Competition

Highly Commended

Occasions of Birds
by Mark Miller
Shoalhaven Heads, NSW

First light
Butcher-birds pipe up and down
their woodwind scales.

*

After rain
crows in the eucalypts
black rags hung out to dry .

*

Wren in bracken
its tail a blue flame
flickering

*

Parting fog
branches of the plum tree
fruited with finches.

*

Across paddocks
bits of blown white paper
cattle egrets.

*

On electricity wires
trapeze-artists dangling
galahs tipsy with rain.

*

Dawn estuary
a heron stalks
the silence.

*

In Banksia
creaking unoiled ratchets
yellow-tailed cockatoos.

*

Dripping gums
open-beaked kookaburras
brim with liquid song

*
Lorikeets
rainbow fish flipping
in a blue bowl.

*

Spring shower
magpies taste
and sing the rain.

*

Past midnight
again and again the mopoke
answers itself.

Highly Commended

The Hollow Men
by David Campbell
Beaumaris, Vic

they are the hollow men     I say over and over and over     eyes
shut tight against the heaving body that oozes a sweating fear
of discovery even in the cold night air after we have negotiated
a price for the transaction of business         you laugh         but
it is no more than that       a commercial arrangement        yet
there is a tremor in your voice as strands of memory        pluck
nervously       at past temptation      black boots sheathing long
legs and a hot pink mini on the street corner as you drove past
quickly averting your eyes so your wife wouldn’t see            but
she did      you know     women notice these things and file them
away for reference when the marital account is being reconciled
the bill settled         the ledger balanced          call it what you will
for there is a time of reckoning when the hollow men are laid
out on the marble slab of truth       raked by the blood red nails
of cruel justice           stripped roughly of hypocrisy’s pallid skin
to expose the trembling flesh of naked desire    yet you smile
at the image         this is a joke perhaps?          Well if you must
believe then so be it       ah      it seems he has finished     drags
his frail dignity clumsily into place         grins inanely         okay
he says      okay      deal done      sale consummated      now to
rationalise it      find excuses       banish the demons until next
time      he is gone      just one among so many fleeting ghosts