Mo hata – Ava Ní Loingsigh
Look, keep your warm calloused hands and your smiling eyes,
Keep those sea wet salty eyebrows under Connemara skies,
Keep the easy-going attitude “Beidh gach rud ceart go lóir,”
Stay there and sit in factor 50 on the sandy shore
Keep the dances we danced together and try to dance like me
Think of Fionnán eating lunch in a jellyfish sea
Keep the classroom coincidences I don’t even care
Sometimes I wish I’d never met the loveliest boy from Kildare
Keep your kayak bravery and your rounders skill
Please promise me you bless yourself when an ambulance passes still
Keep a list of people and counties and keep the Cork lads close
Ní raibh mé do chailín níl mé anois ach b’fhéidir go mbeidh mé fós
Keep “tá Oisín chomh deas” yeah keep especially that
Keep it all ná bach leis but give me back my hat
Woo Trad
The trad monster stumbles forward it takes a deep breath,
The boy on the uillean pipes hasn’t learnt his part yet,
Eight people sit each a limb of the beast,
All set to fight (or like to intimidate at least),
All quiet respectful a room full of dotes,
An instrument per person, a cacophony of notes,
Float up into the air,
Diffuse across the ceiling and settle nicely there,
Unbelievable symbiosis it all comes to an end,
We’re shocked we weren’t aware we’d such a talented friend,
They hold their breath and they all look to Saibh,
The three of us stupid talentless, stand to the side,
Mise i m’oibrí is fear ag dossáil i gceart ach ag foghlaim alán,
Ar an slí abhaile cheannaigh mé fadóg stán
I Am (the confessing animal) by Callum McGuire
Do you ever feel the same as I do?
That is to say,
Not at all?
No rise, no fall,
Just a constant plateau
An incessant urge to let it all go
To shit
Because your life’s a jigsaw puzzle,
But the last piece couldn’t quite fit
Couldn’t quite click into place,
And all you can feel
Is that empty space
Like your finger
Poking through a hole in your pocket
Like your brains just not
Plugged into its socket
And there used to be screens
Between reality and my dreams
But now they’re breaking,
Bursting at the seams
Bleeding into each other like invading regimes
That I can’t fight
And harsh insight’s a light too bright
Behind my skull
Leaves me vulnerable to feeling void and null,
To going through the motions,
Actions automatic,
Alarms ring out
But can’t cut through the static
A step separated,
Living through a lens
Reality removed
Sterilised and cleansed,
Sutures sewn shut
As strings pull the limbs,
And with experience extracted
So the play begins
