Back story- Orla Grant-Donoghue originally invited 16 poets to create 16 new poems based on their favourite books and we were going to read these poems at Alan Hanna’s Bookshop in Rathmines Dublin, today. Of course, due to current events, all that was cancelled but it still took place today online on Twitter…
You can read all the poems and discover all the artists in one place because Eoin from BlueFoot Books kindly put it all together for us. This is the link to the site…
The book I chose was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and here, with my 1st attempt at using Clips and my almost octogenarian mother as Camera Woman extraordinaire, is my Short Film to showcase the poem. Welcome to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo and his fellow passengers are waiting. It’s Time …
Mobilis in Mobili
Behold the monster- metal made, making movements under waves. Air trembles. Earth rocks. The sea is a desert. Immense. Without Master. But with mineral, vegetable, animal. Man can be the beast on land- despots, destroyers. Land and Mr. Land who can’t swallow water. Down below, beneath the glass. Glass is breakable, like man, but can be of service like Conseil- glass is capable of offering resistance. Considerable. And He comes to resist. Resist man and land and service. But he takes the Other down, leagues below the darkness to where there’s light, to admire this liquid light through which they sail, his electric thread of connection, there, in that place which is far off and exceedingly deep, away from those despots, his own aquatic flock below the wave, his own folly to float through the fathoms. Fathoms. One comes to fathom who can find it out, how man can flee, can float on his own hope, his own pride, his own position. Opposition. Defence. Defender. Here below, where there are no masters. But one. And it isn’t always the sea.
Although the sea is everything. The globe began with the sea and may end that way too. He is the Sea and must defend himself. And Man? The sea is an immense desert where man is never lonely. Though man is on his own. Not being Mineral. Or Vegetable. Or always animal.
Darkness is deceiving, regardless of its liquid light. Behold the maelstrom! The Nautilus is no narwhal. A can of unquestionable character can also be a coffin. Man can make his own. His own house. His own home. His own tomb. To float. In the water. Through the light. Leagues below the sunlight. Where light is electric, that fine thread. Finely Snapped. I recognise no masters here, he said. I am free, here, he said. God Almighty! And the Other blinked, for a moment and took hold of Land and his Conseil. And then looked back to behold the monster. Some are drawn to the deep, to the current, to the curiosity of the perpendicularity, to the leagues of light at the far end of the black water, where there are no other men murdering to be masters. Behold. Enough. Enough.
The Cast…
Damien B. Donnelly
With huge thanks to Orla, Eoin at BlueFoot, Alan Hanna’s and my fellow poets and you, for tuning in xx
Sand slips under foot like memory into mind, waves wash up along a country lane leading down into a secreted sea, past a thistle that pricks not;
so much beauty cannot bear a beast.
There is breath in these back fields I recall on the curve of this spiral game, returning like these tides that tickle the familiarity that floats on the foam of the waves I once forged freedom on,
getting far enough out just to find my way back in.
Home is not something you recognise until you return, like the smell of this sea stretching out to islands that look in on me, as if trying to find a way to connect, home is not something you miss until you swim out,
not something you recognise until the tide takes you back in to that secreted sea, stashed away down a country lane and you recall
On comes the light and I reach out for the taste of morning in an orange orchid that unfolds a sash of summer’s stock to tie its threads around the ears of anxious. On comes the morning and I stretch emerald strokes onto a light canvas pulled out across grouchy grasses that cannot see hope glimmering in far off fields. On comes the light and I strike rainbows into shivering streams that take dreams off to open oceans where the breaths bays just above the surface, waiting for us to dive back in, to the light.
All words and water colour painting by Damien B. Donnelly
Based on a Poetry Prompt from Cobh Readers and Writers on Twitter
Concrete is no compliment to the current. Curls come and crash without care, you cannot keep an ocean contained in a single cup. ‘I hurl this wave with the weight of a thousand stones’ she sighs and slips back out as clouds come to commend.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Written as part of the Cobh Writers and Readers #PoetryPrompt featured on Twitter. Do drop by and join in the creative distraction. @CobhWR
Guttural; pertaining to a particular sound at the back of the mouth, there, in that spot not quite reachable, still quite parched.
Water; to sprinkle, to moisten. I do this to quench a longing I can’t reach though I cannot hold this liquid just like I couldn’t retain the lips that once kissed this neck, here where throat was left parched.
Energetic; processing or exhibiting energy in abundance, like I had before your truth got twisted, before all your charming turned into that drought which buried us while you left me; Guttural.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Written as part of the Cobh Writers and Readers #PoetryPrompt featured on Twitter. Do drop by and join in the creative distraction. @CobhWR
Sea claims what man can no longer cradle but time’s tales can be freed from nasty nets when the wreck is beyond want, when the cable has been cut and we come to the call of the current. Rough becomes rust becomes wrecked becomes ruin, might becomes memory. Day is done but night unfolds tales of tides that were tamed, slim seas that harboured heavy hopes in trusted holds. We dive and then differ on the return, are undone, unmasked, back to bone- a battered beauty, once a witness to the wild waves.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
Written as part of the Cobh Writers and Readers #PoetryPrompt featured on Twitter. Do drop by and join in the creative distraction. @CobhWR
Light. These are the days were we look to see where the light lingers longer. We rise like crabs up, after the tide has fallen, up, through solid sand now sinking, we can only wait so long- can only hold so much weight (in these days where we cannot hold at all) before we cannot wait any longer to touch the light, catch a breath, feel the sun. Burn.
Come, catch the light- a bright distraction in the darkness.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Inspired by a #PoetryPrompt on Twitter from the #PoetInResidence Catherine Anne
Entity. Identity. I identify. Running gives no reason
until you run out of places to hide. Identity. I identify.
I recognise now what it means to be connected. A continent
can be chaos. An island doesn’t have to isolate. I. Island.
I can identify as an entity of this island. I didn’t hear them
telling me the truth. I didn’t know they knew me before I did.
I tore through tracks; teenager, twenties, thirties, I am tired
now, my trainers have taken to the tide. I am sand again,
ready to be cast upon beach, I want to be a grain in this garden
I was ground upon. I was barren of breath. I choked, drowned
in an ocean that wasn’t mine to begin with, we can bare too much
as well as being blind to all there is to see. I see now, this entity.
I was split once, by what I dreamed of and what I already had.
I see now, how this island, this entity, held my identity. Whole.
Damien B. Donnelly 