To Reflect
I don’t think I’m cynical
I think I reflect the world how it is
Me, a cracked mirror,
And society already distorted so that,
What does it matter if the reflection is inaccurate?
I don’t think I’m rational either,
Who could be?
We’re all just ruled by who we think ourselves to be
Moulded by what others say.
But there’s always some comfort in connection,
The world isn’t all bad
You can be cynical
And you can be rational,
You can say screw the world and all it stands for but
At the end of the day
You’d be wrong if you tried to say it was all bad
Because there’s comfort in some things,
Small things remain holy,
There are glimmers of light in the most unexpected places.
And I’m not saying
That if you think cynically,
If you’re sad,
Immobilised by the crushing weight of the world,
That you should simply step out of the shade,
Just that there are moments where sunlight exists
And maybe you’ll find your way back into one of them.
Alex Sheridan
Minds Moulded
Individual minds moulded into factory workers,
Prisoners, traitors, thieves and deserters.
Followers decide virtual friends;
You look at the world through a virtual lens.
You learn to memorise, but not to learn
Striving not to live, but simply to earn.
Friendships are born and friendships die
Some last forever, most say goodbye
Facts are forced in and thinking forced out
Theo Puech
Caged
People play with anxiety as if it is a silent toy
In a house painted black
Darkness, desperation, judgement, joy
Social status matters more than your real friends
Who will be there when it ends?
Followers dictate who your friends are
The last one standing
Love can hurt more than it can heal
Feeling caged, netted like an eel
Annelies Van Gijseghem
Judged
Our intelligence is judged for the next six years
The exam that terrifies us constantly nears
Darkening the joy of fun days
We mix, girls, boys, lovers, haters
The loyal stay and people discover traitors
The alarm clocks wake us up for things we don’t want to do
Feeling we’re whisked away in an uncontrollable canoe
Conciousness the unavoidable current of the raging river
The things that keep us alive are the ones we kill
Eventually, come back to haunt us it will
Like the encroaching darkness of winter
Leaders prey on the ignorance of fear
The ignored are usually the sincere
Oscar Murphy
This is Where
You get lost in fields of green in the park
And find yourself searching in the dark
Music is played in shops at Christmas time
As you shop for some downtime
Your hands cramp as you write
It feels like a rabid mongrels bite
Grades are worth more than fun
To the barrel of ambitions gun
Everyone programs to act the same
Its society’s simulation game
Aisling Davis
I Come From
I come from
Where we are told how to think and what to wear
If you don’t fit people begin to stare
Where your worth is decided by a letter
Telling you that you’ll never be better
Where you spend hours a day learning what other people said or did
While we go to town with 50 quid
Where we meet the best and do our worst
Hunger anger heartbreak thirst
Gráínne McGrath
Sadness Drown the Velvet Night
People come to witness
Sadness drowns the velvet night
Where hearts yearn for breaking
Like unbreakable threads of light
Your true colours fill the world
Happiness fills your heart
People break and hearts ache
All good things fall apart
This is where no one else should go
Where shadows fall
And joy is replaced with woe
Orla Godfrey
My Hotel Room
Light rolls in a humid wave across the horizon
My skin appropriating sunshine it’s not accustomed to
And never should’ve taken.
But it’s a quiet and distant morning
Sterile bar the drone of traffic and buzz of insects
Inside my hotel room.
There are distant sounds below-
A fight? A party?
I don’t know and am indifferent to the answer;
Nothing here is mine.
The room isn’t alive anymore-
It’s just a hotel room.
A rustle of the curtains,
Hurried footsteps across a foreign threshold,
I think I’m leaving tonight.
No more sterile recycled air and displacement,
Discontentment with where I live
For now, I’ve seen what it is to be but elsewhere
Apathetic and detached
Inside a hotel room.
Alex Sheridan
Worst of my Days
I made an ode to the worst of my days,
I was invested in it,
It attempted to fix the problem,
The tumours that happened when,
The universe started,
That happened when the mystery of,
The world’s history began,
Where between the stars,
All good souls come to rest.
Anon
Untitled
Kids learn hate towards themselves,
And confusion swirls until the logic rebels
Society makes them ashamed of their thoughts,
Guilt gnaws at the soul like a disease
A fake persona is considered more real than tears and
Joy leaves the body like a spark that leaves a fire
The state of mind where the youth of today come to die,
Where sadness hits them like a gun
The bullet ricochets like a swift taunt
Dark thoughts, they stay deep under the surface
Here they can’t be seen, are they real?
Sarah Murphy
Untitled
Guilt creeps slowly shadowing his footsteps
Truth pushed behind the broken door
Regret like a black sun consumes the stars
Panic crashes on heartbroken shores
Like a tsunami out of season
The pressure breaks his bones
Like glow sticks in the darkness
Where the west wind moans
All motivation lost like a poor abandoned child
His memories dissolve into dust
Like a banker in the wild
Anon
My Loud Thoughts
My loud thoughts pound like ringing from a bell
I fall apart like a piñata at a child’s party in hell
I can’t be fixed like when a mirror is smashed to pieces
I breakdown like waves crashing on beaches
I can’t have my own panic room
Looks like I’m stuck here in this tomb
But one day, I’ll be set free
And spread the broken wings of me
Anon
Hatred
Hatred spreads like poison
And tears the world apart
The hairs stand up on my skin
Like an army ready to attack
Stress slowly eats
Until I feel like a bottomless pit
Rory Donohoe
The Demons and Feelings
There is a demon inside of me
Like a stitch beneath my rib
Sweet angels of revulsion
While time is frozen still
Terror’s and
I am locked in a winters chill
We let go of all the stress
I look a life from a different perspective
Chris Lacey
Day Brings Darkness
Day brings darkness and night brings light.
Every waking hour is full of silent fear,
Unspoken terror hangs on every word
Contemplating doubt at this time of the absurd
Considered dread that festers for speaking out of turn.
Once children that indulged in the mere luxury of play,
Fingers working to the bone all throughout the day.
Each soldier, nothing more than that –
Once loved, adored, desired
Now just tireless, empty shells,
Fellows unrequired
To work the guns and fight the war
Sundered limb, blood, guts and gore
Of men who all at once are nothing.
Not happiness, woe or pride
Only fear, to terrorise the soul
Until nothing is left inside.
Lucy Lalor
A Wisp of Smoke
A wisp of smoke trickles up a nose with searing heat
Boys like animals in a cage of hours in uniforms of rules
School waits for them silent, waiting like a terrible beast
Ready to pounce seething, bubbling like pus oozing from an
Open wound, to turn us into useful tools for societies sake
Release them from its teeth
Louis Roden
A Letter
Do you have a motive?
A reason for what you do?
You come around at the edge of the season to pull me back to earth
To make me think I’ve missed you
You wrap me in gilded blankets
Throw a veil over my eyes
I lose everything they gave me now
Yet you say you’re on my side
At the end of the day when evening falls
If you’re not here against me
Then I guess I’ll just have to lose all sense of how you make me feel,
Which is completely empty
And then you leave
You’ve left me be
But will I be seeing you again?
Can you begone and can I decide
Whether it’s you or me
That I truly am?
Alex Sheridan
School
Innocence, youth and love have come to die
Never alone wishing for a quiet corner to sit and cry
Voices of my past start to sadly moan
Long suppressed memories like a long, sad, tattered tome
They’ll listen to you, but they never want to hear
You’ll make new friends that’ll suddenly disappear
They’ll never truly like you
But that you already knew
They’ll never truly love you
You’ll have to just pull through
Rickard Donovan
Dark Rose
We say a very long goodbye,
To the things that we regret.
I leave to start my travels,
Not in a privet jet.
When all my hope is lost,
With my suitcase in my hand.
Regardless of the cost,
Regardless what was planned.
The love that I had hoped for,
Was not the love I found.
For it blossoms in such different ways,
And grows not in the ground.
Emma Walsh
Untitled
We learn off facts just to forget them in a months time
Words explode from twisted mouths
We’re forced to socialise for seven long hours a day
It’s compulsory to go to class when
You only want to sit alone
We lose all imagination that we once had as kids
People become their parents
Even when they promised themselves they never would
Lelia
Transforming
The plains of each passenger
The fault in our perfections
The passenger of the stars
I am transforming from a werewolf into a delicate
Beautiful butterfly
Simon MacCann
Untitled
The air is fresh and salty, and the sand is between my toes,
The crashing of the waves calms me, as the soft wind blows,
I clamber up the golden hill,
And when I stand tall at the top, the adrenaline gives me a thrill,
The horizon is far and I can see the whole city,
I look around at the view so pretty,
I reach down to grab a handful of anything in sight,
When I throw the clump of sand up in the air, it takes off like a kite.
My eyes follow the cloud of grainy sand,
As it flies over the edge and onto lower land.
I feel the cooling wind on my burning face,
And roll my eyes up into space.
The way back home was slow and calm,
And the cold had seeped down to my palms.
Anon
Passengers
We are locked up for seven hours in a prison
Where sorrow pours from the walls down
Like rain on a pavement.
Like passengers waiting for nothing to arrive
We are forced to be taught things we won’t remember
We must do tests that make up for nothing
We are slowly dying in a painful way
Burning like molten rock
All dreams are crushed and aren’t made
We are programmed
Just like the games we play to get away from it all
Anon
Saying Goodbye
I give up everything I have
And take the long road home
As I’m leaving I cherish all of my beautiful childhood memories
I dance and sing when no one is there but shadows
I am as happy as I can possibly be
I am sparkling with joy
My spirits brightened
As dark clouds gather up above
My super powers deploy.
Kate Fitzgerald
A Summer of Change
We spent warm summer days together unconscious to the world around us
Everything is right, I feel safe and content
I leap into the sea; the terror meets happiness as the cool water splashes around me
The memories of childhood flood back, a distant smile flashes across my face
They are gone and I notice the emptiness
You are gone and I yearn for you to hold me once again
I spend days waiting for motivation to come back to me
I am alone with my thoughts, like a tornado in my mind
My emotions run free and I am left to face it all
The tears cascade down my cheeks, flooding every little dent,
Each drop separates in a splash as they hit my shoulders
I listen to my feelings through music and the angst dissipates
I wait for it all to be ok again, unsure if it will ever be the same
I breathe a sigh of relief, eager to return to the places that are familiar to me
I laugh with my friends and inside jokes are made
The winter sun shines its cold light around me and everything is alright
Anon
New Beginnings
The ignorant people judge and stare
I hold back bitter tears and bite my lips
I try to reach out to others
And explore new ways of life
I learn, to grow, evolve and prosper
To look at things from another vista,
To see things differently
The dark memories slowly fade
I rise above and leave the ones I hate behind
I enter a new state of mind
To begin a new chapter and take new opportunities
I cherish my loved ones who surround me
I am grateful and at peace
Anon
Untitled
I found the map to the lost treasure,
The wealth of it was beyond measure.
We watched the pirate’s ship land,
And greeted them with a shake of the hand.
The pirates would soon be on the run,
Here, they were criminals to everyone.
They left and never showed up again,
I wonder if we should’ve gone with them.
But me and family were cursed,
My death would be the very first.
Mark Bluett
Promise
You made your promise.
In the dirt
Dishonesty your finest work
Without guidance
Without profit
Mentor to the devil’s pocket
You sold your sorrow as something else
As something you couldn’t contain
You manipulated, abused
You profited from our pain
Reuben Ring
Longing Revenge
I finally get my longing revenge
I strap him to the chair
The ugly fingers and toes come off
The matches strike like fire flares
Jokes turn smiles into frowns
The searing pain sinks deep down
Nightmares haunt the ghostly dark
The blood, sweat and tears are shed
Blossoming snake roots for the dead
Gruesome serial killers make their mark
The blind shall lead us through the dark
Gerry Yang
They Run
They run over the top to the whistle,
Half of them were mowed down,
He jumped down for some cover,
He looked behind him for the rest,
He was the only one left,
He lobbed his stick grenade over,
He charged to the German bunkers.
He was part of those represented by the poppy
Anon
School Life
We do pointless things,
Even though we don’t care
In class I know that I’m a nightmare
I haven’t done my work
The teachers think I’m a jerk
I try my best it’s all I can give
But I know I can be transformative
No matter what it’s never enough
They think it’s an act to try and be tough
Lochlan
Untitled
School is great until it begins
The days are long
Only satisfaction is when the bell rings
The seconds drag on
Lunch arrives
And everyone tries
To get to the front of the queue
The day begins when the bell goes
As everyone leaves the rows
And the sport sessions begin
Everyone joins in
And finally you’ll see me with a massive grin
Garvan Twomey
This is Where
Cookies are the sacred food
The race to retrieve, the line, a feud
Stress implemented in the minds of the innocent
The overwhelming feeling of confusion, imminent
Friends are made, hearts are broken
Emotions, consuming, rarely spoken
You will feel betrayed, you will feel understood
An innocent bystander, trying to do well
You will be respected, hated and loved
You’ll be expected, discriminated, pushed and shoved
Ewan O’Donovan
Them
Remember when Wolfe Tone was set to die, but they didn’t let him die with dignity.
Remember, when we were struck with blight, but they had no sympathy.
Remember, when we fought back, but they killed our people, brutally.
Remember when we took back our country, but they stole our six counties, spitefully.
Anon
Untitled
Good or bad
Posh or poor
Happy or sad
Painless or sore
Bright or dark
Near a pool or near a park
No matter what you do or what you’d give
Or what you wear or how you act
Or what it’s called or where you are
Your home is home and home you are
Colin Hayes
Downtown in Detroit
Everyday people get shot
One shot can be the kill shot
With a glock, someone gonna knock
Hit and fall, boutta go out and ball
But get hit in back and just like that
They fall in the crack, alone, afraid
They get thrown away
Out of the system, with no one with them
Gonna die without a reputation, without a speculation
Of hope, belief, happiness
Daniel
My Secret Travels with a Great Lion
Got a pack it like a gangsta
In prison warden chains
Moving on in silence
Through the multi coloured rain
Suppose to work it out
But too easily distracted
Anger running through me
Like a nuclear reactor
Anon
It’ll Get Better
When I said it, it seemed so easy,
And thankfully it’s been easy ever since that dreadful night in August
I forgot how to forgive people, and my kindness turned to exhaustion
I don’t want to be cruel, but I can’t be kind, I’ll have to be cautious
I would go with my friends if they were still with me
But I left them, made my bed, now I’ll lie in it
Nobody can find me when I’ve lost myself
I avoid duties and everybody else
I hide, but I know it’ll get better, it’s always done so
But I also know that right now, I need to cry some more
Eli Bizzarri
Victory Royale
This is where we came close to victory
On the outskirts of good old dusty
Myth, Logan Paul, Ali- A and I
What a squad, you can’t deny
In the hilltops, the views are really nice,
Man I’ve got to say, everyone loves my snipes
Steady shots, I am such an OG
Logan with the forts, Myth with the boogie
March twenty eighth, at ten-twenty
We began our battle to make history
Setting foot in central Greasy
Dean
The Chase
The black cat chased the rat
Through the door, over the doormat
Its head low and heart racing,
Using its agile body to fit through the smallest spacing
The rat moved quick
Through fences and hedges 3ft thick
Despite its effort the black cat won
Carrying its prize back home,
Feeling quite smug being the fast one
Isaac O’Connell
Robbed
They were robbed at gunpoint in the middle of the night,
These victims had never experienced such a horrible fright.
Three men wearing all black
They shouted “PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG”.
All they had in their wallets were leap cards and some loose change
It’s not like they worked in the New York stock exchange.
Tudor Manea
Untitled
I get offered 300 euro for a student ticket by a fully grown man,
But all I want to do is go and watch the game as an Irish fan.
We come to do a poetry workshop
But its nearly lunch-time chip-chop.
We come to learn things we couldn’t give a blast about,
All the creators on the internet are just looking for some clout.
Leo Simpson
Untitled
I was walking down the street and I saw an owl.
I continued walking home
When I was just entering I saw Sophie peeking out the curtain.
I heard her call my name when I got inside.
She was ready to watch Jaws, it was Sophie’s choice.
I bless the 10 million fireflies down in Africa,
You would not believe your eyes.
Better run, better run despacito
I come to cry during work
I come to complain about annoying fools
I mind my business and eat
People sit here some call it a ‘chair’
The humans eat here some call it a ‘kitchen’
Kifi
Rugby Days
The magic happens where you least expect
Dreams are made of
You remember that everything was worth it
You don’t want to fall asleep
The Heineken Cup
Adam Duffy