Seeing Olga

by Jenny Morris

The image of a hat                                   
as a small green spear
through Olga’s head.
The roof behind her
a visual representation         
of a certain truth.
An uncertain roof
of parted thatch braids.
An image of Olga
as a magnolia bud
holding its flaps together
against whispers.
An image of this butterfly
as a loose collection
of books flickering
through her brain,
pages falling out
of her ears
under the hat.

Judges Comments: I liked the playfulness of this poem. The imagery, built up into almost a grotesque, and the play of language, too.





That Myopic Meal in an Expensive Restaurant With You

by Andrea Porter

When you have forgotten your glasses,
familiar markings alter, drawn lines shift,
the menu is a tangle of bird’s nest soup,
chicken liver tossed with pig-sniffed truffles,
artichoke heart on a bed of candyfloss.

There are hints of blood water melon
swimming in thin slivers of slick elver,
sour apples sliced and stacked
in towers so tall the waiter must glide
smooth as virgin oil on volvic water

Each word the blurred surprise that
the mouth could caress fat domes
of bitter ice-cream in a viscose
drench of syrup tapped from the wood,
lips enclose the folds of walnuts
compressed to a tight map of anger.

When you have forgotten your glasses
a sausage smile can be the rictus grin
of pike laced with salt crocodile tears.
A thoughtful order of buttered feathers,
melting by candlelight, becomes peppered
eagle claws ripping out your tongue.


Judges Comments: The imagery, imagination and the way it uses language appealed to me. I like the way it is peppered with dangers and how it plays with the ambiguous nature of short-sightedness



Cutting Open

by Hilary Mellon

You snapped the silence of a decade
into sharp fragments

The stuttered words
slitting your flesh like knives

leaving ribbons of skin
hanging as if from a parcel

An offering of something
unrecognisable

Too raw to accept

Judges Comments: This poem is a metaphor carried through to its natural conclusion. I like the sparseness and the way it seems to be etched on the page, and on the eyes of the reader.




After the Rain

by Sally Festing

….always relishing the possibilities of a material that never clearly arrives

Sun that shone shiftily. Is that too poetic? A kite that never managed in the blue though clearly it meant to for its shadows stretched out, out, like the trappings along its tail. We used bows of coloured scraps; small fingers tied them tight. All homemade with a couple of bamboos, and material Mother used to line her skirts. Wore them for years regardless. I mean relished them. O she was queen of relishings. Mama would have been queen to end all if rain hadn’t got her down. You’d think the flood had never ended; she wanted to drown. We drank water into our pores until the last black cranny of our brains became a trickle. But there was the kite. Back again, tracing old tracks to the point where the string caught in the clouds. What I’ll never know is how we allowed skittering kites and fudge skies to take the blame for things that happened. Endlessly I weigh the might-have-beens.

Nightwind rustled but it blew the wrong way. Must have. Kite didn’t lift. Sun didn’t shine. Are you still interested? The tone became more sombre. Skirts floated above her head, spreading her hair, she waited for the sun she worshipped, for the fun I mean, to open up those never clearly any betters. Gestured towards long spacious aspirings. She aspired all right. The effect of this can be exhilarating. The kite skipped madly – domestic details flick in and out of focus. Argument. Plates. Everything flew except the kite. Rain spoiled the expectation. The barely arrivals. Wind, and the kite grew tattered. We follow it back to where it stuck too deep to conceive any way out other than … They divorced and in her time, she died, still relishing the possibilities.


Judges Comments: A prose poem, playful and tricksy. I like the way that the narrator occasionally addresses the reader and sometimes turns into stage director.




Seagulls

by Nathan Hamilton

I’ve tried to touch the outline
Of what might be left of you
A heat haze from the after fire
In this chill, rain-sodden garden

But the unregistered kiss
Of your cold temple skin
Haunts my lips. You’re gone
And that’s it. Between traffic breaths
A police siren screams, distant:
Answered by seagulls.

Judges Comments: The understated plaintiveness appealed to me. And the way that the poem seems to be hurled outside of itself - into the outside world in the last three lines - in the only way it feels the narrator can express what they want to express.




Deity

by Lizzy Denning

I leave on sweeping earings
in the bath when I want to feel
like a goddess.
I tilt a mirror towards me
and watch the delicate metal swinging
as I pin my hair up,
smoothing sections between finger and thumb.
I clasp back a wisp with a grip
and pretend to feel your breath on my neck.
Your limbs in a bubbly embrace.

The steam clouds out my chipped toe nail varnish,
the insect bite on my thigh,
as my towel headrest drags
through cooling water.


Judges Comments: This is an elegant poem about a very simple quiet moment. The juxtapositions appealed to me - the ideal, and the soggy reality.




Stargazers

by Caroline Gilfillan

They loll in their vase, these stargazer lilies,
with candlewax skin and pink freckles,
and sticky lollipops in stamen hands.

They’re drenched in an oily, come-hither smell.
They promise to stain with their auburn spore.

And your mother with a sidling glance
as the vodka slip-slides into her glass
warns that they can kill. She says
they sit on airways like an envious cat.

Outside the mountain men rinse brick dust
from their shirts; pop beer bottle caps.

We shrug in our nighties, curled on our sides.

We’ll choose lilies any time.


Judges Comments: The sickly-sweet darkness of this poem appealed to me. The claustrophobia, the 'bad mother' and the way that the weight of the poem is held by the simple understatement of the last line.





Burning the Briefcase.

by Richard Roberts

How easily a few of your bank statements
and a Risk Assessment draft catches alight
Just a little kindling and a single match.

I think I’ve established the high flammability
of oil-based synthetic leather, plywood frame
and under-lid organiser with velcro pockets.

Flame fingers licked round the black shell,
smoke hissed through the side gussets.
It kept me warm. Briefly.

Go outside if you don’t believe me.
You’ll find a pile of ashes, a scorched bulldog clip
and a couple of twisted combination locks.

You really should have noticed the signs:
angry silences, drinking too much, slamming doors.
You pretended nothing was wrong.

Don’t call me attention-seeking.
At least I took your laptop out first,
give me a little credit for that.

Judges Comments: The controlled tone of this poem appealed to me. And the language - official and unemotional which belies what is actually happening here.