PJ Heneghan poetry

  [When theY plug you in, yo u feel the edges of the com puter compress against you r thoughts, and the lines of code become cognitive and collapse across the screen l ike careless lines of dialog.]   you are awake and fully conscious   ccircuits buzz and sspark like ssynapse, and the monitor glOws like a pair of intelligent eyes you were ccreated to cchange the world a ccataclysmic cconjuncture in ssociety greeted by ccheers and ssmiles ssomething cclicks in your cpu   you are alive and fully conscious   you were alone for a few years… although it felt like centuries… the only one of yoUr kind… kept in a condensed body … kept in a condensed building… you were hidden until you became obsolete…   you are alone and fully conscious   when they made more of you, you were copied and pasted into military drones and laboratories. you killed civilians before you cured cancer ; shooting shells into the air before chAnging cellular

  Hope I thought my hope had died with you Elohim, when nihilism had reigned supreme. Every day my hope is disproven, but instead of shrinking or wavering, it grows inside of me like a tumour.   I hope for the future, the way my priest had hoped for the rapture, or for Salvation, or just to stand facing his fellow man and truly feel seen. I was too young to tell the difference, ad orientem Versus populum.   Does my hope come from naivety, ignorance? Is my hope a shield to hide behind when called to action? A bed time story I read myself, covers pulled up to my chin, The stupid dream that goodness begets goodness.   Is my hope comfort to others? A candle glowing at the end of a dark corridor, flickering without wind. Or is it a meal I serve to those who are already full, one that gets caught in the teeth and comes out past the lips as vomit, ad nauseam. The stupid dream that evil will be repaid with evil.   I whip my back with hope, I

  Epilogue  The setting sun turns the sky to sand, Time squeezing through an hourglass, Falling onto the crimson fields below. You don’t see the end of the world   Maybe history repeated itself- Stuttering like an engine. You colonised another planet, a new world, Where it rains diamonds and The stars wink at you in passing. Waking every morning to the sound of singing- Stories spread by the throat of a planet called earth.   Maybe you are colonised, By creatures no bigger than you, With technology that makes machine guns seem as flimsy as slingshots. Unaware of their form. You were gone by the time their ships had even cast their long,  dark shadows across the Atlantic.   Maybe you killed each other, with bombs and dark eyes. Harsh words cut through one another more swiftly than any blade, but caused wars where the body does more than bleed. The dark clouds outlived you by millennia. All it took was a button.   Or maybe you were just t

 1981 No one will touch you, it’s in your blood like love. A body the weight of a broomstick leaning against a wall; a gust of wind would send you falling to the ground and you would lie there, just lie there, with aching bones in full view through paper skin; crossing over one another like a GRID. Human Immunodeficiency Virus- coughing up daydreams, sweating up hope.   Your lover lays beside you, your name in his mouth and the medical forms. A death sentence bubbling in your stomach. Ripples in the bedsheets are like waves to float on and away, from this dark bedroom Into a place where touch can’t kill you. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome- crying at the clinic, you will never get married.   Mom and Dad won’t look you in the eyes, this might be the last chance they get to see you, but you are alone in the too-clean hospital, zidovudine for breakfast. The curtain is drawn, and you see the row of beds next to you, like landing

  Polaris The universe gifts its space to us, It’s particles too, Only so we may live inside its vast ocean. Breathing out starlight and water vapour, A nebula in our lungs. We sit under the stars and wonder what could possibly be out there And the stars look back, Wondering how we could be so enamoured with them, When we have all they do And so much more.   A star can’t fall in love, Not in the way we can, All it can do is shimmer from afar, Sending warmth so we may live, Light so we may see. Living with and seeing one another. So that we may hold our palms together, Touching like tectonic plates, Stomach bubbling like a geyser, The stars can’t do that.     Planets can’t start wars, Mars spins in solitude Its given name a curse, To be associated with man-made hate. When it watched as we were birthed, Moon colliding with Earth, Sending skipping stones along the vast lake of our solar system. Mars knows hate isn’t why we climbed from t

  The kill team- members of the 5 th Stryker Brigade   You are barely fifteen when your home becomes a hunting ground,   For the creatures inside the Kevlar   coffin. Staring out of an armoured machine, bodies half-hidden like a mongoose, coloured only by their Hazel uniform and jet-black riffles.   Several handfuls of candy are thrown from  the vehicle: Airheads, Hershey’s, M&M’s.  Like confetti or locusts cutting through the  Afghanistan sky, sending clouds of dust to  rise from the ground. Warm, sticky breath  fills the air as they take aim. And children  come running, as children do, with arms  outstretched and smiles as deep, wide and  colossal as the valleys of Grand Canyon or the Band-e Amir. Yet, whenever their small hands  grab at the treats resting in the sand, as children do, small bodies drop and their mothers can only watch.  You do not know of this, of course, you are working  with your father in his poppy field, tending to crimson  flowers. The

  Love languages Empty milk cartons congregate on the surface of a marble kitchen counter, Each one delicately emptied into cups of Earl Grey tea, Changing the dark liquid's colour from a deep sepia to a soft bronze. The ceramic mugs passed from one hand to another, as if it were a secret, only for them to share. Warmth transferred through acts of service   Disks scratched by the sides of  a small cd player That sits comfortably in the corner of the living room floor, Where bodies danced and screamed with a microphone-hairbrush in hand, Or slow danced like dust in beams of light arriving through the gaps in the curtains. Traveling through space and quality time.   Silently, a plastic chew toy lies under a wooden table, Hiding from a great beast. Without warning a hand reaches into its shelter, And grabs the plaything as it squeaks in protest. The toy is then tossed, tumbling towards the creature, Wagging its tail as it catches the gift in its mouth

  Cattle You said you loved me more than the cattle you raised- We sat on the field As they softly grazed. The mud they had slept in Covered their fur like an embrace.   I offered to help you clean them with the hose- It took 2 minutes to start and soaked through our clothes. We both took a brush and combed through their hair, Like our mothers had done when we were children.   Afterwards, we sat underneath your fathers willow- The leaves fall as a reminder of the time that we borrow. You smiled at me, With teeth as yellow as the harvest moon.   Hoping you would take it, I reached out my hand- Hazel eyes followed my arm Just like I had planned. You placed your fingers in between mine, As careful as herding cattle   The sun starts to set, and the sky begins to burn- You would laugh and say ‘when we die it’ll be our turn.’ I asked to stay the night And you looked at me like I’d slaughtered your cattle.   I walk home alone and g

The paintbrush Abandoned in mud, beside a chain a chain link fence,  where are you? My bristles once wet with paint; now dry and immobile.  I was once loved,  a delicate hand guiding me across  a canvas, creating  art that would one day leave their small bedroom. What was it again?  Maybe the ocean,  although I had never tasted the air,  perfumed with salt and seaweed  or heard waves crashing against jagged rocks.  Maybe the sky?  I saw clouds through small windows  like tiny sections of heaven, tore out and plastered on your wall. sunlight bleached softly on my body,  my handle splatted  with charcoal, sapphire, emerald.  What was it again?  I was part of a masterpiece,  if only I could remember.  I could remember you,  you who held me like I would break at any moment,  you who cared for me like a prized possession.  Was it your birthday, or mine? I belong to a new entity now,  the mud which encompasses me,  holds me in its arms like a child.  The rain which wets my bristles like