Competition

Highly Commended

Buy Me the Moon or a White Pearl Balloon
by Julie Lynch
Kholo, Qld

I’ll give you a balloon.

Yes, laugh for me…Chaplin

I’ll laugh you a slapstick act
Smile you a Cheshire Cat
Love you an Amsterdam ‘Bed-In’

I’ll colour you a pristine coral reef
Sing you a Woodstock Festival
Write you an endless poem of love and glory

I’ll touch you a Saviour’s hands
Find you a kingdom deep
Paint you a Heaven on Earth

I’ll kiss you a sure cure
Regret you an, eternity
Hurt you a real-life tragedy

Let our tears rain down generously upon the chalice

Oh, hurt me a tiny scratch
Regret me a thoughtless word
Kiss me a sweet, sweet goodnight

Oh, paint me a smiling sun (even on a rainy day)
Find me a teddy lost
Touch me a baby’s pure breath

Oh, write me a happy fairy tale
Sing me a lulla…lullaby
Colour me a perfect rainbow

Please love me a Global Peace Rally
Smile me a Da Vinci
Weep me a Jesus

Yes, weep for me …Jesus

Oh, buy me the moon!

Highly Commended

Blind in Kanpur
by Jane Baker
Yass, NSW

 The poorest of the poor,
she survives, begging by
the wall of the Bibighar,
prey to the desperate theft of
her own and the patronising
meanness of the better off.

In that grim place where
women were slaughtered and
men, like rotting fruit, swung
from the hanging tree,
she sits fixed-staring
into middle distance.

How to light her darkness?
How to give without offence?
How to cheat the lurking thieves?

Awkwardly I bend
to tell the sum of alms
across her fingers, one by one,
voice the limit of my Hindi,
Namaste, Mother
and hope she understands.

Her smile is sunlight
through the Bibighar.
The words she spills in rush
mean nothing but
her hands about my face
put ghosts to flight and

hold my soul long
down the teeming street.