A SINGLE DAY IN THREE PARTS

29/04/202017/04/2020 / deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

Part 1

Morning
comes with birdsong these days
instead of street cars and sirens,
Blue Tit and Yellow Hammer
next to daisy, daffodil and dandelion
as the garden springs like never before.
Part 2

Afternoon
is found at the far end of the near field
because distance is dearer now as we take
slow steps around all we once overlooked
to see what this unsettling light can reveal
along those old paths life lost time for.

Part 3

Night
comes with gentle lights that dance
in windows, flames reaching out further
than the stretch of our arms, to touch
other souls at the far end of other fields
recalling old paths while wondering
what tomorrow’s birdsong will bring.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

IN BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE SLEEPING

12/04/202004/04/2020 / deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

Packed like yams into dusty carriages
we watch from the safety of our sitting room
where Nana used to sit and iron by the table
and Pop, in the corner, with his pipe,
now just names in prayer and that picture
of their wedding on a wall that still stands
and they, long taken to the sleep.

We sit in all this space while passengers
are packed like sandwiches in tin tubs,
trains swapping stations and germs
on the Underground, over the water
where I used to live, once, when nana
was still ironing and Pop, already sleeping.
I was happy then, I think, I tell myself,
I played happy at times, hilarious
and happy little me in Hampstead,
back stage, behind the spotlight
and considering the distance
I’d covered and the sitting room,
the sofa, the Nana and the Pop.

We watch from that sitting room,
now, with its ceiling since lowered
so the heat stays closer to the body-
the only contact we’ll consider-
she on the sofa and me- single armchair
for single boy returned home as man
and now kept home in quarantine,
in close quarters, two grown-ups
counting the money they cannot spend
and watching lives unfold on the telly
after playing clean-up in the garden
and looking to the trees for carvings
of connections since taken to the sleep.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

OTHER WAYS TO DANCE

22/03/202020/03/2020 / deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

I weigh flour and sieve it, like snow falling-
a few select seconds of harmless dust
to decorate these stopped streets
with isolated sirens that stir more in body
than the contents of this bowl.
I reach for those tiny flakes that offer rise
before pouring over the honey-
a smooth sweetness to cut the bitterness
of all that cannot be held in isolation.
Oil comes next, with the water,
once called incompatible
but when all else is distanced
other things find ways to dance.
While it boosts by the window
in a bowl of sunshine,
we take a slow stroll along small paths
that meander through muck and memory.
Mum points to a rickety door
she once knocked on to buy milk,
only a jug left now in an upper window
holding moments that will evaporate.
We pass fields and wonder
that is leek and what is weed
and in our minds make lists
of all that still grows in open pasture
while aisles look empty indoors.
Back home we sit, after bread is baked,
finding comfort in its crisp corners
as butter melts over this uncertain heat
and we remember yesterday,
when life was as simple
as a slice of bread with butter running.

All words and photographs and bread by Damien B. Donnelly (bread recipe from The Happy Pear)

Inspired by a #PoetryPrompt on Twitter from the #PoetInResidence Catherine Anne

Cullen at @PoetryIreland

HUMBLE AT THE HEART

13/10/201913/10/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Humble at the heart of this landscape,
this dreamscape I’m training through,
I’m taken by its blossoming breast;
forests firing like volcanos that have shun their rest,
luscious leaves of lava sweep through cities
for man has no control over the mountain
just as nature has no defence against the molten flame
as fiery as the kimchi I’m trying to comprehend.

This one’s a little more digestible, you tell me
but I know you’re teasing as you toss with your own truth.

Beyond our feasting over meals
bigger than bellies but smaller than budgets,
skyscrapers shoot up over mammoth mountains,
a competition that man has no time to master
while in homes, humble, calmness is harboured
to the shore instead of clutter to sink beneath.

Humble resides in the heart of this Republic
once ravaged, often raped, now a melting pot of mystery;
many foreign feet of soldiers stamping
have dug their shadow into all that still somehow shines.

Museums have wings for Japan and China
and those Mongols who molested these mountains
still standing, still growing, still calling us to come
and climb and see the world from another side.

We come to the call of the mountains,
all sweaty chested and dosed in awe,
my heart is held at this height,
it trembles beneath this fragile flesh
and I hold on tighter to each grip of grandeur
and wonder how long my footprints will be cemented in this soil.

From here, high above the crow’s nest,
where Buddha rests with all that remains,
where fortresses have been forged and since forgotten,
these cities sweep away from who they were
and show themselves as who they are becoming.

We are not who we were
but what we have made
out of what has been,
in dusted days,
done to us.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. This week’s theme was South Korea which I travelled through last year when everything was being questioned; my relationship, my former partner’s dysphoria, our own identity, my strength, literally and emotionally, my breath, the first introduction to a panic attack on top of a volcano at 5am while waiting for a sunrise that was not as exceptional as the attack which I thought at the time was a heart attack (yes, I can occasionally be dramatic; you should have seen me in the hospital entrance area when they were trying to tell me it might be very expensive to come in and be treated as a foreigner while I was telling them it might be worse if I died in the middle of their corridor) . All in all, the country, its peace and people and proximity to me at the time, left it a beautiful mark. It was the toughest time and the most precious. Buddhas, blossom, beauty and an understand of breath.

IN THE SEOUL

12/10/201912/10/2019 / deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

This city does not sleep,
the wind as wistful as thoughts I cannot gather,
here, on this sojourn to the south of Seoul.

Horns honk along highways
waking drivers out of daydreams the night can’t decipher
and we buckle up and giggle briefly in back seats
but I cannot distinguish those star-bound lanterns hung with hope
from the knotted sheets I know not how to untwist.

On the soft slopes,
where Buddha has been worshiped into rock,
helicopters chase the rising sun
while you chase the parts of yourself pills cannot pacify.

Dysphoria is the new mantra.

This body won’t sleep,
this mind has taken to meander along this midway
as trumpeters announce connecting trains
we are always breathless to keep up with,
where palaces accumulate space
in place of standard stains of garish gold,
here, on this eastern stretch of the journey,
here, where cars honk in foreign tongues, far from familiar.

All is not what it once seemed,
this mouth no longer makes sense
as I cut across these sweeping vistas of strange words
breathed with bows and ways so traditional they worry the West.

Here, where there is more space to breathe and my lungs ache to adapt.

In the North,
strange armies are Trumping connections
the other continents are too confused to comprehend.

But here,
south of the strangled ties and demented ducks,
sitting sweet beneath a wiser moon,
the streets are awash with twinkling stars
below a billowing blanket of nature’s blossom;
a covering of comfort which concrete can’t squash and man cannot master.

My body can’t sleep…

I’ve seen too much but still hope for more
while this city wakes up to who it truly wants to be.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. This is a reworked poem for a week recalling last year’s breathless sojourn in South Korea. Photo taken outside the Dongaemun Design Plaza.

A SLIP AWAY FROM BLUE

12/10/201912/10/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 5 Comments

Eyes a slip of grey from blue in a city not known as home,
on a mountainside to shelter a temple,
she is as welcome as the wind is warm,
she was there before us and we were caught before we knew it.

She carves life, carefully, like the Buddha etched into stone,
the chisel is the compliment to the rock and not the ruin,
an outer expression of inner contentment,
a monastic monk on a meditative mountain and I fall
between the stillness that rests behind each word.

Did her mouth smile
or just her eyes that shade of grey a brush away from blue
as she takes us to her temporary temple of wood and wonder
and shares with us a simple feast on a sweltering day
a treat along the trail, a rest upon the journey,
a moment to bear witness; not to be greater than the Buddha,
not to rise higher but to reflect on what we can become.

We climb over rock and broken earth,
diverge through dead ends that still deliver more light than loss,
we thirst and tire and then take in another treat; another temple, another tree,
a smile from the locals who look and laugh
and wonder why we came and what we will take back.

We travel on and place our tired feet into holds others once held to
as we witness wonders so many others may never see.
We have sat and shared joy like food, laughter like it was love
and coffee like it was an elixir to let us in on the light that lingers over life
and the eyes of the gentle light from Lithuania,
a slip of grey from a sea of blue
seeing the simple synchronicity in all that is true.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. This week’s theme is South Korea and recalling the travels though it and the faces found along the way.

NO COMPARISON

06/09/201901/09/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 9 Comments

And they say that man
is master and should marvel
at all he can make

but there’s no mistaking
the meaning of majesty
when the seas and heavens

shake.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

GOLDEN HARMONIES

04/09/201901/09/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Sight sees,
on Sundays,
beds of bowing
sunflowers, bowing
in beauty, not weeping
from weary, caught under
careful clouds; to comfort, not
to crush, sweet simplicity in growing
gardens, growing gold, going on, going green.
Sight sees, on Sundays, harmony reigning majestically.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

BALLOON

09/08/201906/08/2019 / deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

Balloon,
the balloon,
see the balloon…

see thoughts float
through space,
meander through the mind,
wild thoughts, drifting thoughts,
black thoughts, orange thoughts,
thoughts arriving unannounced,
uninvited, unaware of the current climate,
thoughts that rise like balloons
on silent streets
on sleepy Sundays
in the suburbs
to shock and surprise

(though if no one ever sees it
was it ever really there?)

Thoughts float
through time,
suggestions, signs
from unconscious minds,
disruptive thoughts, distracting thoughts
(I held his hand in a taxi while thinking of another)
Time ticks through thoughts
as we scurry through strange streets
grasping the wrong hands
throughout this diversion,
this constant drawing in of air,
drawing in on inspiration
wherever necessary
wherever noticed