Runners Up 2005
On this page:
- 'Travel log' by Melissa Chen
- 'My Poetry Teacher' by Jessie Hendy
- 'History' by Russell Kale
- 'Under the Trees' by Guanting Liu
- 'Ball Game' by Selina Powell
Melissa Chen (Epsom Girls Grammar School)
Travel log
drive, you say
drive me somewhere
high above the world – grab your keys
let’s go. i want
only this
the open road
unfolding possibility, your
warm body in the front seat –
the rolling
horizon
give me unfinished
sentences and ravenous hunger for
other things, at every abandoned gas station
we could take communion of
two dollar crackers
and music, you say –
dance harlequinades and sew
checkers over sleeping lawns at midnight
uptown, the beautiful
undiscovered land.
let’s change our names
become enigmas, become
objects and travel from hand to hand
aging slowly and alone together, let’s
find home through untravelled driveways and
crawl across jungles to a room of our own
between signpost legs
the cheapest motel
and voices falling through the dark of
mezzanine floored parkways.
Jessie Hendy (Taradale High School)
My Poetry Teacher
there is a rockfall area
above my classroom door
where my poetry teacher,
who perhaps has been drunking,
abstracts everything I write.
like
each word has its own life and religion.
even if my poetry does contain bite marks
of expression
eloquence
there is still that long-faced Socrates syndrome
expression on her face,
because everything I write should have
a consequence.
Russell Kale (Karamu High School)
HISTORY
Russ Kale is the third denizen of the amber sunset.
Russ Kale is pushing the boundaries of the underwater experience.
He is significantly monotonous, but sleeps in class anyway.
Russ Kale has broken the nose of society to spite its face.
Russ Kale has yet to arrive at a conclusion.
He lives in a cocoon of ice-coated steel.
Russ dangles from rooftops, watches palm fronds and Amelie
projected onto grey-cloud screens.
Russ Kale knows where to get the best seat in the stratosphere.
Russ Kale does not return his videos on time.
Russ Kale becomes distorted at the edges,
Just past the point where the volleyballers
Play on the beaches of the island,
And hot-air balloons mark the road.
Guanting Liu (St Cuthbert’s College, Auckland)
Under the trees
As we waited for a ride
in our awkward school uniforms,
we shuffled light conversation back and forth.
A lorry drove past and I commented on how trucks
are a symbol of male dominance in society.
And you laughed
so I decided to shut up about Thelma and Louise.
And the night sky was like a silk tapestry,
the first stars emerging shyly, discreetly, like a first crush.
The decaying leaves squished under our leather stiff soled shoes as we
laughed over trivial matters
like the American presidential election.
And time passes.
Selina Powell (Wellington High School)
Ball Game
When I play soccer in the backyard,
Pete leans over the fence, opens his palms and says
Football!
Glint-hair, glint-eyed
snaggle tooth, Pete from Liverpool.
That’s not how you play football,
Pete says.
How I play football is
on a field once a rubbish dump,
dodging pillows in the hallway,
dribbling to school, and racing
buses at the traffic lights.
Pete has a glow around him, sun circling
over his shoulder. He asks
Where’s the grace? Where’s the dancing?
I squint at Pete, the fireball football caught in my eye.
Some days, I can only answer with
flat feet, elbows, tongue out to one side,
ugly girl
playing beautiful game. But I look forward to
others, when I am around the cushions
seamlessly, through the chair legs
SCORE
As the sun sets in my backyard I loop a header up, up
down to rest yin and yang on my foot.
Along comes Pete, hands to heaven
Football! He says, game? So
we play, and I win as easy as
one pirouette past Pete, two cheeky tackles and
three goals between the flowerpots.
I am glowing light
footed, Girl, you can move
Pete says, Best dance I ever had
head shaking, glint grinning,
Pete from
over the fence.