St. Brigids College, Callan, Co. Kilkenny

The Gun

Did the gun want THIS?
Did the gun want to be bought?
Did the gun want you to pull the trigger?
Did the gun want to be the reason you died
Or did the gun cry as the shots were taken?
As it watched you fall onto the cold ground
Crying with pain, with no one to hold you up
The tears running down your face, finally being let free
The blood pumping from your body
And the screams coming out of your mouth
The fact that this was the end of your road
With no place to go

Shannon Bush

Here

My shadow tilts its head at me.
It whispers to me, always.
Your life’s a lie, why are you here?
You’re not meant to be here.
I’m left to think… Here…
Do they mean my current location?
Or my life? Am I meant to be dead…?
My shadow whispers to me in the dark, in the light,
When I’m asleep and awake.
Everything’s a lie. I only trust my shadow,
My best friend and my greatest enemy.
Stay alive
Four walls, hundreds of secrets.
Oceans of tears, and skies of questions.
Sleepless nights, sunsets and sunrises.
Sitting on the windowsill of the second floor because
The windowsill looks really nice, right…
5 AM. The sun rises. I’m still here. So are you.
Stay alive, tomorrow too.
It’s worth it.

Niamh Bambrick

Shadows

Shadows whisper
A girl is awake but asleep
Chasing the darkness in an unfamiliar place.
She is frightened,
Feeling as though
She needs to wake up.
She must wake up.
Harming herself
To feel anything but fear.
She screams,
But those whispers fill
Her howling ears.
Shadows from her past
Surround her.
Reminding her of what she did.

Katie Gander

Those Walls Remember

Those walls remember fear, anxiety of children
Younger and older alike, as they walk to their next class,
Fretful, fearful about others or simply their teacher.
Those walls remember harsh tones of stern voices
As they scold the children for being naughty,
Ignorant, playful.
Those walls remember bullying, fights and drugs
And the feeling of being a student
In one of the cruellest schools
Among a cruel generation of that time.
What the ocean dreams
Ocean dreams of its clear, pure water, unharmed by man,
Animals living their lives safely in happiness, not being
Strangled and choked by human plastic,
Instrument of slow death and long suffering.
It dreams of being cleared of these tiny particles,
Killers of the sea life.

Mihaela

What These Walls Remember

Those stolen memories of a young child
That faded when she died
Evening conversations by the crackling fire,
Stories that never had an ending,
Moments that were taken for granted
Moments I’d do anything to relive
These walls hold the scars of a house that was lived in
A family raised and grandchildren spoiled
Sickness and health
The sweet innocence of hide and seek,
Two children dancing at breakfast time
A hearty laugh that I long to hear again
The naivety of that happiness lasts forever
These walls keep our secrets
They have heard the shared advice
Passed down through the years
The arguments, the sadness,
The emptiness when she left
These walls hold the forgotten moments
I wish I remembered

Katie Dunne

Hungers

It hungers for the destroyers of life
Not for the victims who suffer
Day to day
Mothers who can no longer bare
To be the broken housewife
Lamenting the cold dark box
Where their baby lays
Violently still.

Louise Lawlor

Untitled

The ocean dreams of being clean
Blue once again in aquamarine.
Dolphins tangled in barbed wire
Fish caught in snares of plastic
The time to take measures
Are urgent
Drastic.

Shauna Kealy

Untitled

What these walls remember
The smiles, cries and laughter
All the memories we made
Are painted in my head
To you all of them are dead
I wish I could go back to last April
To see it all unfold is painful
I am grateful in ways
But loving you was like
Being lost in the riddle
Of a maze.

Ava Brennan

The Ocean Dreams

The ocean dreams of its once clear water sparkling in the bright yellow sun,
The ocean dreams of a life it lived, when it once begun,
Brown, dirty, contaminated waters, polluted with oil, with substances,
No one can help it, it’s too late to make differences,
Some try to fail, some fail to succeed,
I can hear the drip drop of our world as it cries and bleeds.

Amy Doyle

These Walls Remember

What do these walls remember
They remember the thing you choose not to ,
The night from the first scream to the last
They remember her innocence disappear
Her soul leaves her body
Each tear that’s filled with fear
These walls remember the struggle the banging on the wall
These walls remember the defeat
Another person falls
What do the shadows whisper…
The things we would rather not hear
Every truth left unspoken
They are the ringing in your ear
They are the stories left untold
Each dreaded page left to unfold
Those whispered ‘I love yous’, never said
They are the voices in your head

Emily Keane

Untitled

What do the shadows whisper?
As I stood in the darkness beside a street light not wanting to leave
The comfort of knowing what’s ahead of me.
The shadows whisper in my ears to stay and be afraid
Be afraid of complete darkness
They taunt t me with the mistakes of my past
Dancing around me whispering
I move to step away from the light there whispers keep me stile and afraid
Do I believe the whispers should I not move from comfort
I stepped away
As I walk towards the darkness the shadows fade there whispers stop
Without the light they can’t get me the fear of the unknown fades
What those these walls remember
Walls that were the foundation of life that held the roof over our heads.
Cared and painted know have cracks and chips showing its age
while telling us stories of the lives within these walls
Aren’t we lucky walls can’t talk?
They would speak of the nights we spent dancing in the kitchen
Of how many tears were spilt on the floors of this house
The hole not so discretely covered up by a picture of are wedding day
Of how I lay against these walls after one of the fights
But this time your fist didn’t hit the wall
Time has passed you are gone now
I don’t remember everything long forgotten pain buried
But these walls remember a time
Were the walls of this worn and broken home
Were a prison that kept me with you.

Samantha Morris

Untitled

What does the ocean dream of?
Do they toss and turn because of those
Plastic filled dreams.
Is it fearful of the coral reef and
Big blues.
Everywhere it goes
Devastation
Human made destruction
In its innocent patience.
The ocean does not dream
That is too peaceful
The ocean rolls jumps and bumps and
Never seems comfy
It has nightmares the type that are irreversible
The kind that cause it to wake up and realize
This is reality.

Abby Keane

These Walls Remember

These walls remember 6 years of bliss and bleakness,
The love and pain we have all endured,
Watching as we flourish into the people we are today,
The memories we have carry us through
The bad, the good the schoolgirl politics,
Left to linger in the brick.
The torment of pupils and the torment of our minds
As we slave ourselves to determine our future.
The walls are barriers trapping us inside,
But are also shielding us from reality.
These walls remember whispering remarks
Students’ mentality in the dark.

Ciara Smith

The Shadows’ Whisper

What do the shadows’ whisper?
The shadows whisper what they experience at night fall,
the cold streets, lonely alleyways and drunken fights.
The laughter of friends and screams of torture after a gun is shot
They witness the greed of the rich, the helplessness of the poor
They see the end of relationships, the start of something new
They hear the screaming of misbehaving children and the frustration of parents
Young children can understand the spine-chilling effect of the shadows under their beds
As we grow older we lose the sight of the shadows but they will always remain watching

Jessica Ryan, Michelle Mahony, & Amanda Morris

What the Gun Wants

What the gun wants
It wants nothing more
Than to be removed
From the grasp of teenage psychopaths,
Corrupt police and men
Whose idea of a wild night out,
Is to spend a night out in the wild.
Then to brag on Facebook
About the lion heads
Decorating their blood slicken walls.
The gun pleads to have its bulky and terrifying,
Stainless steel exterior melted down
Crafted into something beautiful and delicate,
For politicians,
Instagram’s hero
And victims to wear around their necks
While they ask the contentious question,
“What does the gun want”.

Nicola Morris

The Oceans Dream

The oceans dream of the same thing
For turtles to swim freely
Under the silvery dream of the sea
And having no fear
Of what pollution could be
They want the earth to be cared for
And to be preserved for the future generations
They know
That the damage is done
The problem is growing
A new world has begun.
The oceans dream for the earth to be clean
And the air toxic no more.
Why is it so hard to understand the oceans dreams?
When all you have to do is
Listen

Heather O’Brien

These Walls Remember

These walls remember
Dossing study, skipping class
Waiting for the time to pass
Shaky hands and wobbly knees
Teenage insecurities
Stupid jokes and silly laughs
One too many photographs
Quietened sobs and suffering tears
Trying not to let them hear
Messy hair and ruffled skirts
Mascara stains on dirty shirts
Fingers shoved right down the throat
Signatures faked upon sick notes
These walls remember
How the mirrors stare
And the scent of perfume’s
Whispered prayer

Rachel Power

My Love, My Life

He started cold, frozen, untouchable.
But I warmed up like the oven.
I left him for a while until he was ready.
Brown around the edges and hot all around.
I took one bit and I was hypnotized
The taste of your meat left me wanting more
When I was finished you were gone.
I loved you my pizza.

Rachel Power