Under-16s Poems for National Poetry Day 2018

POETRYDAY.CO.NZ

Here are the entries for Best Poem by Under-16s for the Given Words competition for National Poetry Day. They all had to contain the five words decrepit, snow, nest, window and cast, taken from a poem, The Hospice, by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

You can read the winning poem Seasons Poem by Jemma Prileszky along with the judge's comments here and the poems from the adults' category here.

❆ ❆ ❆

The Thinning Twine

a woman
decrepit and liver spotted
succumbed
to life in linen sheets
she lays
nearest the
crested window
taking in the grey clouds
and concrete skyline
one more time
a man
fumbling at the thinning
twine of life
silently yearning for the
crisp cold of death
to numb his aching mind
like snow does your fingertips
a girl
cast away
a broken doll
cracks like spider webs
upon her pale porcelain
her smile, stitched open,
unpicking itself
a boy
barbed wire
on weakened skin
memories
on his broken mind
browbeaten
you
telling beautiful lies
to erase
your crippled fate
burrowed in the straw
and safety of the nest
oblivious to the
splattered shells
beneath you

Lily Collins, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Flakes of Snow

Humans age like flakes of snow
Pretty and elegant, with an innocence
So easily corrupted by greed
So vulnerable and breakable
They never stay for long

Or trees tall and sturdy
But decrepit in time
Leaves and flowers fade away
To reveal true human nature
At its worst
What we inevitably become
Perhaps a shadow
Cast over mountains and land
Never-ending and overcoming
But merely a ghost of a human
Darkness nesting inside
A window to the soul

If only beauty wasn’t so easily manipulated
If only we all stayed as joyful and pure
As a baby’s laugh
As flakes of snow

Victoria Atkinson, aged 14
Tauraroa Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

This happened on a day,
Rain rain in the month of May,
Flooding flooding everywhere,
Water water here and there,
But not a good drop to drink!
Unfortunate situation here,
But no time to think,
No facilities, power or network,
Hence no chance for people to sync.
Tell us how they will save the people who are going to sink?
In the ice-cold water like snow, people with cast on their leg,
Trying to wade through, with help from a buddy,
Length halfway through to knees.
In the enormous problem, no-one has the time to stop and see.
Boats, Helicopters, Rescuers, Police, Ambulances are here,
But in the huge big water.
Decrepit state of care for injuries, blood oozing out.
Nests all fallen with a big thud!
Wind thrashing through, breaking windowpanes,
All houses were surrounded by water,
Some are roofless, some waterproof dome.
In heavy rains people don’t dare to leave home.
Nature has its own way of expressing itself,
And sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives,
Put us directly on the path,
To prepare for the best things that will ever happen to us.

Gayathri Krishnan, aged 13
Lower Hutt

❆ ❆ ❆

A Winter of Pondering

She sits in her chamber,
The blazing fire quelling her decrepit bones.
She clutches her tea in quaking hands,
Obliged to the exuberant warmth it offers.

Through the window, she glimpses a white wonderland:
A sprinkling of snow coats the world.
Blanched white trees are dormant for this season,
Oblivious to the magnificent scape the world offers.

This chilled state is both beautiful and terrible,
For whilst early lambs excitedly tease their cast mother,
A bird lies dead on the ground, her chicks hungry and alone.
She was slaughtered by a hand of ice.

The woman watches the young sheep play,
Remembering her sun-kissed childhood,
And her animated lifetime, from which she has many tales to tell.
But with no-one to listen, they will surely perish with her.

This tired soul wriggles further into her blanket nest,
The haughty freeze beating angrily on her glass shelter.
Restless pondering sends her to a land of sleep,
Cosy on a cold winter’s day.

Hannah Earl, aged 13
Ashburton

❆ ❆ ❆

He is old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, he will take down his book,
And he would slowly read, and dream of the soft look
his eyes had once, and of their shadows deep

For the past is not only
A window to a better place
It’s also a way
For troubles to nest and waste

And slowly as his eyes lifted
Eyelids feeling heavy as lead
He wondered what it is
That makes him lift, his sleepy head

So would cast
His eyes to look, out the window
Everything reminding him of his past
But he’d still not grasp the fact
That everything does not last

For everything pointed back to it
And so he reckoned
each piece of snow
counted for a second

And still the snow
Is for time
But he will not get it
For as the time
slips away
He gets more decrepit

Philip John Dale, aged 12
Whanganui

❆ ❆ ❆

I cast my line

gazing through
frosted panes
icicles drip
on bird’s skeleton
in a decrepit nest
twigs like soot
above snow blankets
I cast my line.

peering through another
rays of light hit my eyes
song thrushes warble
happy in their pristine nest
swings sway
smiling from children’s cheers
sun rises
I cast my line.

peeking through
the last pitch
owls hoot
perched
on thin branches
city lights
all out but one
I cast my line.

fascinated by the ripple
of the lake
a window
showing another day

Matt Bool, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

cast into the shadows
swept aside into the snow
you close the window
cutting off the light
leaving the decrepit potential
to nest
in the rotting prospect of life

Shelby Allan, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

This is a poem
Which has to include the words
Decrepit, nest, snow
Cast as well as window too.
That is my poem. It’s done.

Jake Wallwork, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Seaview

Long forgotten and decrepit
The buildings lie
Staring out to the sea
Dusty windows like eyes

From the sea to the snow
These structures stay
Waiting for time
To whisk them away

The years pass by
Like birds taking flight
From nests which they built
In the rafters at night

As the sun sets
A long shadow is cast
From the ruins of buildings
Defeated at last

Isabella Cross, aged 14
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

The Old

A decrepit bed
A window to dreams and disasters
Reflections of past memories held dearly
That cast light along her frail exterior
Snow wraps around this bed
A nightgown of white loosely at her sides
The cold lingering in her nest of hair
Rest inside this broken bed
Until the light is drained from her face
For the last time

Jasmine Mattsman, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Depressed

I stare out the window,
watching tiny sparrows nest.
My decrepit heart crumbles from loneliness.
I cast a long lonely shadow. I watch
as white powder snow falls down to the earth.

Matta, aged 10
Raglan

❆ ❆ ❆

This is my house

Snow started falling on the nest… as I watched out of my broken window.

As I watched my nest rest on the tree
I heard a pitter patter next to me… hee hee it was
the crew cast filming me with their decrepit camera
and their little team why would they be so silly, who
Would do that to me I’m the queen bee of this, mouldy, old, bold house.
So I yelled out get out of

my house the exit is on the right and if you don’t get out
I will bite… but they didn’t get out
so I said to them… good night

Isobel Peart, aged 9
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

The greatest poem of all time

               The decrepit old window alive for the night
               Sitting with a sparrow without a light
               Abandoning its nest not on a flight
               The snow covered tree oh what a fright !
               With the cast gaining some height
               But in the morning no life is left
               Why is this decrepit old window dead while we're here flying a kite?
               Turn left turn right to the center for the fight
               If I made it out alive I would surely have a black unloved eye
               Would I die? would I cry? would I eat a butterfly?
               If I jumped into the shower would I be roasted for half an hour?
               Would I try? Would I fly? would I draw a vivid line?
               I grabbed the line pulled the reins ran all the way to my trial of time
                                                                           threw a million years I had a plan to make my life filled with fame I had never been so glad to not
Be sad. Why does this life not like me? why is it impossible to drink the sea? will I ever cut down a tree ? if I drank a bottle of time would I know how to rhyme? time begun with a thing who knows ? was it a meteorite that crashed into the perfect rose?
Was my life always a trick or was that rusty window a crow? Who will find out no one knows I think I will just go and doze

Malachy Geoghegan, aged 10
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

Lonely Land

Quietly the snow fell down to the ground
going through the cracks of the decrepit house
I went out to fish I
cast my rod, I caught nothing.
I climbed up a tree,
I found a nest with one egg in it
I went home,
The door was locked I did not have my keys
I had to climb through the window.
I got in and placed the nest on the bench.

Willsy Hunter, aged 10
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

The Old Man

An old man stomps through the snow, on a cold winter day
He keeps on walking until suddenly…
He stops at an old decrepit house
He scans the area as he slips an odd shaped key out of his pocket
And into the keyhole
The door creaked open and he dashed right in
A few minutes later he peered through his window and then came out with a cast on his arm and a nest in his other
He walked to the town and everyone judged him
They thought he was mean but what he did next shocked everybody
He went to the vet and told an odd story and came out and left
But without the nest
And went home

Heiana Maeva Ralaimihoatra, aged 11
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

Mother’s rules

Jerry Jack Jerry Jack
Will you be back
For a delicious snack
When you finish that
look out your window
For a nest
In that damp cold snow
Cast your rod to catch those eggs
But never use those silly pegs.
For you might crack the eggs.
Climb up the decrepit tree
If there’s a stork
eat it like pork.
Now get some dinner
You spiky kina.

Jaer Gilbert Patrick Hoare, aged 10
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

Souls Cry Too

Over civilizations behold, a nation built on sorrow and coal with an epiphany which chosen is stolen we become the shadow looking through an empty window which the glass of praise is thrown and tortured for which is our soul bought away our lives are awoken. We shall revoke the temptation is taken because we are all the endless enigma the pondering minds of which we wonder the true likes of the earth we cast the likeness of depression away stay for who we are we the beloveds of those who have be-friended our morbid thoughts our hearts are droughts locks tropes. Stop, stop, STOP! Our lives will always be beaten by silence of which we all neglect humans are the mistake of mother nature’s pure touch, we think. Our souls cry but always they are wiped away like the tears of a child just like water on snow fades away cascades into darkness we are the fun decrepit fair for despair and out tears are the tickets to a pathway of misery our tears never die for we nest inside hinder the locks of our insanity we all hide because… we are all crying inside.

Zeeshan Kamal, aged 14
Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆

On a bleak midwinter’s morning,
From inside my warm, cosy house,
I stare out of the window
Watching
As the snow slowly falls
Covering the ground
Soft blankets
Of fresh white pureness
At a distance away a decrepit house stands
Cast away by its former owners
Now a nest of loneliness and aching
The abandoned house falls apart
Crumbles down
As it yearns for the once-blissful days
Just like I do.

Jenny Nguyen, aged 14
Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆

A Cold Day

A lady lived in a decrepit house
There was snow outside
She looked out the window
She spotted a nest
And a fisherman cast his line

Hollie Lock-Schwass, aged 7
Invercargill

❆ ❆ ❆

Falling

A decrepit nest
Was cast far out in the snow
The window watched

Jasmine Lock-Schwass, aged 10
Invercargill

❆ ❆ ❆

Dawn

Midnight
I stroll to the water-hole
Snow falls
A nest drops from a nearby pine tree
We cast our decrepit rods
Wait
Miniscule fish eat our bait
Pull them in
It’s early morning
The nest is mourning
Feed the newborn babies, that lost their mother to the crazy fox
Take a deep breath
Dawn
A window of opportunity has arisen
Golden dappled light shines through the trees
A brand new day

reuben hassell, aged 9
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

A Winter's Night in 1989

Nest the people sleeping at night.
Snow and ice rain down on a winter's night.
Wind blows the cat on one’s window.
People jolly for winter’s joy.
Decrepit trees blow by the road.
While joyful children roam in the snow.
Now darkness will cast another day.

Mana, aged 9
Raglan Area School

❆ ❆ ❆

War Poem

In the middle of the night,
I heard a whine of the engine,
Flying closer and closer.
I went up to the window,
And peered out,
Instead of seeing falling bombs,
I saw snowflakes,
Falling to the ground.
The snow is building,
Without a sound.
I saw a nest
Hidden in a tree.
It was worn and decrepit
And looked very old to me.
I sat watching the snow,
Until the sun began to rise.
As the sun rose,
It cast light,
All over town.
The villagers of London,
Had now awoken,
And were ready for their day.
They were ready to dodge falling bombs,
On the 19th of May.

Rebecca Kidd, aged 12
Mayfield School, Mid Canterbury

❆ ❆ ❆

Turn of the seasons

Out the window I stare
Trees are barren and bare
snow falls, confetti spiralling in the air

Icicles form on the twigs and the leaves
Sparkling like stars
Birds nest and keep warm as they weave,

Winter can seem so decrepit and cold
A cloak of darkness
Days grow longer and spring unfolds,

Bright colours are cast
I feel warmth at last.

Hannah Hardiman, aged 13
Dunedin

❆ ❆ ❆

Snow birds

I look outside my old decrepit window
The jubilant bird sits happy upon its nest
Waiting for its love to cast

White specks like diamonds fall from the sky.
The fresh cut grass turns into snow
As the bird's lover finally returns home

They greet one another with endearment
And cuddle each other for warmth
While watching the snow flakes fall gracefully

I sip on my mug of cocoa
Wrapped in a warm cosy blanket
Watching the day slowly fade into night.

Jade Garrett-Nunn, aged 14
Papatoetoe, Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆

Hurt.

She presses her hand against the cold decrepit window.
The fog of despair clouds her panes.
The innocent yet hurtful
Snow
White and pure
Glistening on the grass matching her dream.
Endless cast of judgement
Swirling around her.
Woven together like a nest
Protecting her from help
Safety way out of reach.
Hurt.

Ipolani Magalei, aged 15
Papatoetoe, Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆