Kilkenny Arts Office is delighted to share the ten poems selected by this Autumn’s Rhyme Rag Editor Seamus Cashman. Rhyme Rag workshop’s took place in Loreto Secondary School and Coláiste Abhainn Rí resulting in beautiful work by some young writers.
All poems can also be found on the Rhyme Rag website and Instagram account over the coming weeks.
Childhood Bliss
The childhood bliss of being young.
Not caring what others thought,
Exploring forests, fields, anywhere you wanted
The amazing power of your imagination,
Being able to have fun no matter what,
Making friends no matter where,
Just the happy blissful feeling that was there.
But all that is good must come to an end.
The places get torn down,
The people drift away,
And suddenly that childhood bliss,
Is gone.
By Étáin Butler
Greenery
The green and orange of the leaves that are on all the soaring oak trees and the bright blue colour of the blue bells that are growing under the tree.
The gravel paths leading through the trees the dead leaves on the path crunch as you walk over them.
The high oak trees let bits of light through making parts of the path look like a light is shining on you.
By Anonymous
THE MARVELLOUS
Out of marvellous he had known
Was a known lady named Emma
Who had a sister named Lauren
They were known for their cousin Tom
Whose favourite tractor was the 724
Which had been on the mower all year
She was lower than me have van
On the back of me caravan
I would lie on top of my caravan
Like I was gold on the wallet of the eater
By Mikey Saunders
The Frozen Fields
We were riding through the frozen fields in a wagon
At dawn the sun was coming out over the fields
Melting the frozen grass. There were two black stallions
Pulling the wagon through the fields of luscious grass
Stopping for a drink at the frozen water-tanks
by Conor Bailey
Choices
I wonder if choices are up to you or already planned.
I wonder if this ship is close to port, but it is unmanned.
I wonder if they even know? All the ways I love them so.
I wonder if I am the only seed in the bag that will not grow.
I cannot go back up this river of time but only look back through memories.
I cannot think of a better time than holidays which I will think of for centuries.
by E. K
Rebellious Pink
We wear pink on Wednesdays
Juicy couture on Mondays
Tall, blonde, snatched waist, no tummy
Boys be saying in the halls “she’s so yummy”
We gossip everyday
We don’t care what people say
We are always looking glam
DON’T mess with us fam
No one can sit with us
Regina George got hit by a bus
By Magdalena Rzeszutko and Eolann Kinsella
A Quiet Place
A quiet place inside my head
Where I can see my memories go ahead
All the good and the bad,
And some I haven’t even had.
The ones that are yet to come,
Often leave me in a bum,
Because if these memories become too fragile
I may find it hard to handle
by Amy Cahill
To Live in Different Lanes
This morning, as I pulled into the driveway, we spotted a friend.
The woman had finished talking to her daughter down the narrow lane, and was heading off to work.
Her daughter resides not too far from the entrance, about fourteen spaces.
Next to her are mainly the elderly, with the exception of two boys a few spaces down, a five year old and his two year old brother;
just across from them is my own father.
He can be found in the third space up and across.
Just like the woman I have school.
I say a brief hello to my father before blowing him and his parents a kiss and heading to school.
Right on time too!
The Priest pulls up outside the driveway, there’s a wedding today he must prepare for.
Before he unlocks the doors to the church he takes a look at the uninvited but welcome guests.
Departed but present.
He looks at the woman’s daughter—
who was taken by the words of blue light.
He looks at the boys.
A five year old saviour, grasping his brother’s stubby hand
as they are consumed into the tank.
Finally, he nods silently at my father
Who was taken too early
The love in his heart uncontainable from the world
By Antonia Ly Pierce
Looking out my Window
Looking out my window I saw the same trees I had seen for years,
but now the bright green colours engraved on my memory
were slowly turning into brassy orange tones.
Almost melting away with the warm summer breeze that I could still feel going through my bones for ever.
My mind soon forgot the image of the bright leafy wood swaying in the June evenings.
A new vision of it restored in my brain. I had forgotten what those groves used to look like every time I gazed out my open window.
I now sit here wondering which picture of these trees will remain in my thoughts in years to come.
– the crisp autumn evenings looking out the window where I ponder on the winter to come;
– or maybe those dazzling mornings in the spring when I’d romanticise the summers approach.
But now I think I’ll just remember them as trees, because
growing through the years they will lose their meaning to me
as I forget every teenage worry I used to have
while looking out my window.
By Dayna Kelleher
A friend who never spoke
Waiting ,watching cars pass on the road she’s told me to stay off of so many times.
The care she’s shown me since she got me.
Letting me sleep in her room when I don’t want to socialise when there’s company.
The amount of pain she’s endured in the past few years
and she’s stayed patient and endearing with me.
Feeding me when hungry, looking after me when I’m sick
which has been a lot since these sore, oozing lumps appeared on me.
I bark at her to tell her I love her but she tells me to stop barking
and rubs my head softly.
Sitting on her lap in this strange office every time I’m sick.
She got told something by a woman in blue scrubs.
She sheds a tear as she turns to me and places a kiss gently on my head
before I’m pushed away by the woman.
I look at her with fear and sadness in my eyes.
The bright lights slowly fade.
I wake up with her by my side.
I’m sore but the lumps are gone. They come back, 300 car passings later.
I’m brought to this office again but I don’t leave.
The lights in the office slowly fade in and out.
Until I cross a rainbow road accompanied by the sound of her cries.
By Anonymous
