Teen Poetry

I Am 

by Hannah

I am a Shapeshifter

​        a Shadow Hunter

        a Witch

I am Immortal

I am a Genetic Experiment 

        a Spy

        a Dragon Rider

I am anything and Everything I can imagine

2014 Poetry Competition Winners

The 2014 Kapiti Libraries Poetry Competition included a section for teen poets and the winning poems are published here.  Two of them were written by Wrappers!  Congratulations to all winners. To commemorate the centenary of the start of World War 1 the theme this year was War and Peace.

1st Place - A Dream of a Dead Man by Star Wilson-Jennings
2nd Place - Never Coming Home by Gus South Aiken
3rd Place - Hell Cannot Be This Dreadful by Grace Rundle-Keswick

A Dream of a Dead Man             

Star Wilson-Jennings             

I see you in a poppy field
from war that no man won.
You gaze beneath the petals,
and despise them, every one.

Fallen 'twixt the flowers,
While your hands rest by your side
and your head a crimson wasteland
while your eyes of glass stare wide.

The clouds spit frozen water
and the days turn into years
as you reminisce forever
how you conquered all your fears.

But what you don't acknowledge
is the way you came to be
amongst the scarlet flower bed
and branded R.I.P.

You only were a boy,
far too young to kill a man.
But duty calls the young to war
when war was not the plan.

Misled, you were as clueless
as the flies that kiss your bones
and the leggy stems like sinews
rising up from 'neath the stones.

Nature had not allies
where their fates were fixed and sealed:
instead she cast her poppy seeds
out on the battlefield.

Her children drank from brothers,
all of undecided blood:
the petals bloomed; the roots assumed
position in the mud.

I see you with your naked skull;
eternally you grin,
tortured by the war you waged,
the war you couldn't win.


Never Coming Home

Gus South Aiken

Amongst the slaughter
of the innocent
A wandering ghost
decides the fate
of a many

Never coming home
never ever, coming home.
Ever

Toys on a map,
mortal pawns
meaningless to the children
a territory of the broken

caught between factions
The damned
The righteous
The pretentious
The unmanned

lost in orchestrated aggression,
a perfect weapon
wondering fields of slain
if not for martial gain

For with the trivial lies
ruination
for all

never coming home.
home is no more
nothing left untouched
towns broken
the brave beaten
the innocent littering the streets.

lost in thoughtless conflict
the jokes,
the muses,
the artistry,
never coming home.


Hell Cannot Be This Dreadful

Grace Rundle- Keswick

Dying me lie everywhere
The screams of wounded fill the air,
The ground is wet and slick with mud,
Dyed crimson-red with tons of blood.

The wire, barbed, ready to tear,
At all poor souls who venture there,
The air is rife with sounds of guns,
Firing, firing, hit and run.

Gas attacks leave many blind,
Following slowly in a line,
Hand on shoulder, shuffling feet,
Marching to a somber beat.

Rat’s run throughout the trench,
Alongside such a bloody Stench.

Cannons fire with thunderous sound,
And even more dead fall to ground,
The young and old, dying left and right,
Evening, morning, noon and night.

Like families’ tears the rain it pounds,
Creating puddles all around,
Men are stuck right up to the waist,
While to the banks others make haste,
And turn to help to pull them up,
From sticky, slimy, gunky muck.                     

Stand up straight and you’ll get shot,
By someone in a distant spot,
But in the trenches, if you stay,
You may live to see another day.

The no-man’s-land is sad and bleak,
Go only there while others sleep,
For death and destruction lies ahead,
That and countless, nameless dead.

Now every year red poppies grow,
Reminders of the blood below,
Many died for the peace today,
And here is something I need to say:

Vain and pride and greed for more,
Is what kick-started off this war,
Be careful least it come again,
For war will be the death of men