Poetry_Master

A China Robin
 
 
You’re dust spluttered into the night sky shaken free of stars
One of those nights where the sky feels sort of closer than usual
As if you could swallow it, or bathe in it, or just swim within its depths
You’re the girl I see in the mirror
The one with the face cracked all the way down as if carved of china doll fragments
You’re way up there with the greats
You’re better than them all
You’ve hooked your ribs within those of
The sullen boy whose ruby eyes bled into his soul
Somehow I see you reflected in the stormy pavement
And the cinderblock sky
In the words that I can’t say
And my shouts which fall to whispers
You’re like a tree which falls in an emptied forest
You’re like a tear that soaks into your pillow at night
You’re the kind of person whose petals feel exactly like thorns
You’ve plucked away at your angel wings
You hanged yourself with your halo
On the shoulder where angels often graze, I see only another devil
You’re someone I choose to think about
Because the pain of you is like huffing paint
Because even though you’re a relic
And you’ve nested deep within my skull
Speaking only in migraines
You’ve curved mountains in my shoulders
Knitted a knot within my spine
I’m huffing air
And breathing paint
I’m certain that you’re the sunlight which illuminates those sad sparkly granules of dust
I hope that wherever you are, you are somewhere
I hope that heaven isn’t dirt in the ground
I hope heaven heals wounds you can’t lick clean yourself
And I hope that you shake hands with Athena
Strong and wise like you
I’m sure that you painted the last pink sky I saw
Because I know I saw that dress you used to wear in it
You’re up there with the greats
But none as great as you
 
 

Philippa McMenamin
Year 12
Villa Maria College, Christchurch

No one ever tells us

until i hit twelve,
the muddle of new, yet-to-be-explored tension when the seating plan got announced
the flitting not-glances as everyone held their towel up too tight in the changing rooms
the dry-mouthed wrestling in gym class, christmas cards with rows of kisses
girls being walked home and guys doing the walking, both looking anywhere but each other –
i thought that you could only fall into one of two categories.
 
i had been taught from birth by every movie, every book I pretended to turn up my nose at
but started going through it when their backs were turned, not knowing what i was searching
for –
to daydream about white veils and a wedding garter hidden daintily out of the way
and, of course, the groom, forever smiling, maybe tearing up at the end of the aisle.
it has been rubbed into me, however well-intentioned, by giggled sleepover conversations,
by my parents, by people in the street who don’t try very hard not to smirk
at my friend from the boys’ school up the street who keeps brushing my palm with his.
 
(it’s not until years later that i realize that yes, i did want the overly clammy wrap of his hand, but
that particular clutch at the back of my throat was for the friend who had been on the other side
of me: oblivious, ruby-lipped, and straining the shirt I had let her borrow when we had shared a
changing room together an hour before.)
 
i sometimes think about shearing my hair off, pulling on hoodies instead of sloping dresses
maybe get a metal stud: tongue, nose, a row of silver cuffs along my eyebrow,
let my pants bag around my hips, stop wearing lipstick
to see if people will stop asking me why i don’t ‘look the part’.
 
pick one or the other, they say,
and god knows i used to, but now i’ve watched the lines blur, and not the ones i ever expected:
shame-faced boys pull their belts achingly tight so they don’t droop and reveal the rim of lace.
not facing the mirror, girls hurriedly bind their chests before their shift changes.
they shower in the dark, stumbling and skidding, because if the light was on
they couldn’t get to a towel fast enough without getting smacked with their reflection.
and they would rather risk a bashed-open head on the wet sink than turn on the light
and see their body locked up in front of them, aching and wrong.
 
(some people falter before going into public bathrooms. there has never just been one or the other.)
 
it has been ground into me: pick one.
either the hard, jagged lines of the shoulders and the bolt of the jaw,
the lovely protruding of the adam’s apple,
the grate of stubble, the gangled elbows, the blunt fingers, all angles and edges.
or the waterfall of collarbones crested above the swell of her breasts
that strain her shirt perfectly, the tangent of curved hips,
the flash of thigh above the skirt, charcoal smudges of mascara,
the uninterrupted flow of her throat.
 
(they both have the soft sweep of their eyelashes on their cheek. the lift of their shirts when they
reach for something. the burst on the end of their laughs. and tongues always feel the same in
my mouth, whether they’re ringed by stubble or lips smeared with artificial red.)
 
one or the other or you’re greedy, or a liar, or a sinner, or all of the above.
an impatient mother of a whining child with fistfuls of two types of candy at the checkout,
and her fingers will leave marks on your wrist that you will rub over later:
five raised lines reminding you that you cannot have both.
 
 

Isabelle McNeur
Year 12
Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti, Christchurch

Oceanic Romeo and Juliet
 
 
Waterfaerie, beautifish, why did it have to be like this?
Future, present, forgotten past, moonlight flickers in no shape cast
 
At eventide he’d close his eyes, the dreams that came were endless
Beneath the seas and oceanskies, scales gleamed, she swam so careless
Who’d have thought, that just in sport, two lives could be changed at will?
They’d hunt on mutual territory, and meet, before the dawn would spill
 
Oceanlegend, watersong, above the twisted kelp so long
A tale that would come to pass, a tragedy across the sea like glass
 
He’d set off whilst still dark, into the sea he’d cast his nets
She was swimming with a whaleshark, not quite knowing what to expect
Two adolescents upon their way, before the dawn and break of day
With fates entwined, they’d yet to find, the trouble they’d cause and pay
 
Hunter, fisherman, mortal man, who’d journeyed from grass and trees, dry land
Exotic splendour with ocean heart, fate’s true happenings were yet to start
 
He’d lain to rest, not minding his nets, that would tug, resist and pull
She’d glimpsed a truly curious sight, one she just had to see in full
So up she swam, unseen nets that ran, two paths sure to collide
So sudden he’d wake, not sure what bade, but feeling so wrong inside
 
Earthen land, ocean sea, having caught what should be free
Taken, captured, caught, entwined, scales began to lose their shine
 
He checked his nets and in his chest his heart was beating fast
Deadly wounds, the pain that bloomed, sure each moment was her last
In his arms he finally found her, kissed her brow and gently held her
She closed her eyes, the stars grew dull, the sun began to rise…
 
 

Abigail Mossman
Year 12
Te Aho o te Kura Pounamu – The Correspondence School

Hurt
 
 
when I sounded the notes of hurt
and watched the hammer play its nails through the skin
I imagined falling
falling past every stained glass window
of every church
as the thinning souls inside
let my falling body
reflect in their eyes
without sounding a single harmonic
upon their heartstrings
 
we need to stop
so I can kiss you on the church steps
while the people inside look at the patron saints
of the sins I commit without thinking
 
I will string a line between the two tallest trees in town
and let the holed clothes that lie closest to my skin
air themselves in the dark that nobody sees but me
and when the wind shakes them from the top down
I will laugh to myself
at how they look like the flags that my grandmother hung
at times of celebration
so thick with revelry
that we could have cut it with a knife
 
 

Ruby Solly
Year 13
Western Heights High School, Rotorua

Ever to Forget the Elephant
 
You must never lose sight of what is important
revenge can be sought
love lost.
A thud of large, grey footsteps
A huff of dry earth
His shadow casts a warm darkness
His memory is the world’s tallest library
Around him
the trees sway in unison
branches hold the future
His ears are sweet butterflies in the wind
He sounds his constant trumpet
Sunshine rains down
Only to live
As the great Elephant
 
 

by Olivia Whyte
Yr 12, St Andrew’s College

I Forget
 
I know the endorphins which
make me feel attachment
are also employed when I
defecate and exert
 
I know that though I label
this pairing one in a
million, maths negates,
renders this obsolete
 
I know that what I’m doing
is done by all humans
and the rush I am feeling
is best described as fake
 
I forget about all this
with two tongues in my mouth
 
 

Sam Spekreijse
Yr 12, Wellington College

Spaces Between
 
You are a door locked,
key swallowed.
You are a room.
 
Outside people look
through frosted glass
at outlines that seem
to shift and settle
like overgrown moths.
 
Inside you are
cluttered ideas piled
high, accumulated
knowledge filed
haphazardly on shelves;
you are movements
disturbing dust.
 
You are the deliberate
spaces between things, gaps
like wide open mouths waiting
for more.
The empty light socket;
the carpet across which shadows pool
but never meet.
 
You are nothing but echoed footprints
and settling silence;
a window that stays
closed against sound and sun;
the dust that is never let out.
 
 

Beth Rust
Yr 13, Karamu High School 

Queen’s Horse

‘Queen’s Horse’, Joanna Braithwaite, 2011 (reproduced by permission of the artist)

 
Regal head wrapped tight like Tegel Chicken,
Braithwaite uses a paint that makes her easel glisten.
 
With the same air, manner or mien
of her royal majesty the queen,
cock eyed stare suggesting her small gene
pool, something they have in common,
not common as in those folks that shop at cotton on.
 
Inbreeding; something that might be followed by some kind of legal proceeding,
then maybe an alternative pleading, disbelieving and a debriefing this evening –
quite some insult if that’s where this painting’s leading.
 
Comportment; more prominent than the obvious lack of an assortment
of certain royal adornments and ornaments.
 
 
 

Arie Bates-Hermans
Yr 13, Wellington High School

If I Ever Write A Poem
 
If I ever write a poem
I will not let the main point parade around
dressed to the nines in simile and metaphor
bejewelled in allegory and rhyme.
 
I will let it wander around in the nude
drawing stares from puritans
shocked by anatomy they forget they possess
under their own buttoned clothes.
 
In fact, if I can have it my way,
there will not even be a main point.
I will merely write a list of facts
that will not dissipate like the noble
and nonexistent abstract concepts
that disintegrate the moment
you hit a brick wall.
 
When food is scarce lady bugs will resort to cannibalism and eat the elderly.
The common garden worm has five pairs of hearts.
Scorpions have venomous stingers but some have twelve eyes,
 
I’ll write. And I will put down the pen
knowing that I have not romanticised nor ostracised the truth
staring it down in some humanised contest
where one of us will inevitably be broken
and remade as something less than whole.
 
 

Maria Ji
Yr 13, St Cuthbert’s College

The Beekeeper
 
I wanted to marry the beekeeper.
I wanted to soothe his stings,
tell him that each one is a death,
a coffin filled by one of his adopted children
(thousands and thousands of them, sleeping in rows).
Another of his Queen’s soldiers lost in a misunderstood battle…
Let him teach me how to listen to their murmured symphony.
My beekeeper, the conductor
(behind the smoke screen).
Kick the ashes into the air with your soft soled shoes sweet man,
put them all to sleep.
Their sweet snoring, sounds like they’re humming our song…
Honey sandwiches for our picnic my dear?
You never cease to surprise me.
Sticky swallowings with that ‘school lunch flare’.
I lick my lips.
It’s time to open my parcel
(honey smeared on brown paper).
Stop biting your tongue,
we both know what these yellow booties mean to us.
We’ll make them soft shoes, we don’t want anyone to get hurt…
The babies will come in pairs you know.
You’ll kiss their foreheads as they sit in their pram,
I’ll take our little family out walking while you stay home to wash the windows
(too many little lives snuffed out, trying to reach you).
I know this makes you cry,
but only a little and you don’t wipe your tears away, they say this makes you more of a man…
The women whisper about us you know, my sweet bee man.
They say “That’s the beekeeper’s woman and his two bastard sons.”
But don’t worry my man,
my sweet, sweet man.
I know it’s all lies.
For our confession of love had one million witnesses.
Each guest gently humming me down the aisle…
 

Ruby Solly
Yr 12, Tauhara College