Competition

First Prize

I've Heard it Hundreds Times
by Dhaniel Gautama
Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

One day, an old aborigin told to the west

Ya.. yeah
I've heard it hundreds times
your loud screaming
and what inside your wishful thinking

That you want to be free from everything
you've never asked forgiveness
from all of your sin
That you'll never give your faith
to the existent history
never surrender
to the destiny
That you'll never obey all of authority
never be faithful
to suppress the feeling of inferiority

Ya, yeah...
I am not well educated
not whiz kid either
Yet, i know the point so clear

Now
Let me do the oration
Let me share my opinion

That your ideology has alienated my people
Your knowledge has hurt our wisdom
All of your rhetoric is just a piece of shit
I tell you a secret with heritage from our ancient god
-words are made from the saliva of prehistoric animal

Words will always be primitive
Being flooded seeing a dead meat
Paranoid if dealing with hungry
Dripped when surrounded by foods
No use except to spit

Now,
I suggest you to sew you maw
Learn to use insight
Deal with your deepest feeling
Becoming calm
Keep in silent
In all of persuasion
all of condemnation
Wipe out the words
Wipe out the tears

Second Prize

Oppression of the Night
by Anthony Khoo
Beaumont, SA

The oppression of the night is a weight of lead,
That silently smothers and silently sighs
Through open windows- open doors
And into shade.
Deadly darkness descends
In the eve of shadow out of sight,
And tis then, when the clock tolls high,
That darkness rules the night with a grip of iron-
To press and stress its subjects as its soft fur is shed.

When dusky shadows rise from murky graves
We see the darkness that lurks- every soul.
Weakly hidden behind steel bars,
A fragile enclosure-
And yet darkness lingers
Watching, waiting for that single moment,
That time when we weaken the cages of our minds
Let loose the beast- a dark mercury- which slides,
Slithers and sneaks from our hearts into our lives
Making us slaves.

Tis not the night of light and day that beckons
And draws us like moths obsessed with a flame-
But 'tis the darkness that lingers in hearts and minds
That rises up-
And binds us.

Unyielding silver.