2005 School Magazine

Original Works

Original Works

In Truth, the Beast was Made

Is it the actor who sits in the stillness of contemplation? Or is it the beast, the bull that rests upon his shoulder? He weeps because he cannot say Cries the tears he has only wept once before At birth The alien shrieks of a baby And yet He smiles through his tears as if they were not on his face, but written into a page He smiles, and his lips break the trail from his sunken eyes to his neck, cradling the wet in a grimace of repentance But the beast is never absent from his shoulder. Always casts a shadow across his brow A stain on his eyelids, as a reminder of what they have become Who they have undone in the process of elimination His search for redemption from his saviour who lies out of reach beyond the bulk of the bull the actor in the daylight see the pulsing flesh and twisted horns. But they see the bull through a mask Only the actor sees the truth Those who see the bull are fooled, their vision bent And if they are those of faith, they will see their angel A small comfort, but only a lie Only the actor feels the weight of its jaw as it lowers Only the actor hears the scrape of teeth and each convulsion of the tongue Few others have seen the beast Those who do, who have walked by

as it whispers to him Some days it is like a screech to his ears And others he strains to hear it And stops himself And weeps again No warm and feminine comfort that he conjures before him can shield him from each blow as the bull rests upon his shoulder He screams for redemption To a saviour who cannot aid him And even through pain and pain he struggles because he does not know that he was always damned The bull chose him to condemn The actor cannot save himself Not even with the senses that separate him from the living dead, those who stare in long white rooms By now even his saviour has given up hope And yet By being human, the actor cannot walk forever, laden by the bull He will buckle under the weight, and then be touched by his saviour The actor knows, and so he waits

And his saviour waits And the bull watches from its seat on the shoulder of guilt.

Madeleine Bendixen (9L) WINNER YEAR 9-10 SECTION 2005 MARY ALEXIS MACMILLAN PRIZE FOR ORIGINAL VERSE

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1. Julia Colwill (10G) 2. Alaya Kota (8M)

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School Magazine 2005 137 3. Claudia Wyer (8M) 4. Emily Flood (8O)

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Brisbane Girls Grammar School 136