Art By Barry Quinn https://jamartprints.com/artist/barry-quinn/
Lucan Community College
The Player
The string buzzes along the frets
A note rings true as plenty do too
A blue ballad formed from scales unbalanced
Bent notes scream in kind of the player
The shuffling rhythm steady in its swing
Thrilling notes thrill the crowds
The burning tubes project the sound
Stained
Revenge is the blood on the mattress
It sinks, it seeps
It stains
The blood spilled will never be
As sweet as when first spilled
The blood spilled will never be
As red as when first spilled
It sinks, it seeps
It stains
Years from then,
When the blood once spilled stained to brown
And the pride once felt
When first seeing who you really were
Sprawled on a mattress
As a gruesome display
Now gone, now shame
The realisation sinks
That you can’t erase stains
It sinks, it seeps
Bandon Grammar
Talk
It’s a joke, they don’t mean it
But boys will be boys and
Girls have to deal with it
You laugh it off
But really it needs to be talked
About the way our world
Treats people who are different,
What is wrong with not being the same.
When guys make a joke to hide the fact
That really it makes them sad
Why can’t we talk about how we feel
Without being weak, overthinking,
Taking it too seriously
Why can’t we talk
The Words
You smile and laugh
But no one sees your eyes
The pain and loss behind them
The worry for your friends
For the loss of friends that you have not yet lost
But the pain still sears your heart
The way you lie awake at night grieving the words you said
The words you never said
The words you should have said
The Pitch
The Pitch a vast area of no man’s land.
The match a battle for ground gained and ground lost.
Every ball a shell coming from the enemy.
Every tackle a plane coming in for an attack run.
Every line break an opportunity
To get behind enemy lines.
Every kick a falling spiral bomb
Of hope fear and worry.
Some say war has no winners
The game we play always does.
St. Peter’s Community College
Frustration
I can’t write poetry
I don’t even know why I try
Because everything I come up with
Just makes me want to cry
I don’t like the way that everything I want to say
Turns, twists, changes in my mind
Forming meaningless words
Until there’s only the frustration of failure left behind
Warrior
I’m a warrior
Bright and brave
About to face a foe
That is night from day
I’ve trained for years
Shedding blood and tears
But to no avail
I’ve tried and bailed
I’ve failed, died
And can’t tell the tale
I’m a warrior
Who’s name is
Lost in time
I’ve died, in my prime
Now I’m lost in time
Left in this rhyme
Dunshaughlin Community College
Real Me
Trying to be strong mentally and physically
This era is hard too many standards that are expected.
Looks are thrown at me here and there
By people who don’t even know me
They act like I’m not there
And talk about me disgustingly
Why me what did I ever do
I want to just be me, the real me
Eldest daughter, Secretly son.
Brain wired, thoughts: one,
House secluded, hiding sun.
Body morphs, brain won,
Food disfigured, wanting some.
Hungry mouth, tired lung,
Breath shallow, songs sung
Abnormal Normal
I don’t feel like myself
Chasing between two versions of myself
Always worried about what I do, and say,
Trying to feel like everyone else
Are these feelings normal?
Or am I abnormal?
I’m constantly switching current
AC to DC
Polar opposites, wearing a mask
It’s a constant task
Maybe one day I can lay in peace
Where my mind isn’t going
From place to place
From person to person
It’s just me, me and myself
No one else telling me
What to think or say, have freedom
Cork Educate Together
Eternal
When I die
Take my hand
Put your favourite flower in it.
Close my hand tightly
Into a fist and lay it on my heart,
Before you put me in my coffin.
So that I can hold you forever and
Feel you in my heart and experience
Eternal love
Sensory.
Skin prickles as the sensation
Of a thousand tiny legs scuttle
Their way across skin,
The anxiety of the situation only increases
As the stupidity of fear
Over a simple fabric leads way to shame.
You want to tear the fabric
Elevate the sensation as you rake your fingers
Over your arms and through your hair in panic.
You just want to curl up
Mortification taking over as your eyes swell with tears
And your face reddens.
And nobody close to you will ever relate,
Nobody will offer a quiet space
To calm down as you cram yourself
In a stall to take shaky breaths.
Scoil Mhuire agus Padraig
Imperfect
Why do I have to be perfect.
It’s what my parents expect
But I am not perfect
And without that realization
Life would be a regret
No joy for who I am
Just envy for who I could have been.
You are perfectly imperfect
For who you are
Miserable Morning
Hail, Sleet and Snow,
When will I get home?
Tired and Wired,
Feeling Uninspired.
Red Warnings,
Miserable Mornings.
Looking forward to the break,
And sit by the lake,
To bake a cake.
Silence
Sitting in silence,
Not a sound to be heard,
behind the silence,
A sea of thoughts
Deeper than any ocean imaginable.
Expectations of me,
In the present and in the future.
Feeling trapped,
Finding it hard to breath,
Drowning in the silence,
Eventually I can’t breathe…
Dominican College
Belong
One foot out the door
I wish it was inside
Nothing I can do
But I don’t want to hide
Do they even want me around?
Or are they just taking pity
I wish we had common ground
Do I belong in this city?
Rumination
Hands rest uselessly
An iron clad imprisonment
And that fire, which lights all the corners of your mind
Do you feel it burning you?
The pain of it, searing through your brain
Eating away at your thoughts which, already unkempt,
Have been rotting away to nothing,
In a tireless haze of rumination
Do you enjoy it
Is that why you are so determined
To let it burn to a sizzling crisp
What will propel you?
When will you realise the importance of it
Scoil Chaithriona
Friends
Laughing with friends,
Subtle glances to the left,
The wrong word at the table,
Small looks over their head,
Joke in class,
Looking down at your hands,
Tears welling up,
Staring at yourself in the glass
Summer’s Day
Life is a hot summers day down in Wicklow
Drinking from the garden hose,
Life is the fear of starting something new
because you’re convinced it’s too late,
Life is the cat walking across my chest
In the early hours of the morning,
Life is losing that lifelong friend
Life is walking home from the park in the pitch dark
with only a hurl to protect me from the monsters,
Life is thinking of that one person over and over
Even though you’ve met once,
Life is the slushies after school during the winter
Because it seemed like a good idea,
Life is the constant worry
That I don’t have enough time,
But when I think of everything I’ve written
I realise I’m not running out of time and
I have so much to look forward to