Competition

Highly Commended

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

waiting outside the soccer fields
on westphalia crescent 
the car boxes in the darkness –
radio static thick as soup,
thick as blood.

I sit there, watching
the grass - (flooded an electric green)
the shouting
around coloured witches’ hats,
the water flung up
from running feet,
the breath rising into cold air –
without interest. the streetlights
have cracked and dimmed
but still hold sentry outside.

static.

I sit there, as they announce
that war has started again –
another journalist missing,
fires over Israel,
green flares behind barbed wire fences
at night. the sound of shouting crowds
shudders - a stirring insanity.
middle-eastern madness.
and I feel nothing.

static.

the glass frosts over, and
I am still waiting, the
humming in the air
thick as water,
thick as blood.

Highly Commended

Sea Go Still
by Sarah Webster
Green Valley, NSW

Thoughts like schools,
Of Silver Bream,
Swim through the trenches,
Of my waterlogged mind.
One by one,
They wreath,
Tangled in the seaweed.

From deep within,
The kraken awakens.
Its crimson tentacles swirl,
In a whirlpool of ebony ink.
Amongst the twisted reeds,
Its decaying breath upon my cheek.
Bares its serrated teeth…
But it subsides,
To the murky depths,
Of worry and indecision.

She sails on,
And so do I.
Without bearings,
With nothing,
But the endless stretch,
Of a merciless sea.

I know where she is taking me.

How I long,
To throw the anchor,
To let it rust along the ocean floor.
To unleash the bleached fabric,
From its roping bonds,
And cease to sail.

But I have seen,
A thousand suns,
Set upon a still horizon,
A kaleidoscope of cerulean glass.
And I have witnessed,
The demise of Napoleon,
Bloody and aghast.
And so I go on,
Through uncharted waters,
Where decrepit shards of stone,
Are acquainted with but few.

Heavenly,
In their masked beauty,
The Sirens sing to me,
Of freedom and delight.
I am drawn to them.
But she will not let me go.

The hull roars,
The mast falls,
The chains unleash their oppressed rage.
The keel splinters,
The glass shatters,
The rugged ropes twist and lurch and fray.
She sinks,
Into the midnight, foaming waves.

And I am on my own.

There is silence,
But four words whispered;
“Where do I go?”

Do I wander to the sirens,
Of a false angelic light?
Do I drop the anchor,
To rust along the ocean floor?
Do I sail endlessly,
Through eternal tunnels of the lost?

Sea go still.
Sea go still.