2015 runner up

The Golden Rule
 
We followed a golden rule.
We promised to always work it out.
Love however cannot be calculated like simple arithmetic,
And my solutions led you to become my X.
There was once a time when my heart would beat for you in sinusoidal waves
Leading me to believe that our love would be infinite. Lying tangent to your curves
Our bodies would twist to create that perfect lemniscate.
It was your permutation of my admirable traits that ruined our equation.
You placed more importance on the plane of my stomach than my genius,
The proportion of my curves than my kindness
And the kgs of my weight than anything within.
Really? The one with the megaparsec waist shouldn’t judge.
Looking back now I realise why you were such an outlier.
It must have been the gravitational pull of your mass
Deceiving me, forcing me to think that you were more attractive.
It wasn’t just your magnitude though
I would have been so integer if you hadn’t been so negative!
To be completely honest you were such an asymptote you mother function!
So once I’d said goodbye,
All my problems were solved!
 

Anastazia Docherty
Year 13
Cambridge High School

Death and the Maiden
 
The sour taste of a sweet tongue.
Food, strangely delicate finger-sized bites.
A taste of deep chocolate and tempered liquor.
A fine wine, red, with just a hint of violence.
Such an empty court of red, bursting into life.
Unpredictable, exciting, unforgivable.
The echo of a woman waltzing.
A shadow haunting in my mind’s memories.
A dancing maiden tapping her shoes round the banquet hall.
Light raindrops caressing her damaged shoes.
The smooth feel of rhythm as it pulsates her body.
The grind of fingers down a window, trying to enter.
I was a bird in dress taking the clouds as its own,
Flying high, the soft cold moisture of breath skimming off its wings.
As it made steady progress across the sky,
There came a sweet reminder of what it had left behind.
Now as it dives the air suffocates and constricts,
Dark and heavy, with ominous trouble.
Forced through caves and tight crevices
Scraped by canine-like stalactites,
It’s a hunter exploring the darkness like a new open-world,
Opening a sandbox of adventurous Trauma.
Cold, icy lake hands seek their desired prey.
And I’m away behind the curtain of wounding comfort.
The sun bursts again with light and the sky beckons its smooth blue touch.
Yellow fields call out in a sweet, reassuring voice.
My dull wings are clipped and a cage dams my overpowering senses.
A healing harm of dull shock and restricted euphoria.
All the time is spent counting,
Totalling the hunts, the chases, the captures.
The bars squeeze confidence and will.
Time like me loses its flight.
Desperately clung thoughts fuel a race to the finish line.
Rushed through the bars I am greeted with an explosion of senses.
Flavours of freedom glide up my nerves and excite my brain
Knowing the pleasure it rewards.
I was a bird in dress unable to take flight.
The diminished size of the world within me.
The smooth feel of that rhythm pulsating my un-forgetting body.
Now it catalyses remembrance creating a thirst to claim.
A goal to achieve a deserving piece of mind.
My life spurred forward, my conscience questioned.
Can you hunt the hunter, without becoming predator?
 

Josh Richards
Year 13
Collingwood Area School

Tahanan
 
They told me to expect
The desperate heat that clung
And forced sweat to wear rivers
Into our skin
Greys and blacks and rust and concrete
Seeping into the streets
And the people
They told me to expect
Marketplaces awash with
“Yes Ma’am”s
“Hey Joe”s
Coca-Cola in plastic bags
Power lines like messy spaghetti
And rooftops spreading out
Like a tin forest
They told me to expect
Rice fields climbing
Up into the mountains
Hidden under shawls of cloud
Paper parasols and skinny cats
Children who have fought the world
And lost
They told me to expect
Desolation and the weight
Of a nation of people I had never met
Whose very being reflects my apathy
The heartbreak of a girl who has everything
And nothing
They hadn’t told me to expect
The paper buildings curling up at the corners
As the sun touched their walls and set them alight
The child in my arms
Whose smile
Sent out fragments of colour
To eclipse my monochrome heart
No one warned me I was coming home.
 

Holly Morton
Year 13
Otumoetai College

Movement of Life
 
I
She is dignified.
Her studies, of the highest value.
Artistic and light.
Her name, Étude
musical, bright.
Her movements light with dignified grace,
peaks of interest, though
she knows no haste.
Étude, she is
precise.
II
The child of joy, her playful grin.
Bounce and beauty,
the epitome of spring.
Her name, Printemps.
Her body light
beautiful, playful
soars
to great
heights.
Printemps, she is
agile.
III
Her name, Libre
coiled in midnight.
Changes dark to light.
Flashes bright, she can take flight
swift, quick.
Only to go back to the deep midnight.
The light motion, gone but never slack
for her colour, though dark is never black.
Libre, she is
free.
IV
High in class, elegant in action.
Her movements fast, though never hasty.
Long material touches her feet,
two fine shoes, their heels meet.
Her name, Mazurka
Attention. Engage.
She has might, though ever graceful.
Mazurka, she shows
pride.
V
On the dance floor
I am anyone but me.
I am Étude, artistic and light.
I am Printemps, beautiful in flight.
I am Libre, coiled in midnight.
I am Mazurka, lively with might.
Four dances to connect
four chances to project
my love of dance,
perfect.
 
.

Katie Hooper
Year 12
Timaru Girls’ High School

Drifting
 
For weeks I noticed
his eyes flickering,
sometimes watching us
and sometimes gazing
through our faces.
His thoughts drifted
from our apartment to
the little village with
red concrete houses that
spread like moss over the
trough of the mountains.
He remembered the clink of his mother’s
silver anklets as she walked
in bare feet along the dirt roads.
Many years had faded from his memory,
lost in a drifting mind,
but he knew that in a year’s time
the kitchen tap would still be dripping,
the radio still buzzing
and we would still leave at nine
and be back before dinner.
Perhaps he also knew that
his grandson didn’t actually get a job
and the rent went up and
that everyone had
already made plans for after
his passing and nobody told him.
 
.

Sarah Liu
Year 13
Epsom Girls’ Grammar School

Soft Cotton Mornings
 
you are most beautiful in the morning
when fresh light washes in like wet paint and everything is okay
in those slow stretching seconds when the sun spreads over the world
everything is awake and singing except us in white sheets
and your skin peeks through soft cotton like a china collection shining
like marble carved by the gods it is smooth
and rich with shape, gliding over
the blades of your shoulders (the apricot sunrise at nine thirty)
you are the best of the morning
ripe perfection augmented by the gold of sun
with your eyes closed resting it is easier to see the universe behind them
the ultimate splendor of life is so clear
in those slow stretching seconds when you are not awake but I,
with the sun and birds, and stars hidden in berry blue skies
find something in your skin
your sleeping peace
and it is pure
and you are so beautiful
 

Leah Dodd
Year 13
New Plymouth Girls’ High School

Groundless
 
It was not in the clouds
I learnt how to fly.
But between jagged twigs,
I flapped and stumbled.
In a warm nest,
I dreamt of battling polar winds.
In furry layers,
I prayed for hardened wings.
All I see is up.
I climb and soar,
groundless.
It is not the sky
that tells direction.
But the dirt and rocks below,
stubborn and unchanging.
It is not stars I reach for
as I near them in flight,
but for the juicy sweat decay
at the foot of a tree.
I fight the binds of earth.
I reach for freedom,
groundless.
If I fly only on mountain tops,
I would touch every peak of polished grey.
But I would forget
how daffodils vary in yellows.
A special loneliness
awaits above the clouds,
a white splendour
over the meaningful imperfections.
If I could fly forever…
I fall,
groundless.
The fine, delicate quill
decorates not a majestic being,
but a lump of fluff,
lying in the way of someone’s hundred-k journey.
A piece of prodigal sky,
returning to earth.
 

Amy Huang
Year 12
Rangi Ruru College, Auckland

Colours of the Wind.
 
The sun echoes out
across the sky,
ignites the silver linings,
creates a soft pink hue.
The contrast against
a blue canvas
mingles, seeps together,
produces a lavender glow.
Over the hill on the horizon
there is nothing but white.
A cascade of peaks,
mirroring the mountain opposite.
Where the sun illuminates proudly
there is a spill of orange,
sharpened,
by a tinge of lemon.
As we turn the corner,
all there is, is grey,
the dull sadness and blandness
pierced by the colours as they link,
and fall.
 

Alyxandra Devlin
Year 13
St Mary’s Diocesan, New Plymouth

White
 
They say that the night
Is darkest before the dawn.
But that isn’t the truth,
At least, beyond simple terms.
Anyone who’s seen
A sunrise knows. There
Is a trend. A gradual
Brightening along the course
Of an hour or so.
The darkest darkness is a
Sham, designed to justify
All manner of karmic injustice,
To hold lowered heads high.
A nursery rhyme told
By the minstrels who
Tell you this is a poem, because
It has verses, and had line breaks
In between sentences.
But, just because a poem
Isn’t a poem, doesn’t mean
It can’t be read.
And dawn comes
Regardless of the darkness.
Unless, it’s really cloudy…
 

Jake Kelly-Hulse
Year 12
Sacred Heart College, Auckland