Competition

Highly Commended

Crossroads
by Brett Dionysius
Woodend, Qld

His native garden continued to grow; his daughter hugged a cane toad to death.
Its upside down eyes she shook up; a scaly snow globe filled with fresh blood.

He tossed it onto the road where cars would flatten it; letter-thin mummification.
The things were pests; boys went at them with golf swings, cricket bats clubbed.

That night he heard a siren tear down Harlin Rd; it wasn’t for the dead amphibian.
He wondered whose soul was measured; checked the rain gauge of their last breath

The radio spat its local news in the kitchen; the fear of hot oil in a forgotten frypan.
A sixteen year old had threatened police with a machete, later it swung into a baseball

Bat. Cuffed face-down on Albion Street he didn’t see the headlights; the blood swell
Deafened him so he heard nothing either; not even the officer’s frantic dynamite call.

She didn’t recognise him as human; maybe green waste that didn’t matter where it fell?
His brain pounded his ears with adrenaline; he was afraid of being thrown into the can

Cars, thousands of cars have crossed over the spot, zipped past the cream-white posts.
Death is a burnout on a corner of the heart; clouds of rubber smoke to frighten ghosts

Highly Commended

Petrichor
by Vuong Pham
Camira, Qld

A
lull
in the
first rain
after a dry
spell breathes
a suspense like
no other. Its silence
calms the exhaustion of
hysterical trees shrugging
off drought. Its scent lingers
between blackberry lanes that
bare their chests to the drizzle,
air-coffeed with earth. Its arrival
is crystal chrysalis awakening on
hot tin roofs like popcorn baking.
The remains are along staves of
fence wire, hanging dewdrops
of broken notes. They offer
peace, that is a trickling
sun, to the puddle's
heartbeat...
plop

Highly Commended

Fields of Cain
by Damian Lewis
Collingwood Park, Qld

(For Patrick)

The saw-sharp cane tips slice so minutely
into his fattened flesh. His feet press through
the cane-trash, fertiliser-rich clumps of clay
squeezing through his toes - alive and yielding
And through the humid closeness of the rows
the childhood scents of harvest’s sweet decay
rise and momentarily confuse the
cold precision of this final ritual.
Illusory moonlight clarifies his thoughts,
glinting off the hand-held blade, reflections
of reflections mirroring his steeled heart.
He opens his chest with savage blows,
Sacrifices on this earthly altar,
and then cannons his heart’s hot wish to God.

Trade my life for hers. I cut your hidden
Soul from my breast and curse it on its way.
Mean spirit and a cancer it has been
and little recompense for the burdens
you have laid upon our blood. God! Fair trade,
I beseech thee, pluck no more from this tree.
This is no Gethsemane. I will come
eagerly to absolve that growing dark
stain you let invade her image of you.
I offer up this final sin and chain
this son of Cain to eternal penance.
I am the eldest son and I lay claim
to all we suffer. Take this life for hers.

Black was always her colour, a contrast
to the pale beauty of Botticelli skin.
Now all is black. Strangers cast clumps of earth
above the hollowed husk that once held her
true anchor, a steely tie to home. Constant
like the cane; sure sign of return. Constant
as the gnawing knot in her breast. Constant
as the confusion that clouds her parents’
eyes as another son is laid in soil.
The raging tire of his final flight
now tempers her short days. His brutal thrusts
have pared away faith that she will meet him
in the dark. She feels the cane field’s presence.