THROUGH THE SANDS, Day 7 of A Month With Yeats

 

Day 7 of Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge and today’s inspirational quote from WB is: ‘…stars, grown old in dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, sing in their high and lonely melody…’

To join in the creativity or just to discover Jane’s gentle genius, her blog link is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/category/poetry-2/

My poem today is called THROUGH THE SANDS

 

And when they danced

she would hold him, her

perfume by his face, his

hands as her strength

as they waltzed through

their current as the tides

swept the shore, through

love and labor, to the first born,

still born, through the twins

who stopped the tears

and the girls who tied

the bows as the sands slipped

through time and the pace

became a quick step, through

the hands that held and those

hips that swayed through

the melody they were making

as they danced through

waves of washing houses

into homes, children into

strangers; rarely calling

and barely remembering

but on they danced as red

locks swept into silver strands,

as full head turned to bald head

on an older head as they turned

to the music now made

in the memory, till she left him,

finally, one morning in may,

as he rose to the sunlight but

she had lost to the moonlight

and so he built her an alter

of sea shells and sentiments

and now he turns, alone, across

the sands still slipping,

as the stars plot a path for him

to reach her in eternity.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ILLUSIONS 

 

Gardens grow,

trees get taller,

clouds gather.
I see you

in the movement,

in the air that rushes past time turning,

in the scent of sweetened summer

now swept into corners now shaded.
Clouds gather,

trees get taller,

gardens grow smaller.
Eden is an illusion lost.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

LIQUID RHYTHM 

 

Expanding on the magnetic poetry oracle…

Need is hard
(to give in to
that craving for connection)
‘Not yet,’ I said (to Time,
teasing along twitching ties),
‘Drink me not, dark angel’
(we are light still and far from brewed).
Joy is a dance
of liquid rhythm
(lithe are we, fluid forms falling into arms
not always favouring hold),
hearts bleed when opened
(steel we are not, though hard are we
to mould into mutual).
‘Make us a secret
though our embrace is concrete
so maybe we (can) linger longer,
(let’s drink ourselves slowly,
regardless of how time ticks roughly).

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

TIME ON THE TIDE, PART 5; COTTON CANDY

 

Clouds come,
cover, congregate,
create contours
out of what was once
just colourless cotton candy
to catch us unaware
as we swim through
each other’s current,
currently without caution
and I wonder if we are
no more than clouds;
coming together,
creating colours
in between the shadows
before we fall too heavy,
too saturated, too needy
and comes the rain
pouring from the corners
of our eyes.

Clouds come, clouds go.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

TIME IS FLEETING

 

Time is fleeting.
See it slipping through hands
eager to clasp all that cannot be caught.
Time is fleeting
but this is not always tragic
for we are traffic motoring along
the carriage way in search
of contentment in accompanying cars,
meandering towards the midway
and making out with the magic
that caresses the quiet corners
of our day while all the time
time flitters forward.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter poetry prompt from #WrittenRiver

THIS CAN BE PARADISE

 

All tides,
like time,
trickle away,
all thoughts
are tempered towards forgotten,
all hold;
to the harbour of has been.
All waters
wash through rivers
to find the ocean.

We are water
washing through paths,
plotting our way
towards that dream
of paradise.

Today we are hope floating,
tomorrow; no more
than faded memories.

Build paradise
along the path
and not just in the dream.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Based on a Twitter poetry prompt from #ShapePoetry

OUR TALES IN TIME

 

Time turns;
living, loving,
leaving, moving,
unpacking belongings
from battered boxes
neath a new roof
my thoughts will soon
echo through,
the faithful and familiar
find prized places
in new positions.
All that has changed
is the clock I hang
on a new hook
in this new home.

For time, like life,
never stays put;
with every tick
it tells the tale
of where we’ve been
and what’s yet to unfold.

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

Based on a Twitter Poetry Prompt from #MicroPrompt

LIMITLESS

 

I am older now,
wiser now,
time has folded
over fears and foolishness,
I am man now,
boy now; nowhere to be seen,
I can gaze back
at who I’ve been
but can only wonder
at what I’ll become.

Time folds
but life yearns to be limitless.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Inspired by a three word Twitter prompt ‘Folded. Nowhere. Gaze’ from @_Sense_Wrds

A KISS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE

Day 25; National Poetry Writing Month #NaPoWriMo 

If I could reset the world
I would start it with a kiss
on a silent night
In the corner of winter,
summer has claimed the light,
dark corners need our attention
more than the sound of the sea
and the smell of the sunscreen.

If I could reset the world
I would start it with a kiss
on lips I’ve never tasted
in a place I’ve never been,
I am done with parted passion,
others have since traced these lines
and found the tremble too intense
and the trench too tough to traverse.
If I could reset the world,
I would start it with a kiss
and seal it with a bond
That time can’t comprehend.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken in Ayrshire, Scotland.

BOTTLED PAST

 

It’s outstanding
what odours
can own,
how biographies
in bottles
can board,
how illusions can lie lay
in liquids,
how subtle scents
can be savoured.

I sprayed you
today
on my hands

-so cold to caress-

from a bottle,
a simple bottle,
in a shop,
a simple shop,
in a city
that never saw us,
in a land
that never heard us,

or knew
what we felt
or how we smelt,

that never caught
our connection
shattering into pieces,

leaving nothing
but a sweet scent
on the sheets
of other beds
in other streets.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly