Dunshaughlin Community College, Knocks, Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath

Hidden Beauty

What we hide behind is fake,
The velvet icing on a crumbling cake.
The perfect ponytail and smile,
Convinced the effort is worthwhile.

Trying to conform to society,
Forgetting the beauty of variety.
For everyone of us is unique,
And should let our true selves leak.

Because we are truly free to be
As natural as we please.

Lauryn McConkey

I am Me

Look perfect
Have nice hair
A perfect face
An hour-glass body shape
It’s all about what you are on the outside
No one cares about your personality
It’s all about stereotypes
No one is safe
I hear about rape
Terrorists
Murders
I may not be the prettiest
Skinniest, most popular girl
But I am me, no one else, just me
I love myself, my family, friends
I am happy
You see, it should not be based
On where you come from
But who you are
This world might not listen to me
But I know I’m right

Michelle Olatunde

Cage

My mind is a cage with an animal inside.
It screams, and it pounds, and it roars, and it cries.
My skull echoes it’s sickening bray,
And in trying to silence it, my mind goes astray.
You tell me to focus, but its screams drown you out,
I can’t hear the yells at me over its shouts.
My mind is a cage with an animal inside,
It cannot escape, so there it resides.

Emily Quinn

Awake

Awake at dawn
All her happiness gone
She wants to go back to sleep
But she have to get on with her week.
Washing her face so she can cover it back up
”We are all going to judge you, just a heads-up”.
They all put on the same clothes
So no one’s identity shows
She just wants to get through the day
So she can just get away.

Kayleigh Fox

Brainwashed

She looks in the mirror
Sees what to fix
Brainwashed by media
Instagram politics
Unable to see her beauty inside
Unable to run, unable to hide
Behind her makeup
She can’t face up
Jealous of the girls
Who don’t need curls
To get on with their day
She stays tucked away
Hidden from sight
Convinced she is not right
Convincing herself
She should not be seen
Living the nightmare
That lurks in the dream

Beth O’Donnell

A Quiet Winter’s Night

The sound of rain against hard stone
Slippery steps of solitude the quiet roads alone
The night moon high frozen castle
From within the sigh of a thousand winters echo.
A cry of wind carries me someplace else
A ship maybe sailing the breeze?
No back to my room
Where I sit looking out at a quiet winter’s night

Matthew Tiernan

Get Up

‘I don’t want to get up’ I said from my bed
‘Get up, get dressed and get yourself fed’
I picked up my bag and stormed out the door
I wouldn’t be home until five to four
8 hours of torture, 8 hours trash
Learning stuff we don’t need but are forced to grasp
Taking tests that make us feel smart or dumb

Niamh Cowley

Mistakes

We all make mistakes,
We all regret our mistakes,
We all learn from our mistakes,
But if we don’t care if,
We did something wrong,
And didn’t care about the
Consequences.
What does that say about us?
What does that say about everyone?
You might have hurt,
Everyone you will hurt,
Makes a change to be better,
Makes a change to make people
Happy, beautiful and loved
And learn from your mistakes.

Anthony Lennon

Message to my Besties

I know you’re not perfect
Neither am I
I just needed to tell you
That you are beautiful
And smart
And funny
I don’t know what I’d do without you
You’re worth it
We all are
We can say it
It’s not embarrassing
I love you
I love myself
You should too
You deserve it

Gloria Flanagan

Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve I couldn’t wait,
I looked out the window at my garden gate,
Through the foggy glass and icicles,
I saw him beside my old bicycle,
Shivering, quivering in the cold,
I ran out, “come on in I told”,
He wandered up the garden path,
In front of the fire is where he sat.
He watched me sit on the old armchair
I looked in awe as he sat right there.
He was as still as a statue for the first while,
But soon I got to know his big friendly smile.
Ten years on and he’s was still my best friend,
And Christmas was coming on round again.
The streets were filled with lights and joy
And out I went to get him a toy.
The shop keeper asked me whom it was for
I said it’s for my best friend I adore.
I got in my car and when I got home,
I found him lying all alone.
He lay as still as he on that cold winters night
And now my best friend, has gone to the light.

Ingrid Reilly

Girls

From talking behind your back
It can a make anyone crack
And no one being there
It can give you a scare
The loneliness you feel
It gets quite real
But when you find someone that is there for you
You feel like someone new

Anon

Foreign Words

Foreign words with aggressive faces
Nasty comments about different races
Torn school blazers and stood on laces
Void of happiness and no clear traces
All alone in one big gathering
Every day’s a gamble for a random battering
Kids can be cruel but at school it’s ok
All day every day teachers try without success
Hours of yelling with no progress
And yet there still remains distress
But one voice could change that
If a single peer would contemplate
At the thought standing up
Coming together as a group
To say no that’s not alright
Void the dog of his egotistical bite
Then maybe just then maybe
We might sleep a little tonight

Matthew

Battle Scars

School is like a war, ending up with battle scars,
Dealing with the post-traumatic stress of bullies,
Being bombarded by people to be popular,
All you need is one person to stand up and say, “I’m not gonna let it”,

Screaming in your head by all the pain you’re in,
These battle scars are never gonna fade,
These battle scars you’ll never forget anyway,
If they disappear they will never take away the pain that has been caused.

Chloe Bissett

War

In war you don’t see the friendship nor the peace,
You only see the dead,
And the peace being destroyed.
You kill for your country
And end people’s lives,
At the end of war you have no peace,
From the killing and the trauma.

Josh McDermott

Lights Out

The bed that became your home,
Your protective dome of bottled up nightmares,
Afraid to wake to morning’s scars.
Run home,
Lights out.
Clinging to the edge of the abyss,
The thought of death, its endless bliss,
The night-time hiss,
Lungs filling,
Regurgitating
Horrors of the morning,
Mindless thoughts hitting the floor,
Can you hear the demon snore?
The deathly roar
The constant numbing of the soul
Heart beats
Slow,
Lights out,
Come home.

Caitlin Collins

The Old Dirt Bike

The old dirt bike’s mission:
Ascend to new heights
High five the unseen vertex
With co2 emissions

Gunning with echoed wisdom
The bike launches tellingly upwards
Grunting with fervour
Guzzling gas in pursuit of its vision

And when the vertex is reached
The engine will hum a sigh of achievement
And descend with a falcon’s grace
And land with practiced precision

And as the spectacle wraps up
The audience will clap beneath
A victory screech
The brake’s supportive contribution

Anon

I’m Okay

I’m okay
It’s not that sore
These aren’t tears
Stop being a bore
I’m okay
I can’t feel it at all
That’s not a bruise
Don’t even try to call
I’m okay
Really I don’t feel the sprain
It’s not that swollen
Okay I’ll admit I’m in a little pain
I’m not okay
I feel the fear
I need your help
Is that what you want to hear?

Aoife Leonard

Peace

Peace is friendship and love.
Peace is the medicine to stop the wars.
Peace is why some people fight,
But they don’t achieve which they want.
‘Peace in the world and stop the wars,
The fights or the hate’.

If we have peace, we have love.
And if we have love, we can stop the wars.
And if we stop the wars, we might have a better life.

We have to think that we are the population
Of the world and we don’t believe at the same things.
Doesn’t matter if your neighbour, partner or teammate is
Christian, Jewish or Muslim, we have to love him or her
Because we share our day to day with him or her.

Destroy the borders, build more bridges.
If we do that, we meet new people,
We learn about other people and
We don’t be afraid of other people.

I would wish a better world,
A world in peace without wars,
Without fear about other people.

Alberto Montero Moreno

School

The walls are white and the carpet is grey
And time moves slowly toward the end of the day
The halls are crowed with people trying to get to class
All of who are being pushed back and forth
Whilst trying to get passed
It’s too cold, it’s too hot
Excited to learn we are not
School all day, homework all night
The best years of our lives

Meibh Reilly

Una Esquina

Te atrapa en una esquina,
Te deja inmovil sin poder respirar,
Solo queriendo llorar,
Solo queriendo dejar de sentir,
Solo queriendo morir.

Anon

Friends

Monday morning, their arms hug me from nowhere
On Tuesday, their voices call me, I hear them everywhere
On Wednesday, we go outside, we feel the summer
In our faces, and we stay together, even during thunder
And in winter, the cold will never hurt us
Some days go on, and I feel down
I call them, they turn, and now I understand
That the word “friend” is an important one

Julia Fernandez

Football

Football makes my life go around
It makes me who I am
People push and shove and hurt you there
But its lots of fun when the weathers bad
Like hail, rain or snow nobody will ever know
But it’s how I live my life
It defines who I am as a person.
Basketball is a non-contact sport
But it’s how I got a black eye
It makes me who I am
And when people think I’m wrong
Or I should go to a party
I feel like I’m an object
That just goes where everyone goes
I’m not myself, not quite true
But I’ll ask myself, what I would do
If I didn’t have those things
To make me a whole being
Or make me ask or doubt myself
On who I’m meant to be!

Anon

Cars

Foot to the floor,
Both accelerator and clutch.
Let out the clutch, loads of smoke,
Your head gets pushed back into your recaro seat.
You feel a sense of joy, as comes with intense speed,
You must be careful, however, if you crash,
It won’t be fun anymore.
Enjoy the fun while it lasts,
Take care when driving,
And take care of others.

Matthew Scanlon

We

We go to down the cans before a night out
But the lads get too mad and begin to shout
We go to a field to light a bonfire
The guards come, we sketch, slip through the barbed wire
We also go to use the computers
We love them like a baby loves its soother
We go to pay the tool to get to balbriggan
Come home to feast and mam says dig in
We then find out who was sly
We then find out who’s not the nice guy

Sean McConnell

Parents don’t get It

Parents don’t get it, they talk to long
They talk about our generation saying were wrong
They just don’t get that we don’t understand
Who we are or where do we stand
Parents don’t get it, it’s just plain wrong
How long will it continue, it can’t go on

Oisin

Untitled

I come from a friendly family and community
Where everyone is lovely besides the few
People that try to act the tough guy
From coming from where i come from I have realised
How innocent nearly every family is and that they only care about
How they treat others and spending time with their families
Now that I am older and hear about people fighting and stabbing each other
I just can’t accept the fact that people feel like it is okay
To stab other people over in some situations over nothing
When at the end of the day these people
That stab these innocent people would never fight them one on one
And then they the sad families have to live with that grief for the rest of their lives

Adam

We

We sit at the table and see our mother running around all day
With full stomachs we head to bed and our weary heads we lay
We watch the daily druggies get off the Luas to get their dose of drugs
And we watch the geeky commuters walk with their coffee filled mugs
I watch upon the senior hurlers train three nights a week
Hoping to learn from them, how to master my technique
The culchies drive their tractors with trailers full of silage
During the long days, building up the mileage
We sit and be taught things we never need in life again
Writing with the same mankey broken old pen

Cathal Horan

Moan Bags

Day in and day out there here
You can’t run away from em
The pressure isn’t hard
But the always feel it
The dinner’s savoury
Yet they make it bitter
I call them sister
Yet I love em

Caleb Briggs

Hello

“Hello” by me,
Entrapped, in my head.
Low, on my meds.
Please, don’t bother me.

Anon

My Life so Far

My life so far,
Has been a tough battle,
Sometimes I wish,
I could just go back to a baby with a rattle.

When I started school,
I was only five,
And to be honest,
It was so boring, how did I survive.

Fast forward a few years,
I’m a first year now,
It’s a much bigger school,
And a much bigger crowd.

The Junior Cert year,
A year to dread,
The results better be good,
Or I’ll drop dead.

Only three months on,
The results have come in,
And I will tell you this,
They won’t be going in the bin.

Will I go out and celebrate,
Maybe, maybe not,
Going camping the next day,
Will it be cold or hot.

So now I’ve come a long way,
A lot of adventures had,
Got a lot of stories to tell,
And now I’m 16, wow that’s mad.

Isaac Nolan

Education System

The education system is crap,
Just as bad as blight.
It doesn’t help us learn,
And all the teachers are stern.
It only benefits the people who are able
To regurgitate a fable,
But what if you find it hard to retain information,
And you’re told your grades are disappointing your nation.
We should be told to let our imagination thrive,
But we are given the answers and then expected to strive.
And what if you don’t want to do an academic subject when you’re older?
You’re just told to get on with it and given the cold shoulder.
I can’t do much to change the system but I can work towards my goal,
And then in life I’ll play my role

James

4 O’Clock

4 o clock is the best time of the day,
When the last bell rings you just want to run away
You come running out of school bursting for shite
And remember you had maths homework at the middle of the night
Same Teachers same subjects every week
Teachers so old and boring like an antique
Some teachers will annoy you like a bad itch
I just want to finish school, make money, get rich
While all the boring teachers stay in school where they belong
I’ll be out there making money proving them wrong

Aidan Fraher

Untitled

From school to home
From home to school
Going from class to class each day from Monday to Friday
Dreaming that that this will be over some day
On a sunny day and a rainy day
For me, it’s all the same
Just for a better grade in a subject I don’t even care
It’s a nightmare
From nine to four
I’m sitting here each day bored

Adrian Pierzchala

Sleep

Sleep is something I love to do,
Maybe you should try it too.
It’s where all my dreams are made,
Then comes reality where they all fade.
Hopping into my warm bed,
And pulling the cosy duvet over my head.
I can’t wait to see what its like,
When I go to sleep for one more night.

Avril Bowe

Untitled

He comes around the corner
And pulls up his hoodie then
Shouts “what’s up buddy?”
Pulls him to the ground
Then stamps on his head
He runs away and leaves him for dead.
The girl is crying and the boys are lying
He is shocked and his head is rocked.

Alex

Friends

Today I woke up
I was feeling happy
I came into school and
I talked to my best friends
And I am so lucky to have them
Because they are amazing
I love them so much
Thank you.

Emer Kennedy

Northern Lights

I want to see the Northern Lights
I am obsessed with their beauty
Once I see these colourful lights
Dancing in the sky
I will be complete
There awe and wonder
And magical colours amazes me
I will be filled with joy
Once I see the Northern Lights

Rebecca May

Night Driver

The car was fast
Cause speed is key
And I was late
To get my family
I drove through the night
And through the fields
I drove literally anywhere
I mean, I’m writing this in a tree
I’ll be late for my sister’s play
But at least I keep my eardrums

James Greene

My Life

Making memories
Having occasional laughs
In school drawing ridiculous graphs
Eating junk and watching movies
But really I should be eating
Looking at my screen, I don’t know what to write
I want to go to bed, so I guess I should say good night

Nicole

Sense of You

We live in a world where we’re never good enough
Unless you’re host, sexy, tanned and buff.
We all go home to different lives,
Some good, some bad, and some hostile
But the bad ones won’t last,
Only for a while
Because after that we can learn to smile.
You can go have the sense of home
And lie on your bed and waste your life away on your smart phone.
I walk in, put on a fake smile and pretend everything is perfect
While secretly I know my father’s an addict.
We all go to have fun so much that you forget
Anything that was effecting and go home for a home
Made stew and you search in the dark for that sense of you.

Caolac McManus

Life

The easiest position on the pitch the murmurs cry out in the background
When the ball slips through your hands ‘what was that’
They shouldn’t have let him get there, they should have blocked it but no.
There is only one guilty position when a goal goes in he thinks.
No position is easier than the next,
Unless you’re between the sticks or in front of them or behind them
All places, all walks of life are hard,
The thought of a perfect life is ludicrous,
To even begin to think could be possible.
The only thing all life’s have in common is that they’re different.
Nothing else.
Some might say what if you are a rich or a poor person
Or what if you are healthy says a sick person, but it is not that easy.
The rich person has the envy of everyone
And envy leads to hate
And hate is what causes thoughts of regret and jealousy
It can cause people to do stupid things
But the thoughts of the many outweigh the few
And a once outrageous idea becomes rational.
This is what we live in.

Anon

Untitled

I once had a pet dog called Joe,
One day, he bit my big toe,
I jumped up high into the sky
And when I landed I began to cry,
My brother asked me,
What was wrong?
I said,
“I think my toe is gone.”

Shane and Jack

Nap

I really love my daily nap,
They give me comfort and all of that.
They come in all shapes and sizes,
It really maximizes life’s surprises.
20 minutes or 3 hours,
It really makes this life ours,
Similar to Dwight David Eisenhower’s.
Beds, sofas or the floor, or maybe even out the door.
Now you’re probably tired of reading this poem,
So NAP GALORE! And we’ll go home.

Sophie Gallagher and Katie Murphy

A Mission

Girls on a mission
Tonight were fishing
Out on the town, not accepting any clowns,
What’s that in the corner, a fit lad,
This one mightn’t be so bad,
I stroll over and tap him on the shoulder,
Will ya shift me friend :)))))
NO

Katelyn O Dwyer and Aine Mckissock

Bobby

I love Bobby Firminio
He means the world to me
He scores goals and is part of our front 3
Bobby Firminio can’t think of anyone better
He scores with his right and left foot and sometimes even a header
No Firmino is a lot of space to fill
I love Mane and Salah
But my favourite is our man from Brazil

Lee Johnson

Untitled

I can’t give a name to this
Because you’re too lame for this
I hope I become rich
And not give a crap
This life is so boring
It’s always making me snoring
When I hit send
This will end

Anon

The School

The school is so bad
The day is too long
I just want to go home and play FIFA all night long
I am so mad I thought it was Friday
Four days to go its only Monday
Teachers say it’s all right
I will to do homework for the rest of our life
Got another detention this can’t go on

Conor Lawless

Untitled

My name is Jenny
My grandads name is Benny
His dogs name is Penny
I love to eat ham
My favourite make is Denny
My friends are my fam
Sham

Jenny Reid