Sky

IN OR OUT

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Lilium lancifolium lies back
in a bed we repositioned
last spring under the scorch
of today’s mid-afternoon melt.

In a slow movement that set her
into structure, before the dawn woke
the rest of us, she assumes a position
to demonstrate the perfect pliancy
of her freckled petals and pushes
everything out to be eaten.

Next to her majesty, in the sluggish
shade of a white pot on the worm-
twisting soil, succulents seal in
all they will ever need to survive.

Somewhere in between I, myself,
am planted with all that I hold vital
willingly caged within these ribs
not even I can open while my fears

sway like stamen from this skin
as I pray for the wind to soon
introduce them all to flight.

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All words and photos by Damien B Donnelly

GIVEN TIME

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Rushes rustle a calling to the rain

mimicking
the sound
of those
molecules
of moisture
they long
to feel
against
their
sharp-
edged
skins.

We all
learn
to mimic
what we
must,
let go
of all
we can
not
hold,
lean in
to what
we love,
fake all
we can
not
feel.

Gulls
squawk
overhead
for prized
position
whilst
wings
spread
out
to claim
all that
eventually will come down from the clouds.

  

All words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly

 

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BRUSHING IT AWAY

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Blue sky growing old,
sun sets into dusty pinks-
a hark for tomorrow

for today cannot be harboured any longer.

In this slow field
surrounded still by stilled life,
still the trees grow,

even daisies have returned after the mower’s menace
last Monday.

Single crow comes
to gather seeds
from once shadowed sections

of the garden I have only now revealed to the light.

Evening’s air is kissed
with today’s stagnation
but the sea is sweeping the shore

at the far end of the near lane where that dog barks next to buttery bush
that cannot concede its connection to the coconut.

And there, on the rock
once integral to the land,
I picture a mermaid, sitting,

combing the tide through her auburn hair in the hope that the current
can wash away the chaos

still carrying on
beneath the dusty pinks
of this ageing sky.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

STARDUST

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Stardust…
the fallout
from the flames,
a nebulous of what
was once known by names,
now falling, through time and space,
trailing dust, a trail of gentle dust
in place of touch, in lieu of place,
in lieu of hold and how we hold;
tighter and stronger, longer, after,
trying to hold a star, a fading star,
burning out before us
when all that’s left
is dust,

our brightest moments
now molecules of light,
blazing through the silence
of the night, but oh what a night.

Look up,
those who linger longer,
who fall and fret
before the great out-yonder,
look to the light
and not the loneliness,
the night is falling
but the light
is still unfolding.

Look up
star dust is falling
from on high,
writing names
across the sky
just for us
star dust…

  

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost for a week of Stars and Moons

SUMMER’S STORM

/ deuxiemepeau / 8 Comments

 

Heaven’s howling!
Summer forsaken, storms converge,
heaven’s howling!
We have flittered too long fowling;
nature forsaken, gods now purge
our wasted ways, our sloth, our splurge,
heaven’s howling!

   

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost.

GRAINS OF SAND BENEATH CERULEAN SKIES

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

Faith
is fragile,
courage
is not always conclusive
until called,
we do not command the waves
nor comprehend the clouds.
I tell you this sand
will be swept into the sea by night fall,
this baying breath of cyan
neath the stretch of those cerulean skies.
This smooth, salt-licked land
was forged from fire
before you were born,
when vultures had feathers
instead of hands and knives,
when volcanos were all there was to fear.
Faith is fragile,
we cannot see what once was
or what will come to be.
We are not the fire nor the future,
we lie somewhere
below the caelum
searching for a shred of security
on a spot of shore
before the tides return
and we, in turn,
become a grain of sand
that some being will one day look upon
and try to see what is no longer there.
It is ours to be the basalt
or to be
something
better.

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All words and photographs (taken on Jeju Island, South Korea) by Damien B. Donnelly

27th Poem for National Poetry Writing Month

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CATCH THE COLOUR

/ deuxiemepeau / 23 Comments

 

Sun sets and then rises and in between
we kiss, catch the kisses that come
upon the current, catch the kiss,
the continent is not always ours
to conquer. Tides come and tides
retreat, touch is temporary, flesh
is polished pink below the sensuous sky
but falls from fold like sands in the
glass that hoards the hours, like clouds
that can never be caged. Sun sets
and we blaze our orange blossoms
into passing nights, the night’s gale
calls of connections in the passing,
passion is precious until it too passes.
Sun rises and then falls, catch light;
catch the fire before it drowns
on the water, catch the colours to paint
the coming of the grey, to keep afloat
until the next kiss. Catch colour,
catch kisses before the sun sets,
let worry waste upon the wave,
tomorrow’s light will be blue enough.

    

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

20th poem for National Poetry Writing Month