“The Many Splintered Night” and other poems by Aishling Alana Heffernan

The Many Splintered Night

The trembling of my fingers as I hit the keypad,
wakens the dire horror of an unfocussed brain that seeps too much into the mire
of focussed restraint.
To dance under the moonlight in the eyes of the lights that pound into my head,
with the horror of a dancers aching bloodied feet,
the ache in a temple which builds, with quaking stranded legs,
It’s time to meet—
the one.

On the night watch stand, where the pendulum swings
into the land where the kings head swings, my destined king,
down, down into the bloodied dancers path in the mud strewn grass,
his head spins into the shining glass cut meadow
King
King
KING — without a head, but still
crammed into his crown.
—a sane mind is a very over-estimated thing.

When thought splinters into the cosmos,
minds shatter like a thousand splintered feelings captured in the grip of an opium haze
in the laze-y summer night
of a thousand splintered nights–
thought splinters into the cosmos of minds buzzing like hive-bees outside of the hive
-mind

The trembling of my fingers as I hit the keypad
wakens the dire horror of unfocussed brain that seeps too much into the mire of unfocussed
restraint
restraint, restrain it—the feathered spectrum of desire that seeps into the many splintered night.

How I loved the headless king,
How he sent me into the many splintered night.

Morning’s Good Morning

I open tender, dust encrusted eyes,
to morning’s good morning,
—fresh sunrise,
turn feverish cheek into
soft, soft cotton dreams,
even as they run far far from me.

Dream-child, dream-child,
What will you be?
When the morning sun rises,
from the freshwater sea?
Dream-child, dream-child,
What will you be?
Now your dreams are setting you free?

Kaleidoscope

Inversion means from the inside in,
he felt like colour and dragged me in,
as he spun from the inside in.
Kaleidoscope—
settled in skin.

All I could think of was wanting him—
not what it meant or where we had been
I wanted to feel the colour inside him
unfurling from the inside in.
 Inversion, a kaleidoscope settled in skin, that’s him.

He’ll wander my mind and settle in my skin,
my pores will open to let the colours in,
breathe him in.

I know what he wants—
I can’t give it to him.
But still this Kaleidoscope draws me in —

And I see forests, a darkness that breathes, swirling broken oaken leaves falling onto a ground
filled with violets, touched by the moon in this room as rain draws me back to Earth.

Was it that much of a sin?
To want to taste his skin, and let
the colours in?

Even as they dragged me to his world,
and I bent down to drink,
the colours stopped my will to think.

Inversion means from the inside in,
he felt like colour and dragged me in,
as he spun from the inside in.
Kaleidoscope—
Settled in skin.

All I could think of was wanting him,
Not what it meant or where we had been,
I wanted to feel the colour inside him,
Unfurling from the inside in.
Inversion, a kaleidoscope settled in skin, that’s him.

Rag Doll

The walls of your eyes are cold slates;
statues, paintings, shrines to the shrivelled soul inside.
Locked and cross-hatched, weaved and embroidered until the pattern of you is a pattern of
unhealed scars building and building upon the rocky and treacherous foundation of pain.
In and out the needle stitches you, Rag Doll.
And from your mouth words like drops of infected blood creep into my skin and etch from my
pores the sunlight so recently sucked in,
From me you leach the life you crossed over and hid behind the painted veil of a painted face of
a painted life in a painted world,
Until your lies spin lies and worlds of their own, and your words lose even the ring of truth of
the suffering that once bound you to an earthly sphere,
And there in the madness of the clouds above, in the realm of the small and dead Gods, is where
your eyes see me, Rag Doll.

The walls of your eyes are cold slates,
They pay homage to the world left behind by the world left behind and the words of dead priests
still shuddering in their graves from the sins that mark the ineffable continuity of the energy of us *-
there is no hate from me to you,
The hate you hold for yourself is the hate of a civil war, tragic and born not of want but of a rising
tidal wave of resentment and fear and a driving blind force.
I was born when your child was not. Me, the fatherless one, gained the love of your father.
From me words you banished spill, not like drops of infected blood, but like names. Names bring
power, I name you, scarred one, weaved one, embroidered one, Rag Doll who from the corners of
my nightmares rises in the depths of my mind and teaches me again and again the meaning of
fear and love that is not love but bound to the conditions of a loveless bleak world in which you
are the rag doll and the needle both. The creation of pain and the creator of pain and the weaver
of lies and scorn.
Weave me, spin me, crosshatch and dress me. Strip the sunlight from my veins and from my
breathing skin, infect me with words so often told to yourself and still I will fight.
In and out the needle stitches you rag doll, kept in the past of a past of a past we never forget.
We never forget.
Stare at me.

The walls of your eyes are cold slates;
statues, paintings, shrines to the shrivelled soul inside
locked and cross hatched, weaved and embroidered until the pattern of you is a pattern of
unhealed scars building and building upon the rocky and treacherous foundation of pain
In and out the needle stitches you, Rag Doll,
even as you pull the sunlight from my skin–
I stand and sing to the heavens you no longer see through the cold, walled slates of your eyes.

Skin Covered Moon

The time chilling horror of the steel bled keys,
forcing into unbending skin,
the desperation of their need to dominate,
and open-
Bleed, unbending skin, under the moonlit songs,
of long forgotten kin.

The sky is wakening,
it’s eyes open wide,
earth is dancing with its mother tide-
the songs we sing as the mortals underneath
(the steel bled unbending moon)
in our open wounded skin
fall notes of the orchestras
like stitches to a disease
they are the songs of a people
wandering the waste heat of the universe cold in crystalline beauty—
The heat of the blood pumping through our veins
As the clitoris touches the head of the universe of man
Key to Key
Forcing unbending skin—
Are we already forgotten?
Shall we etch pain and match scratches, scars to scars,
as the earth trembles and tears fall from the stars
up from Earth hollow are the cries
of the steel bled keys
The steel bled keys.

The time chilling horror of the steel bled keys
sing to the ones who’s bodies were never meant to bleed
and yet the songs of their people
mirror march to home
the songs of the forgotten
—the ones who felt alone
as they watch the moon
skin covered and open
through skin veiled eyes.