-claim me as your valued courter, customer, lover,

And above all-

Listener.

Leave me not like this;

Cast astray to only taste, touch and see.

Blast me once more into the wailing world,

Scream me into subservient submission.

Build for me an orchestra at the foot of my bed

To fill my sleepless days and wakeful nights

With stirring strings and operatic arias;

Cascading compilations of chaotic cacophonies.

Leave me not like this-

Not now

After so long-

After such a union was made-

Since eyes were first opened

And ears

First heard.

Name me not silently defeated,

Challenged,

Muted.

Blast me

Once more

With the full force

Of your symphonic soundings

And see how my ears shall tremble upon the tone.

Abandon me not to this stilted silence

Where nothing pains my ears more than this nothingness.

I awoke last night,

Still drowsy from dreaming-

Dreaming of you-

The only place where you still roar me to life.

I awoke last night

To what I have now truly learned is silence

And screamed in my head

For a nanosecond

Of noise.

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