Poetry New New Zealand Poetry Zealand YearbookStudent Student Yearbook Poetry Competition Competition Poetry 2021 2020
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook Student Poetry Competition 2021
Judged by Tracey Slaughter
CONTENTS Caitlin Jenkins — First prize, Year 13 South 6 Penelope Scarborough — Second prize, Year 13 Today I (My Sister’s Cigarettes) 8 Lucy Barge — Third prize (equal), Year 13 Staining the Silence 11 Lucy Barge — Third prize (equal), Year 13 Ever After 12 Amelia Kirkness — Third prize (equal), Year 13 Unmaking My New Boots 13 Grace Fakahau — Highly commended, Year 13 4 Tha Kulture 14 Freya Turnbull — Highly commended, Year 13 Apology to the Butterfly that Lived 18 John Pain — Highly commended, Year 13 Yesterday When I Stopped 19 Amelia Kirkness — Highly commended, Year 13 Evil Make-Believe 20 Judy Fong — Highly commended, Year 13 Steps 22 Sarah-Kate Simons — First prize (equal), Year 12 Gossip 25 Ocean Jade — First prize (equal), Year 12 Route Back Home 26 Sarah-Kate Simons — Second prize, Year 12 In Yourself 28
Sarah-Kate Simons — Third prize (equal), Year 12 Hospital 32 Shima Jack — Third prize (equal), Year 12 Develop and Structure 33 Lily Stoddart — Highly commended, Year 12 Living Beneath the Sky 34 Lily Stoddart — Highly commended, Year 12 Shark Hour 36 Ocean Jade — Highly commended, Year 12 Jailbird 38 Jade Wilson — First prize, Year 11 Cafe Vienna 39 Jade Wilson — Second prize, Year 11 Balancing Shadows 41 Kaia Nahi — Third prize, Year 11 The Hypnosis of the Flame 42 Frauke Haase — Highly commended, Year 11 Little Stars 43 Mandrie du Preez — Highly commended, Year 11 Untitled 44 Mia Fraser — Highly commended, Year 11 White Snow, White Wind, White Hair 45
South our streets grow tread marks in the pattern of tapu cloth, the men in blue roam them recreating Da Vinci — bronze skin mona lisa who knew your last supper would be a $2.50 Big Ben pie and a bottle of stars— will we ever breathe the same freedom as our brothers north and west? cause oceania’s waves feel a little too familiar in the backseat gps broken cause somehow it only circles round these streets— south, you are —but— a direction on aucklands map, folded tightly into the plastic corners of red and blue led lights, police siren jams but not the jawsh 685 type . . . forever branded as the bottom the south of new zealand . . . but it’s okay, we’ll tau’olunga on their disrespect wake them up at dawn with our cheehoo’s breathe a brown colour palette back into their colourless minds love us enough to not need it from anyone else grow with each other, be strong with each other block out their white noise with white noise fill the cracks of Aotearoa’s pavements with more reasons to love south . . . and put us back on the map . . . unfold us out of the plastic corners of red and blue led lights help reverse the damage of our roots with the healing of our new generations 6
cause leaves still bloom even more beautiful after the fall for when our streets grow tread marks, we’ll repaint them with coconut oil and fala paongo, when the world wants our faces to kiss the concrete, we’ll still be safe in the arms of papatuanuku cause when things go south— we’ll deal with them like south— with the love our roots nourish us in . . . bronze skin mona lisa, who knew your last supper would be a feast of the colonised minds... undo the bleaching of your brown colour palette refill them with all shades of you cause no direction will define where we’re really from, south — Caitlin Jenkins, Papatoetoe High School
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Today I (My sister’s cigarettes) Today I poured water onto my plate at dinner, In hopes my sister would notice Stuck a fork in my hand and made a drawing for her out of the soggy bread pieces. Tonight my sister dropped her cigarettes under the dining table before our dog wedged them under the rug. She held me by my throat until I admitted to being a thief, left bruises where there had been kisses then dumped the remnants in a flowerpot and left my tears swimming in the dirt Today I looked at my sister’s pack just a little too long, graphic photos of murdered lungs sobbing behind bars of bones, imprisoned in plastic packaging. Knew tonight I’d have nightmares of them taking shelter inside my sister’s ribcage. Knew tomorrow she’d happily make a bed for them to stay Today I watched my sister stir her cereal almost reluctantly, eyeing the clorox bottles on the shelf. Two litres of death measured out in a plastic pot Knew she wished it wasn’t milk she’d poured into her bowl at breakfast. Tonight I watched my sister exhale a ghost from her mouth but it wasn’t quite cold enough outside It filled the room and wrapped around me in a solemn hug as if to whisper “We’re sorry for what’s coming.” 8
Today I would grow quietly so as not to disturb her, muscles aching from neglect, and miss another birthday for a rehab visit Only to realize I’d turned 17 before I was 13 Today I’d wear my sister’s sweater, stained with smoke and regrets soiled with a permanent nihilism Ignore how Immune it was to the fruitless attempts of our laundry powder Tonight I’d sob on the wooden floors that we found her on The floor that felt no empathy for me or for her Let the moon press its face up against the window and stare down on me with pity But tomorrow, I’d spit our memories into the bathroom sink. Bittersweet saliva dripping from my mouth and hands Watch those days slip through the cracks in the porcelain before clawing to get them back, so I could press them between the pages of a book and stomach one more mouthful And on her last day I’d fill my sister’s room with smoke Inhale deeply and close my eyes, 9
taste her laugh on my tongue, how it lingered raw in the air Hear the sound of her eyes blinking quiet tears in the dark. And though I didn’t believe in ghosts, I knew she’d find a way to haunt me somehow. Though the smoke slowed my heart It wrapped around me in a solemn hug As if to say, “we’re sorry.” It wasn’t quite enough to pretend it was her. — Penelope Scarborough , Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu
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staining the silence the wind is practising synchronised screaming girls whispering in the library and the carpet creaks dominoes hitting white dots and black black black back away tea spills staining the silence and the walls can sense fear i didn’t steal her man — Lucy Barge, Mountainview High School
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ever after staples and strepsils /a road map down my arm /red ink renting out the carpet /the bluetooth speaker thinks i’m in a romantic mood /sings of opening up /i did / and now i’m needing stitches /polaroids poisoning the wall / maybe if i pierce my finger /no one will kiss me awake — Lucy Barge, Mountainview High School
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Unmaking My New Boots Tug the tags off between your fingers. The plastic bites. Pull the tissue paper from the toes, discard this lump in the direction of a bin, vaguely, and sit, satisfied, back, at a thrillingly good deal. The smooth synthetic skin is as seamless as the self-checkout process for the impulse buy itself. Brand new and just for me. Mine. $30 from The Warehouse, on sale. So it’s unsurprising as the stitching unravels, recoiling away from my foot the first time we try them on at home. Expected a short, easy, pretty but cheap life from them, and however could that be a waste? The zipper pulls away from itself as you drag it, stutteringly, up, the sole gapes a bit, flopping as you walk, leaving footprints in dissolving rubber against the carpet. We blink at it. The polyester threads of the inner are detangling, melting, rolling in thick drops along your calves to pool on the floor, alongside a puddle, a lake of fake leather, ‘decomposed’ down to plastics and black dye and oil. The air of the bedroom fills with manufactured fumes. We trip over the buckles, lumps of unrefined metal in the haze. Fall to the ground with a squelch. Now, just surrounded by dinosaur bones. — Amelia Kirkness, Cashmere High School
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4 tha kulture As the stars twinkle in the night sky, they twinkle like us, the grandchildren in my grandparents’ eyes. As the sun rises and the sky light sweeps the darkness of the night away, it rises as we do in my grandparents' home. As the pan of eggs seethe, toast jumps up from the heat of the toaster as we jump up to the large breakfast table and prepare for my grandfather’s prayer. As the food is passed down the table for breakfast, we are not only eager for the arrival of the food, but also my grandfather's stories. My grandfather, who salued the sea in the 1990s, tells us about our Pacific Heritage. He tells us about the days he climbed up the coconut trees, the peaceful Sunday mornings at church with young children belting hymns from their little chests, the warm sun that shines through the sky and pigments his skin, the days he spent swimming swiftly through the clear waves at the beach with our family, the days of hard yards, learning cultural dances and performing them to his village, the days of showering in the rain while the warmth of the sun beams onto him, the days of riding his children to school on the back of his motorbike, he wants us to relive those days and experience the joy in our motherland, island joy. just as he had at our homeland. 14
He awaits the day we head to the home we’ve never been to. the day where he can give us a tour of his village. The village that blossoms of meniscus flowers and sparkles from the stars in the night sky. He awaits for the day we head to the friendly islands together. But how long does he have to wait for our island to find itself underwater? To find our island sunk. To find our people evacuated. To find his land gone. How long do we have left until we find our island under? How long do we have left to bury our elders in their homelands? How long until it’s too late. My Pacific islands face the effects of climate change today. This climate crisis causes a shortage of our supplies, when food is what brings us together. The flooding of the rain and storm surges increase as the floods of people at church on a Sunday morning decrease. The warm worshipping voices that steam up the warm Sunday mornings are now silent, as they await the storm to pass, and the sea to calm. The land that is our own home, now belongs to the sea. My islands continue to sink into the sea as our government continues to sink into their caucus bench. The sea will rise, and my islands will sink, my ancestor's lands will soon become extinct, unless 15
our government in this developed nation declares a climate emergency. Will my islands be another story to tell? Will the clasping of my grandfather's hands around my own be the only connection I have to my homeland? Will I even be able to visit my islands, a home where my ancestors lay and my people pray? Pray for the water to keep from rising, to keep from the sinking of our islands. The water that connects our islands, will sink our islands. Tonga, I fear losing her. You see the gold bling from our teeth when we smile, we smile as we sink, but don’t mistake smiles of resilience as a sign that we’re okay. This climate crisis is more than just the trees falling and sea rising. It is the children laughing and giggling to each other as they walk through the floods up to their waistline, holding bags of fruit above their heads, it’s the father who holds his son as he prays before the cyclone hits their village, It's the food that’s given out for the cost of love, The churches where the village sleeps during the storm as one big family. These actions of resilience, don’t mistake them as a sign that we’re okay. As my ancestors above look over me, they ask why I am crying. they ask why their islands are dying. I try to explain this climate crisis as a whole, but i’m focusing below, as I tulou between their headstones, sinking. 16
as my voice breaks to save our islands, my ancestors ache as they sink into the dirty sea in silence. I will fight to save them. I will fight to save the Pacific. For my ancestors who sailed the moana, who were raided in their homes and on the streets, hoping for a lifestyle filled with endless opportunities for me, I raise my voice. For my islands where my family lives and ancestors are buried, sea levels rise as our land sinks in a hurry, I raise my voice. For my islands that you book for your ‘tropical’ holiday, but ignore the effects of us sinking through this climate change, I raise my voice. For my brown, Tongan, minority raised, child of immigrant parents, Salvation Army, Good Will, holey socks and shoes self, I raise my voice. For my ancestors, for my islands, for the hood, for my grandfather's stories. I raise my voice, 4 tha kulture. — Grace Fakahau, Palmerston North Girls' High School
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apology to the butterfly that lived i can’t feed you when you starve so stubbornly legs folded like a lawn chair prone to probing fingers always too small to touch i am human: neglect and love and saving you anyway as your body buckles in cruel winter i’m sorry my wax-gilded icarus kept pretty in pain dying is return to the chrysalis, they say do you want to go home? or will you hook your foot to my lip ignore the teeth behind it? i wonder if i am that cruel god you see / when your split tongue goes loose in your mouth — Freya Turnbull, Onslow College
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yesterday when I stopped A response to ‘Shack’ by Murray Edmond by the side of the road I thought of a word it's a rickety word placed amongst the snow coated tussocks that protrude like slices of carrot cake. it's a cold word made hard and sharp and left half done it's a lonely word that never saw Santas' surprises and giggling puree it's a grey word ironed in shackles and made sick from the language thrown around in it it's an unstable word creaking like demolition timber taking after Lear and Edmund But it's a delicious word that maybe you should just hide in that open doorway at the back of your throat — John Pain, Mountainview Highschool 19
Evil Make-Believe Young girls, what’s the wonder in dreaming themselves power. Messy pink nail polish and fingers crackling with energy, arms twined with sharpie scribbles of magic symbols, coveted purple gel pen glitter. Grape-scented. Buckets of flowers and leaves and rainwater and maybe more exotic things, brewing potions and poultices, poisons for goblins and ghosts or whatever your local children’s mythos paints as a villain for little witches to vanquish. I was one of them once, and I always won. Sometimes you’re small and calling down the darkness. Sometimes you are the darkness, or want to be, evil in a distinctly sparkly, barbie movie children’s book way. You can tell I’m a villain by the way my colour scheme has switched to blacks and greys and methylated spirits purple. Look how my eyes are red now, or maybe toxic waste green. Customise the colour scheme of your corruption. The purple dress always less favoured than the pink wings and fluffy plastic “glass slippers”, but sometimes when they make you be the evil queen, not the fairy princess, you can take it as a compliment and eat their hearts in the roleplay game out of spite. You’re a method actor on this playground. The bushes and tree stumps are your nightmare palace. Cue the lightning, cue the bats, pause for thunder. And there are no boys allowed in the Demon Realm. It gets boring fighting over who gets to be
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Gwen from Ben 10 and who has to wait so like I guess you can be one of the guys from Winx but I’m being Darcy and she’s being Icy so that means we have to torture you sorry. We can play mums and dads tomorrow though… Get called inside for dinner and leave the concoctions to fester in the playhouse out of spite. There may be ants but at least the goblins are vanquished and the witches win for today. — Amelia Kirkness, Cashmere High School
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Steps I’m saying that winter is beating summer into a bloody pulp. I know I’m missing a couple of steps but bear with me: immediacy. I’m building a house for us, just us, to occupy I know, I know, no steps, the skull-crushing fall, bear with me: whimsy I asked if you were miserable, and you uncharacteristically said yes. That wasn’t right. You said I have no business saying or building, because I don’t know anything. Screw you. I’ll have you know that my problem’s not that I don’t know — it’s that I do know, but I just haven’t got it in me to stop the oncoming traffic, the stampeding current. I am all variables of this equation: the clumsy foot, the flimsy stairs, the misjudged placement, the scream, the mechanism of gravity, the body bleeding out in the debris of rotting scaffolding. That’s your cue — robin in the woods, scab on the wound. It’s good, smacks of something new, endorses distance — this bitter, meticulous forgetting.
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I thought I’d never be able to live without you but looking back, you were right I can’t even see my footsteps in the leaves. — Judy Fong, Macleans College
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gossip the flowers are telling tales in the street— next door, she’s packing her bags since a striped carnation is a striped carnation and so’s a yellow rose. her husband stands holding every other pure pink carnation, watching as she goes, and wondering if he should have picked her hyacinth instead. Across the road, the little boy’s picked every peony in the patch to take to the hospital for his mommy to hold. his father doesn’t know there’s an asphodel among his bouquet of daisies and soon he’ll be taking his darling chrysanthemums instead. the widow across the way has planted tulips in the window box this year, rumour has it she’s in love again. when I step outside, there’s a posy on my doorstep and a card with your name. turns out you’ve mixed the roses because you’ve never been in love and don’t know how it feels but you know there’s something special about me you’ve never encountered before. everyone says the best reply is anemone or apple blossom, to keep my distance and let you find your feet. yet if inside I am nothing but roses and forget-me-nots and honeysuckle at the thought of you, shouldn’t you not have to eavesdrop on flowers to be the first to know? Striped carnation—no Yellow rose—infidelity Pink carnation—love and apology Hyacinth—begging for forgiveness Peony—healing Daisy—good cheer Asphodel—death is coming Chrysanthemums—death Tulips—love 24
Mixed roses—I think I like you but I don’t know Apple blossom—anticipation Anemone—hope Roses—love Forget-me-nots—love Honeysuckle—love — Sarah-Kate Simons, Homeschooled
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Route Back Home chalk teeth grate together, relentless, like the scraping metal in your faulty brakes. but the erratic drone of your rotors keep me from crawling too far into daydreams that skip to the ending sequence where we run into a wide-shot embrace. because sometimes every minute cramped and cornered into the ink stained edges of my conscious is a blindspot of complete suffocation and maybe i just need to get some air. the haze of summer is ripe and all i could ever want is to rest my head into its shoulder, rendered to its shallow fever until i can find a warmth to keep safe. for now, my head is tilted north through your slack-jawed window with patient wind threading into my skin and i long to stay on this road for miles until your truck is worn down to its last huffs. because the lines between us are tattered through to the tail-end, mimicking half-split wood, fraying with a guilty conscience and i can’t tell if it will be our exit or our opening. inhale or exhale? but just in case, i honed a fine vacancy for you hollow, but waiting, like measured breaths. and if a home is not what you’re yearning for in the spaces between the silence
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then we could disperse together, fleeing with the monarchs. or we could be perfectly unsteady like the stones lining some slender creek or we could be in the water already, face down in the flood like some shitty metaphor of waterlogged impulse. and all we can pray is that we’re submerged in the shallow (but never the depths.) for what it’s worth, i’d scratch a split into the white lines that hoard us. i’d grip the wheel like it was a collar and run us off-road outside the borders because rattling with the dry rhythm of rugged asphalt, motion sick and wetting cracked lips is far more gentle than the metro. — Ocean Jade, Otago Girls' High School
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In Yourself I Mitochondria: mighty conqueror, horse made of milk and egg white and the insides of gutted seashells, sword wrought in a dying star and sharpened with a thousand cutting true words creator, lips weaving spiral galaxies of what-ifs and could-bes writing memories into soil and wishes into trees II Cancer: cursed, like a rotten swear word besmirching naivety lines of intricate programmed numbers surrendering to a row of useless zeroes scored in worthlessness accident, the lid of Pandora’s box left open upon the dresser while the demons and the furies and the sorrows trampled their way over hope to freedom III DNA: ladder, climbing your way through a dreamer’s mind with angels leaning on your rails as they escape into higher places where nothing is blood-drenched and ugly braided 28
weaving your way through a ring of thorns back down from heaven to the scarred spine of the earth offering up the last great hero to the greedy mouth of the wicked man’s altar IV Reticulum: ridicule, so-called hypocrisy set to rock the foundations of this temple of two-faced leaders shepherding their herd of lemmings closer to the cliff and whistling while they work meticulous every aspect of the words that he teaches, that remember their glory days cleaving the universe into breath and remain honed, scalpels now for the surgeon who visits the suffering sick V Cilia: silver, I’ll sell you for it if they name the right price see how much they pay me for lies and slander for a hanging tree and a potter’s field and a traitor’s name dragged through the dirt where it belongs plaited like an iron barbed whip and an execution and a bloodied back that’s what they’ll pay you for my crime when they scourge your own flawless name in the dirt and label it with crucifixion
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VI Golgi Bodies: golgotha they named this place for a skull’s empty sockets in a heartless head, for iron spikes and foul things that shouldn’t prowl the earth, shouldn’t cheer now from the darkness as the wrathful night oppresses this mound God have You forsaken this place and the man who must die here, can You feel the bite of those nails and that blood and that spear? heroes aren’t supposed to die like this VII Genome: garden, quiet in the morning after three days’ tears and the guards are sleeping in turns with one eye open each as if waiting for a monster to break loose even as they joke that there is nothing left now but darkness and death sepulchre in its tomb, hope laments the cruelty of its siblings, dormant like a seed new-planted, knowing that daylight is coming and it’s time to grow. they thought a spear and nails would kill it but still, it breathes and g r o w s VIII Membrane: mapping, this is me, this is you and all of it is carving into our bones like a story that cannot be forgotten, every 30
new blood cell from our marrow, every organ of our body speaking of it until we cannot hear for listening hope do you hear it now? Still where it was that day in AD 33 immortal no matter how many iron nails and bullets and bayonets you put through it—can you find it in you? in your tissues and your blood and your breath please don’t forget — Sarah-Kate Simons, Homeschooled
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Hospital Life plays hide and seek in these shroud white corridors, skydiving through the fingers of the men and women in scrubs They diagnose its mood on sight as it travels past in a blur like scenery through a rainy car window Sometimes life is in and out, like a hungry family arriving at the drive through Sometimes life vacillates, wandering the wards and posing like The Thinker And sometimes life is water through a sieve only stopping by on its way to a better world. — Sarah-Kate Simons, Homeschooled
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Develop and Structure Ideas Effectively in Creative Writing Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
I was three years old when I wrote my first poem I don’t remember it, only Dream geese, dark avian formation, over silent black water plip of pale pebble dropping disturbance into the still lake, ripples rolling outwards – like arpeggio, palaeo, all children know
I was nine years old when I won my first writing competition Expression, examination congratulations! We have decided your thoughts are beautiful, here is 80 bucks in vouchers, I wrote about freedom Liquid night, jellyfish flight, warm yet shiver beneath bloodless sun
Now within my stupid carvernous head the wet skin weight of
EGO curls like a cat, brittle-boned, but still I have so much to give, my rabbit thoughts are not beautiful? they are creature vs criteria, they have bloody matted fur, they fight and hide and multiply – hunger for that mind–heart coordination I have too much to give, a roaring blue tide of root and seed, torn and healed, ghosts and gorging greed, my! canine candid and my tentacle devotion, my bearded dragon bluff, because I’m still learning to process the bitter taste of no, to digest the daily dish of broccoli love, I am mud-creature trying to climb! life’s lonely ebb-and-flow eroding thebank below my dirty paws, my voracious velociraptor of gnawing regrets clothes left upon the floor and empathy untamed, I I was sixteen when I learnt about structure
— Shima Jack, Logan Park High School
Living Beneath the Sky Egmont towers, so white and hard in the endless sky Waiting like a broken clock Into december, still above me and frozen Waves are white dragons, foam with this same ice A charge of tiny beasts, torn open by the wind And me, they break against my bare thighs current like electricity that surges through me Our winter pale skin is sliced numb Shoulders tightened, high, breasts lifted Gasping and resisting something of the water tempest inside Feet pushing against the outward pull of the tide Hanging in water my form distorts Like the projection of pigment from above to this water There's a blue sky. But No. This is no blue sea. Here we know better Up close Reality bites In our eyes It swallows us, a tang in our throats And drips transparent of our chins And chops our bodies into blurs In Taranaki we wade into shore Salt stinging on our faces and ankles as if we had risen from a seabed
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I know the itch of numb feet on the hotness Half my blood thawed and rushing Throbbing around the stuff that's still in a frozen clot When I get cold my nervous system knows I still dive under Again And again — Lily Stoddart, New Plymouth Girls' High School
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Shark Hour The sun is pulled low at 5pm Patchy clouds cause the light to fade in and out and out and in Like the breath pulling from my lips and nose Or the tide lapping at the ngamotu cliffs It is Shark hour I’m at home Or is it in home? I’m in a boat of concave bone Adrift, alone, in gumboot tea and secrets It's a time for catching words For sailing pictures of prose Familiar thoughts thread into messy stanzas That fit comfortable fray like an over-worn coat New thoughts are like dark patches on the coast I’m not sure if its a rock Or a fin hovering above something That might eat me whole Where did the sun just go? I don’t swim in darkness. The white walls are losing their defined shadows Going slate gray
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I fold up my words. Make a paper plane And fly it into the paper bin, And watch the cold as it begins To creep in through the windows. — Lily Stoddart, New Plymouth Girls' High School
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Jailbird I mould a cage into the open mouth of winter blue-nosed, wide-eyed, as its snowy teeth graze my throat though, it could be my safeguard as im boxed into its sharp exhale because maybe I know the colder nights like a friend because maybe I hear cradle songs in its biting windmy bitter, sunless comfort. — Ocean Jade, Otago Girls' High School
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Cafe Vienna
Statues press their mouths to the rims of coffee cups in the capital of Austria.Vines curl up wooden beams in a nearby cafe.
Smokey scents of vanilla swirl through the air. Sweetness caresses the faces of the customers. Soft exhales drift upwards and mix with the clouds.
I wonder what kind of drink it is? “Let’s order one,” she says.
Cream floats on coffee brown as my lover's hair.
So she doesn't drown her immune system, I take the cream for her, scooping it onto a silver teaspoon. Melting on my tongue: milk and cocoa.
She drinks the coffee, stirring in a cosmos of sugar crystals. We sit side by side, imaging the city our drink knows. Silver spoons clink against ceramic cups, just as they do in the capital. Hands brush, two tongues taste one drink.
What of Vienna? Unfamiliar place, we imagine that 39
your mother is proud of you.
Viennese coffee, cafe Vienna, child of Austria: Five dollars ninety nine.
Learning how she likes her coffee: foolishly, free of charge. — Jade Wilson, Kaiapoi High School
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Balancing Shadows Upon the floor: little traces of you passing through the light. Golden galaxy of dust mixing in peaceful air. Shadows are symbolic of death, says your english teacher. You think of time moving in streaks of darkness as it mimics your figure through the years. Shadows are how we know that we are living through days, you think. Sun draws lines on your bedroom walls. Brown wooden floors wonder at you dancing, swaying, holding her in the last dusty rays. Her shadow embracing yours: Venn diagram of darkness showing all of the light that you have. — Jade Wilson, Kaiapoi High School
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The Hypnosis of the Flame The violent glow. Her pulsating robe of red. The blue of the heat, and the white of her heart. Who knew destruction was so enchanting, who could’ve thought they would be enthralled by her forked tongue? Trees tumble. Vines shrivel and crumble in the brilliant heat. People melt like wax candles. Like moths to a flame, they glide to their deaths. But that is not on their minds. All they know is the hypnosis of her flames, her whisper of veiled malice licking their ears. They fall, they shrivel and crumble in the mesmerising dance of death. Her purple malice, the black cloud. The brilliant power, her passionate heart of white. They are powerless against her. Eyes widened, mouths agape, they are hypnotized to their demise. Their bodies disintegrate. The fire, she is greedy. She takes the trees; she claims the people. Her roar dulls, and she stops to curtsy, her mouth a snarling crimson. She is grateful for this dance. — Kaia Nahi, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu
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Little Stars Little stars Fluttering about Seeping over cave walls Honey trickling down stone Leading the way As a path of yellow light The small child follows — Frauke Haase, Queen's High School
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Untitled Death taps me gently on the shoulder hands cool and soft I turn around and see mysterious, misunderstood Death's face remains hidden by an aura of unknowingness I don't know why people are afraid perhaps because they don't know what Death looks like elegantly harmonious Death tells me my time has come voice warm and soothing I step into the welcoming embrace enveloped by strong loving arms I melt into Death's tight comforting hug all my worries melt into nothingness I sigh out my fears and watch them float into the brisk evening air letting go of the scarred and deadly hands of Life for Death was my future I let Death welcome me into an eternity of blissful peace away from the chaotic and burning days in a safe haven freed of agony and torture and havoc Death as given me the beautiful silence of eternity. — Mandrie du Preez, New Plymouth Girls' High School
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White snow, white wind, white hands A wave that didn’t get to crash. What if this wave doesn’t fall, will it keep rising? When will it be too much? And if it does crash will it hurt the other waves? The spiders in the corner of my room, I know they judge me when I sleep. Bleached skies I hate the songs that remind me of you. Distant unfocussed glances Absolutely nothing in the air tonight — Mia Fraser, St Andrew's College
Massey University Press Private Bag 102904, North Shore Mail Centre, Auckland 0745, New Zealand Showcasing the winners of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition 2021 Compiled to celebrate Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2021 Text © copyright individual contributors, 2021 All rights reserved. Except as provided by the Copyright Act 1994, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
