National Honour · August 2026
🇳🇿
Frankie Kebbell
🇳🇿 New Zealand · leading poet of the nation's field
“Admiration”
60out of 100
I want to lay in bed with you
Draw patterns on your skin
Watch sunlight dance upon your eyes
Reflecting what’s within
I’m captivated by your voice
You need not raise it further
I’d listen to you talk all day
Decipher every murmur
Your brain is my favourite part of you
I know you fight it often
Though when I need you to be there for me
You’re strong, you’re still, you soften
I know that I can’t have you
So I keep it to myself
I write to purge what’s in my chest
Then slide the book back on the shelf
From the judges
A sincere, competently shaped ballad of hidden love whose understated final image lifts otherwise familiar material into genuine tenderness.
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Frankie Kebbell retains all rights · published with the poet's byline as a National Honour
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