Plague of Shadows
It creeps, it crawls, and it yearns for the fear in the hearts of men
This is how it finds some purpose in it all
It comes without warning, a virus,
That one instinctively dreads
What does it hunger for, what does it exist for?
It wants to be remembered, to be feared if not loved
Which is the origin of, and deepest of all desire.
But when it comes, it leaves its toll,
A Stygian abyss, an eternal oblivion, which many call their home.
What does it really want?
If anything, or has it given into spite
Does it believe in anything moral,
Or has it been too stained by our defiles
Or does it believe all this to be futile
The reality is, this is its punishment, its suffering,
Everything immersed within a Hiraeth of strife
Ryan Murray
The Fire Starts
The fire starts, a light in a sea of dark, in planes and forests, mountains and seas.
We explored, spread, we grew, made our names and built our homes,
Forged our legacies for the rest to read.
We took our sides, brothers and sisters made foes, our united light was shattered.
The blood was shed, the ground made crimson red,
Our spark taken to war, from a light in unity, to a wildfire in a blaze,
When the flame began to die, we laid down our arms,
But did not forget, those whom the flames consumed.
We gazed to the sky; saw the stars in their ever-shining light,
Their fires eternal, cast through the void.
And now it comes time to discover, is it time for the spark to run out?
Where our fire turns to ash?
Consuming itself again, the fuel that gave it life, seared by itself,
We decide, to spread our spark, or let it dwindle,
To shine our own light, as ever-present as the stars,
Or stay on our sides, and set the world ablaze.
Sean Riordan
Every
Every tear that tracked its way down swollen cheeks
Every laugh that made your throat and ribs burn
Every time you screamed, ‘I’m telling Mam’
Every time stopped at the door, red handed,
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Doors slamming like an earthquake shaking the foundations
Every version of you you’ve been or tried to be
The life you’ve lived between these walls
You’ll leave it behind, but these four walls hold a history book of you
They remember
Riann O’Connell
The Water Drifts
The water drifts in and out against the shore
The big waves batter up against the walls
Old shops and coffee pots are everywhere
Children and adults roam the long endless streets
The loud noises of siren are heard
The loud horns of buses hoot endlessly day after day
Endless amount of cars travel everyday
And endless amount of children attend school
I’ll live forever
Jessica McSweeney
Endless
Endless amounts of people go for a walk along the beach to clear their heads.
The pubs, shops and cafés sit along the busy streets.
The historic Clock Gate towers above the hustle and bustle of the town.
Teenagers socialise around the town chatting away.
The mysterious shadow figures creep around at night.
The town walls look out over the sea.
I call this place home.
Amy Whyte
The Game
Sacrifices are made,
Early morning starts and no plans the nights before,
Games are lost,
“Don’t worry” they say “there’s always next time”,
Hearts are broken,
Words can’t fix a broken heart,
All pride is left at home – you leave mud covered,
Tan ran from the party to go home early before the big game,
Dreams are made,
You look back at a six year old you playing with a massive size five claiming
This is what you want to be when you grow up,
Tears are shed,
That late challenge from earlier is starting to hurt more now
That the bitter numb feeling in your toes started to wear off,
Anger is converted into blood, into sweat, and into tears,
Every blade of grass is covered,
Stud marks of the ones who ran before you,
Finally you’ve made it,
Crowds cheering your name,
Number ten on your back,
Wearing your kit with pride,
This is where you’re at home.
Molly Tobin
The Academy
Our biggest dreams flourish and fail,
Where our intelligence is measured by a score on a test not on our common sense,
Where teachers become friends and friends become family.
The end of day bell rings but the work is never finished,
As the student slaves away waiting for the homework to be finished
Yes, pressure is for tyres they say but the students feel it more than ever,
The anxiety runs through their young veins as
The blank A4 page is placed upon the worn down table
Answer all questions it says but surely that must be wrong,
How can one know all about something that they would discard if they had the choice
School is for some, not for all
Cara Connolly
Gospel
Cold choruses of comfort that clash and clatter,
Broken on the carpet covered floorboards
Winter coats weeping around a withered hook
And warping into withheld cry’s and muffled walking
Mouths of moths munching on musk coated bedsheets,
Moping over an unwelcoming mattress
Snarling hounds howling against a headboard
And hounding you to help with trips of guilt and hurtful hands
Sugar coated secrets kept by sharp nailed secretaries
And smashed sandwiches from vending machines,
Long since restocked by shallow corporate shadows
Flickering fire light of logs and candle, shrugged shoulders and dragged feet,
Stinking of frankincense and spoiled satin seats
Poetry and prayers of people overpowering thought guilt and pricked ears,
Heartbeats pounding and half-heartedly held words
Of jumps and nests and homemade jam in teetering Mason jars
That hold inside-jokes and jumbled words of apologies and unjustified tears.
Heather Daly
The Spotlight Shines
The spotlight shines on my most dire fears
My shadows bears witness, to my darkest sin
Evidence appears as a pool of tears
My thoughts are soon, to my next of kin
My most valuable dreams all scattered far away
Carried by the winds, back to a distant time
My aspirations that I built up day by day
My life felt like a poem, without syntax or rhyme
My fears all captivated in a single memory
A past that I have attempted to escape
All my wrongdoings cultivated and made ready
At the very end, my corpse left surrounded by yellow tape
No-one believed that I initiated my own demise
Fingers were pointed but never to the right
Dark figures wearing an immaculate disguise
As the darkness threatens, secrets will be brought into the light.
Jeiden Sibi
The Harlequin
They want you to forget
Those already forgotten
They want to hide in plain sight
Where men are bruised and rotten
They want you to let go
Of all your vitriolic hate
They can bask in the glory
Of your now sealed fate.
They want their offshore bank accounts
And their loyal dogs of cotton grey
They want their heavy coffins of gold,
And statues of devil’s clay
They always seem to get what they want, no matter what you say
Only you can shine a light, and bring forth a brand new day
They may seem powerful, but they can no longer talk
They are now drowned out by the fallout that is their own fault
Take advantage of what you got
The Harlequin did not kill himself.
Kate Hurley
The Looking Glass
One’s biggest regrets.
The regrets that linger
In the deepest corners of the mind.
Trying to forget,
But it’s impossible.
Impossible to escape
The terrors that have been clinging so tight
Like a child clinging to his mother,
For what seemed like
The beginning of time.
The darkness stares,
Never going anywhere.
Judging every step,
Every breath, every thought.
It seeps into your mind,
A constant reminder
Of what has once been.
Emma O Connell
Your Memories
When you took your first steps,
Your journey of changing and maturing began,
You grew to be the person you are today,
You’ve gotten through your fear, your doubt, your sorrow
Friends and family helping you along the way,
Years pass by, seeing new faces everyday,
Thinking back to your first words, mumbling as you spoke,
Your memories have been made as you move on.
Caoimhe Nic Mhathuna
As Time Passes
When we first stepped through the door,
Nervous and afraid of what was to come,
Growing into the people we are today,
Our first exams and our last exams,
The tears we shed and the laughter shared,
The friendships that were made and lost,
As time passes, we change and grow,
Better now than we were before.
Sophie Ní Choirc Ní Chróinín
Untitled
Where we get in trouble for no reason
It’s so cold and wet cause tis the season
Yet they force us outside, the unstable tide
The girl shifts the guy then kicks him aside
Where childish behaviour died and maturity arrived
They want us to go to university, but hate diversity
Where we fall into a slumber and can’t wait for summer
When the bell rings and we say goodbye to our friend
And finally leave the nightmare that never ends
Chloe
Live Forever
The ocean wants,
To not be polluted,
To live on forever,
For the world to know it’s deep secrets,
Of unknown species,
The water wails,
To be heard,
By the outside world
Darragh
Some Succeed and Some Fail
Some succeed and some fail
Thriving to stay or anxious to bail
Heartbroken, delighted
Learned nothing or heavily enlightened
Pens being dragged along a blank page
Or giving up out of frustrations rage
Wishing they tried harder or revised
Worried due to this test and how the grade
“Determines the rest of their lives”
Caitlin
Here
Here is where blood, sweat and tears are shed,
Games are won but some are sacrificed,
The driving rain convinces us to give up,
but the roar of our supporters make us change our mind,
The silence while waiting for the conversion to be taken creates suspense,
We learn the ball is the most prized possession; we must protect it at all costs,
Everything we worked for depends on the referee’s whistle.
Asia Lupton
I Sit all Day
I sit all day
Clock ticking, school bell ringing
Time that slows down day after day
Hours and hours
Wasting away
After what feels like days, weeks, months and even years
We are glad to hear
That the end of the day is finally hear
Cian Cremin
Them
They want to make you shake from head to toe,
Leaving your body in a shock, frightening but soothing to them,
To make the light in the corner of your room disappear.
Keeping you in the darkness with no light at the end of the tunnel,
‘Till you see your darkness fears on show.
Your heart rate dropping,
Do you run or do you sink into the rabbit hole?,
Slowest drowning,
The loss of breath,
Suffocating you,
Leaving you to die,
Will you enter the dark abyss or reach the surface?
What they want does not make it what you want,
Running away,
The shadows closing in,
But you are faster.
What you do is no longer their decision.
It does not matter to you now,
You have escaped your own shadow,
In the land of the light,
But the light, the light,
Is blinding.
Rory Dempsey
Where
You walk,
You stand,
You cry,
You laugh,
Where your home is.
Fergal Geaney
Dreams are Made
Where dreams are made of at the ripe age of four,
Where we live a full and exciting life and die a long-awaited death,
Where we wake up to repeat the same day as before.
Where daylight quickly becomes darkness,
Where legends are lived and voices are heard,
Where we all sit under the same stars every night,
Where we are buried when life has come to its end,
And our memories are all we have left to take to our grave.
Muireann
Light Dark Light Dark
We see light as good
But for shadows light can mean death
Too much light is death
But too much darkness
And there are no shadows.
Just a shapeless void.
The darkness screams as a fusion of what was once unique
Oskar Bllaut
Our Summer
We spent our summer,
Catching waves and drowning each other,
We lay in the sand,
Some got burnt, some got tanned,
We ate melting ice cream,
Playing rounders on the sand,
We went boarding at training,
When it was raining,
The cold sea made our teeth chatter,
But we were having so much fun it didn’t matter
Avril Cashman
Love Lost
Years of work put in,
To watch it fall apart,
The things I’d give for another early start,
10am Sunday morning, make sure you’re fit,
Three years later who knew so many would quit,
Nine committed under 15s,
The other team laughed ha! Unbelievable scenes,
The passion, the love, the blood sweat and tears,
Our efforts are futile as now the end nears,
Still I would stay and wear my jersey proud,
As I watch, the ship sink deep into the ground.
Moly Tobin
Deaf Ears
I look around; see suffering, war, hunger and pain,
It doesn’t change, though it’s heard, does it fall on deaf ears?
I look around, I see the pain, I want to help,
I want to let them know that I can hear
I look around, I see the posts,
The speeches the voices they mean nothing they say that they’re sorry
And their prayers go out to the victims but they sit,
And they wait, and they repeat, repeat like a broken record,
They do nothing, they listen with deaf ears
I look around, I see the people who can hear, they yell, kick and scream
They warn them, “Listen, listen, you need to help!”
They get a response, repeating, repeating like a broken record,
They listen with deaf ears
I look around, how do I help? What can I do, alone, alone,
I’m not alone, i’ll yell, and kick, and scream, i’ll warn them,
Their deaf ears, until they listen, I will work, not lying down,
Not yielding, the future I will help create, we will lead, and we will listen
We will hear, no longer will words fall on deaf ears,
And repeating messages, I wonder, can you see?
Look around, will you listen?
Sean Riordan
Light meets Dark
The light meets the dark
The playful cheers of kids disappear
Soft screams begin
A shrill ringing
Louder and louder
No hope left
Where dreams die
My body shivers
My heart beat
Stops
HenrI Botrel
Thousands
Thousands have been
Not knowing what they’re doing
Wonders have been seen
But met with booing
My first day of school
Me feeling terrified
Of everything new
These walls recall
The friends I made
Anon
Whisper
What they whispers
Their voice becomes crisper
Crushing my voice
As if, I have no choice
Feeling 3ft tall
My opinions really small
As if, I’m stuck behind a massive wall
Eoin McGrath
The Dark Brown Walls
The dark brown walls covered in educational posters
The feelings of butterflies in my stomach
As I walked in for my first day of school
I sat here and learned everything for the first and last time
Maths and it’s addition and subtraction
Irish and it’s confusing words and sentences
And the friends I made for the rest of my childhood
Jack Murphy-Casey
The Ocean
They dream to be clean
To have fish swimming
To have children playing
To be happy and laughing
To have people walking along the sand
To have someone with them hand in hand
That is what the oceans desire
Anon
People Want
People want you to give up
To stop trying
To think that people hate you
To make you feel like you are dying
People want you to fail
To make you feel upset and alone
To make you feel dead
To make you feel like an old persons bone
Jack Smyth
The House
This house remembers
The joys at Christmas, among the family
It can hear the moments where they all sing along happily
It also experiences the highs and the
But that’s just how the story goes
It remembers
The monotony of their everyday lives
It feels like bees living in their hives
It understands the hardships that they all go through
But it knows they try their best, as that’s all they can do
It remembers
The pulse of the beat while they danced all night
Then it heard the sound of emptiness, not a soul in sight
The environment was calm, like flying a kite
In the end, all they could do was fight or take flight
Conor
These Walls
A baby’s cry
A little girls giggle
A child’s whisper
Monsters under the bed
Shadows on the walls
Only to disappear in the morning light
A door slam
Tears shed
Music blared
The echo of emptiness
On the day, I said goodbye
These walls remember it all
Gráinne Ahern
The Darkness
Lost souls enter
The depth of the darkness
And go deeper and deeper
In to the mouth of madness
Till they go insane
To lose the light of day
And by the slightest sound
A shiver is sent down their spine
For they be stark raving mad
Liam Fitzpatrick
Whispers of the Wind
On a quiet, calm dawn in July
The calls of the sweet hawks fly
The golden sun arises beneath their wings
Those anticipating with hope the fabulous wonders the day will bring
The wind from the east rushed through the land like a beast
Its voice echoing throughout the countryside stirring fear into the wildlife about
Whispering and muttering about the ancient days there
These times would bring a tear to the eye,
The telling of stories that here in old Ireland lie
But these days passed like a happy dream
As I woke up however to the tumultuous maelstrom that in the vast ocean scream
I look now at the writings of great poetry,
Their words expressing the unique and memorable ages long forgotten in time
They bring me back to these times through the whispers of the wind
And now I feel full of majesty
Ryan Murray
Times were Tough
When times were though
They remove all the times when people scream
They hear you talk about your life
They know when you are up or down
They remember all the things you wrote on them
They can see all the tings u do behind people’s backs
They remember the amount of times you were punching and kicking them
They are always there to hear you and will never tell anyone what you said
Anon
So Now
So now, it all begins,
There is no turning back now.
So now, we depart on an adventure
Dreaming of happiness somehow.
So now, we dive right in
Without a sense of what we know.
You are by my side
I’ll never let you go.
Kayleigh Luby
School
You come to learn,
To learn manners, to be diligent
And get nothing in return.
You spend 14 years,
14 years filled of tears.
Tears of worry, Tears of anger,
Tears of hate, Tears of exhaustion.
No one cares because they feel it too.
Then comes a day when you leave it behind,
Your living in bliss but then you’ll find,
You’re on your own, friends live afar.
Your exams grades left their very own scar?
Erin Ahern
The Ocean’s Desire
A dream of peace and endless sleep.
The gentle lap of waves on the shore
Before a storm.
Wishes made from money thrown.
Silent screams
Memories, lost in the sea foam.
A safe haven, full of danger.
The ocean’s dreams are hidden
Behind walls of flotsam and regret.
Love letters in bottles,
Sent but never received.
Secrets, forgotten
Washed away with the new tide.
Aobh Lynch
The Laugh and the Cries
The laugh and the cries,
The confident and the shy,
The first day I walked
These giant’s halls,
Sitting there on my own ready to ball,
The last day that I panicked,
Only the dust remembers my name
Anon
Sometimes
Sometimes I reminisce about
The happy laughing moments,
The sad crying moments,
And those moments I wish to forget,
Sometimes I reminisce about
The memories I made,
With those who I love,
And some I choose to forget…
Anon
A Dark Song
Lost whispers of joy and love
Of sadness and lost hope
The thoughts we wish to ignore
They whisper what we would not say
But think to ourselves during darkest times
They sing our sad memories
Their hushed whispers
Sticking their claws
Permanently in our minds
Gráinne Hearty
The Shadows
The shadows bite back
All those it ensnares in the end
What is the true meaning of this life?
Perhaps there is none at all.
Anon
Creature
To feel what you feel when you turn off your light.
To hear what you hear in your prisons of night.
To know that now ones there to hold you.
To scream when your screams swallow you whole.
For what it wants in return for your happiness.
It’s for you to realise it’s power when you cry.
What it wants is what no one else can have out of you.
It wants what you want so bad.
Anon
Tear Drops
Tear drops of my thoughts,
Showing my own reflection,
Though I would rather it did not.
It is in sense a mirror,
That paves the way
To my mind’s eternal ocean.
Ciara Hanna
The Cries
The cries of the strong,
The lies of the weak,
That final acceptance,
That thay are unique,
The happiness and joy,
Still stuck in this boy,
He never surrendered,
His spirit dismembered,
He has done what he can,
He graduated from school,
With flying colours,
In a world thats so cruel,
He once was a boy,
That always cried,
Who flowered into manhood,
Where his childhood died
Anon
Quiet Chatter
Quiet chatter as the teacher talks
Long months of silence as the Summer passes
Anxious whispers just as exams begin
The fights between friends,
Filled with anger and pain.
The drop of a pen,
The screech of a chair
Will be forever remembered.
Cassie O’Brien Irwin
These Grounds
These grounds were made on
The smell of old graffitI sprayed,
Sparks changing into dark dust.
The songs we used to echo in the lust,
The laughs outburst.
These grounds were made on
All the jokes we used to cry at,
When everything in the world didn’t matter.
When screams bled through scary stories.
These grounds were made of us all.
Julia
The Wind Screams
The wind screams and bites my cheeks
Screams of something but nothing
And no air enters my lungs
I sit but it calls me to stand
The shadows are growing longer
And the corners sit still
Waiting, wanting
I stand and it calls me to walk
They start speaking, but I can’t hear
Black blocks them out
Other muffled murmurs beckon
I walk and they ask me to jump
I jumped
That is what it wants
Anon
Where
You took your first steps.
You talked to your family about your day.
You got ready for your first day in of school.
You invited your forever friends over.
You fought with your parents over the stupidest things.
You had your first love and talked to them for hours.
You got ready for secondary school, nervous as ever.
You grew up and became your own person.
You started your first job and became an adult.
These are the days to remember.
Anon
The Day in December
That day in December,
Trapped up in my cell,
This place is the worst,
But then,
That’s distinct bell
The cage door opening,
An inmate storms in with a shiv,
Scared for my life,
I ask what he wants,
He wants my life to give.
Jack
Care
In do not care
About my hair
It is fair
That I have a bear
Sitting in a chair
He doesn’t dare
To shoot a flare
Anon
Minecraft Remake
Let’s get this bread,
We getting a zombie head
My hands are kinda red
Let’s hop in bed
And sleep like we’re dead
Now it’s November
I’m trying not to think about December
It’s going to be a night to remember
Unlike the French I will not surrender
At least the Internet is fast cause my games don’t have to render
November is finally over
Now mining time is over
I’m gonna pull up in a Range Rover
Coming back from eating a hamburger
All these creepers trynna kill me
One after another like they honey bees
They don’t know I’m sugar free
Getting all my vitamins ABC
Making me feel blocky
Creepers blew up my house
Glad I got my insurance
It’s a regular occurrence
I’m fully under the world
We mine all this gold
Anon