Parting

BOOKENDS; STUMBLING THROUGH THE DREAM, WIDE AWAKE

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I was silent once amid the noise, stumbling through smothering,
a bare canvas cradling nothing in arms that had promised everything.

I circled the globe once to find that home was just a word,
a word that makes a memory to plot a beginning,
not weighted but weightless.

I am, like you all, no more than a burnt-out, used-to-be, fading star,
somehow sparkling in front of you though my future has already faded
somewhere light years away.

As I hurtle through this voyage, my eyes fall sleepy, looking for rest,
looking, always, for the rest of me.

I am the sparrow, lost to its nest, forever flying in circles, catching
your scent on every other breeze with the hope it will, one day,
fly me home on your courant d’air.

For all that I have become, it is because of all you’ve shown me,
for all that I lack, it is everything I left in our bed.
Sleep softly on it.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

 

This month is about looking back at my life in Paris in order to say goodbye and this poem is a collage of a group of poems I wrote just after i left Paris, the first time, in 1999.

BOOKENDS; JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE ONCE SEEN AS A STAR DOES NOT MEAN YOU STILL ARE ONE

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I will always recall you in reflection rather than reality,
a ripple on the water rather than the roughness on the rue.

I saw you in smooth sheets of stillness stretched over ponds
that should have shivered but you wouldn’t change
and I couldn’t stay who I was forever, not even for you.

You were comprised of stilled cycles so often celebrated
but I wanted to catch a ride on something not so set in stone.

Indoors, away from the stilled ponds projecting your pride
onto palaces, you hung mirrors to admire your own reflection

but I returned from the other side of desire’s distraction
to uncover the truth of who we were beyond admiration.

You cannot reflect the stars forever, especially
when the gutters have come so close to the glass.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This month is about looking back to see who I was before moving on to who I am becoming. An end, for now, to the Paris Cycle that started when I was 22 and will end at 44, though we had 18 years of separation in between.

BOOKENDS; UNDER PARIS

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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 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 body and barricade?

  

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Remembering and moving on, a Month of goodbyes in Paris

A WHITE WING RISING

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A starlit day,
on a distant shore,
as if summer had sent it
swarming like a snowflake;
silken wings to summon the sunset,
a white moth to raise a sweet soul
departing.
And there,
as a star was added,
the bright moon was kissed
in berry blush as the sun settled
beneath the lake where the lost trout
turned through tresses of silver dancing
and he smiled at his love, since lost,
now glimmering
in eternity.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

This is from the series A Month with Yeats

 

THE KISS GOODBYE

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I kissed you goodbye
To remind us
Of all that had failed,
Of all that we’d missed
Since we had first kissed,

I kissed you goodbye
For the hunger,
For the itch and ache
That remains unquenched,
Still famished and benched,

I kissed you goodbye
And I held you,
Body on body,
With our breaths combined
And our tongues entwined,

I kissed you goodbye
To test myself
Or just to tease you,
Remember what was,
To stop time, to pause

I kissed you goodbye
Longing, lusting
For to be naked,
For to be sweating,
Fucking forgetting,

I kissed you goodbye
To seal our fate
Now off and flying
In different directions
While hiding erections,

I kissed you goodbye
Your lips on mine,
Your face in my hands,
Your scent, your essence
Left in your absence

I kissed you goodbye
And tasted you,
Then I smiled at you
And then released you
But in reality I’d already I lost you…