All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Paris
UNDER PARIS, day 29 of A Month with Yeats
Day 29 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats and today’s quote is from ‘No Second Troy’
‘Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?’—W.B. Yeats
Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com
My poem is called: UNDER PARIS
Caught
is the consciousness
in this constant climb
in this city of constrictions
and its current that constricts
and I can’t catch a breath.
And the barricades have broken.
Baffled
by the beat
my feet can’t follow
and so I am swallowed
sinking in this city of stone swamps
and its concrete that compresses
and I can’t get a grip.
And the barricades have fallen.
Stoned
is the spirit
of a soul now struggling
through these streets of revolutions
and its suburbs of no solutions
and not a single resolution.
And the barricades are weighing.
Turmoil
was her Troy
as this place is my poison
burning through this body of burdens
wondering if it was seduction or abduction
that imprisoned us both under Paris.
Are we to be buried
beneath this barricade?
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
REMEMBERING FRIDAY NOVEMBER 13th, 2015. NOUS SOMMES PARIS.
In the supermarket
on Saturday
in the 14th,
on the 14th,
in numb November,
in Paris, their Paris,
our Paris, my Paris,
people push grief
in comfortless trolleys
down shadowed aisles
of silence, strangers
claiming their spaces
in solidarity, in queues
of slow moving sorrow,
seeing shadow in places
where once there was light,
terror in crowds
where once there was music,
death in their streets
where once there was life.
In a supermarket
in the 14th,
on the 14th,
as the numbers rise
on a Saturday morning,
there is nothing available
on a single shelf
to fill the void
of what we lost
in the night.
It’s not the whole world
It’s not the end of the world
but it’s far too far from a perfect world.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Published in Nous Sommes Paris, a Poetry book commemorating the November 13th, 2015 Paris attacks, by Eyewear Publishing
A HOME FOR HOPE
There is a gentle light shining
in this place not yet home,
pouring hope into a hold
beginning to pull on my grip.
There is a light, a subtle light
adding a lightness to all
that is weighing; the furniture,
the fittings, the fitting into a city
that has not changed
during my absence while I
have not stopped,
a city often angry
as I search for a place
of solitude amid all that leans
towards arrogance, of comfort
to come in from the chaos
and the clutter and the claws
clutching at scraps in the cold
corners the commenters
are unconcerned with.
Tonight, there is a gentle light
to lay under and dream
of what will go where
in this house soon to be a home.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
OVERTAKING
Today is the 2nd year anniversary of part 2 of my life in Paris. I moved here on July 17th 2015. I first moved here form Dublin when I was 22. At that point I knew as little about anyone in this city or the city itself as I did about myself. Two years later London called and I packed a few bags and moved. When Amsterdam called 6 years after that, the bags had become boxes and the identity of who I was, a little clearer. I’d already learned that you can’t hold on to everything, regardless of how hard you try. And then, almost 10 years later, I returned to the city that first captured my imagination and carved so much of itself into the lines now more visible on my features that I could barely distinguish the lines of the city and the lines of the self. Needless to say, the bags were bigger this time and I don’t just mean the ones under my eyes. From 22 to a month away from 42, all now visible in the partially filled boxes around my feet. Somewhere within these collections, are hints at who I am on route to becoming, I guess…
Overtaking
Back to the boxes; finding things forgotten
in seams not yet sealed and finding no room
for other things since stuck with too much tape
that I cannot take any longer in this movement
along another midway, a mild change of track
through to midlife, making home at another station
amid the mayhem of the moment, making room
to make more moments that will momentarily
fill more boxes when another move meanders
my way. We are made of movements from major
to minor and back again; I am right, he has left,
she is nowhere and everywhere and not everyone
understands, they’ve turned back, I’ve carried on,
I can hold happy alongside these boxes; bruised
and battered but far from broken, I can hold it all,
I will hold all that has been left. Back to the boxes;
to the treasures I’ve taken to be true and the truths
that have lead me to the lies I’ve cast to the curbs
I have crawled over and then crossed off. I cannot
carefully wrap each and every delightfully deceptive
distraction that comes a calling, whether correctly
considered or coldly comfortless, I too was created
be cared for, I too need room to be made for me
without the waste of words, do I not deserve a space
to call my space within all space, within all this
fleeting space we are speeding through?
My next bed will spring from my liking as I plaster
my own skin with my own desires. I desire to be
distracted by dreams not too distant. I will not
be packed in a box like these belongings;
longing to be lifted to the light. I am too fond
of freedom to wait for life to find me. I am moving,
with boxes on my back and cartons crammed
into the cracks of my consciousness. I will not wait
for life to come to me; this is me, see me, overtaking it.
All words and pictures by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud:
TRACKS OF TEARS
Day 15; National Poetry Writing Month 30 Days/30 Poems #NaPoWriMo
There’s a girl
this morning
on the metro,
unaware of the crowds,
unaware that I’m late.
There’s a girl
on the metro
packed with tears,
with tears in her eyes
and no place for more lies.
There’s a girl
on the metro
in the morning,
moving through motions,
through stations of grieving
and tunnels of tears.
Her breath is broken
like she’s been running
from something,
like this train
that we’re on
that keeps on breaking
and she’s breaking
this morning,
this girl
on the metro,
with tears
and tunnels
and stops
with no answers.
This girl
on the metro,
unaware that I’m late,
this girl who’s missing
something on the metro,
who’ll miss that someone
who’s making her cry,
who’ll miss that someone
when the lines divide
and leaves her
in tracks of tears.
All Words and Photographs By Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on SoundCloud:
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN
Day 8: National Poetry Writing Month #NaPoWriMo
Sun shines in the valley
where the sun king came to stay,
shade is shy in the valley
at the king and queen’s hideaway.
Shadows slip through the valley
down from stars to under stairs,
some secrets slip through the valley
whispered from lips of concrete heirs.
Sun shines in the valley
on swans now savage at swim,
the sun shines in the valley
though the peasants weren’t allowed in.
Shadows sneak through the valley
through the greed gathered within,
shadow is splitting the valley
like guillotines cutting through skin.
Sun shines in the valley
as gold from the fountains flow,
the sun shines in the valley
where follies fade and legends grow.
Shadows sleep in the valley
along paths where tourists thread,
shadows are stuck in the valley
like dust on ideals long dead.
Sun shines in the valley
as Apollo rides the waves,
the sun shines in the valley
and drowns the suggestion of slaves.
Shadows stretch through the valley
pressed into promises made,
shadow is song in the valley
on benches where kisses once laid.
Sun shines in the valley
in the sun king’s palace of pride,
the sun shines in the valley
where they often just came to hide.
All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Photographs taken on Sunday 2nd April at Chateau de Versailles, Paris, in the sun.
PARIS IN PICTURES; HINTS OF COLOUR
All Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
PARIS IN PICTURES; BLACK AND WHITE
All photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Published: Nous sommes Paris, Poetry Anothology
Just back this weekend from work and joyous jet lag in Shanghai and discovered a real treat when I returned; the proof manuscript for the Paris poetry anthology, entitled #NousSommesParis being published by Eyewear Publishing this November, marking the one-year anniversary of the Paris attacks, which will include my poem Slow Moving Sorrow.
Truly honored to be featured in a book whose subject is the very sacred ground upon which I walk everyday.
Will remind you all of its release later in November…
Damien
Damien B. Donnelly 