Competition

First Prize

My Cat
by Grace Brockett
Brisbane School of Distance Education, Cooparoo, Qld

He’s a grumpulous lump of grobbity-gluk
He stares at me like I’m goofily guck
His thingamajig goes whackety-whump
As it lands with a FLACK! on my place of bad luck.
His sharp teeth sink in with a gnash and a gnum
As the flavours gwiggle-glick down to his tum
He gurgles with pleasure as he tastes my thumb
Scarred from too much exposure to his SCA-winking tongue
He gwargles a grumpulous gloogikal SQUWARK!
Or is it a miaow, the thing can’t talk!
The creature, rat-tatting, walks his glumpy-wump walk
He’s my difblendis, boggywoggy cat, of course!

Second Prize

The Harpist
by Bessie Hosking
Geraldton, WA

She pulls not only at the strings
But as she plays she plucks from the air
The songs of the sea and of the wind in her hair
And the people stop to watch,
For they can not help but listen
As music flows gracefully through the air
Like a glittering silver stream
That people can not resist pausing and sipping from
And all the while she plays on, plucking and pulling and
Drawing people toward her,
Keeping up the steady flow of music
Which to some sounds
Of sweetness,
Of singing of birds at morn
And to others sad and mellow.
And all thought it beautiful.
But at the end of the day she leaves with her harp and a hat full of coin,
And people think no more about her.

Third Prize

Solitary Straw Man
by Dalena Dinh
Darra State School, Darra, Qld

The quiet scarecrow
feeling very alone
every single day
in the bare, empty fields
missing the chatter of the crows