Edition #1 2021!
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Lily Godfrey (Year 9)
Vita Lawson (Year 10)
Frances Till (Year 11)
Atom Gush (Year 12)
Cadence Chung (Year 13)
Time's Great Debt
- Frances Till, Year 11
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Can we take a moment
Of course, but from who?
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Great time sits in her lofty palace
And guards her treasure well
Sweet death is a poor beggar
Has naught to give or sell
Dear God is kind, sure
But I fear too much to steal from him
But you pick my pockets
Of far more than moments
You take years wrapped in precious stars
You take clocks gilded and old
But trust darling,
I know what my time is worth
In pretty pennies or weight in gold
So when you reach the gates to Hades
Your ledger patterned red
You can replace the ferryman
And it won't take moments,
But eons
To work off that debt
fig-tree
- Cadence Chung (Year 13)
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i'm trying to bring her back her with grass-stained skin falling asleep in the back seat thinking what a cruel unjust and horrible world we live in where reading in the car gives you motion sickness i'm trying to bring back the blur of words under passing streetlights slurring between worlds one on the page the other moonlit dim and smelling of petrol i'm trying to make it alright again see my heart isn't aching see i'm not longing see i'm back there where the wasps crush their papery skins against the window to try and get a hint of that sweetness that stickiness of youth and did you know wasps sometimes lay their eggs inside a fig and grow inside them bursting its thick flesh i'm always afraid to cut into figs because what if the wasp flies out with no window to hold it back what if all the figs fall to the ground and rot goddamn you sylvia plath for coming up with such a succinct metaphor but no i'm not aching no i'm not longing i'm back in the misty morning of a school trip anticipation bubbling on my tongue i'm there in the winter when the first onionweeds have bloomed stinking up the air and the first daphne on our bush has come out and my mother has picked it and put it on the windowsill to look at while she does the dishes see i'm not longing i promise i promise that you and i saw each other across the orchestra pit on a boring trip when neither of us liked the beethoven that we met one uneventful morning while playing on the same liminal campground bouncy pillow i promise i'll find myself in any other lifetime than this one let nostalgia feed me its bittersweet lies like panadol crushed in honey see my heart isn't aching see i'm not longing
Iolites -
Vita Lawson
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Io smiling. Io is pretty. Io reaches out hands for me to hold the fingertips. Balmy hands and delicate fingertips. Io is strict. Here is Io angry. With a quick mouth, and prejudice. Quick grief. Io is mercy. Here is Io forgiving. Forgiving me for stepping out and crying out. Io is love. Here is Io loving.
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This is what I am told.
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No, I say, ‘Io is love. Here is Io leaving.
Here is Io leaving me behind.’
And then they shake their heads at me. ‘Io didn’t leave us behind, be patient’. They think they are patient.
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I am patient, and I have waited long enough to know when to quit.
Io isn’t waiting for me.
I have waited for so long that I don’t fit the shoes I used to wear. I have held my breath and waited for them to let us in. Held my breath until my face was blue.
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I envy their pretty buildings that are so elegant they could fall at my clumsy touch. The psychedelic stained windows. The purple flowers. Did you know they have no sickness in Io? Nobody is ever ill there. They keep it out with us, to fester and buzz. And it buzzes so loud.
We live on the edge of Io. What we have here is the red dust and what they have there is the moon cool. What we have here are the weeds. The brown stems that twin into your socks. That scratch your legs and leave white salt grains of dry skin. What they have there is the azalea. The pretty purple flower. The petals that make millions.
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What we have here is drought.
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They have that too.
I come from...​
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- Lily Godfrey (Year 9)
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I come from the branches of trees
I come from the wind and the rain
I know the taste of freedom
I know the smell of pain
I come from a loving family that I cherish although
I know the feel of being alone
I come from traveling the world and always coming home
I know the sound of friends that I've known for too long
I come from knowing where I am and where I wanna be
I come from changed perspectives that are now part of me
I know my scars though many, by heart eternal or not
I've opened my soul for you to see
that I'm not broken just finding my way
What is left when
all else is gone?
- Atom Gush, Year 12
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Wealth is the blood of the world
It flows like a river,
goes in and out like the sea
And most importantly,
without it, you die
Take an object,
a chair, a pen, a car
How much is it worth?
In hand, in bank?
For that is all it is
A value, a sum
Everything has its price,
and the price will be paid
a coin for a killing,
a dollar for a death
Little written promissory note,
for what service were you exchanged?
Payments bind us to each other
We need not hide no more,
behind the hollow skin of virtue
The power of obligation is stronger
than any idea of right and wrong
All exchanges, all relationships,
all trades and deals of any kind,
should have their own currency
A physical token of being
Harder to break than trust,
less losable than memory
Die and only you are broken
Your bond lives on
A silver coin for friendship,
hear the glint of gold for love
Paper with the face
of long dead politicians
to ensure the keeping of promises
However would it be taxed?
How much is 15% of your friendship?
Would you be able to afford it
after two years of inflation?
Does a shortage of friends,
make yours go up in value?
Hm, you might say,
but what is a coin?
What is a contract?
What do any of these numbers mean?
Nothing, you might say
It is all some social construct,
an illusion of our perceptions
A dream
And soon we might wake
Money might be some great lie,
but is there no greater falsehood
than things can be elsewise measured?
That any other oil
can make the machinery of society
run smoothly?
The train must go on,
its wheels must keep turning
And without money,
who will pay the driver?
who will buy the fuel?
Chant your songs,
throw your bombs
From what were they woven?
Understand that you,
like everyone,
work at the whims of capital
It that launches wars against itself,
wars that only it can win
Wealth is not the blood of the world
It creates faith as can only religion,
like the sun, all orbits around it
You cannot fight it
You cannot escape its gravity
For wealth is the soul of the world
