Competition

Highly Commended

Shapes in the Weather
by Vanessa Page
Ferny Hills, Qld

I saw truth
Hovering over the spiky heads
Of the pineapples

Time had bore
Greedily over these conversations
Left us spent

Outside
Plantations were a blurred
Intransience

All the while
The silence was building
Like white heat

No more inert
Than the world was fatalistic
We stood opposed

Travelling
Armed with facts about the weather
A crumpled countenance

Still, the shapes
Of the hinterland cling to us
Softer beyond this.

Highly Commended

Reading Letters to the Editor
by Stephen Paice of Corinda, Qld

Ah, the times are unkind, eggs
Dear, fleas resenting everywhere,
And a good enemy hard to find.

Millennia ago David had Goliath and
Horatius the hordes upon the bridge,
But yesterday, the Texans had Santayana.

But now only a pebbled word,
Nay a grain of sand,
No not even, rather
Dandruff shaken stiffly at,
The man, on his knees,
Arms tied behind his back,
Not even the sound,
Of one hand clapping.

He may, god knows it's happened before,
Rise, an old St Bernard with a precious cargo,
Shaking off fleas as he trots.