Poetry
Poetry was an important and prominent art form taught in Irish schools where Emily had the opportunity to explore and absorb the poetry of greats such as Patrick Kavanagh, W.B. Yeats, T.S Eilot, Shakespeare's Sonnets and Emily Dickinson. She loves the musicality of rhyme and metre and in the same way, she thrives when singing, she enjoys the feeling of reciting these words aloud. Emily has been writing poetry for as long as she can remember. Her poetry reflects her love of rhyme and verse as a dynamic emotional expression. Similarly to her lyrical songwriting process, her poetry comes from a deep well inside of her and reflects her honest, unfiltered observations, experiences and reflections. Some of her poems are simply raw streams of consciousness. Below, you can find a small selection of poems she has written over a number of years.
Beauty
If I do not see your beauty Is there none there to be found Have I succumbed to misdirection Lying face down on the ground If I do not see your beauty Am I blinded by a loss That supersedes a gentle nature To leave a heavy bearing cross If I do not see your beauty And I choose to close my eyes Am I a victim of myself And all the tears I’ve never dried If I do not see your beauty Perhaps I do not see at all For you’re a masterpiece creation Serving naught but to enthral
Do you think you could ever love a woman As much as you love your god Forgive my audacity I have never been one for conformity And the question - it just presents itself to me And I must entertain it It cannot go ignored I cannot pretend it isn’t there Tell me something, my dear friend Do you think my intrusion unfair? And if this be the case Do you think that I enjoy Just lying in my bed And my brain constantly pulling apart Everything we said The curse of an analytical mind Warped I think you once said Are you too of this kind? No, I believe you have the ability To shut out all you do not wish to see After all, isn’t this the mode of conduct You employed when discarding me Let us reflect on the saying Knowing only through experience Or turning a blind eye Taking a safety curtain, surrounding yourself With this invisible cloak Shunning the question why If you do not see what is happening to another And it is not happening to you You can say you had no idea And this fact it will be true Does that not make you the same then As all the great men you deplore Or you think yourself some kind of saint And pray for something more You need things to be calmer Where’s your courage to face your core To take things out, examine what you have done Or I have pushed you to your limits Oh little one You abhor hate And yet you propel it How can a man be so ignorant? Amidst his obvious intellect You have no idea in this world How it is to drive another insane But let me tell you something, darling friend It starts when you dish out pain Pain stored for aeons inside your very soul Pain that has been inflicted upon you And you think you can control But control it you do not It waits behind your walls of steel And it explodes in misdirection When your heart begins to feel Every emotion that once pained you And you locked away so tight The ones that come to haunt you When you toss and turn at night And you are thankful for the daylight When you can resume the very form You have spent many years perfecting Until it has become the norm But buried deep emotion You forgot it lost from sight And when it swells and overwhelms you You cannot tell wrong from right You find yourself in action That betrays your moral code You just cannot help the feelings That your true self still unfolds So quickly employ your friend suppression On everything it is you feel You tell yourself moments of weakness Contributed to false ideals You turn to reliable logic Another good friend in the past You bring all things back together Under your heavy-laden cast And with normality restored And tranquillity regained You bury once again these feelings That have stemmed from deeper pain It is all that you can handle The truth about oneself is hard to face And you go back to your routine Another funeral of disgrace And everything that we have been through Not really knowing each other at all Has given me another scar And broke my heart and built more walls It is this my darling friend That opens hatred’s door The very hatred you condemn The hatred you ignore And so I take you back to the question posed At the start of this sad rhyme And now I ask you yet another Do you not think courage should have its time?
Dumbfounded
There is an expression I know Dumbfounded by truth I remember that night In your fountainless youth The present you gave Rendered silent of mouth I saw all of you then I had figured you out I remained stupefied By your action confounded I knew not what to say Your gift my speech bounded As we sat by a candle And you took both my hands I knew not what to do Could not make my demands There was conflict and longing And argument placed There was tension and Questions my heart could not face There were moments I cherished And laughter between But the truth that dumbfounded Nowhere to be seen
Finding Love
There are thousands of voices All speaking at once So loud I can’t hear myself say: ‘Look at the sky This is where you will find A love to carry you through your day' There are thousands of lies All lying at once So truth shall not have any say But look at the stars This is where you will find A beauty that shows you the way There are thousands of tears All crying at once So love shall be kept at bay But look at the oceans This is where you will find The tears that are cast away
Honesty
You do not have to be honest with me You do not have to write pages of script Or find fanciful ways of expressing Your innermost thoughts You do not have to share You do not have to give anything to me Nothing at all I accept who you are in this moment And yes there is much I do not know But there is also much I do And so I tell you this You do not have to be honest with me But for my love of you I ask you to be Honest with yourself Do not listen to this fiendish character Perched upon your shoulder Chattering incessantly Telling you what you need to hear To soothe your darkest thoughts Do not fool yourself You are worth so much more And what are your prayers for If not to listen to your spirit To enlighten you and make you whole Whatever name you or I choose However you place your body I lay mine on the waters of the ocean With my arms outstretched And face the skies of heaven All this serves one purpose There are angels and we must call to them To dispel the mythical figure Who carries the seeds of fear in its wake And serves to destroy Everything that is good and true Do not be honest with me I am no one in your world But for my love of you I tell you now Be honest with yourself And call to your god to Give you the courage to be who you are For you must know That this is who he wants you to be You must know this I have heard it spoken from your mouth Even if it was unclear to you If only I could whisper in your ear Each night before sleep takes you I would say Be honest with yourself And it will all become clear
Idea
I do not like the idea Of loving the idea of you It is you, is it not That I love Not in love with ideas thereof Or you in my imagination Whom I will create What you will be Is pleasing to me It cannot be this idea I seek For you try me You make me feel weak No not the idea of you But all that I saw and I knew And I felt - Yes look there is it Not in my mind A feeling, no notion to grind A knowing and comfortable, nice Not ideas that make me think twice A feeling I worry I’ll lose If I imagine ideas of you When I long for your presence to hold And I miss you and lie in the cold Of rejection and fright Then all I am left with, in slight Are ideas that run through my mind To keep what I feel in this bind To feed me and keep you alive In absence, ideas survive And outlines of moments we knew Become an idea of you
Seen
Where is your heart, why don't you show it Why keep it hidden from me Why hold sadness, where does it come from Why can't you set yourself free Show me a smile, show me some love now I see it in you so clear Though you keep it hidden, behind stone and water Indifference and reality I see a person overflowing with A love they're trying to contain Preventing a downfall, a breaking of safety They've built to shut out their pain But softness still showing, though it's un-beknowing And my heart is touched just the same And now can I tell you, through a mirror I see you Reflection has shown me your name