First
Prize
Don’t Touch Eric
Lee
by Kristian Boyd, Grosvenor Grammar in Belfast
From the first day, we walked
to school together
I heard the taunts, I saw his name daubed in yellow on the wall
They called him, "Lammas, the yellow man." I felt his pain. My face was
flushed with heated red.
We lined up in the austere
assembly hall, waiting with trepidation, the menacing silver needle.
Various shades of pink, white flesh, unveiled from under waves of
rolled up sleeves.
His blood was red. The Exocet needle made everyone wince.
Holiday in Hong Kong. I missed him, he brought me a new Pink Floyd CD
Back Home? Home to school, the familiar spittle stains, punch marks on
his kind face.
I was outraged. Silently outraged. O how I regret my silent song!
Crowd, boots, blood pool where he lay, crimson still
I cradled his wounded crown, that "Black September" day
Was he alone?, the policeman asked. Was he alone? I asked myself. In
moments of
Life's fever I still ask myself, Was he alone?
What was his name?, Eric Lee.
In my mind, his mother, his house, Chinese tea.
The sickening outrage, my unfettered tongue, loosed to stand.
Against the crowd, as guilty in white silence as the bully was when loud
Crimson body, bruised, distorted, barely grips my hand
Silent outrage, shattered forever. Speak up, take a stand
Don’t touch Eric Lee, Don’t touch Eric Lee
This is not acceptable, Don’t dare touch Eric Lee
Second Prize
The Collection
by Emma Lui Victoria College, Belfast
Swatches and swathes of Oriental scarlet
Silk and satin smooth
Assorted glass beads of iridescent sheen
Rescued from the frenzied Mardi Gras stampede
Of Cajun spiced streets enraptured in heedless pleasure
Stately English cotton; pure and valley white
Intricate French velvet so decadent and dark
A fragrant pink cherry blossom bloom, serenely
Framed against the breeze and boundless Fuji landscape
The crude and carved Mokande figure
Murmurs whispered yearnings of home and the African plains
A tanned brown leather moccasin, prickly and cracked
Tastes of the searing scorched sands of Canyon dust
His treasures, lovingly
embellished with Indian gold
Now mine
My grandfather’s attic-
Traces of sea-men tobacco still softly linger
Huskily interlaced with fragments of home
Peace
Draw breath and the Irish linen drapes
And shun the cold approaching shroud of evening
Peace.
All the world is home.
Third Prize
Desperate Measures
by Kerri Ward, Assumption
Secondary School in Walkinstown in Dublin.
In the busy, bustling street
The atmosphere was charged and tentative.
At one point, the flow of human traffic slowed and parted
To reveal the homeless African man who sat each day by the railings,
Arms outstretched, dripping with white paint.
Everyone else dodged to one side,
Muttering comments to their colleagues,
Their voices frustrated
But with the same underlying tone of unease that laced the air.
The man flung his arms to the heavens,
Throwing a shower of the chalky solution in all directions.
Every inch of his dark skin was coated in titanium white
It clung to his clothes and dripped from his fingertips as he made wild
hand gestures,
Trying to get the attention of the passers-by.
He cried out to us,
The look in his eyes that of an animal wounded and driven mad by pain.
Agitated, the populace quickened their pace,
Ignoring the spectacle before them.
Someone called the police.
Before long they arrived and the man was bundled away quickly and
routinely.
A few moments on and the scene was forgotten,
The only traces left the spatters of white on the dirty ground, the
dented, discarded paint-can
And the reflection of guilt in the onlookers’ eyes as the
man’s last screamed words echoed in their minds’
"Now will you accept me?"
