Poetry
Im teased because Im fat,
Said the tiger to the crow,
I need to lose some weight,
But how, I do not know.
The crow laughed at the creature,
Youre right youre quite obese,
To lose some weight from your behind,
You should try chasing some geese.
That really wouldnt work,
Said the tiger in dismay,
For I like to eat plump geese,
And Id get fatter every day.
You can now have surgery,
Lipo-suction it is named.
Alas I cant afford it,
Im terribly ashamed.
You could try doing some push-ups,
To get a little fitter,
Then the animals who tease you so,
Might not be so bitter.
They really do not work
The plans that you devise,
Because you see a tiger,
Is not built for this exercise.
You havent helped at all,
Youre really not that clever,
I guess Im going to have to be,
As fat as this forever.
What do you want me to do?
Say abracadabra make this fat beast fit,
And then with a flash and a cloud of smoke,
He was slim, yes every last bit.
Patrick Gatherer
In Fear of the Snake
Theres a place that I know,
But Ive never dared go.
In fear of the snake.
A wondrous beast twenty feet in length,
Its body possessing miraculous strength.
Id love to go there,
But never would dare.
For fear of the snake
A venomous reptile which knows no fear,
And has never been known to shed a tear.
So lets never go to the place that I know,
In fear of the snake.
Meghan Kirland (Year 7 Poetry: Winner)
Slavery
When I open my eyes,
Every morning I pray,
Im not looking forward
To the rest of the day,
The Massa is mean,
And so is the word, slavery.
I work like a dog,
In the fields full of hay,
Massa has a whip
To make us obey,
The whip is cruel,
And so is the word, slavery.
Before I come sleepy
At night, I say,
God, please make
me free one day,
the world is ruthless,
and so is the word, slavery.
My life is a mess,
What bein a slave,
Ive not any hope,
No way of escape,
The fear is the worst,
And so is the word, slavery.
Manvi Rai
Things That I Am Living For
(Dreams that I breathe in)
I miss those childrens smiles
In the middle of mountain ranges
Shining sun, blue skies, warm atmosphere
Fragrant rice fields and my own awakening
Heart, ears and eyes
At peace now greed and desire gone
Everything is calm
My sanctuary spreads out in front of me
From a long time friendship, compassion or a sense of guilt ....
No need to ponder from where love comes for here it begins
Yet the smell of crying days and hating nights
A heavy heart like death lingers near
And loudest silence still heard
Be free here .....
So far from being a prisoner of the past
With a carefully folded paper-airplane between my fingers
A smiling child runs as if flying
On dusty roads names are jotted down with a wooden-stick
Wondering if one can remember all those faces and
Names that passed by
Memories sleep in the earliest mornings
Thinking of those childrens smiles is the only thing that remains
Immeasurable joy follows
Calling their names is like a saying a little prayer
I breathe in the pure dew from golden rice fields
And whistle out a song
Bees as large as my thumbs winging around my ears
And tickling my neck
I giggle like a child and try to reach up
To blank clouds in the finest skies
I will open up my arms up to heaven
And face up to it
And I will be shouting
Here I am ... Still breathing ...
And these are the things that I breathe in.....
Young-eun Yoo (Year 11 Poetry: Winner)
Charge of the Maths Brigade
Half an hour, half an hour,
Half an hour onward,
All in the valley of Trig
Wrote the one hundred.
Forward, the Maths Brigade!
Aim for an A! he said:
Into the valley of Trig
Wrote the one hundred.
Forward the Maths Brigade!
Was there a little dismay?
Not tho the students knew
To full marks there was no way
Theirs not to sob and cry
Theirs not to question pi
Theirs but to make a try
Into the valley of Trig
Wrote the one hundred.
Tan(n) to right of them,
Tan(n) to left of them,
Tan(n) in front of them,
They puzzld and blunderd;
Stormd at with x and y
Boldly raised to the i
Into the jaws of Trig
Into the mouth of Pi
Wrote the half-dozen
Flashd all their pen-tips bare,
Flashd as they found the square
Cubing a number there,
Charging a maths test, while
All the school wonderd:
Plunged into complex sums
Tired, oerused brains so numb
Complex and integer
Reeld as an answer comes
Workd out and Solved
Then they finished, but not,
Not the one hundred.
Tan(n) to right of them,
Tan(n) to left of them,
Tan(n) behind them
Puzzld and blunderd;
Stormd at with x and y
Many a breakdown nigh
They who had made a try
Came thro the jaws of Trig
Back from the mouth of Pi
All that was left of them,
Left of one hundred.
Whose hand should not be shook?
O that mad test they took!
While all the school wonderd
Honour the test they took!
What heroes they now look,
Noble one hundred!
Alex, Lord Tennysum (Alias Alex Panayotopoulos)
Finding Me
Im opening the door,
Letting the light flood in,
Finding holes that are empty
That cast no shadows.
Im dropping my armour,
Watching it fall,
Admiring the weight
And the familiarity within.
Im turning the leaf,
Seeing the other side,
Examining its faults,
Committing it to memory.
Im cracking the egg,
Watching the insides
Become the outside,
Observing old turn to new.
Im shedding my skin,
Sliding out like a snake,
Changing like a butterfly,
Appearing unspoiled.
Im finding myself
New under old layers,
Fresh from the years,
Sparkling with life.
Mikala Tai
One Last Thing
One last thing Id like to know,
Where did you go?
My eyes,
Like glistening sun
In water,
Shed fresh rain
From heaven.
Did you dare
Go there?
Warm days
Now just a phrase
Speak in my mind
Like pasts behind.
One last kiss
From afar,
Shadows my lips
Like old past-time scars.
My only hope
Still flutters
In my bone-caged brain.
What is it?
That Ill never know.
One last think Id like to know
Where did you go?
Pascale Ng (Year 10 Poetry: Winner)
The Dream Child
And as she slowly falls asleep
She is taken
Into her dream world...
Her eyes are the stars
Her soul, the wind
And she watches him
The dream child
The cloud chaser
The bearded myth
With such grace he flies
Into the clear night sky
His breath mists the chilly air
Starlight spins down his spiralled horn
The frost chases his silver neck
His gold mane ripples in the wind
Speed sparks leap,
From hoof to hoof
As he dances across the moon
And ocean waves rise
Rise, to catch the tip
Of his gold coloured tail
He splashes up silver surf
And his hooves fling up sand,
As he canters across the deserted beach
His delicate purple hooves glow, in the moonlight
His nostrils are flared
And his ears are pricked
But, as the dawn draws near
And the child begins to wake
His eyes grow weary
As the sun rises on the beach
He settles down,
To sleep the day away
And wait for the next nights dream...
Emily Healy
Variations
Sometimes, I think, we are, because God is,
Not cogito, ergo sum.
Denying choice and truth thats mine, not His,
Of ideas, whose time has come.
Thinking is identical with being,
I thought, therefore, I believed.
Quite forgot that looking can be seeing,
I doubted - and was deceived.
Or was it, merely, that I thought to think?
Confused you ought with I can;
Swept crumbs of reason underneath the sink,
Poised to be a thinking man.
But thoughtlessly condoning thoughtfulness,
Binding foot to fit the shoe,
I married false belief to real distress,
Since I did not think it through.
Edmund Dowding
Creed
Now let us declare our faith.
And accordingly they stood, I with them, but somehow
I found myself without a green leather-bound missal;
To guide me, no type-written print to bring words to my mouth.
And as their chant rose towards the spires,
I found myself
Silent.
I groped in that dark void for the
Familiar words, but was lost:
Not tormented by satyrs
With visible horns and pointed tails
Which would have been strangely comforting -
Identifiable evil -
But simply alone in an
Indistinct nondescript fog.
For I wanted to join in their declarations,
But their words were not mine
And were not to be found.
And God forbid that my words should be different
To the rest - a faulty prayer,
Misdirected post as such,
Words of worship arriving
At the incorrect address.
But then there was light:
All was unclear
But it was clear that all was unclear
And that was clarity in itself. No longer
Bound by words that were not mine,
Loosely tethered to convention,
God, Religion and capitalisations.
I was not lost but free, separate,
And the distance I had gained was my own.
The footprints that marked the sand were mine,
Not those of one who had carried me.
My own feet had run and the direction was right
And so I believe.
For I was not without faith
But with the words to declare it.
Jenny Sherry
The Match
Howzat!
Hes out,
I am in,
I leave the pavilion,
Shaking,
The applause of the crowd behind me,
With my bat under my arm,
And my pads brushing against each other,
I try to focus,
Try to concentrate,
With a thousand pairs of fiery eyes,
Burning through me,
A quick thumbs up from my partner,
I take my stance,
Praying that I survive the first ball,
The bowler runs up,
And lets loose on me,
I hear a shattering,
It is my stumps,
The appeal goes up,
I am out,
I return to the pavilion,
With a thousand pairs of fiery eyes,
Burning through me.
Mark Barnett (Year 9 Poetry: Winner)
The Earths Pain
I am eaten away by the teeth of the sea.
The stars shoot down their shafts at me.
The sand of life stares up at me.
I am scalded by the tears of a city.
I am soiled by the waste of humanity.
People pit and scar me digging into my wrinkles and creases,
Gouging at my life source, taking what I hold dear
Taking away deep memories embedded in rock,
Memories of happiness and gaiety.
The sun soars through the sky
Sending golden spears streaking down
Rising, falling, each day bringing us closer to destruction.
I am destroyed, abused, killed and a shell.
You once knew me as a messenger to a paradise
But now I am a disciple of misery.
I am ancient, cold, hard and sad
For the earth is eaten away by the greed of man.
I am...
The Cliff.
Daniel Armour
Permanence
The minarets stretch to the heavens,
The worlds first skyscrapers.
A once stately building
Where a king held court.
Covered with a swirl of silken colours,
Filled with voices
The sounds of people
Eating, living, dying.
And so it grew
A symbol of the rulers might,
A warning to his enemies
An offering to his Gods.
Tree roots eat at the foundations
Natures gnarled hand reclaims it
Covering the intricate engravings
Now swept by solitude and shadow.
A once proud potentate, reduced to dust.
Priya Bindra
Hope
She sits, gazing out of the window.
Low watery wintry sunlight floating in.
Waiting for him to come home.
Depressed, distant and disinterested.
Empty chair, no-one in it,
Always sitting there, opposite her
Never to be filled.
Clock ticking, slowly, loudly.
Just sitting and watching.
Balmy night, calm and still.
Her decision made, her spirits soar.
To fly away, to move on,
Time to leave,
Hopes to start afresh,
Tomorrow beckons,
A new day, a new beginning.
Katherine Bedwell
Passing
And then it was that I was not -
Heart ceased to beat, I ceased to be.
The joy that I had lived nought but
A fragment of eternity.
But memories of others brought
A kind of immortality -
Familiar recollections what
Was left of that which had been me.
Jenny Sherry
Play it Again
Each day you take to your strings and play
Finding refuge in the only way you know
No matter how beautiful
Frustration is all I hear
Eyes that look with an infinite sadness
Trying to see the strokes like they once did
Each note a memory
Each note more deafening than the last
I find it hard, to see what I should
Your scowl the perfect mask
To an elusive yet tender soul
But sometimes, I get a glimpse of the truth
I see a man whose love is so much like the sea
That it chokes his words and drowns those closest to him
I see a man whose hands will always be bound
By pain, by pride, by fear
Make me understand
How the stories you tell hold a meaning beyond all doubt
How your vision is clearer than mine could ever be
Why your life is so much more
Than the aimless drifting and dispersing of smoke off a filtered cigarette.
Please, wait for me
Because each beat brings me closer
And with each tear pain falls further behind
Just wait
I will follow the sound of your music through the mist
For it is a sweet, sweet sound
And I am eager to meet the man who plays it.
Angela Sebastian (Year 13 Poetry: Winner)
Whose Children Are We?
They said it would be fun.
They said it would be great.
Memories ......
Memories of long hard days.
The scorching sun.
They told us a pack of lies.
We were used as bait.
Hours working in the fields
Waiting for the day to end.
The Australian sun refused to set
And kept us all awake.
Our dreams were never realised
Our nightmares came true,
Awful memories lurk in the recesses of our minds
Blinding the good thoughts we may have.
All taken from me ..... my parents, my country, my life.
How could England export her children like toys
To be dumped and discarded.
Stinging eyes
Lonely cries.
Whose children are we?
Mala Ramchandani
Miranda
Zephyr quick upon the waves,
Breathes soft across the sea;
Glides in guise of ocean nymph
And silk transparency -
Billows past the briny grass,
That quivers solemnly.
A maiden stands below the sands
Where shallow waters whirl;
Where magic breeds tempestuous,
And sleeping rag-worms curl.
In ebbing tide she will abide
To watch the clouds unfurl.
Eyes which lift to grey horizons,
Bright with lucid dreams -
She cannot speak the figments
That from her fancy teems.
She merely sighs, and asks the skies
To tell her what it means.
Wonder full she watches,
As she wonderful appears:
Sylphlike thing that tilts her head
To silent songs she hears;
And all the while, her lips in smile,
She wets her cheeks with tears.
A dozen years, four thousand days
Have lingered in this idle way.
This spellbound isle stays the same,
As it has been since she came -
Now she longs for other faces
Telling tales of far off places.
Exiled from a braver world
With mortal creatures rife,
It dazes here to think to live
An ordinary life,
Far away from restless sprites,
From ghoul and faerie haunted nights
Away from where dwells witchs spawn,
Where dryads dance to greet the dawn.
Dear heart, wait a while more -
The time grows ever shorter.
By his art your father sees
How fortune keeps his daughter.
Prosper and love, my happy dove
In lands beyond this water.
Alethea Dean
Ridges
On top of the world,
My spirit runs free,
Through sinking clouds.
The wind,
Swoops through me.
Carrying me high,
High above the earth.
The sea calls to me,
White sails float through the glistening water,
Like shooting stars on a summers eve.
The sparkling sea,
Softens the shadowy rocks.
The shadowy rocks,
Sink against the scorched hillside.
The scorched hillside,
Saddens the sunburnt sky.
Diana Cowland (Year 8 Poetry: Winner)
My City
Dark
Decaying
Cold
Concrete
Hard smooth pavement.
Grey lurking
Roaches darting
Blinding flash of lights
Angry swarming crowds envelope me
Lost in an ocean of struggling bodies - all in their own world
And me in mine
but not.
Me,
Watching other lives hurry, scurry past
Standing on an island of stillness
Suddenly suffocating,
Pushing through till I hit land.
Some stairs going up to more peoples lives,
But people free, for now.
Stale cigarettes and piss linger with fumes belching from buses.
The swelling,
Now distant roar of the masses swills around my ears.
Occasional screeches,
and streams,
Of cantonese
breathing the humming cloud of city sounds.
Hong Kong:
The insomniac.
P. J. Vesey
The Field
The suns light casts a soft, warm glow,
.. the patched and pale green fields
Like an enchanting mist of yellow haze,
Leaking through the fluttering leaves,
To where the poppies dance.
The pure red colour stirs my mind,
And the nightmare plays once more.
A gun shot splits the silent air,
A ripple in the peace.
A noise that whirls back and forth in time.
An image that will forever haunt me.
I could even feel the soil under my well worn boots,
As I trudged my way through a sea of bodies.
Gurgled cries came from around me,
Echoing in my head, mixing with the pounding of my heart.
Looking around I see decaying flesh,
Skin peeling, rusting off the bones.
That foul smell squeezing around my thoughts,
Those memories choking,
Suffocating,
Eating my mind.
The blood gushing, blanketing the ground.
Seeping, trickling into the dirt and staining the grass.
But most of all the flowers as if pouring his soul into them
Reaching for the heavens in another way.
Soaked with blood but havent stopped growing,
These flowers, these poppies, keep on growing,
Reaching for the sun.
Leah Clough
Jaguar
There is a Jaguar in me,
With a coat as dark as the night
And a tail like a slithering snake.
It roars like a broken machine.
It quickly, swiftly soars
Through the jungle
Like the wind.
It lives in my legs
And makes them soar, too.
I am powerful.
Lewis Fung
Created on an Acorn RiscPC by Island School English Department on 22nd June 1999.
