REFLECTIONS

TIME TEMPERED

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Retrograde ripples
swim me back to days
when a certain light could cut
the shadows in a single movement,
when your touch was like cool water
poured over feverish flesh below orange
walls that watched us sinking onto a single soul.
Terracotta tempered
with summer shadows
as streets twist and turn,
as I twist and turn and burn,
even in the shade, with shadows
and shades of you and those days
now reduced to simply recessive ripples
slouching towards the bottom of a city sinking.

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Venice, Italy

Audio version available on Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/time-tempered

BLUES AT THE BOTTOM

/ deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

 

Even in paradise,
on paved paths long pillaged,
the palms are no longer placid
and shady skies swell with storms
as rivers rumble with ripples
from ructions bellowing between
the blues at the bottom
and the clouds congregating,
without comfort, by the high heavens
and, blowing on boisterous breezes
nearby, are names I once knew,
faces forming of fidelities forgotten
in the foaming waters
where once there was weight
now withered with ruin
like colours that run
in the wash, in the tempest
that turns through time,
too lost to latch on to,
too fragile to fight
the currents currently pervading
this paradise now paved and perishing
like parts of me long lost
in a sea now swelling beneath me…

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Turks and Caicos.

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/blues-at-the-bottom

 

BEACHES BROKEN

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

I’m chasing 
beaches broken 
slipping in between sands sinking 
feet in search of footing firm
contemplating connections
between the sand and sea
as if to find reflections 
between the land and me.

I’m chasing 
beaches broken 
slipping in between sands sinking
watching tides through time trickle
dividing and subtracting
what’s lost and left to see
as if they’re reenacting 
what the years made of me.

I’m chasing
beaches broken
slipping in between sands sinking
currents coming to covet
corrections and corrosions
that trickle out to sea
along with the illusions
of who I thought I’d be.
I’m chasing
beaches broken
slipping in between sands

sinking

skipping over shallow streams

dissolving

while holding on to hope.

 

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/beaches-broken

LOST IN THE WATER

/ deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

 

There is a part of me still there

with you

below the bridge
by the river
smiling

as the water rushed past us
and time flowed through us.

There is a part of me there still

in you

below the water
by the bridge
drowning

as time washed over us
and the river trickled onwards.

There is a part of you still here

in me

standing still on the bridge
and moving, like the water
through time

while the river never considered us.

There is part of you

in me, still

no matter what bridge I stand on
no matter what waters I drown in
no matter the time I am lost in.

There is a part of you,
there is a part of me

still

watching me from the waters I gaze into
to find reflections of where we lost our course.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Hammersmith, London, England.

RIPPLES WITHIN

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

I watched the water,
Weighted with reflections,
Rippling away in the wind,
The perfect pool pulsing
In the park; fluid, frivolous,
Hidden in a hallow dug out
Behind an empty, unused seat,
Far from the footprints of boots
And buggies or the suction
Of the sun to swallow it up.

I watched that worrying water
And wondered if all its ripples
Were fuelled first on fear or
Something so much more sinister,
A sunken sin beneath the surface,
Something rough that rendered it
Raw and then I wondered, perhaps,
If its motions were just reactions,
Tremors triggered to the changes
All the while riddling and rumbling
And ruminating deep within me.