2017 Archives - Ipswich

Rosewood Green Award – Open Age Local Poets

Easter at the Coast by David Gagen (First Prize)

Where is Maggie Thatcher? by Gill Jewell (Second Prize)

Where is Maggie Thatcher?
Too stretched, this conversation,
spanning childhood till now.
Patterns of treachery and trajectory
ingrained in each sentence and sentiment.
She shuffles with a Zimmer frame,
annoyed that, unlike flesh and blood,
it refuses to bend to her iron will
doing only what it was meant to;
assist her.
The skeleton wheels her slowly,
deliberately to a destination somewhere
concealed or misplaced in delivery.
Through relentless journeying its
all but forgotten.
Where are the minutes of the meetings?
She had governed with such precision.
Why is the tea tray empty of scones ?
The queen will be disappointed
as will her ministers.
Confounded showering, she did not order!
Nor the impudent pup
clawing at her dressing gown,
now lathering her leathery back.
Don’t they know!
She will be late for the first sitting
of the house of commons
while strapped to this bed waiting
for a lunch she didn’t want.
God, the Russians were kinder.
No one to converse with,
No Polly or unionist: most gone in any case.
But remembered, still in the recesses
of a once agile mind that rendered
Scargil to a dribbling geriatric.
She giggles her own private joke ….
Those miners thought they’d stop my nation!
In their dreams! She turns in her sleep.
Their bleeding protests moved her, not.
Jobs crushed by her pen.
And where is mummy, will father come latter?
She is next to perform, will she
curtsey to no one; an empty hall where
no one is home.
Is that you my darling, my Dennis?
She knows at least this for certain.
that the dust bins have been taken out.
He knows what to do,
that she can’t.
She fumbles with a buzzer, cries out in pain,
remembering their song.
A voice sings clearly and sweetly.
Sweet melody remembered
but not the words.
How now could pills be forced into this mouth,
jaw clenched tight.
If only such authoritative tones could still
render the approaching medic helpless
She would bellow
“NO!”
But all that is coughed up are fragments
of the nursery long gone
“How Now Brown Cow”

When Gods Rules the Waves by David Gagen (Third Prize)

Behind a Perspex Screen by Leonie Parker (Highly Commended)

War on Terror by Brett Dionysius (Highly Commended)

2017 Overall Winner & recipient of the Babies of Walloon bronze statuette

Chairperson’s School Award

Picture Ipswich Theme Awards

Norman Foote Among the Pumpkins by Vanessa Page (First Prize)

Circa 1928 by P.S Cottier (Second Prize)

An Ode to the F-111 by Leonie Parker (Third Prize)

Double Take by Bernadette Whisson (Highly Commended)

Outside the Lines by Joe Dolce (Highly Commended)

Chair’s Encouragement Awards

Past by Alyssa Tang (5-17 Yrs. Winner)

Birds Can Heal Through Water by Robert Chapman (Open Age)

Joy Chambers & Reg Grundy Award – Open Age Other Poetry

Flying to Ipswich in the Company of Saint Jackie Howe by Roger Vickery (First Prize)

From the Wreck: Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870 by Jeff Guess (Second Prize)

Part One – A Birth
i.
What strange and nameless burden leaps in the womb
and head butts at the soft wet dark feeding already on her phobias and fears.
Better by far to stay in bed with cries and whimpers-
and not to name the garish day
the bush and hard white light
than to be always wanting to get back and back
and back as this so surely will
by poems and aborted voyages.
But having got this far – too far,
starting all of this without any permission
nothing now could be stopped.
ii.
His left hand a clenched musket ball of anger
his right – hung open like the broken wing
of a bird, mawkish with melancholy.
Having forsworn Virgil and Homer
his parents remain as bookends to his plight.
iii.
Jane has kept back his silver pen and more:
dry-eyed he sails
with only half his heart for Adelaide.
The boat like a bucking horse shoves Gravesend
bumping back across the little waves.
He folds a few late August wildflowers
hastily picked into his journal:
and presses it closed upon the past.
iv.
This little town
where he earns a brief contentment
but will never live.
His soul’s in England
‘When I come back’ leaks always from his pen
and he writes often after his heart
with the poetry in his fists and saddle.
v.
In Penola the priest gives him
a copy of the Horace ‘Odes’.
Quickly it burns a hole in his pocket
while his tongue catches fire on the words.
He locks himself within the pages,
closes the battered cover
over his shyness and reserve.
vi.
He wakes now from dream to dream.
Outside of that doubt and despair
parry with him for sense and sanity.
He knows he has little chance of winning.
Sundays he runs down to the sea
weary and sick of the odds
he feels are stacked against him
and swims with the muse.
Spends his evenings by the light
of a sludge lamp transcribing the poems.
vii.
Maggie quilts their marriage bed
with patience and respect
but never hearts and flowers.
His is the cautious gift of gold
a rein and bridle but never poems.
viii.
He lies after the fashion of Swinburne at Ventnor
but here on the cliffs of Cape Northumberland
where the storming reef off Carpenter Rocks
pounded the Admella to pieces in ’59
and waits, watches, listens for the poem
that will make his name to be washed in.
ix.
Four crowded years offences left
he can neither take as they come nor jump:
a hideous fall from Necromancer
while gentle Annie dies in fevered pain.
What’s gone and what’s to come
a disastrous steeplechase he’d flung to fate
now unseats him at each and every barrier.

Part Two – A DEATH
Suicide on Brighton Beach
A Melbourne winter’s day distills the final sadness.
It could not have turned out differently
and nothing now could be stopped.
At the end of an old argument with himself over
fatigue and desolation; England and going back.
Waking later while a clock on the mantelpiece
ticked away more than the dark and morning light
was a slow complicated equation
he would never solve.
Listens only to sounds Maggie makes
tumbling in troubled dreams.
Only at the inquest, she remembers
a pipe-smoke kiss.
All of his old wounds ache
but pain would be the excuse, not the reason.
But who can ever be sure of that?
If he had been asked he might have said
‘The key is in the Odes’ producing a battered
pocket Horace from his coat.
Now with a hunter’s step and his old service gun
creeps from the silent house
in a new but blunted dawn
along thick tea-tree scrub that lined the sand.
Mr. Prendergast at the Marine Hotel where he calls
is still abed, but no one now can bring him back.
Suddenly his shadow throws a comic-thin long legged thing:
while out across the still and empty page of sea
the huge soft-red explosion of the sun.
Later Mr Allen looking for his cow along the beach
first found his hat, the Horace, a clay pipe
and the few coins he left behind.

Endurance by Damen O’Brien (Third Place)

Along the Red Dirt Road: Drought Country Sequence by Mark Miller (Highly Commended)

Appraisal by Damen O’Brien (Highly Commended)

Pumpkins and Firewood by Mran-Maree Laing (Highly Commended)

An Even Greater Fear by David Campbell (Highly Commended)

The Museum by Mran-Maree Laing (Highly Commended)

Archives of the Feet by Jena Woodhouse (Highly Commended)

Faces in the Sea by Ashfield, Sydney, NSW (Highly Commended)

Metro Hotel Ipswich International Award – Open Age Bush Poetry

The Cynic Route by Kate O’Neil (First Prize)

When we remember Grandpa we start to reminisce
about ideas he thought were fair, opinions he’d dismiss.
He said that truth is hard to find whatever the dispute
so if you’re thinking honestly you take ‘the cynic route’.
So while he sat and listened to the evening news reports,
he’d punctuate the stream of words with histrionic snorts.
He’d mutter if some evidence was sounding very thin,
‘What rubbish! Do they really think that we’ll be taken in?’
And if he heard it advertised that this or that was ‘free’
‘Go on! Now pull the other one’ he’d say to our TV.
You’d hear him say ‘Bah humbug’ when Christmas time was near
and jingle bells were jangling in his poor offended ear,
while frantic advertising kept the dollars whizzing round
as people searched the shops for gadgets certain to astound.
‘Can anyone suggest a gift that’s right for Aunty Joan?
And can we find a toy that ‘Little Johnny’ doesn’t own?
Tinsel, lights and baubles prompted nothing but a frown;
the season’s crop of Santas perched on thrones all over town
were treated to the ‘hmmmph’ of Grandpa’s legendary scorn
and perhaps a muttered mention of ‘Oh glorious Christmas porn.’
He said that altruism was illusory at best
and called it ‘human conscience seeking temporary rest’.
Perhaps he tried to make himself exempt from such a claim
for I know his acts of kindness had a much more caring aim
and when he said the highest praise of women or of men
was simply being honoured as a ‘solid citizen’
he may have had in mind the claim we all-too-often hear –
that elevating people tends to make them less sincere—
that power corrupts and greed kicks in for more and more control,
and what was once a human is then nothing but a role.
So no surprise that politicians earned the most contempt;
Labour, liberal, red, blue, green – no party was exempt.
‘Bastards can’t keep bastards honest: that’s as plain as day;
You need to put the cynic’s check on everything they say.
You need to look behind their words, to always wonder ‘why?’
Is such suspicion justified? Would politicians lie?’
Expressed like that it sounds just like the classic cynic’s view
but though he scoffed at sentiment he’d give what praise was due
to kindnesses bestowed on him. He’d even recognise
that lurking in some human forms was sainthood in disguise.
We realised (but never said) he barked but didn’t bite;
The old curmudgeon had his style – he claimed it as a right.
He didn’t like bureaucracy, he didn’t like to queue
(but found the line would disappear if he began to moo.)
Pity help the vineyard that produced inferior red
or restaurants that failed to offer complimentary bread,
but while he said his chosen path was called ‘the cynic route’,
we thought this Grandpa pantomime was something of a hoot.
We noticed that he couldn’t quite obliterate his smile,
and knew the route he really took was called ‘the extra mile’.

Up in the Devils Lair by Terry Piggott (Second Prize)

Where the stony creeks meander and the schist clad hills rise high,
You can feel your heart beat faster as you near where nuggets lie.
Yet this country can be treacherous for those who don’t take care,
Death has long since cast its shadow here up in the devil’s lair.

There’s a lonely grave that greets you where the ghost gums line the creeks
And it’s here he’d sought his fortune once amid these crumbling peaks.
There’s a worn out pick and shovel there and boulders still lay strewn
And you hear the dingo’s howling with the rising of the moon.

On a termite ridden tree trunk is a rusty frying pan,
Where his mates had scratched the name once of this long forgotten man.
But the words have disappeared now, so there’s just a stone lined grave,
That’s a poignant last reminder of a mate they could not save.

Far out in this wilderness his friends could only hope and wait,
Praying for a miracle to somehow save a dying mate.
Though by then their hearts were hardened to the perils faced outback –
Death no longer was a stranger to those men who blazed the track.

When you look down at his grave, you think of how it was that day
And you wonder at the heartache of a mother far away.
Then you think about a sweetheart and the life they’d hoped to share
And you feel a tinge of sadness here up in the devil’s lair.

Time has silenced all the voices now of those who’d been his mate
And there’s little still remembered of the way he met his fate.
With no comrades left to mourn him an no lover to shed tears,
He has rested here forgotten for one hundred dreary years.

Yet this country holds him to its breast and guards his resting place,
While the changing seasons come and go at their unhurried pace.
When the summer storms arrive each year to swell the creek once more,
You can hear the boulders crashing and the raging river roar.

There’s a waterhole that fills here after cyclones have passed through
And it seems he may have camped there to enjoy the peaceful view.
As the nighttime shadows gathered and the sun began to sink,
He could watch the country stir again as creatures came to drink.

There’s a haunting feel about this place when stars are shining bright
And you sense you’re not alone, although there’s not a soul in sight.
As the night time breezes stir the leaves they whisper as they go
And you’d swear you hear his voice at time around this old gold show.

As you daydream by your campfire at the closing of each day,
You imagine he’s there with you pointing out where nuggets lay.
For it’s easy to believe now that his spirit roams here still
And he guards these creeks and gullies from his grave up on the hill.

There’s a nagging urge to come here, though I never stay for long;
Yet, I find it hard to leave at times – the lure of gold is strong.
It’s remote and inhospitable when summer’s in the air,
But again that sense of sadness as you leave the Devils’ lair.

The Lady of the Lakes by Terry Piggott (Third Prize)

Around the outback campfires there’s a yarn l’d often heard
about the ‘lady of the lakes’, although the facts were blurred.
Her beauty is exceptional; or so the story goes
but whether she is real or not- well no one really knows?

Just like a ghost she may appear, then suddenly she’s gone
and so these stories tend to grow each time that they’re passed on.
Her face is like an angels and her hair shines burnished gold,
a mystic nymph who roams the lakes; or so I had been told.

Some say she seeks out prospectors, when life has been unkind
those lonely souls who look for gold but never seem to find.
To others she is searching for a sweetheart from the past
and doomed to roam the great salt lakes until he’s found at last.

It’s said her voice is sometimes heard when stars are shining bright,
sad songs they say sung far away, drift faintly through the night.
These sightings are quite rare I’m told, and few have seen her face
and those who have are hard to find, and harder still to trace.

The outback’s full of yarns of course and most you can’t believe
although -I thought I saw her once- one balmy summer’s eve.
I may have been mistaken; yet I’m confident I’m right
for though near dark I glimpsed her there across the lake that night.

I’d never taken notice of beliefs that some may share.
yet something seemed to tell me, I was not alone out there.
I dozed off by my campfire then the way I often do;
perhaps I had been dreaming – dreamt what happened next was true?

I’d swear I sensed her soft lips as they gently brushed my cheek
and heard her fading footsteps heading off towards the creek.
I woke up with a start then; still convinced that she was near
and watched the bushes moving where I saw her disappear.

Perhaps I’d been mistaken for the one she’d long searched for;
a sweetheart who had perished in the gold rush years before.
Or was it all imagined; just a dream that seems so real
my mind remains a captive to emotions that I feel?

I’ve camped back there now many times, though haven’t seen her since
and most who hear my story I’m unlikely to convince
Yet every time I’m near the lakes I look around in vain
and wonder if our paths will cross somewhere out there again

Though as the years pass slowly by the doubts begin to grow
how can I be so sure then when I have no proof to show?
Yet in my mind there still resides clear memories of this
and even though it’s forty years I cherish still her kiss

The Night The Kids Cooked Dinner by Caroline Tuohey (Highly Commended)

The children in the rural town Lower Upper Dresher,
had joined the craze of cooking shows where cooks cooked under pressure.
They all sat glued three nights a week to television screens
and if they missed an episode, were prone to nasty scenes.
They’d taken up the challenge to improve their daily diet,
but grocery shopping with their mums was heading for a riot.
Their parents all seemed quite content to stick to same old styles;
they very rarely wandered down the continental aisles.
The kids had all decided that the cooking shows were right –
that food should be exciting and artistically ‘a sight’.
And things became hysterical the night Sam’s mum cooked pasta,
with sauce that came in bottles, as Sam’s mum said ‘it was faster’.
But Sam no longer wished to eat spaghetti bolognaise.
Instead he wanted new spring lamb infused with minted glaze.
He told his Mum potatoes were no longer smooth and mashed;
they should be served unpeeled with lumps – potatoes now are smashed.
And Michael and Robina were appalled with KFC
that their Dad brought home as takeaway for Friday’s casual tea.
“It wouldn’t be,” they said perturbed, “too hard to buy a chop;
they sell them marinated down in Finley’s butcher shop.”
While down at Harrigan’s Hotel the chef was going blotto,
when Master Joe suggested cooking salmon roe risotto.
Chef Willy wasn’t too impressed – Joe questioning his grub.
“My chicken parmigiana is a staple in this pub.”
But Joe was fairly adamant and asked him mum to change
the chicken to a salmon (and it needs to be free-range).
His mum explained the menu was decided by Chef Willy
and to stop this fancy cooking rot – “the whole thing’s getting silly.”
So Joe and all the other kids decided they would score
their parents’ meals all out of ten – most getting three or four.
They figured that some comments would assist their folks to see,
no longer were they tolerating mediocrity.
The parents were appalled of course, when meals were given zeros,
while all those darn contestants on the show were hailed as heroes.
The children sensed their parents were all close to nearly breaking –
that they understood they needed to improve what that were making;
until a parent phoned around and called a secret meeting,
to try and sort the bedlam over what their kids were eating.
And Mary-Jane convinced them that she had a sure-fire winner.
“We’ll all give in,” she said quite calm, “just let the kids cook dinner.”
The parents at the table sat in silence for a while,
then one by one were nodding and a few began to smile.
They started to imagine they’d have time to read a book,
instead of being busy in the role of family cook.
And so that night the parents gave their kids the welcome news:
“You’re all the chefs tomorrow night – it’s up to you to choose.”
The kids all gave a mighty shout – “we’ll show you how it’s done,”
then raced towards their kitchens, looking forward to lots of fun.
The next day was a Saturday – they measured, mixed and stirred
at stovetops and the benches where much muttering was heard.
By six o’clock they’d finished and their meals had all been plated,
but each and every one of them was tired and not elated.
In Sam’s house, both the Willis’ were wondering what to do
with little Sammy’s cheeses that were mouldy, old and blue.
Insisting Sam should try it first, they waited while he ate
a cracker smeared with rancid cheese, some pate and a date.
But Sam’s young taste buds didn’t like his gourmet nibbly platter.
“I think,” he said, “I’d rather have a saveloy in batter.”
Sam’s parents kindly got their kid a sausage fried in oil,
both knowing that his craze for fancy food was off the boil.
While down the road, Robina had some doubts about her pudd –
it wasn’t looking like a trifle usually would.
She hadn’t missed a step at all – she’d done as they’d instructed.
But some desserts just don’t taste right when they are deconstructed.
Robina knew her trifle would be judged ‘not good enough,’
when served on several silly plates, in little piles of stuff.
Her Mum and Dad suggested that she plop it in a bowl –
that a tasty, messy, mixed-up pudd was trifle’s only goal.
And down at Harrigan’s Hotel young Joe was in a pickle,
as his salmon-roe risotto dish was proving rather fickle.
To stir a pan of fishy rice for nearly forty minutes,
was really rather boring and was giving Joe the irrits.
Eventually Chef Willy – who could stand the smell no more,
suggested Joe should help him make a dish he’d like for sure.
And that night all the customers said Joe’s meal was a charmer,
as Joe served up his special dish – Chef Willy’s parmigiana.
And Mary-Jane was lauded as the parent of the year –
their children viewed those cooking shows with something close to fear.
The kids were now content with being decent, simple cooks,
as cooking fancy food is not as easy as it looks.

A Racing Tale by Jim Kent (Highly Commended)

Another Mountain Cup was past, another picnic day,
the race was won, the setting sun cast shadows ‘cross the way.
Though horses, jockeys, people too, departing from the track
a few remained to “chew the wind” as was their way outback, – to reminisce of other times, the meets of other years
to which they’d been or wished they’d seen, the many joys and tears
of racing cups and handicaps, of flats and jumps and steeples,, of horses known and riders bold and other racing peoples..
He leaned across the running rail to gaze into the past. and saw again the riding men and horses running fast, though ghostly in the setting sun just spectres in the haze, the horses great and laughing men belonged to other days. A stranger there they thought of him, a lonely sort of bloke,
they sensed his ilk with racing silk and listened when he spoke. “I’ve been around the tracks,” he said, “to meetings far and wide , to see great races won and lost, to watch great jockeys ride.”
“The Melbourne Cup I’ve seen of course, the better known of all. and races great in ev’ry state ,and all I can recall —
but l.ve not forget the greatest seen, the one remembered more the Mountain Cup in ‘thirty-nine, the last before the war.
No handicap two miler then, around a railed in track,
a ten mile race at cracking pace to Baldy Rock and back, the handicap the Whipstick scrub beyond the flat outbound,
the hillside steep and gullies deep, the rough and broken ground.”
“The riders in the race that year, I see their faces clear, Danny Ryan and Pat O’Brien and Clancy Silvatere.
The Tobin Boys, the two of them, and Curly Jack McRae, Bobby Moore and Slim McNee, the drover Tommy Bray. The final rider of the ten, the ringer Darby White,
a cranky coot, a young galoot, a noisy blatherskite.
The better rider there his claim, he’d win the race, his boast, no rider there, no horse yet born, could beat him to the post.”
“A bantam Rooster crowing loud, a boastful little man, no sportsman he who couldn’t see himself an also ran.
He would not share their toast to luck, ‘luck doesn’t count’, said he,
‘the better man will win this race, the better man is me!'”
“Ten horses at the starting line, the riders holding reign,
the starter’s gun began the run-, and cheered across the plain the racing horses crowding close, no space at all between
from first to last and closely match’d and none was racing green. Into the stinging whipstick scrub still wet from recent rain,
the way was rough, the going tough, of blood and sweat and pain,
across the broken, slipp’ry ground and racing side by side
the brave young men to saddle born, ’twas grant to see them ride.”
“Still tightly bunched they reached The Rock and horses turned around, more ridges steep and gullies deep, and rough and broken ground. Darby White there took the lead where hazards at their worst,
to be in front his one desire, he had to be the first.
A gully deep and slipp’ry wet with water running brown,
the horses slipped and heels were clipped, Darby White was down. The Tobin boys stopped at once and helped him to remount,
but he could not win the race of course, too far behind to count”.
“Who won the race it matters not, the purse was on the bar,
the prize was shared by those who dared with whisky and Three Star. ‘Come Darby White, ‘ they said to him, ‘and drink to Mountain Men, and that we may live another year to ride the race ag’en.’
‘No, I’ll not drink with men who cheat, to beat the better man’, So Darby cried with foolish pride -‘so foul the race you ran, you crowded me into a fall, the Tobins held me sway,
the only way that you could win, to beat me home today!”‘
“I’ll not drink with you, ‘he said, ‘or toast the Mountain race, the way it’s run, the way it’s won, is nothing but disgrace…’ He cursed them then, an angry man, and spat into the dirt,
and walked away, he did not care, the pain they felt, the hurt.”
“He drifted to the city tracks, in with the City push, training horses, riding courses, longing for the bush.
He’d not go back, his foolish pride, the pride before the fall and working still those city tracks he heard the bugle’s call.
In Greece and Crete, on desert sand, in jungles near our shore, he heard men cry and saw men die in the bloody hell of war, and brotherhood in battle, how men fought and lived and died, humbled him to recognize his selfish foolish pride…”
“If the Gods of War allowed him life, he made the promise then, when war was done, the battle won, he’d seek those mountain men, his purse alone upon the bar he’d admit his own disgrace,
sorry for his foolish words when lost the mountain race.
Returning though the local folk sadly showed the way
to a tomb of stone that stood alone, of granite grim and grey,
a monument to those who fought and who’d paid a bitter price, their names were there, each with a cross, the supreme sacrifice . “
“The Tobin boys together died, their ship at sea destroyed, in a bloody fight against the might the enemy deployed, Clancy Silvatere a soldier’s grave in distant desert sand, with Bobby Moore and Slim McNee, all dying for their land. For a mate young Danny Ryan gave his life in Crete,
and Curly Jack on Kokoda track death before defeat. Tommy Bray a medal won, also a jungle grave,
and Pat O’Brien amongst the dead, amid the fallen brave.”
“Don’t let the sun set on your wrath, his father often said, Come the dawn and with the mom a man could well be dead, The sun set on his wrath that day, the pain will never cease, death arrived before the dawn, before he made his peace . “
“Tis sixty years or almost so but night and day since then,
they’ve haunted him and taunted him, the ghostly mountain men. Never days without respite or nights without the pain,
if only he could turn back time and ride the race again-“
anguish in his weary eyes – ” a moral to my tale,
don’t be absurd with act and word if to win the race you fail,
too great the cost, the anger ,wrath – and I know that I am right, I was there, I rode that race – my name is Darby White!”

The Flags That Fly at Castlebrook by Noel Stallard (Highly Commended)

It’s good to be reminded of those people who have been
Significant in giving us a lifestyle that’s serene.
Our parents and our pioneers made sacrifices so
We can enjoy this type of life that we have come to know.
And foremost of those forebears, who gave life so we could live,
Were service personnel in wars where Death did not forgive.
The Christmas Cub reminds us when a saviour came to save.
And Easter holds the hope we have for life beyond the grave.
Australia Day’s another day to take time to deploy
Our thoughts for those who sacrificed, so we can now enjoy
Prosperity, security, a life removed from wars;
And this because brave men and women fought to save our shores.
The RSL at Castlebrook on each Australia Day,
Has organised with Bunnings that this retailer outlay,
Six hundred Aussie Flags that flap so proudly on the graves,
Of gallant men and women; and each Aussie Flag that waves,
Will hear the breeze at Castlebrook that sighs, “Remember me.”
“We’ll not forget,” each flag flaps back, “you kept our country free.”
Our Aussie Flag’s our ensign, with its Southern Cross and star;
There is no more distinctive sign that symbols who we are.
How fitting then we use this flag on one day of the year.
To honour and acknowledge those whose memory we hold dear.
Those service personnel who fought in mud, in sand, in snow;
And left a debt of gratitude, that we will always owe.
The blue within the Aussie Flag reminds us of our sea,
Defended by our sailors so to keep our coast line free.
The Southern Cross stood high above Kakoda’s bloody track,
Where diggers fought both night and day to drive invaders back.
The British Union on our flag recalls our pilots’ role,
Defending Mother England ‘gainst a German air control.
These fields of flags that fly up on the hill at Castlebrook
Are visual reminders, for whoever choose to look,
Of tribute and of gratitude to personnel who served,
And go some way to paying the respect that they deserved,
The twenty sixth of January should become the date,
Australians deck all cenotaphs with flags that say, “Thanks Mate!”

Bandy Bill by Jim Kent (Highly Commended)

I sit tonight by firelight with a heavy aching head,
the message reached me just today, old Bandy Bill is dead;
he died alone in a nursing home where time had passed him by,
no family, Bill, his mates were gone, and no one left to cry.
Old and grey and seemed that way when I was but a lad,
when living by the mountain track and farming with my dad,
Old Bandy passed us twice each day, with timber for the mill,
to walk beside the man and team to boys was quite a thrill.
For Bill you see was bullocky, a teamster from the past,
and of the old time working teams his was the very last,
hauling timber from the mountain, Stringy Bark and Beech,
Mountain Ash and Iron Bark that others couldn’t reach.
A span of ten he called them men, his working bullock team,
they seemed so huge when we were boys, their nostrils blowing steam
as snorting with exertion hauling mighty mountain logs
they struggled from the forest, straining harness, squeaky dogs.
Sandy’s yells, the bullock bells the sounds we loved to hear,
his cracking whip the echoes woke but rarely raising fear,
his bullocks knew what they must do, no need to taste the lash,
each bullock was a special beast, the big, the bold, the brash.
In the lead old Tumbleweed and paired with Cranky Lil,
each was named and knew their name when called by Bandy Bill.
There was Blackie, Joker, Samson, – Fly and Billy Blue,
Randy always pulling hard, The Boss and Cobbler too.
Bill’s language blue so sadly true was dinkum bullocky,
it was mostly showmanship for all to hear and see
a teamster of the yesteryear with trace and chain and rope.-
if said the words old Bandy used my mouth was washed with soap.
A cranky coot, an old galoot, or so my father said,
‘He’ll lead you up a tree,” his claim,” and leave you there for dead!”
We never knew the reason why and neither man would say,
why each ignored the other when the teamster passed our way.
Though warned beware we didn’t care, Old Bill remained a mate,
our mentor from the mountain side up to the sawmill gate,
as he hauled each mountain log we were his company,
and each of us a boyhood dream to be a bullocky.
Bill would tell I remember well such tales of derring-do,
wild and gory tales they were and Bandy swore them true;
tall stories now I know they were, but we as youngsters then
believed the tales old Bandy told of Bunyips, beasts and men.
A legend still old Bandy Bill, in tales of yesteryear,
the deeds he done the fights he won, a man who knew no fear;
his team came through the worst of times when days were grim and black,
Nature’s wrath and men’s intent could never hold him back.
The fifties flood and seas of mud, the fires of forty-two,
Bandy Bill and bullock team always coming through,
succor for the needy town and local hotel beer,
the teamster never failing in fetching hope and cheer.
The mill was shut, no timber cut, no mountain logs to haul,
but Bill and team still in demand when tourists came to call;
with cracking whip and snorting beasts he was a showman still,
they came from near and far to see Bullocky Bandy Bill.
He died alone in a nursing home well passed his hundred years,
no one there to share the pain, to wipe away the tears;
a lonely grave on mountain side, a simple wood cross,
by the tracks the bullocks made when Bandy Bill was boss.
The whipbird’s crack brings mem’ries back of bullocky and team,
in days of old when we were boys just old enough to dream,
hauling logs by mountain track, they say his ghost’s there still,
it’s not the whipbird’s call we hear, but the whip of Bandy Bill.

Real Time Dream Time by Kevin Pye (Highly Commended)

Plywood Crosses by Graeme Johnson (Highly Commended)

Prologue: In August 2014 the Australian War Memorial turned on the “Roll of Honour” Soundscape project. Primary School students from across Australia had recorded the name & age (at death) of the 62,000 Australians who died during WW1. These voice recordings form a moving backdrop for museum visitors as they walk through the ‘Cloisters’ Commemorative area of the museum.
As part of the 4 year long Anzac Centenary celebrations the “Commemorative Crosses” project will also see 100,000 plywood crosses (inscribed with messages written by Australian schoolchildren) sent to be placed on the graves of all Australian servicemen & women who have given their lives for their country (from the Boer & Sudan wars up until present day conflicts). These crosses will be sent to countries such as Turkey , Belgium, Malaysia, Singapore, Greece, South Africa & the Middle East.

My footfall in that hallowed hall reverberated meek and small,
as step by step the marbled floor I trod.
As icy wind chilled polished stone I knew that I was not alone.
I walked with men who’d gone to meet their God.
A speckled spray of poppies red.
Soft petals for the men who bled.
These cloisters in memorial where soldiers formed their final squad.
Some 60,000 names to pass embossed upon the burnished brass.
A ‘Roll of Honour’ pressed against the wall.
An alphabet of surnames stretched , this catalogue of manhood etched, in countless rows repeating to appal.
Their battle won they rest in peace.
In glory sought they found release,
on battlefields of WW1 in serving man they gave their all.
These pondered thoughts they filled my head. From ‘a’ to ‘g’ to ‘z’ I read,
as voices whispered falling to my ear.
What were these names that I now heard? This softly spoken uttered word?
Articulate and vocalised so clear.
They seemed with me to resonate.
A soldiers name and day and date.
Was this a veiled epiphany of omnipresent tomes I hear?
These names a century unheard from loam of foreign soils interred,
are eulogised. Read to a steady beat.
As children from our primary schools record upon a tape deck’s spools ,
a liturgy of age and rank replete.
Some 40 different names per day ,
are uttered proudly in array.
For 4 long years their monikers in homage honoured will repeat.
In tribute too a message sent on plywood crosses to augment,
their full respect and open gratitude.
A message to a ‘digger’ brave to rest upon a wartime grave.
These youngsters pledged a nation’s platitude.
With shaky hand and texta pen.
With pencils sharp they wrote to men.
They spoke in their naivety and asked about their fortitude .
“Did you go home from war each night if you were nervous or in fright,
to sleep all snug and warm in your own bed?”
Mused Wendy Watts from Winmalee on Randolph Cleaver’s destiny.
Enlisting with the volunteers he sped.
“To our last shilling and last man.
Support the monarchy our plan”. *                                                                                             1
In servitude to British Lords the news that Hughes and Fisher spread. *                                  2
“When bullets hit you did they hurt? Did blood seep through your tattered shirt?
And did you wash it out at end of day?”
Thought Cooper Briggs from Croppa Creek.
Was Herbert Affleck’s future bleak?
How would his manhood hold in the affray?
“Australians stand beside our own”.
“Some 50,000 more we’ll loan”.*                                                                                                 3
To send as re-enforcements, politicians’ conscience to defray.
“So when they killed you were you dead? Did scary thoughts race through your head?
Did it take long or was it really quick?”
Said Sally Jones from lnverell to Gordon Cooper he who fell,
where blood like treacle flowed there rich and thick.
Conscription and its justice failed,
and nationhood it fair prevailed.
Where jaunty slogans advertised and peer group pressure did the trick.
“Dad said you fought war in a ditch as back and forth the fight did pitch.
Did you play hiding games inside the trench?”
Asked Ivan Smith from lronbark of Sydney Burvett for a lark.
“Did hankies block your nose from all the stench?”
Where flanked retreating infantry,
were fodder for futility.
As high upon the plateau flat of Sari Bair the guns did quench.
“How did you see above the trench? Did you stand up upon a bench?
If you were short how did you clamber out?”
Young Wilbur Wight from Wattle Flat asked Herbert Curnow for a chat.
Did he survive the Ottoman’s next rout?
Did he (dismounted) charge ‘The Nek’? *                                                                                    4
An action that was circumspect.
As ‘Mehmets’ slew the ‘Johnnies’ in a fervor that was quite devout. *                                      5
Spoke Neville Barnes from Nowendoo to Leslie Biddle as he slew,
exacting out his ‘pound of flesh’ for fee.
Enduring ‘Sausages & Mash’. *                                                                                                    6
The Somme of France where he did clash.
As Anzac 1 & 2 sent forth 5,000 men to deaths decree.
“If you did stick him with a knife, did he yell out to lose his life?
Is he in heaven now or down in hell?”
Scrawled Simon Stark from Wangee Park for Colden Pockley in remark,
as he succumbed to shrapnel and to shell.
Fromelle gave up the Western Front,
as 5th Division took the brunt.
Where columns march ground to a halt advancements ardour there to quell.
“Was conflict just from 9 to 5? And did you walk or did you drive,
to join the ‘Call to Arms ‘ hostility?”
Wrote Tommy Thule from Timbuctoo on Norman Elsworth’s ‘Waterloo’,
as he lay stacked like cordwood to foresee ,
the white flag raised to call a truce.
Was its intent humane or ruse?The burial contingents rose and shook hands though they disagree.
“So was it like a holiday? A bit of work? A bit of play?
Did you send postcards on your weekend rest?”
Sent Vincent Vane from Vardy’s Road to Robert Flockart as he strode,
at Moquet- Farm a thousand yards abreast. *                                                                                7
But casualties they multiplied,
as they were shelled from every side.
The First Division ‘Aussie’ troops were sacrificed at their behest.
“Was it just like a running race when those young ‘turkeys’ you did chase,
through ‘No-Man’s Land’ to send them on their way?”
Penned Freddy Flint from Faulconbridge to Thomas Rushworth on the ridge,
at Bullecourt was thrust into the fray. *                                                                                           8
At Hindenberg they pressed the line, *                                                                                            9
defences there to re-define.
But thousands taken prisoner were captured in this wild melee.
“Was it a good adventure then to join your fellow countrymen,
a foreign country’s culture to enjoy?”
Scratched Ahmed Khazi as he stood to Bernard Harford in the ‘Wood’,
at Polygon as part of the convoy. *                                                                                                  10
A win wrought from protracted pain.
The 4th Divisions hefty gain.
A series of successful raids against the strongholds they deploy.
“Did living in this slaughter send your addled mind around the bend? Did you have headache pills to ease the pain?”
Quizzed Ruby Rose from Rukenvale to Cyril Fussell who did wail,
at Broonseinde where breathing was in vain. *                                                                               11
Some 4.5 per minute died,
by one whole day there multiplied.
A total of 6,000 souls in carnage fell to this campaign.
“Did you have I-Pods or T.V? Enjoyment you could guarantee?
Something to do that was a bit of fun?”
Hoped Danny Dale of Darrigo. Is Albert Bracher’s progress slow,
at Hamel where objectives had been won? *                                                                                   12
A battle integrated plan,
saw tanks and aircraft assist man.
The ‘Doughboys ‘ and the ‘Diggers’ fought in unison to beat the ‘Hun’. *                                         13
“Without a map did you get lost? Your fingers bitten by the frost? Were there directions posted on the track?”
Scribed Kenny Clarke from Kurrajong to Clarence Wallach so headstrong,
as trudging, grabbed a smoke from out his pack.
They confiscated guns and tanks.
Advanced 6k’s in scattered ranks.
Fought 6 long months without a break and rested now in bivouac.
“If you were injured did they send your broken body home to mend?
Did they throw you a ‘ticker-tape’ parade?”
Told Micheal Moore of Morningside of Percy Statton’s humble pride,
whose tunic wore a VC’s accolade.
The armistice was signed complete.
A man danced on a Melbourne street.
Capitulation would ensure a feeling that hope would pervade.
“I know that you do not know me. I live because you set me free”.
Was what I wrote upon my plywood cross.
An opportunity arose to grace a cross with my own prose.
A benefactor of good karma’s ‘joss’.
“With sacrifice more deeply sewn,
than any other earth we own”.
The words of journalist Charles Bean in his summation of our loss.

Glossary

“To our last shilling” etc. A quote attributed to Andrew Fisher shortly before he was elected Prime Minister. A. Fisher 17/9/14-27/10/15.
Hughes: William Morris Hughes. Prime Minister 27/10/15-19/2/23.
“Australians stand beside our own”: A quote attributed to Andrew Fisher
“Some 50,000 more we’ll loan”: A quote attributed to William Hughes
‘The Nek’: On the 7/8/15 Dismounted Light Horsemen charged Turkish trenches in a futile attempt to gain ground. They were repelled by heav·y machine gun & rifle fire.
‘Mehmets’ ‘Johnnies’: Taken from the 1934 poem by Kemal Ataturk. ‘Mehmets’ are the Turkish soldiers. ‘Johnnies’ are the Allies (specifically the Anglo soldiers).
‘Sausages & Mash’: ‘Sausage Valley’ was a shallow valley in the Somme region of France co called because of the proliferation of German observation balloons known as ‘sausages’. A nearby valley was coined ‘Mash Valley’.
Moquet Farm: A tactical position in the Battle of Pozieres (July 23-Sept 3 1916).
Bullecourt: The 151 & 2nd Battles of Bullecourt were held in April & May 1917.
Hindenburg: From 1/3/17-31/3/17 German troops retreated to the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line.
Polygon Wood: Battle of Polygon Wood Sept 26th 1917.
Broonseinde: Battle of Broonseinde 4th October 1917.
Hamel: On July 4th 1918 General Monash oversaw a joint attack by aircraft , artillery, tanks & infantry. It was over in 93 mins. The Australian Corp advanced the line by 2 klm over a 6.5 klm front.
‘Doughboys’ ‘Diggers’: Doughboys was a nickname for the American troops . Diggers was a nickname for the Australian troops. The battle at Hamel was the first time that Australian & American forces had fought side by side.

Ipswich City Council Award – 16-17 Years

Zipper by Sonya Frossine (First Prize)

Marking of a Printed Title by Sidney Boen (Second Prize)

Lament for Bruadair by Clare O’Sullivan (Third Prize)

See derfor vil jeg hellere være Svinehyrde paa ¹
Amagerbro og være forstaaet af Svinene, end
være Digter og være misforstaaet af Menneskene

I
Allow me to introduce as docent Mim should do ²
this pallid bathroom man whom I birthed
some eighty seasons ago, on clean sheets
and in the utmost sterility to be assured
He smelled of eucalyptus (the black and gold variety) ³
a trait that doubtless carried into
His flowering despite the apparent
blackening of his faculties, indeed
You have seen it I am sure you lived it
This broken frame who standing before
A glass in shivering delusion did exclaim
“OH!
how the foggy mirror
cries
for me!”
Stained the blurry image
with tear tracks of clarity
Stepped back a little, to lucid, view-
his pentagram anatomy
To piece apart, to piece
together the bars to see
the pale face of man
who reaches now for the canister
Upon the porcelain sink and
Applies his daily creams
and takes what was prescribed
and utters infrequently
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams ⁴
And retreats unto his blanket to
bathe himself in blue frames from
the comedy of errors the tabloids say ⁵
may or may not
give him cancer.

II
Awaking from comatose now reborn
A tachycardiac, he played tapes of
Foetal worlds on fast forward- the
lurid shades of abcs inducing nausea
for all that were involved (especially involuntarily)
The zoetropic acid test of memory ⁶
a roulette of images cast upon the screen
whose blackness now found itself
Reanimated in his pin prick pupils
that saw a thousand dancing sisters
and all the meals set down before him he
saw a thousand rotund fingers slapping
chicken thighs on laminate
(Behold! Plato’s man!) ⁷
Seasoned with the spit and spite
of some gibe and jarring discourse
that headphoned infants doth ignore
As vacant faces seat themselves
on the “eclectic” chairs straight from
The pages of the last domestic monthly
And idle there
painted into silverware
Static but for the occasional scrape
Static but for the
Drip Drip
Drop
You watched the insect bodies pile up
Under the light of a sixty watt god that
struck them dead as they rose to kiss him
The meek sons of Bellerophon burnt and mangled ⁸
in a Turkish bowl upon the table runner
“She’ll be coming tomorrow
the bitch
I hardly know what
we’re going to do with all her
junk she keeps we ought to
Refuse her, they ought to have
kept her in for longer. I suppose
she’ll need a mattress I’ll go
fetch it from the attic at some point
In the morning.”
(and on the pile heaped)
Prodding pumpkin you wondered
why the lonely old witch you
shared a cup with shrank away
and told you that blood was thicker
than water when she nearly bled to death
on the pin of her mother’s brooch
“Horseman pass by” she rasped ⁹
Then withered.

III
Walking down Alameda to play ¹⁰
limbo with electric twine you
Stopped in the underground
To meet Phalaris whom ushered ¹¹
you unto the station restroom
Toothless bar one ebony nugget
He retrieved ambrosia from behind his ball sacks
Hvad er en Digter? ¹²
You stared into the hollowing eyes
with your own, clear but watered
and nodded amiably
and so underwent the cling wrap exchange
To shuffle out the stall
like Grindr otters, the both of you ¹³
tripped out and buggered on the yellowing tiles
Lying prone, you traced your tongue
along the grout and cracks
and other mildewed interstices
Just as you did, in that bygone night
Her ivory back
And recoiled just the same
To the howls of hipsters in the outer hall

And they’ll be ¹⁴
plaaaaaaaaaycing
fingers through the
notches in your spine
and when all is
breaking-
Finally it came and when you had
idled long enough you
Cleaned it up with baby-wipes
No more pale girl now no more pale bony girl no more girl no more
piano key ribs against your groin just nothing just
you alone with your phone and your fingers and the memory of
Your mother feeding you Kellogg’s every morning ¹⁵
It didn’t work at all. It didn’t work. It didn’t.
None of the kitchen dawns wiled away
with your ears ground against the bench
did stir you from your firm impertinence
Staring at assorted fridge magnets,
One in floral border, a little rusted but remains to this day
you read it last visit, it read-
“THIS TOO SHALL PASS”
and in your oily vehemence completed-
“like a kidney stone”
Bitterly spat under a half-breath, all those
nights spent fat and naked- the sweat
melting flesh into synthetic leather
All the jagged profanities scratched
into the backs of bus seats
All amounted to nothing but
the phlegm on the pavement now
Icterine before you, before the pigeons
gathered about your swollen feet
(Watch the one-winged little lamb there)
Limping where you laid your head
in decaying freesia this evening ¹⁶
fifteen years heretofore, now gone
your legs itching stubble, bleeding
like wheat after the harvest.

Annotations and References:

quotation from Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard
Translation: “I would rather be a swineherd at Amagerbro and be understood by the swine, than be a poet and misunderstood by humans “
Mim was a figure in norse mythology renowned for his profound wisdom, after being decapitated in the Æsir-Vanir war, Odin found the head and after speaking charms over it was able to carry it around with him for use as as personal advice and counsel.
referring to black and gold branded disinfectant
from “Paradise Lost” by John Milton
reference to Elliott Smith’s song- “Miss Misery” (as well as the Shakespearean reference originally contained)
reference to the “Electric Kool-aid Acid Test” and the LSD parties conducted by Ken Kesey, often involving strobe lighting and flickering projections.
Quote from Diogenes. After Plato gave the definition of man as a “featherless biped”, Diogenes was said to have walked into Plato’s academy holding a plucked chicken and cried “Behold! Plato’s man!” Soon after, “with broad flat nails” was added to the original definition.
Bellerophen- Hero of Greek mythology who attempted to fly up to Mount Olympus, the realm of the gods, upon the back of Pegasus only to be struck down by Zeus
“Horseman pass by”- last line from the poem “Under Ben Bulben” by WB Yeats, also is engraved on his tombstone
Reference to Elliott Smith song “Alameda” about a self-obsessed heroin addict
Phalaris was a Greek tyrant renown for his torture device called the “brazen bull”- a bull-shaped furnace that was said to have turned the screams of the victims burning alive inside into music
quotation from Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard- full passage translation: “ What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.”— also makes reference to the brazen bull myth. Used here as if the translation is actually a query whether to undergo the drug deal- symbolises lack of communication and understanding as well as subtly commenting on the way modern artists tend to turn to drug abuse- the Elliott Smith references supporting this allusion.
Grindr- an application used for the purpose of casual homosexual intercourse, “otter” is slang for a gay man of a certain physique between muscular and skinny
lines from Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Two-headed boy”- a song about the holocaust and starvation. The album the song is from has gained notoriety for being a favourite among hipsters.
Kellogg’s was originally founded for the purpose of creating a cereal to prevent masturbation in adults and children. It was believed that an extremely bland diet would reduce sex drive.
freesia is known to symbolise innocence

Commuter’s Requiem by Luke Bradshaw Poier (Highly Commended)

The Man from Serayu River, an adaption of Banjo Patterson’s poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’ by Emily Bradley (Highly Commended)

Outro Requiem by Isabel Longbottom (Highly Commended)

Part I – Poesies
The furtive winter evening breeze
Stirs headlines and the withered leaves
That line the gutters.
A red scarf flutters in your knotted fist,
And down the hill the Church bell rings
Eight o’clock.
Among indistinct hands and insistent feet,
In the old quarry the flowergirl sings:
“What say you, itinerant salesman?
Will you while away an hour or two,
In the house at the edge of the park (after dark),
By the lightning-tree, split in two?”
“I picked daisies because the violets withered,
But even October is too cruel a month
To yield up thorns in a wicker basket.
Now I remember Saint Valentine’s day,
When the autumn thrush sang in lifeless tone
And my good bright dog capered away.
I am the absinthe girl, toute seule but not alone.”
In the room lurked candelabra and oak-panelled walls,
When metallic salts cast leadlight shadows
Across a Trimalchian spread;
And unctuous gold dripped sinuously between
Damson plums and pomegranate seeds.
Scattered platters of Corinthian bronze glowed
Amidst vials and decanters, overflowed
With a profusion of synaesthetic fragrance.
(And this was only the prelude to the feast.)
Blue-green flickers burnished polished stone,
From behind the garden and Golgotha,
And from the false steward, crying for his daughter.
While I who arbitrated the Peace of Nicias,
I at Aegospotami who took refuge with Evagoras,
During the time of false and lying gods –
I will show you the past in a pinch of salt;
The present in a breath of smoke, carried on the mistral
Through the valley of the shadow of death;
And the future in a curl of fog, drifting
Between brimstone smokestacks, swirling
Over stuttering streets, twisting
Between door and lintel.
Creeping, but never disturbing
An alley paved with bones.
But once in a café in Strasbourg,
You and Epeius, after tea and cakes and ice,
Sat in the shade of the Sycamore tree.
But the Earth was a dank and humid dungeon,
And sentinels were posted along the Elysian green,
To hide the thief and catch the queen,
(She who escaped the inferno to be home in time for tea)
And her bag of bones and vengeful eye,
With cheerful countenance beneath a red morning sky.
Part II – No longer my brother
All around you are familiar faces,
Peeking sidelong, speaking into cupped hands,
Familiar feet wearing the carpet thin
Like the woven threads of our piteous destinies.
Gazes pin you to the tasselled upholstery,
Calliopean voices echo from friezes,
Feather-soft and embittered, stroking taffeta and silk.
And the beggars feed their rats,
Feed them painted opulence on stuccoed balconies
And hors d’œuvres reflected in polished brass.
Channelling our excesses through swollen pocketbooks,
Almost entirely deceived beneath our gilded masks,
Our several eyes, redacting, gaze censoriously.
While we do unto others the horse starves,
Lurching and staggering through grey stones,
And the black flag planted in your yard
Unfurls
Through ponderous evening, reaching
Twisted tendrils under the door, turning
The key once only at the sound of the old bell.
Do not ask for whom it tolls.
Then thrasonical morning wakes
To an empty clatter, a putrid smell,
And a rooster crowing thrice.
“Well all I’m sayin’ is, it ain’t as if I didn’t warn him.
And don’t you come blamin’ me neither, I’ve had about enough o’ that.
Oh, so now you want a lump of ice. Well, I’ll give you somethin’ o’ that an’ more:
ALL ABOARD FOR MILE END.
Just you listen when someone’s speakin’, and maybe next time it won’t go this far.
I’ve told you once, if I’ve told you a thousand times –
And I ain’t one as goes beatin’ ’round the bush –
ALL ABOARD FOR MILE END.
And just ’cause you’re coals and coke the both o’ you
Don’t go thinkin’ I’ll sport the blunt, ’cause I won’t.
You shouldn’t ought to ha’ got cut and carried if you can’t support yourselves.
And just you warn Danny, too, ‘afore he goes and does the same.”
But now we sit on the banks of the river,
Weeping, for we remember Babylon.
In our veins the same blood flows,
Burning like poison, shining through our skin –
And it behoves thee, smile.
His lidless eyes flickered at the knock upon the door,
As the raven croaked once and not once more,
But the more he saw the less he spoke,
And his coat was made of good roast beef.
So shall we all be, though we may depart with greater poise.
We bury the dead where they’re found, and the rest is noise.

Have you heard of the girl who breathes flowers? by Lauren Rawlings (Highly Commended)

Mum by Rahim Mohammadi (Highly Commended)

Queensland Times Award- 14-15 Years

Beat Highway by Emerson Hurley (First Prize)

Sparks by Jena Woodroffe (Second Place)

Marco and Me by Emerson Hurley (Third Place)

Sp( )ces by Emerson Hurley (Highly Commended)

Continuous Places by Emerson Hurley (Highly Commended)

The Spoken Unspoken by Heidi Leeman (Highly Commended)

you can feel it in the air between us
I can feel it
I always can
the truth
it crushes our bones
knits our knuckles together
forces ties around our necks
where our hands once lay
fingers that teased through minds
and slipped love into roots
now choke the ease out of conversations
it nips at our exposed shoulders
that are naked to the world
collars that once bore it
now break beneath it
we were once combustion
confusion
conforming not to the molds of the world
but to the chasms in each other’s chests
filling and completing
explorers in every crevice and elbow nook
jumping from freckle to freckle with adventurer eyes
but suddenly
we fell
and we did not fall for each other;
we fell apart
we crumbled like the cliffs we said we’d never cross
and became just grains of sands on each other’s beach
we stumbled into the abyss
convinced each other that the echoes weren’t real
we stopped igniting
we weren’t conjoining
we aren’t aligning
now, we are just existing
next to each other
a whole bush fire between us
the world rages in flames
while we stand cold
unspeaking
yet moving our mouths
tell me, why am i so alone?
you are not the only force in my life
i have the wind that blows me in the right directions
and the waves that always drift me when i refuse to float
i have the forests that teach me to stand up for more than storms
and every cloud in the sky that gives me a new day
but I lack the warmth a night brings
no summer air
not even a campfire to tell me stories
it is just my mind
my thoughts
and the tears
always the tears
crying whole rivers into the night
washing away the soil you once ran on
cleaning my body of all the places your heart touched
I can’t reach them all now
not without you
maybe
if i stop crying all the time
the fire might spark again
would you love me?
would you hold me once more?
would you spin me like a globe in an antique store,
pin me against the wall like a faded map?
would you explore me with a compass,
and call me your world again?
then again, i’m not sure if being your world is enough
because you are every star in the sky
and every drop in the ocean
and every grain on my beach
you are the forest telling me to be tall
and the wind whispering “go on”
you are the whole universe to me
but in this whole universe
the space exists the same
i can still feel the weight between us
i can always feel it
lead on our tongues
bundles of burdens on our minds
our solitude weighing down the hope
it’s not enough to crush the world
but it’s enough to crush me

Rosewood Green Award – Open Age Local Poets

Easter at the Coast by David Gagen (First Prize)

Where is Maggie Thatcher? by Gill Jewell (Second Prize)

When Gods Rules the Waves by David Gagen (Third Prize)

Behind a Perspex Screen by Leonie Parker (Highly Commended)

War on Terror by Brett Dionysius (Highly Commended)

2017 Overall Winner & recipient of the Babies of Walloon bronze statuette

Norman Foote Among the Pumpkins by Vanessa Page (Overall Winner)

Chairperson’s School Award

by Springfield Central State High School, Springfield Central, QLD (Winning School)

Picture Ipswich Theme Awards

Norman Foote Among the Pumpkins by Vanessa Page (First Prize)

Circa 1928 by P.S Cottier (Second Prize)

An Ode to the F-111 by Leonie Parker (Third Prize)

Double Take by Bernadette Whisson (Highly Commended)

Outside the Lines by Joe Dolce (Highly Commended)

Chair’s Encouragement Awards

Past by Alyssa Tang (5-17 Yrs. Winner)

Birds Can Heal Through Water by Robert Chapman (Open Age)

Joy Chambers & Reg Grundy Award – Open Age Other Poetry

Flying to Ipswich in the Company of Saint Jackie Howe by Roger Vickery (First Prize)

From the Wreck: Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870 by Jeff Guess (Second Prize)

Endurance by Damen O’Brien (Third Place)

Along the Red Dirt Road: Drought Country Sequence by Mark Miller (Highly Commended)

Appraisal by Damen O’Brien (Highly Commended)

Pumpkins and Firewood by Mran-Maree Laing (Highly Commended)

An Even Greater Fear by David Campbell (Highly Commended)

The Museum by Mran-Maree Laing (Highly Commended)

Archives of the Feet by Jena Woodhouse (Highly Commended)

Faces in the Sea by Ashfield, Sydney, NSW (Highly Commended)

Metro Hotel Ipswich International Award – Open Age Bush Poetry

The Cynic Route by Kate O’Neil (First Prize)

Up in the Devils Lair by Terry Piggott (Second Prize)

The Lady of the Lakes by Terry Piggott (Third Prize)

The Night The Kids Cooked Dinner by Caroline Tuohey (Highly Commended)

A Racing Tale by Jim Kent (Highly Commended)

The Flags That Fly at Castlebrook by Noel Stallard (Highly Commended)

Bandy Bill by Jim Kent (Highly Commended)

Real Time Dream Time by Kevin Pye (Highly Commended)

Plywood Crosses by Graeme Johnson (Highly Commended)

Ipswich City Council Award – 16-17 Years

Zipper by Sonya Frossine (First Prize)

Marking of a Printed Title by Sidney Boen (Second Prize)

Lament for Bruadair by Clare O’Sullivan (Third Prize)

Commuter’s Requiem by Luke Bradshaw Poier (Highly Commended)

The Man from Serayu River, an adaption of Banjo Patterson’s poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’ by Emily Bradley (Highly Commended)

Outro Requiem by Isabel Longbottom (Highly Commended)

Have you heard of the girl who breathes flowers? by Lauren Rawlings (Highly Commended)

Mum by Rahim Mohammadi (Highly Commended)

Queensland Times Award- 14-15 Years

Beat Highway by Emerson Hurley (First Prize)

Sparks by Jena Woodroffe (Second Place)

Marco and Me by Emerson Hurley (Third Place)

Sp( )ces by Emerson Hurley (Highly Commended)

Continuous Places by Emerson Hurley (Highly Commended)

The Spoken Unspoken by Heidi Leeman (Highly Commended)

Magnetic Aesthetic by Te Aroha Manuel (Highly Commended)

*No Title* by Hayden Bradford (Highly Commended)

Broderick Family Award – 11-13 Years

Red Dress on the Hill by Olivia Priddis (First Prize)

No Time for a Joy Flight by Portia Hoole (Second Prize)

Pa’s Tale by Anna Davidson (Third Prize)

Grandma’s Cupboard by Jade Martin (Highly Commended)

Sister Sister by Rebecca Linton (Highly Commended)

Delicately by Talia Bulstrode (Highly Commended)

The Queen of Demons by Rebecca Linton (Highly Commended)

Rabbit Proof Fence (Ballad) by Hayley Victor (Highly Commended)

My Grandmother’s Masala by Soraiya Munshi (Highly Commended)

The Secret Life of a Clock by Rebecca Linton (Highly Commended)

The Education Of Lonely by Louis Langoulant (Highly Commended)

Ipswich District Teacher Librarian Network Award – 8-10 Years

Why Willows Weep by Abby Jennings (First Prize)

When Cancer Won by Lillian Crocos (Second Prize)

You Are my Star by Sophie Roussos (Third Prize)

The Poppies Shine by Coby Fields (Highly Commended)

Shake and Quake by Bridget Warren (Highly Commended)

A Night at the Beach by Amelia Sim (Highly Commended)

The Chestnut Stallion by Eleanor O’Brien (Highly Commended)

Remembering Ipswich by Lilli Williams (Highly Commended)

Fury Skies by Clodagh Cowman (Highly Commended)

No Title by Hayden Bradford (Highly Commended)