Competition

First Prize

Stamps
by Jacqueline Krynda
Merewether High School, Broadmeadow, Newcastle, NSW

I did not even realise
my family had them:
an album packed away
under the house,
only uncovered in the tumult
of moving,
faded but well cared for-
Nazi Stateprinted
in typewriter letters
on the cover.

inside, the colours are light,
adjusted obediently in
rows and columns
and covered with waxy paper.
yet, in the half light
they line up in
military formations:
the Fuhrer's face
and swastika on
every page.
Deutsches Reich is announced
in curling letters and a
yellowing perforated trim.

in a darkened room
under the lamp
I can touch
the paper that saw
unimaginable things.

the book
on my desk
haunts me.
and I wonder what else
about ourselves
we do not know.

Second Prize

The Night Road
by Jacqueline Krynda
Merewether High School, Broadmeadow, Newcastle, NSW

accompanied by the orchestral grinding
of ABC Classic FM
we are on the night road-
430 km to Sydney.
forced to reflect, each of us is
a prisoner of self,
trapped in the gaze of our own
pale silhouettes
and the flecks of dust
on the windows.

shivering, we are reborn
in the midnight stops at petrol stations-
our only companions
the dark morning
and the forgotten souls driving
late-night trucks,
their beasts standing with heaving sides
near the bowsers.
as we wander without direction,
yellow crawls over cement
and pools of petrol
gleam.

back on the road again,
we breathe in the staleness
of 4:02am.
outside,
the darkness hums.
430 km to Sydney.