Biography of Dónall Dempsey

Dónall Dempsey is an Irish poet who writes from London and Southeast United Kingdom. He lives alone in London without even a cat! Dónall has read with John Cooper Clarke and Paul Durcan on Irish television and has made two radio programmes for RTE. As the RTE GUIDE so succinctly put it: “ the only way to read a Dónall Dempsey poem is to have it performed by the author.” SONATA FOR POET AND COMPOSER was a radio collaboration performed by Dónall and the composer Jolyon Jackson. Dónall had stopped writing and performing for many a long year, but a recent head injury and paralysis caused him to confront this lapse and resume the mantle of poet. I guess if that’s what it took then that’s what it took. He is now manfully working his way through both paralysis and poetry and hopes to get out of one and enter the realm of the other.

COME VIENE...VIENE!
(WHAT COMES...COMES!)

The sun is
preaching her sermon

to the town
of Praiano

that clings to the cliffs
in wonder.

Here in her hand
of light & water

she tells the parables
of pebbles.

One wave waves to another
as she walks upon the water.

Bells undress Time
disrobe her of her hours.

Lemons grow
big-bellied on branches

pregnant
with yellow.

The juice
of the Future

praying in a church
of trees.

Here, a congregation
of butterflies & bees.

Grapes dream of being
turned into wine.

Figs ripen
with pleasure.

The gods of pagan times
survive

disguised as statues.

I only believing
in the religion of

a woman's
laughter.

And even now
as darkness

grows
upon the rose

it's as if
the sunlight never leaves

only changes
colour

and the sunlight darkens
only to blossom

into the next morning
in love with Time.




CHE COSA SI FA

Il sole
sta predicando

alla citta
di Praiano

che miracolosamente
si aggrappa alle scogliere.

Qui nella sua mano
di luce ed acqua

racconta le parabole
di ciottoli.

Un' onda fluttua verso un'altra
come cammina sull'acqua.

Le campane spogliano il Tempo
la svestono delle sue ore.

I limoni crescono
rigonfi sui rami

gravidi di giallo.

Il succo
del Futuro

che prega in una chiesa
di alberi.

Qui una congrgazione
di farfalle ed api.

L'uva sogna di essere
trasformata in vino.

I fiche maturano
con piacere.

Le divinita dell'epoca pagana
sopravivono

transvestite in statue.

Io credo solo
nell religione

di una risata di una donna.

E anche ora
come il buio

aumenta
sopra la rosa

e come se
la luce del sole non andasse mai via

ma cambia
solo colore

e la luce del sole si oscura

per fiorire
la mattina dopo

innamorata del Tempo.


Copyright © 2010 Dónall Dempsey

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I wrote this poem last year after coming back from Praiano( between Amalfi and Positano ). I had been going there for the last two years and fell in love with the place. So this is a love poem to a place and a love poem to life just busy being itself. I wrote it first in very poor Italian( hardly have any) and then translated it into English. My Italian wasn't up to it, so my friend Marisa helped make it flow! I lost both English and Italian versions and only discovered them this year after coming back from Ischia.