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Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ROCKS

rocks from holidays
living happily ever after
on her study shelf

Greek rocks Italian rocks
chatting to each other
in Rock

Greek rocks Italian rocks
all talking
... a load of rock

a Spanish stone
chips in
but no one listens

rocks covered in
dust
longing for her feather duster

new home
for the Spanish stone
a child’s present

the Italian rock
ooops visits
the floor

“Heya youa guys
it’s another world
adowna here! ”

Greek rock
stays put
doesn’t like to travel

oooooh temper temper
she throws her rocks
at cheating lover

Greek rock flies out
bedroom window
returns to nature

happy amongst English stones
Greek rock
soon settles down

what a joke
the Italian rock cracks up
the ormolu mirror

her shelf
empty now
rock-less

china ornaments
now live
where the rocks lived

fragile china ornaments
fearful of her
moods

loneliness
like dust
settles on her ornaments

car headlights
sweep the room
dust on china ornaments

car rushes through
her telephone conversation
her words jump out of the way
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs:
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
JIKANWA TOMARU( TIME IS STOPPED)

The dead were talking to me
in black and white.

Complained all the colour
had gone out of their voice.

Complained they lived their lives
like they were a movie.

The illusion of living
rather than the thing itself.

You know...that thing
"cinema is truth

24 frames
per second."

We call it
"Waiting for Godard" syndrome.

"Oh our "story has a beginning
middle and an end but. . .

. . .not necessarily
in that order."

Sometimes it slows to
just a still or

Godard help us
only a publicity photograph.

We look at your living
envious of your movement.

Your ability to
change and be

something then
something new again.

We can remember
doing that without thinking.

God it's hard.
So hard to see you

take it all
for granted.

What we would give
just to be aware

of a leaf
trembling on a tree.

Or a bird taking flight
into a summer.

Or see a stone
skim across water.

World has become
tiny as a tittle

on an i or
a j

or how was it the Bible put it
". . .till heaven and earth pass. . ."

Earth time is so
brief.

Blink and you
will miss it.

We thirst for even one
of your seconds.

Hunger for the time
you so nonchalantly throw away.

Here....there
is...no time.
"JIKANWA TOMARU!"
"JIKANWA TOMARU!"
"JIKANWA TOMARU!"

"Time is stopped!
Time is stopped!
Time is stopped!"

They kept repeating
...in Japanese.
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
I FEEL PRETTY...OH SO...PRETTY!

I a...
...wake

covered in glorious glitter
smelling strongly of PVA glue

sticking to my cheek
very

hung
over

& covered in blueorange
yellowred feathers

a bubble
recently blown

perched upon
my nose

I...still....half coma...tose

tiny bubbles travel
amongst my curls

as through
a bigger bubble brightly

nestling neatly
over my right eye

I observe
my tiny daughter

purse her lips
& kiss

more bubbles
into being.

“Till...y! ”

I force my lips
(still frozen in sleep)

to some
how speak:

“What...you...do? ”

(even my syntax and sentence structuring is shot)

She smiles sweetly: “I’m
...pretty-ing you! ”
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
THE NOW OF THEN

that summer was
locked away in another century
as if it could never die

it lived on and on
despite other times
rusting about it

he could feel
the sun of that time
burn his skin

a breeze blew
as if it would
blow forever

there was no
stopping this time
time that owned itself

living independently
of the world
obeying its own laws

more realer
than the reality
it had escaped from

he was living it
again and again
like the first time

the sun painting
freckles across
the bridge of her nose

sheltering her eyes
from the too hot sun
the tomorrow to come

always there
will be
only this now

he had stolen
from the universe
refusing to give it back

both lost
in a kiss
oblivious to all else

he laid the flowers
on her grave
turned away

still seeing her
as he saw her
way back then

she lost
in the forever
of his mind
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
LAST LONELY FLIGHT

Butterflies that flew in 1932
still held in that summer

by the exquisitely neat calligraphy
& cruel glinting pin.

I wipe the dust from the glass
& they gleam as if they still dream

of being alive.

i smash the glass
clutch them in my hand & climb

from attic to roof & slowly

drawing myself up to
my full height

release them back into time
smile as they flutter in the summer breeze

of then & now
their dead eyes taking it all in

clouds...trees...skies

their one last lonely flight
back into nothingness
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
BRAND NEW DAY

the morning came up
roaring for all
it was worth

like a lion
but despite my voice
being all rusty and everything

I tamed it
with whip and chair
"Down...down I say!"

until it became
the MGM logo lion
sitting on a stool

roaring for all
the world
like the newest of mornings

announcing
the film of my life
in celluloid black and white

throwing popcorn
into my open mouth
dazzled by the silver screen

was that really
me up there
thirty feet flickering high

and I wondering who
was going to play me
for that day
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