Paris

BOOKENDS; MINUTES MOVING

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

There are but minutes now, minutes in motion on metros,
minutes moving in on me, on my identity, on my mark,
on my leaning, on my meaning, meaning I am moveable,
like a feast, as he said; A Moveable Feast, meaning I am
manageable malleable, maybe unremarkable, mistakable.

There are but minutes now, there are but minutes moving
in on my metamorphosis, on my undoing, on my unbecoming,
is it unbecoming? on my being misunderstood, misinterpreted,

misrepresented, missing.

I am famished, the feast has moved on, was moveable, mindless
to all those matters that manipulate me, mould me, remodel me.

Minutes, there are but minutes multiplying in metros moving,
on me, in motion, minutes, mounting, minutes minus minutes.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about looking back to move on, making sure I make the most out of the minutes left to me, minutes on metros, momentous minutes, minutes made of moments.

BOOKENDS; THIERRY’S LINE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

One ordinary, rather hot summer night, nothing special,
nothing different, in my mind I ran my finger down
the line of hair that ran from your chest before disappearing
beneath your shorts as the breeze blew open your shirt
and I caught the smile in your eye as you read thoughts.

You, with your short dark hair amid a season of blondes
I was tiring of, you, who I never kissed or lay with,
who I never undressed outside of that dizzy dream.

Later that night, while fuelled on cocktails, you brushed
my finger along that same hair line, nothing said,
nothing promised, just that fine line between you and I,

you, with your eyes which shone that breathless night
towards a blue side of green, black jeans, red shirt
and a tan to stop just short of where that line disappeared.

You seemed like the first man I’d seen in such a long time
having been lost for a while in a sea of bleached boys,
all as harmless as they were hairless while I cavorted
about their sweet skins with careless concern for complacency.

But you looked like something else on that fortuitous night
as the setting sun sizzled and breezes briefly blew bodies bare.

That tremendous night when nothing really happened
except for the soft touch of that line I never managed to cross
and, more importantly, never managed to forget.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

This month is about looking back and the life and lust of summer nights in Paris in order to move on. The bar was La Tropic, a gin fizz on the terrace, by Les Halles, the summer was 1998 but the location of both the line and the man are now a mystery only the summer stars can shine a light on.

BOOKENDS; WHERE WE CAN GO WHEN WE BECOME MASTERS OF WHO WE ARE

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Some scenes we are stuck with like that hand
in that taxi as we left the city I hadn’t said goodbye to.

Whose hand did you think you were holding,
didn’t you know what you’d found hadn’t yet been formed?

Some scents are forever tied to necks where we’ve left traces
of our lips, like you said, yesterday, when I found you
crossing over after so long on the other side
and the first thing you mentioned was my scent, still that scent.

Some places latch on like limbs and I wonder if you will twitch,
still, when I slip you from my spotlight as another taxi
carries me off without a single person to goad my direction.

Some things stay the same and other things we only learn
to master when we find out the right time to walk away.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

 

I first left Paris for London at 24, without a thought as to all I was leaving behind or whether or not I had found who I was. I held someone’s hand who knew who they were while I still had no real idea of myself. Falling in love is sometimes like falling off your own route and it takes time to find your feet afterwards. I will never not fall again, but at least I now know that there is learning in the rising.

BOOKENDS; STILL ME ON THE METRO

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

It was this morning and yesterday, all at once,
a smell, a scent on the metro, in my nostrils,
a decent into memory, a reverie playing, replaying
while the Counting Crows played Round Here.

We sang our own song, once, but time, like the metro,
took us into different directions, with obligations
steered to other distractions; men and marriage,
movements and meanders, an Irish song we had sung,
you once sung, while I listened and then I left
for a while, while you stayed on, stayed on track.

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 opened a tunnel in time between yesterday
when we were young and today; wiser and wider.

All this motion, 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 concerns.

I went to work, this morning, 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 still, there’s you.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Mary (the one on the brown coat) and I met at the Irish College my first time around in Paris and then I left for London while she stayed round here till I returned and we sang again, together, poetry this time, while finding our place.

BOOKENDS; WORDLESS WEDNESDAY, PARIS

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

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It all started with a degree in Fashion Design and pattern making from the Grafton Academy in Dublin, so where else was I destined to live? The joys of working as a pattern making in this industry was the ability to live in different counties. In London I worked for Reiss, in Amsterdam I worked for Pepe Jeans, G- Star and Calvin Klien and finally, here, I worked at the Paris design atelier of the women’s wear lifestyle brand & Other Stories.

All photographs by Damien B Donnelly

BOOKENDS; BOY SO BLUE

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Sitting in a park in Paris, France as kids
climb trees they’ll soon outgrow and birds busy
their feathers in a dance of freedom we’ll never know.

I fall through thoughts as someone tickles strings
on cords too distant to be discovered and wonder
where you sat; on the orange carpeted concerns
of the girl growing through her song of sorrow?
By the guy with the hat and harmony, probably,
the guy guarding his guitar from the bright light
of the, as yet, starless sky as if he knows already
how celebrity will one day cripple his creativity.

A blackbird bows before me, burrowing burdens
into the road, looking for crumbs since cast off,
for a little refuge, like you did, like we all do,
looking for a little distraction from the circling sun
and shining skins blustering under bland or blander.

Sitting in a park in Paris, France, as if in a trance
from 22 to 42, recalling how I first found favour
with following you; back room, no light, bedsit;
we were masters of the Marais, simple singletons,
senselessly sinking innocence into the marshes,
courting kisses of single sparks and rising over losses
we thought at the time to be insurmountable disasters.

But they were just dances, like these tiny birds
around me now, prances we perform, up and under,
over and through. We are all naked birds flirting
with honesty and invisibility under a sweltering sun,
sometimes recalled, sometimes forgotten before begun.

Sitting in a park in Paris, France, still trying
to understand the message in the melody
underlying and still trying to comprehend
the cords forged in the flesh of the boy so blue.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly. 

This month is about Paris and letting her go. This photo was taken at the garden on front of the Musee Picasso, in Paris where I lived in an apartment right next door at the end of the 1990’s with a young Irish girl who introduced me to the music of Joni Mitchell. On my return to life in Paris in my 40’s, I wrote a series of poems, while sitting in parks during the summer, based on the albums of Joni and this was a nod to the album Blue. Like tattoos and all things that stick.

This was the original self portrait I used when I first posted this poem as Joni painted or photographed all her album art…

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BOOKENDS; EVEN IN A CITY THE CROWS CAN COME TO CLAW

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

On a Monday, a muse filled‬ Monday,
a sky-blue clarity carries me ‬
like the water would never the river
from the sea back to the source. ‬

My footsteps are still steady,
still stepping up on the spiral,
but memory can be mischievous
and, on the turn, I twist
past that door, long since shut,
by the temple with its turret staircase
where saint Therese tittered on the timbers

and I wonder if the sunflowers
I once painted onto its lifeless walls,
before I uncovered Vincent’s darker visions,
are still visible beneath all the time
that has grown over it since I put them there

at 22?
This, I think of, here today,

at 44

while growing and ageing and twisting
and turning from the call of those crows
that try so hard to claw at creativity. ‬

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This month is about looking back in order to move on. An Irish girl named Therese (who introduced me to the music and magic of Joni Mitchell via her Casio keyboard) and I first lived in a little apartment at 98 rue Vieille du Temple, in Paris, in 1998 where I painted sunflowers on walls that never saw any sunlight. It was my first home in Paris and we had no idea at the time that crows were anything more than something to contrast the cotton candy clouds.

BOOKENDS; A STILL LIFE OF SENTIMENTAL ON A WALL

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Memory is a shot of stillness sealed behind a lens
that looks for what cannot be seen until it’s been frozen

by the frame.

Some see this as a season of rust and ruin and running
while I see a freedom in this fall and in every breeze
another breath to breathe brave into this body.

I will hang you on other walls, in other seasons
and you will hear me sing other songs to other suitors.

It doesn’t mean we never had our summer,
only that our spring was too short to be anything other

than sentimental.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.

This month is about looking back so as to move on. A goodbye to Paris.

BOOKENDS; YOU MUST FINISH WRITING THE STORY BEFORE YOU CAN PUT A COVER ON THE BOOK

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

So many sunsets.
I kissed you goodbye but forever never followed,
I thought us broken but we were just bookends
looking for a final story to stack between the regard
and the lack of regret.

I kissed you again, later, after leaving, after returning
but before going, again, and the water stopped.

I caught our reflection for a moment, in all that stillness,
in all we had held of each other but then I blinked
or you rippled

and, all at once, we were done.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This month is about reflections. I moved to Paris, the first time, when I was 22 and stayed for 2 years and then circled back around to this city of shadow and light again at 40. This year will be the final chapter as I pack up the boxes and consider Ireland as home again after 23 years. Who knows if there will be another story to tell of us one day…