Series

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 3; GONE, THE GARDEN

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Gone is the garden,

we are paved now
in parts no longer potential
to growth, to goodness.

And the crow caws in the corner,
flesh festering into feather.

Gone is the garden,

we have paved
paths over all that was precious
while thinking thoughtless,

if only we’d thought less
about what we wanted
and more about what was needed.

And the crow cowers in the corner,
questioning what became of its celebrity.

Gone is the garden

and we can never get back;

the lock now lost in lyrics too light,
in songs surrendered from soul to sold out.

Gone is the garden,

gone to graze
over another galaxy
not yet grown greedy,

we are now alien
to all the earth has asked for

strangers to the simple sand
that sweeps the shore,

and stranger still to the starlight
that shines through it’s last breath burning.

We are the crows, cawing
over concrete, in corners
claws cracking in our chaos

and confused as to where went the worth.

Al words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 2; POTTERS ON THE ROAD

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

I am free in the morning,
in this morning town,

waking,

slipping from slumber
like skin from sheets,
like wings above clouds

conquering concerns that come a calling

and I am falling

upwards,

falling in love with light

can feel it sparkling,
even at day break,
even when days break,

falling for all that caresses carefree,

I am not constant,
no longer, not caught,
I am on course like the stars

I course through clouds, up from down,

I am clear of connection, of weight,
of all that heaves over heart,
I am more made of mind,

romance redirected in songs scripted
from memories and moments measured

in the heights that held us
and not the fights that harmed us.

I am cutting from my own carcass my own canyon

in the soil of the soul,
more whole than helpless,

brave the bird that breaks
from the nest
to find fortune in freedom.

Freedom is a solo flight;

to touch the stars
you have to know how to hold the night.

I am man now,
brave begotten from boy,
gotten braver, better, broader,

brought back to basic; the characteristic core of all creation.

Shadows are quaint covers now
that come in from the cold
when comfort is called.

Shadow is not all sinister, sun is not always safe.

We are starlight
making our way
through the darkness,

before we fall to dust,

trying to decipher the difference
between delight and distraction
along the paths we are potters on.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

I CAME TO THE CITY, PART 1, A SONG FOR THE SLEEPING BEE

/ deuxiemepeau / 10 Comments

 

There was a man I used to know,
who came a calling long ago,
back in the days when I didn’t know,
when I didn’t know the truth of me,
when I didn’t know who I could be.

There was a boy once, long ago,
fragile as filigree and falsetto,
there was a boy I used to know,
who didn’t know, I didn’t know.

I am a man now not from here,
who’s watched the shadows disappear;
the jeers and shame for being queer,
I’m not that same boy anymore,
I’ve set my sail to another shore.

If you said ‘home boy’, I wouldn’t know,
if you said ‘go boy’, I would not know

I couldn’t say which way to go.

I came a calling long ago,
I caught a calling that pulled me so,
came from inside and would not let go,
and now I can’t let it go,
can’t let the calling, can’t let it go.

I had a hero long ago,
he played me music sweet and slow,
I was the string at the Château d’Eau,
I was a puppet in his travelling show.

There was a puppet he used to know,
of sugar sweet and gentle snow,
but strings grow cold over melting snow,
and so he had to let me go,
he had no choice but to let me go.

I will not keep you, you have to know,
you’re just a pull of my cross and bow,
i’ll release the string and watch you go,
I will not want you to know me so,
we’ll let it burn out in the afterglow,
that’s the blow, but this I know,
and here I am to tell you so.

So you can love me before I go,
and you can taste me but then forego,
you can hold me like Calypso
did so long ago till she let go,
for this I know, I will let go,
of all I don’t know, this I know.

There was a man I used to know
who came a calling long ago,
I loved him so and yet I let him go,

I couldn’t say; ’I cannot stay’
but now he knows and so it goes.

There was a boy I used to be,
silent and still like a sleeping bee,
trying to hide behind a nobody,
but now he’s no more a part of me,
I see him sometimes out at sea
and in the shade of what used to be.

But he’s not me, that sleeping bee,
just thought it was who I was meant to be.

But it was not me, he was not me.
You see; that nobody; it wasn’t me,
there was a boy I used to be
but now this man, this man is me
or at least the only part I’ll let you see,
for all the rest, all the rest,
I’ve learned to keep that just for me

I learned you gotta keep something
because love;

It don’t come free.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: 

 

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 8; HUES OF WHO WE ARE

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Blue boy
harbouring at hints
from other hues;
breathless to be breezy,
tu sais? A longing
to lay with lavender,
on a lawn of iris
and amethyst,
to be lyrical with lilac
in its supple shade,
to whisper over walls
like blankets over bodies,
like worry over waves,
ready to be ruby
in red,
ripe and raw
like the apple
in the orchard;
teasing temptations,
like willing wine
on the tip of the tongue
flowing like blood
through the body,
glad to go towards green,
to the shamrock and the sage,
to be mellow in the moss
and jovial in the juniper,
to gain again on the grounding
that was my fertile founding,
bounding back to the beginning,
(we can never go back to before- really?)
to venture back to the verdant valleys,
face to face with the unearthing
of all that came after
in cut and colour of that solid soil
from the cedar to the ochre
(are my eyes hazel
because you are their home?)
returning to the roots
of my becoming,
see them still turning
in the bright bog,
Eire and her energy,
and the emerald smile
that still shines on me
so far from that distant isle.
The green light, that orgastic future,
(he called it), we beat on
but are bound back
to where we began.
.
Blue boy
with green eyes, (hidden in hazel)
white skin
and the orange;
(my diversion with the Dutch?).
Now I am red
and white and blue,
blue again, you see;
you can always go back to before!

Blue boy
harbouring at hints
from other hues.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly. Picture taken in Ireland in 2003.

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/colour-on-curt-corners-part-8-hues-of-who-we-are

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 7; OUR SHADE IN TIME

/ deuxiemepeau / 13 Comments

 

Look for me
in the layers lost,
in the careful caress
that concerns the contours
of form and finesse. The million
meters mounded into magic, turned
and twisted into tastes now termed timeless,
look for me in the yards that yield towards yellow,
that burn into beauty, like ochre opening, that grow towards
the gleam of green, that flit and flow like a feather in flight, like rays
of the old days that ripple on the water. Look for me by the curt corners
of concrete where complacency converges, look for me where the columns congregate,
creation is not just a concept concerned with procreation
but with the colours and costumes

we claim to parade our personality.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 6; CAUGHT ON CANVAS

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Connie
was caught
by colour in the corner
of the castle where curtains
collected carnations,
Connie
was captured
courting curious
on the canvas of a castle
in a kingdom condemned,
Connie
was caught
by the kiss of a courter
in the courtyard where calla lilies
were cut,
Connie
missed the caution
in the cut of the calla
while her courter crept away
with her coin,
Connie’s
forever captive
on that canvas in colour
in that corner too curt
with the kiss of that courter
now a cancer
on her complexion
that no carnation covered
curtain could ever conceal.

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 5; COLOURED SHOWERS

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

Lilac showers
Parisian walls
to lift the day
from tones of grey,

colours whisper
to hungry minds
from lithesome leaves
to planting seeds,

branches bound
like blood to body,
to walls so willing
like veins now filling,

lilac leans
with leaves of green,
gently swaying,
thoughts are weighing,

nature bends
to hear my call
and pens take flight
on lines at night.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 3; LINES AND LANDSCAPES

/ deuxiemepeau / 15 Comments

What are we
but lines crossing,
lanes connecting,
leaning on lovers
lying next to us?
What are we but colours
caught out of context,
in corners too curt
for comfort, so often
a reflection already faded,
a ripple unreadable,
a trace too tepid
to be touched, a shade
too subtle to be seen. Blue,
like she said, this is the rhyme
we’ll leave them in time,
a hue of blues on the water,
colour cast into the current
of consumers too caught up
to be concerned. What are we
but tall tales towering
over twisted truths,
echoes that ache more
with their passing
than their lack
of permanence.
What are we
but bright colours
bolt upright, trying
to make our way
through a landscape
that now shadows the day?

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 2, BERRY KISSES

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Bright red berries
linger on bushes
before sunsets
like lip’s lightness
that lingers after kisses.

Bright red berries
tremble in the afterglow
of careful witness
like mouths that modulate
after tender caress.

Bright red berries
adorn towering twigs
thick and tall
like lips in flavour
of that fine flexed flesh.

Bright red berries
slip with the sun
into sleep serenaded
with the days delights
like lips that seek slumber
to sweep over skin
as the scent of seduction
sinks between sheets.

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

 

 

 

 

COLOUR ON CURT CORNERS, PART 1, FANTASTIC FLUTTERINGS

/ deuxiemepeau / 21 Comments

 

On dull days
when the sun
absconds from sky,
when grey grinds
gloom into gutters
and mothers utter
‘stay inside’,
children’s minds
flutter to unfold
like umbrellas opening;
colours cascading
over concrete clutter
like candy to calm
a calamity.

In the midst
of the mundane
and the murky,
inspiration catches
on the canvas of creation
like wings willing
to cut through clouds
and gain the grace
of the sun.

Children’s minds,
so magnificent,
hold matter so magical
that ordinary moments
can become such
extraordinary miracles.

All words and photograph by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: