St. Michael’s Community College, Kilmihil, Co. Clare

Art

This world of creativity
You can create whatever your heart desires
You can let your mind wander
Through the valleys and the fire

Or you can have a plan in motion
An array of tools at your disposal
Pencil and paper running free
For an imaginative proposal

From the boundaries of worldly rules
Escape into your mind
From the shackles of reality
Leave your woes behind

Niall Heslin

The Shadows

Whispers, whispers always heard.
Never any good.
The shadows haunting.
Whispered fears.
Dark and dangerous.
Tangled wood.
Shadows know
What shadows see.
Shadows see it all.
They hear and they tell.
The shadows whispering
Shivers down your spine.
Rumours whispered
Can’t be trusted,
Blown away with time.

Anna Kelly Killeen

The Land

The land of promise
Is everyone’s dream
If we believe we will succeed
Pursue your dreams
To become them
Though they may not come true
But if that is life
Then life is a dream
Dreamt by me and you

Dáire

Imagine

Imagine an ocean
Unpolluted
Imagine not having to worry
About life on earth
Becoming extinct
If people do not hurry
Imagine if there was no issue
With the water rising
Because people got their act together
Now that would be surprising

Sophie Lucey

Rigor Mortis

The holes you punched in anger
The lies they spat and spite
The idiosyncratic bursts of rage
Lost souls of the night

The dreams crushed with a flick of a switch
The plastic smiles of the fake
The frowns of real life rigor mortis
We believe the reality we make

Ruairí Askin

Closing in on Me

Closing in on me
Like sad memories
The day when she was gone
The day we knew would come
But never thought so soon
Our idol
Our everything
Gone
Just gone
We were never prepared
All we heard was a big long
Sorry
And the rest was just a blur

Grace Costello

Green Hills

These beautiful green hills
Be draped with luscious grass
Those cold mornings
Bringing in the cattle for the winter
Getting up in the middle of the night
To pull new born calves
Watching them grow up
In weanlings at the Ennis Mart
Till summer rolls over
Those green hills
Into the silage pit for first cut
And bales for second
And we all draw them all in
Till the middle of the night.
Till the new days darkens
And it’s winter once again

Ríain Meaney

The Ocean’s Heart

Dreams of the tides that rock and sway in the wild ocean,
Waves gently lapping up against your face.
Cold water slowly clapping up against the rocks,
Just watching in awe of how calmly it shimmers
Till the sea starts bashing the pebbles at the shore,
You see a different side of the ocean,
For just a moment.
Everything is calm again.
How quickly things can change.
How even the oceans heart
Can be broken in an instant.

Ciara Shannon

These Walls

The first time we moved in.
Home alone
Doing what I wanted,
I used to draw on the walls
Matchstick men
And snow white.
The arguments,
The family times at Christmas.
The joy of getting a new toy
Everything I always wanted.
The times when we
Have fallen out of love.
The joy of hearing sorry.
The tears when we make up.

Ema Medvecova

The Walls

All the arguments.
Doors slammed on winters evenings.
Running from the house at night
Into the bitter cold.
Every single little tear
Running like diamonds down the cheek
onto the soft damp pillows.
Perhaps they
Are what make the happy times
Worthwhile.
Family time.
Playing games.
Laughing out loud.
Sparkling Christmases.
Tears of happiness
Tears of joy
Unpacking childhood memories.
These walls will never forget.

Gosia Golebiowska

This Silent Place

Trembling in your seat,
The teachers roar at you,
Because of the homework,
You never do
The complaining that never stops
Because you have no freedom,
You have no voice
You because you never left…
This silent place

Harry O’Dea

The Bricks

The bricks in the classroom
Are like people
They surround you
But they have no sign of life
They possess the knowledge
And try to give you answers
But you never seem to hear them
They have many eyes and minds
They know exactly what’s going
They have been here since the beginning
They wonder what it’s like to be like you

Sean A. Lernihan

What If

What if the coral reefs came back from the dead
To shine bright once again
Allowed the silver fish to swim
Far from the nets of men
The dolphins free to surf the waves
The sun free to glimmer
The water and on your sunglasses
The surfers forget to shimmer
What if people remembered
The wonders of the sea
And we lived in with nature
Side by side in magical harmony

Alex Keating

Lost Souls

Remember the lost souls of people
Terrorised by the demons of the school gate.
Slowly disappearing
Into rancid phantom bins
Disgusting chewing gum
Scooped from the undersides
Of the old wooden tables.
The people come in and disappear
From the safety of the halls and the toilets.
Even they are plagued by the warnings of the lost souls.

And the shadows whisper stories
Of the howling wind
Gushing through the forest
Tearing and moving
The dark side of the green giants.
Small creatures move
Shadows whisper
The movements of their surroundings.
Suddenly, it stops.
The creature sniffs, howls, runs.
He sprints, the shadows crying, warning. Yelp.
The red creature is stuck in the jaws of doom.

And yet the ocean dreams
The returning wave of the land.
But through centuries of waiting,
The watery bodies hurling against the land became salty, became bitter.
The sea claim those land creatures
If they dared to come near them.
But one creature became smarter, bolder, cunning.
Soon, the ocean couldn’t take these people,
So in the dark depths, promised revenge.

To this land of mud and bog
Tamed and cultivated
By the people that sensed a future, a life.
Today, the life is there but it isn’t easy.
As betrayal from the people who freed us
Nearly a century ago,
Now serves the companies
Who gain the big money.
So instead, we survive on what we can.
Waking up early in the dark early springs,
The small white creatures
Everyone wants to see come in twos and ones.
Some days there are none.
Some days there are too many.
The constant work of feeding
And bedding the sheep
Takes from the school side of life.
And then we reach the summer months,
Where when the weather allows,
We hit hard at the fields,
Cutting, raking, baling,
Wrapping, bringing in.
Its busy but broken up
With the sales of the white creatures.
And then the weather breaks,
The land unworkable and so we prepare for the winter months.

Ryan King

The Sirens Song

Waves crash against the cliffs edge
Dangers lurking in rocky crevices
The sweet singing of sirens echo
Across the wind from the ocean’s deep
Luring weary sailors
Who dare to cross the treacherous sea
The sirens song
The creaking ship
Death’s watery embrace

Niamh Courage

Dark School Days

Dark school days
Getting up early
The rusting bus
Cutting through
The cold windy rain
The school bag
Pain heavy with six years
Of homework
Six years of worry
Afraid of teachers
Misery for everyone.
Trying to do the homework
And your hobbies gone
The chores going to the farms
So much stress plus summer test
CBA’s and junior cert.

Stephen Davoren

Feeling

The cold feeling of ice
The warm feeling of fire
The curves of a sphere
The edges of a cube
The sad feeling of depression
The happy feeling of joy
The dark feeling of black
The light feeling of the white
The footprints on the track

Dylan

The Good Things Come to an End

Finding out your new beginnings
Are the beginnings of new ends
The all-night parties until noon
The lost and found of friends
Watching the scary movies
For the cheap thrill of a fright
All-out war in Friar Tucks
We fight the good food fights
Waiting for the sun rise over Spancill Hill
Feeling like this night will never end
But it all goes back to reaility
When you feel the evening chill.

Sinead Ryan

Memories that Will Last Forever

The late night conversations with my closest friends
Watching movies after midnight
That we hope will never end
The tears of perfect happiness
And sadness after queens
The midnight snacks consumed in minutes
The melting down of dreams
Frowns that change back to smiles
That reach way back to our ears
The crazy all-night parties
And those silly break-up tears
The cute and cringey pictures
That you wish never existed
The fights with siblings over nothing
And truth that someone twisted

Aisling Downes

Fresh Grazed Grass

Fresh grazed grass
Let the new-born calves
Run wild with macnas friends
Along with silage being cut
And cattle living till their ends
In peace and quietness
Beneath the glistening blue sky
New-born crows of morning
Are singing as you walk by

Michael Kelly

Life

I could see two children playing on a seesaw in a playground
I approached them but they didn’t notice me at first
The young boy then noticed me
And presented himself as death and the girl his sister as life
I asked what they were doing,
The boy replied this game is the point of your existence
If we stopped playing all would disappear.”
Your life is limited because if it were infinite
This game wouldn’t be worth playing,” said the boy.
“Ah the future” said the girl “it’s rather depressing to know
That people you known all your life will eventually die”
What I heard left me in tears then boy said
“I’m giving you two options,
You could either wake up and live or die and leave everything behind.”
I chose life.
Then I woke up in a hospital bed
And I first saw my wife and she was happy and sad at the same time
Because she told me that our son never made it.

Sean A. Lernihan

Spuds

Spuds are tasty spuds are nice.
Spuds with gravy spuds with ice.
Spuds with mutton, spuds with pork,
Spuds in Dublin, spuds in Cork.
Spuds with friends, spuds with family
Spuds are beautiful, spuds are mine.
Spuds are amazing, spuds are good.
Spuds are scary, spud is food.
Spuds are yellow, spuds are grey.
Spuds forever, everyday.

Daniel Solovjovs

School Days

The first day I walked through
The halls excited, nervous
Ready to see what would happen next
The things we do in school
How much fun we have
The friends and rows
That come and go
The teacher is going mad
Hard work and determination
The things we long to do.
The people who were here before us
Only passing through.

Sinead Lernihan

Farming

This land of Farming
Where the Massey Ferguson
Cuts and bales the late silage
The cows calves
And sheep lambs
People stopped to look
At where the animals were fed
Where we had good laughs
Where we had late nights
No need for fancy city lights

Megan Murray

Crisis

From those deep late night
Conversations with the girls
To those evenings spent straightening
The rain’s disastrous curls
From dance parties
That raved until passed 4am
To crying our eyes out at 5
Then do it all again
Makeup catastrophes
To ruin a good night
Pyjama party sleepovers
That end in Pillow fights
We always end up laughing
So much we can’t breathe
And smiling till our faces hurt
We never want to leave

Kayleigh Currane

The Walls

The memories we had
The laughs we laughed
The tears that we have cried
The secrets that we have shared
The dreams that slowly died
These four walls take it all in
The walls will tell no one
For walls are the best listeners
They do not tell what has been done

Laura Considine

The Struggle

That first day
Hoping you will actually find friends
Ones that don’t snitch ones
That you can gossip with
Ones that you can trust until the day you die
Waking up at 7 o’clock in the morning
Can’t even see out through your eyes
Doesn’t matter, you have to struggle on
Past every depressed child
Walking the miserable walk to school
With the biggest bags you will ever see in your life
All for nothing
But the secrets scribbles on the bathroom door
And walls that could say anything
And you only hope the teachers don’t see it was you
That was being a rebel
Till you drowned in every tear
‘Studying’ for some random test
That does nothing for you
Only make you upset an angry
And want to scratch your eyeballs out
But you’ve just had your nails done

Andrea Browne

The Blue Men

The day the first blue man
Entered red land trembling
Fear on the face
Painful slashing of steel rain
From the outside world
Screaming inside grey cells
Big grins on blue men’s faces
Depressing black clouds
Bright white flashes
Every day passing
Blood splashes
Another crack of gunfire
Limp sacks of dead flesh
Smiles on blue faces

Laura Szymikowska

Shadows in the Night

Our darkest secrets
Come to haunt us all,
Bad memories that won’t go away
Till all the secrets overflow,
Shadows poured into our ears to frighten us.
A feeling of coldness.
Night shivers,
Headaches taunt us.
Sad memories, people that died,
Tears flowing everywhere.
The heartbreaks and fighting.
The bad rumours whispered
Everywhere, hearing words about you,
You don’t want to be here.

Emma Kelly

The Haunting Kids

The faces of who have passed them by
The faces of tiredness and depression
The windows shattered by the sky
With the pressure of the ball
The loudness quietened by the hush
For the teacher has entered the room
The faces of those who have passed on
Now haunt this little school

Jack Leahy

School

The first time that you entered the school
The first time you got sick
The first time that you failed a test
Simple arithmetic

The first time you got nervous
During a boring lesson
The first day you enjoyed at school
What a dodgeball session.

Michael Browne

Walking

Walking in to a prison known as school.
Trembling like a circus fool
Going home to see my dog dead on the floor.
Being locked in an elevator.
Banging on the door
Finding out that my nana had died.
Mam got me a dog, but how I cried
Coming home from the hospital on Christmas day
Unable to breathe in the cold dark grey.

Kyle Gilligan

My Land

I always get stuck
But it has a good crops
200 bales
The driver
The truck
Breaking the film
Of the ozone layer
4 good cuts
And 800 bales
My land has no price

Gerard Kelly

Untitled

I got the beating
Down that alleyway
When I was seven
Broke a window
With a rock when I was 8
I was on the run
From the Gardaí last month
Got chased by a huskey
All the bad things I said
Whisper to me
I tried to run away
From school, from whispers
From the dark

Joshua Brennan

Summer has Come

The lack east fertile soil
My father is calving
The cows in the spring
To watch them grow
On milk and nuts
The seasons rolling over
Summer has come
The sun is out
Silage cut
Hay turned
Bales made
Wet weather
Falls
Plans ruined
Winter has arrived
Cold morning
Breaks

Micheal Cotter