Creative Connections Art & Poetry Exhibitions gratefully acknowledges the assistance, through the Community Grants Program, from the Office of Multicultural Interests which provided the funding for the 2015 Exhibition.
Artists and Poets
- Lisa Bernic, Tash Adams & Val Neubecker
- Jeffrey Loh, Alistair P D Bain & Colleen O’Grady
- Peter Layton, Coral Carter & Virginia O’Keeffe
- Katie Bassett, Liana Joy & Christensen Ron Okely
- Emma Biasin, Allan Padgett & Faye Teale Clavi
- Emma Biasin, Gary Colombo De Piazzi & Morris Pavlinovich
- Joel Grant, Brigita Ferencak & Glen Phillips
- Joel Grant, Christina Gammon & Kelly Pilgrim Byrne
- Lana Davie, Sally Gaunt & Maureen Sexton
- Sharon Siciliano, Rose van Son & Kevin Gillam
- Elinor Doddrell, Joanna Wakefield & Mike Greenacre
- Denis Tomlinson, Nathan Hondros & Gail Willems
- Janelle McMahon, P. Jeffery & Tash Adams
- Janelle MacMahon, Amanda Joy & Alistair P D Bain
- Clinton Carter, Julienne Juschke & Coral Carter
- Clinton Carter, Liana Joy Christensen & Christopher Kennedy
- Ben Lee, Faye Teale & Clavi Veronica Lake
- Janita Kelly, Gary Colombo De Piazzi & Meryl Manoy
- Owen Nylander, Brigita Ferencak & J.R. McRae
- Lindy Johnson, Jacqui Merckenschlager & Christina Gammon
- Lindy Johnson, Sally Gaunt & Max Merckenschlager
- Gynetta Panaia, Kevin Gillam & Deb Micallef
- Marianne Percudani, Mike Greenacre & Carol Millner
- Kimberley Chen and Jessica Cantatore,
Nathan Hondros & Jan Napier - Kimberley Chen And Jessica Cantatore,
P. Jeffrey & Scott-Patrick Mitchell - Shelley Macrolina, Gary Colombo De Piazzi & Jan Napier
- Shelley Marcolina, Julienne Juschke & Val Neubecker
- Gavin McNamara, Colleen O’Grady & Christopher Kennedy
- Gavin McNamara, Virginia O’Keefe & Veronica Lake
- Gavin McNamara, Meryl Manoy & Ron Okely
- Ken Reedy, J.R. McRae & Allan Padgett
- Jeremy Gowing, Jacqui Merckenschlager & Morris Pavlinovich
- Pauline Birrell, Max Merckenschlager & Glen Phillips
- Julie Marsh, Deb Micallef Kelly & Pilgrim Byrne
- Julie Marsh, Carol Millner & Maureen Sexton
- Diana Coote, Rose van Son & Allan Padgett
- Diana Coote, Joanna Wakefield & Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- Vivienne Sharp, Jan Napier & Gail Willems
- Greg Burton, Val Neubecker & Tash Adams
- Andre Mooibroek, Colleen O’Grady & Alistair P D Bain
- Josh Harper, Coral Carter & Virginia O’Keefe
- Cameron Demer, Liana Joy Christensen & Ron Okely
- Gillian Deague, Allan Padgett & Faye Teale Clavi
- Michael Sinclair, Amanda Joy & Morris Pavlinovich
- Chris White, Brigita Ferencak & Glen Phillips
- Kathy Adair, Kelly Pilgrim Byrne & Christina Gammon
- Valda Petersen, Sally Gaunt & Maureen Sexton
- Cathy White, Rose van Son & Kevin Gillam
- Janine Noonan, Mike Greenacre & Joanna Wakefield
- Karen Forbes-Smith, Nathan Hondros & Gail Willems
- Justin Carter, P. Jeffrey & Tash Adams
- Delores Purdie, Coral Carter & Amanda Joy
- Stephen Franklin, Liana Joy Christensen & Julienne Juschke
- Greg Barr, Rose van Son & Christopher Kennedy
- David Brainstater, Veronica Lake & Christina Gammon
- Chris Reynolds, Kevin Gillam & Meryl Manoy
- Kristen Cameron, Mike Greenacre & J.R. McRae
- Ric Sullivan, Nathan Hondros & Jacqui Merckenschlager
- Sharleen Jespersen, Max Merckenschlager & Gail Willems
- Lisa Joyce, Glen Phillips & Veronica Lake
- Peter Dixon, J.R. McRae & Carol Millner
- Gillian Deague, Jacqui Merckenschlager & Jan Napier
- Lara Goodger, Max Merckenschlager & Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- Michael Chandler, Deb Micallef & Carol Millner
- Lisa Bernic
Achilles Feet
my painting grows like roots
through my toes
some might see
an Achilles heel
but my feet are strong
grounded in the positive
have you ever felt
paint between your toes?
Tash Adams
Volcano
I peer down
through the incendiary heat
boiling
seething
a churning incandescence mass
a fiery intensity
spitting white-hot particles
I don’t think I’ll dip MY toes in.
Val Neubecker
- Jeffrey Loh
Fire Autumn
Catch flame
catch breath
sprays of scarlet
gilt and mauve
bowed in russet
discarding boughs
final greens
that turn their fire seeds
Alistair P D Bain
Hey Jeff Loh you are a clever chappy
To paint with a broomstick of fluff
And in the attempt make scenery happy;
Bringing out the very good stuff
That you as a painter have in mind!
Splashes of red mingled with yellow,
Spurts of brown with dashes of green
Rimmed with purple soft and mellow
Makes this painting the best ever seen
Portraying the beauty in Jeff’s mind!
Colleen O’Grady
- Peter Layton
Flyway
at dusk swallows gather
wing tip to wing tip
measuring day’s light
each recalls the flyway
north south over ice sand oceans
lakes swigged by city sprawl
roost and rest spaces
birth and nest places
encoded neurons in feathered brains.
Coral Carter
Triptych
The purple smudge of plums and figs on twilight evenings
arranged on a dish of red and blue beneath the vines,
sweetens the palate, sings summer has come slinking
through,washed you over. Smell the softening of the day
as earth sends up her perfumed grasses.
It’s time to dance, to spin and smooge, Put on the music,
laugh out loud, duck the globes strung on the terrace
and reach for me. Say this is life. Devour its fruits. Te amo.
Virginia O’Keeffe
- Katie Bassett
Blast from the Past
Oh, those John Lennon glasses
Or maybe Janis has swapped the blues
for rose-coloured specs?
Yes, yes!
You have brought them back to us
In this powerful flowering
Of the sixties spirit
Liana Joy Christensen
In the pink
Black days are sad days
Yellow sun makes me drink
But when I am happy
I’m in the pink
Ron Okely
- Emma Biasin
White swans, three: all fluffed-up.
One, up; two, heads down feeding,
all: paddling against a wake left
by passing boat – a temporary perturbation –
otherwise tethered by freedom to flights
of fancy, family and joyous,
comforting, familiarity. A dawn
chorus of velvet waving blueness,
sapphire-likening. The soaring vocals
of Rigaletto pulse in the bending aqua air.
Allan Padgett
Swan Lake
Waterlilies float across
cerulean water, elegant
silhouettes, of ballerina pirouettes
creates a combined musical.
Faye Teale Clavi
- Emma Biasin
I smile through the dark threads of music
as they wash across my day.
Catch and hold snippets of laughter.
Fret away this black that seeps
to the edge of my smile.
Beyond this dark night
I treasure the light laugh
the bright relief of music
and seek the movement of lovers
as they come close on the screen
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Survival
Stark naked black tree
Struggles to survive
Its veins pumping
Rivers of blood
Such is its strength
Its passion for life
Even fire cannot destroy
It will survive
Morris Pavlinovich
- Joel Grant
Indigo skies conquer our hearts with Ease,
while wild poppies mingle effortlessly.
Hope is a silent companion –
Never to be underestimated.
Like a school of fish changing their direction intuitively
Our lives take a turn
unforeseen
unexpectedly
inexplicably.
Brigita Ferencak
Coming Out
Coming out of the Concert Hall
with Chopin’s preludes surging still
in head and heart, on the steps a tall
figure stopped me with red roses to sell.
But already the music had strewn all
the world’s roses that possibly could fall.
Glen Phillips
- Joel Grant
Heart
the heart of the forest lies
among trees with fallen fruit, flows
along bubbling streams in silence
so stunning
and magical you can hear
all there is to know about
yourself
Christina Gammon
Periwinkles
Bloodthirsty periwinkles
gobble the ocean floor
turn an octopus into an underwater
whirling willy willy of terrified rubber
turns the deep down under upside down.
Kelly Pilgrim Byrne
- Lana Davie
Treacle Well
Should she stoop low to make a daisy chain
he would bind her in rabbit skin :
Speak softly to a child and give it sweets
but to a woman feed her bread and meats.
She ate a paw paw with her toes
and gazed at him with quiet doe eyes –
It was no surprise to anyone when they
slipped down a treacle well together.
Sally Gaunt
Salty
On the edge of a salty swamp
a crocodile hides under mangroves
waiting for shadows to lengthen,
slowly slides into brackish water
ridges on its broad snout like tide
lines in the mud. With a sudden surge
it strikes its prey, spins it in a
death roll, a wild whirling of red, blue
and green above the muddy depths.
Maureen Sexton
- Sharon Siciliano
you roll brushes
dip into brightness
paint blues, strokes
of my childhood
your music rocks
your eyes
colour the ocean –
light my dreams.
Rose van Son
lost Aunts
most thoughts are yellow,
though some are orange
revelations are purple,
sudden flashes of humility blue
while greens are flotsam and forgottens
from beaches and lost Aunts
Kevin Gillam
- Elinor Doddrell
Pink
Pink I am – through pink eyes I see
Pink are my arms
with glossy pink nails pointing to me.
Pink I glow, like a stormy sun
Waiting to change to shell lustre grey
Pink is my scarf – the wool is thick
and warms my heart, making it tick
Pink I am, but sometimes,
When I don’t want to be seen
I like to be green.
Joanna Wakefield
I step carefully across my garden
washed brightly in evergreens
and I am suddenly caught
in the splash of camellia’s
bright pink blossoms
erupting from nowhere
caressing me and leading
the happiness through my days.
Mike Greenacre
- Denis Tomlinson
a mirage of two suns escaping
the firm green beneath our feet
earth sized canvas
lightning bolts and purple
a window drawn in the
science fiction of colour
let’s meet on the landscape
we fold into ourselves
the one without a view
the one we guess with paint
Nathan Hondros
a string of fragrant flowers
folded in hands petals edged in loneliness
twisting the palettes honesty an angle of colour
floats free in a lazy Sunday afternoon
ripples the space whispers
life’s so short pour the wine
Gail Willems
- Janelle McMahon
Janelle, masks are wondrous things,
They are romance at a Venetian ball,
The terror of a witch-doctor’s curse,
Lifelong jail for the Man in the iron Mask,
Oh, so many things, so what is yours?
I think you’ve made it for Mardi Gras,
To flaunt your newfound love of colours,
So that you can both conceal and reveal,
Reveal and conceal , to attract so many suitors,
And escape this humdrum world for one magic night.
Peter Jeffery OAM
Picture Of You
I choose spring green
and big sky blue to start
brush long strokes
of sweet soil brown
for her cheek jaw and ear
stipple balloon red
and fairy floss pink
for her mouth and cheeks
life is predictable if we
always colour inside the lines
Tash Adams
- Janelle MacMahon
Field of mass
and flurry where
lines disappear in a silvered fringe
Here, soft watcher with hands inking
a skyline flocked with luminous
birds, feeding on bright bugs
at dusk
Amanda Joy
The -Ground
Come to the playground
enter a cloud
the coloured dog
sleeping wide-eyed
curled with an ear
to the butterfly
and the waiting child
Alistair P D Bain
- Clinton Carter
Coke Bottle
It’s so colossal
And has a nozzle
It’s by a bloke
It’s not a joke
So have a poke
And bit of a goggle
At Clinton Carter’s
Amazing …
coke bottle!
Julienne Juschke
Inside the Bottle
Look inside the bottle to see
pause refreshed
ice cold surprise
it’s life I’d like to buy
the world brain tonic
one glass of real
quench thing
go better go live
thirst asks
nothing more!
Coral Carter
- Clinton Carter
Gestalt
Each leaf
Unbecoming
Becomes
Unique
Palette, patterns lovely
but a distraction
Look to the white spaces
Each pared skeleton is
Practicing its own way of
Etching light
Liana Joy Christensen
Coke Bottle.
Unbreakable
undrinkable
take the top off
and pour it down –
foaming, frothing –
burning
the enamel off your teeth.
Unfathomable.|
Christopher Kennedy
- Ben Lee
Splashes
A small red dot has its mark
as Ben’s mind unscrambles
calm colours of his emotions
Brushes strokes in an ocean of
splashes, splatters blue and green
upon white surf, as golden sunlight
sweeps slowly across canvass, a
transition stimulates the perfect
picture, snatches anxiety to find
serene serendipity.|
Faye Teale Clavi
Secret Space
Blue shadows
in green space
congeal to dark
concealing a secret.
There is movement;
snuffling sounds,
the rustle of leaves.
A twig snaps, loud in the quiet.
Leaves whisper over head|
urgent with warning.
Veronica Lake
- Janita Kelly
I hold Panda eyes on the tip of my brush.
Fold out red and orange in the back and forth sweep
as my eyes narrow on each stroke, each swirl
to erupt in bright colours.
Dance out the steps
and float away from
this night.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Fat Cat
I see a cat, pink and fat
floating in a purple sea
bewildered by fluorescent fish
darting in and out the weed.
Meryl Manoy
- Owen Nylander
Quiet Understanding inwrought in golden sunlight,
Embracing Change,
Dispersion of Simplicity,
Expression of inner Freedom.
Brigita Ferencak
Fireworks
Light leaps from the page
In fiery strokes!
It sizzles in yellows, it flashes in red!
And, defining the lines and splashes,
Charcoal grey smokes…
J.R. McRae
- Lindy Johnson
Colour My World, Carnarvon Gorge
From the dripping greens of rainforest walks
king parrots dash, red bellied, through misty branches
and higher up the gorge, wattles splash sunshine
against majestic mango and pink sandstone walls.
Jacqui Merckenschlager
Read Between The Lines
between the enemy lines of
the rainbow, read
colourful tales of
clashing complementaries,
come to know only
differing shades of
the same
Christina Gammon
- Lindy Johnson
Red Parrots
A chandelier of red parrots
prisms of bright colours,
cacophony –
flame throwers in the grass
fire crackle –
black trunks of trees.
Golden wheat
Blue sky
Sally Gaunt
Grassfire Massacre|
Gnarled charcoal-black limbs
stretch and writhe to the lickety lick
of devil driven grassfires.
See them sway? Hear the moan, see
their branches, wrung and spattered in blood?
Max Merckenschlager
- Gynetta Panaia
Deeper Stills
there are deeper hues than seen,
deeper stills,
at fathoms beyond touch
the maths would say
‘three thinks below’ –
a moon might say other
Kevin Gillam
Following the Ancestors
Spirit whales guide
A mother and babe along
Ancient journey paths;
Sun trapped between
Steel wool and salt water
Fading into inky depths
Mother and babe follow
Ancestors through silky waters
Beyond present and past.
Deb Micallef
- Marianne Percudani
The naked branches of the boab
search in quiet desperation
for water’s promises,
twisting in rhythm for direction
from the scorching heat of day
to the reddened lullaby of dusk –
blackened sun-stretched branches
casting a magic into our minds.
Mike Greenacre
Eucalyptus
These trees
so contained
so cool
in their containment
carry their own accelerant
wait for their lover’s
hot tongue…
nature’s own –
arsonist –
The Sun.
Carol Millner
- Kimberley Chen and Jessica Cantatore
we are like the discordance of music
played in the kaleidoscope of a paint tin
where one scratches the brilliant
colour of another’s choosing
all about the complete spectrum of a white pillar
which is everything we see, all we consume
with eyes unleashed on a bright medley
hands searching out
the harmonic distance of the frame
Nathan Hondros
Tutu Pele
Tutu Pele shakes out turbulent locks,
glowers, and watches people flee
villages seared to cinders, while
Mauna Loa’s slopes melt and flow,
lava flashing into steam where red
meets blue, cooling her fury.
Jan Napier
- Kimberley Chen And Jessica Cantatore
Jessica and Kimberley, a great artistic team,
Your surnames together make the Australian mix,
Jessica you choose the colors
And Kimberley you lay them out with skillful tricks,
So keep learning together more and more art,
Fired up with your passionate hearts,
And intrigue all of us who watch,
With your cascading spattering pattern,
A volcanic blast that explodes our eyes.
Peter Jeffrey OAM
We Are Only Pollen
in innaloo, jess &
kim make art do
what it should do
: transport us all
into spring, a svel
-te spray of humans
as sprinkled system
consumed by all the
blooms. this is the
most perfect day
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- Shelley Macrolina
I am my voice in colours
scribbled in tones blue, red
and dark over and over
in layers and coats
until I emerge in signatures
of the me that is
and you stir
to see me.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Identity
I write my name over and over
affirming the ‘I’ that is me.
But it’s squirling strands of DNA
that explain my taste for vindaloo,
give me eyes tawny as a hawk,
fingers quick with an abacus.
Make me such a successful thief!
Jan Napier
- Shelley Marcolina
Squares
Layers and layers
Of thoroughfares
Pairs of wares
And plans for chairs
Players and sayers
With noses and ears
All are aware
of the flair
of squares
Julienne Juschke
Unfinished Business
they’re here
all my worldly goods
piled up
waiting to be unpacked –
now which box has the teapot?
Val Neubecker
- Gavin McNamara
This awe-inspiring sketch of a leaf
With its authentic portrayal that effects
the viewer of beauty in its single sheaf
to fill the mind with wonder, is devoid of defects.
‘Tis nature in its beauty seen in perfect symmetry
Painted with a delicate hand as if pressed
Behind the glass to be there for eternity.
A single leaf became Gavin’s special quest.
Colleen O’Grady
Leaf:
A leaf is a city;
chlorophyll lit
veins and arteries
moving simple cells
across a green
expanse to new beginning.
Christopher Kennedy
- Gavin McNamara
Cycling between the banks
At river’s mouth the sand piles high
narrowing the lips of water washing
through. Soon all will be stilled.
The lake will dry and salten, the
red samphire will spread and marsh
birds will return to lay life in the dunes.
But
come summer rains in the back country
the river will rise, resurge, sweeping all
its blueness beneath a cerulean sky.
Virginia O’Keefe
Tela
Suspended;
a fine webbing
of intricate strands,
tensile, woven tight,
clasping an ivory cocoon.
It floats, wrapped closely about,
encased by patterns
of dew-drop delicacy;
cradling new life.
Veronica Lake
- Gavin McNamara
Space Ship
Gavin’s space ship set to fly
into the bright blue yonder
tethered to its launching pad
its occupants must wonder
what challenges they may face
as they blast off into space.
Meryl Manoy
He leaves his mark
The hunter lays down his spear
fingers the rich red soil
Chipping and painting his stories
for those he will never know
How rich if we learn to read them
How poor if we turn them to dust
Ron Okely
- Ken Reedy
Out of the Jungle,
I’m climbing, I’m reaching,
Out of vine, over fern,
To what life is teaching…
High, high up in the trees,
What is it a monkey sees,
Over the canopy, under the breeze,
Leopard eyes,
A pool reflecting blue skies,
Antelope, down a slope, or me
Capturing what I see?
J.R. McRae
The colours of farming, of love
and animals, rear from a fecund
paddock, greening in foliage,
reddening in fungi erupting
from fertile, restless, bounteous
life-filled soil.
Your beating heart transports
you there
with passion, vibrating colours and deepening feeling –
amid a humbling sense of stirring, exultant rapture.
Allan Padgett
- Jeremy Gowing
Satellite Image
Summer is sneaking in
canola pods are drying, darkening
golden grain heads hang heavy
clover retains a green tinge
sheep, newly shorn, graze
like little white clouds
and patches of mallee scrub
shelter new born lambs.
Jacqui Merckenschlager
Stained Glass
Shards of coloured glass explode
Creating a canvas of colour
As the morning sun explores
The prism of light
Through the stained glass
Brings delight
To all who view
Morris Pavlinovich
- Pauline Birrell
Typhoon Trauma
Winds rage and roar through Arkansas
churning mess of gutter litter, helter skelter.
There goes my brolly, ripped away
from feeble human grasp, travelling at supersonic
speed. Please help recover my dog,
lost somewhere, hidden
in the litter collage.
Max Merckenschlager
Is It True?
Some claim forests sneeze
and I think, ‘Come on? Pleeze!
It’s not possible.) You’d have leaf
Litter and dark bits of bark beneath
your feet. With specks of blood, if trees
coughed a lot if consumptive. Or if bees
stung them, I suppose. But trees can’t get
ill like us? Climate change is yet
unproven isn’t it? So tell me please
how on Earth could forests sneeze?
Glen Phillips
- Julie Marsh
Chocolate
Blackcurrant jellies, tangy sherbet, liquorice
Allsorts, all tempting
But please, please let me
Visit the chocolate beach, with the chocolate palm tree,
I will swim there, mouth open
Velvety smooth, sweet, luxurious liquid chocolate
Flowing slowly like glass, down my throat
I just can’t get enough of that delectable chocolate sea
Chockie, Chockie, Chockie, all for me!
Deb Micallef
Warmth
When strings ping and spray music,
chaos and calamity fold in on each other
like a winter chocolate treat.
Kelly Pilgrim Byrne
- Julie Marsh
Chocolates In Pink & Blue
If chocolates were pink and blue
my insides would be too
or else they would be purple –
like the chocolate finger prints
I’ve left behind.
Carol Millner
Choccie
Chocolate with blueberries
chocolate with mulberries
chocolate with hazelnuts
cake with chocolate icing
messy melting chocolate
making me so happy
soft and sweet on my tongue
choccie, choccie, choccie!
Maureen Sexton
- Diana Coote
You spread paint
like haiku, soft linesin ochre, cerise words
lift from the page–
it is wattle I see
colours of wet winter
the aha moment
fixed. My mind
locks in your smile.
Rose van Son
A scattering and splashing
of many and varied hues
takes me back to your youthfulness,
filled with colour, joy, freedom –
and unfiltered, undiluted happiness.
Dots evolve to sensuous strokes,
vibrant colours meld in space
via blissful pathways of whiteness.
I see and feel you smiling
at the painterliness of life and art.
Allan Padgett
- Diana Coote
Tracks and trails and prints
Make their mark of dignity
And shapes emerge,
A flower or two, a comb
And an eye looking on.
Where are these tracks going?
Only the eye knows.
Joanna Wakefield
Hungering
tableau on my table
portmanteaus single
rosa – blue, like rain
. a puddle of earth
, augment w/ fir cone
. in the sky above a
shark swims toward
us, hungry to devour
like the power art has
to consume worlds
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- Vivienne Sharp
For Marguerite
Alone,
he chose this pink devotion
of roses, the nubbly love
of lavender, the bright faces
of daisies that so reminded him
of her. Laid them on new turned
earth.
Jan Napier
Paint calluses each hand
placed on smooth edged paper
flowers upon flowers the rough shape of them
you can almost smell the fresh spring rain
Gail Willems
- Greg Burton
Face Value
my manuscript is finished
ready to go
all I need is a cover
and this will be perfect
I’ll use it
and entitle it
‘facebook’
Val Neubecker
20.15 Versions Of Me
I am a diamond
the faces change depending
where you stand
light folds through my prism
and I disperse the waves
we are different ripples
in the same pond
Tash Adams
- Andre Mooibroek
What a wonderful painter is Andre
To put such serenity in a scene;
An ocean and yacht he does portray
With clouds and reflections keen
He paints billowing winds to plump out the sail
And stir ocean and clouds in a pot pouri blend
An artistic achievement worthy of note all hail
By this self-developing and artistic friend
Colleen O’Grady
Squall
Make spray, splinter water
pale the sky against
rain-laden dread.
The canvas
lunges at something
like safety, mast and hull
travelling from the swell.
Dawn’s the more distant
fall we lash to the ply,
the canvas, the hope, the squall.
Alistair P D Bain
- Josh Harper
Detonated
The marked patch detonated
heaved hump-backed
sighed then cried
flung earth and rock
bound by eons
into a startled life
split shattered
parted free
for just that moment.
Coral Carter
Leschenaultia
Celestial blue, floor of the sky,
nodding lowly at the foot of mighty jarrah,
meets scarlet runner delivering flame flowers
where it sprawls.
If jarrah yields to greater power
their ancient glory trumpets forth
to riot unrestrainingly cross the
forests of the south.
Virginia O’Keefe
- Cameron Demer
With apologies to Dr Seuss
The bureaucrat
in the Davy Crockett hat
is back
Liana Joy Christensen
Prospecting
The prospector knows good gold bearing dirt
But his ute is bogged to the floor
His water is gone
His ‘sat phone is dead
And the river he sees is just in his head
He remembers as a boy being told
Water’s more precious than gold
Ron Okely
- Gillian Deague
The joyous strains of Mozart’s horn concerto #1
ripple the streamers of your palette
as you shuffle vibrant liquid colours
toward your mesmerising painted garden
where flowers, stems and multihued
leaves jostle for space and meaning
in a vibrating, pulsating cloud
of watercoloured loveliness,
sunshining dappled sky, deeply
felt connectedness, and peaceful repose.
Allan Padgett
Spring Blooms
Gillian’s chosen ribbons
defines the colours
as Spring dances into bloom.
Bright brilliant tones everywhere
a canvas comes alive with
elements of vibrant hues
Faye Teale Clavi
- Michael Sinclair
Ochre cusp to crimson, there
between stone and soft placed sand
Where lines were formed from song
of serpentine water, always these
soft tessellations. Slipped net of skin
sloughed in the rough and red of earth
left to discovery, placed in creation
offered to imagination
Amanda Joy
Custard on Chocolate
The ooze of the custard
Blemished the beauty of the chocolate
Yet neither became diminished
In the sea of red trifle
Nuts and raisins flourished
Amongst the honeycomb
What a dish of beauty
Good enough to eat.
Morris Pavlinovich
- Chris White
NO words leave my lips –
yet I make you smile.
NO sounds I make –
yet I am a Symphony.
NO connection is forged –
yet my life is full of Belonging.
Exploding with Joy I live silently, yet content.
Brigita Ferencak
Pansies Are So Sweet
Our mother grew pansies
every winter for the spring.
They brightened the pathway
to the door with their frills.
But out there in desert dust
the summer might come
all too soon, rinsing away
these brilliant colours one by one.
Glen Phillips
- Kathy Adair
Dancing Queen
If I danced at the foot of a volcano
it wouldn’t be dormant. It would be alive,
wilful and terrifyingly beautiful.
I would sing with a heart as immense
as creation itself.
Kelly Pilgrim Byrne
Heat
words hurled, cut
through air thick
with smoky tension, burn
the skin they settle on
with searing heat until all oxygen
is gone
Christina Gammon
- Valda Petersen
Sunflowers (Renewal)
Big, bigger, best
Little, little, least
Sunflower grows tall
Sunflower grows small
A petal falls
Quiet please!
A seed sleeps.
Sally Gaunt
Heliotrope
Sunflower buds follow the sun
where Apollo leads them in the
right direction. Face east he says
and you will wake up in the light
your shadow always reflected
behind you, ‘til the overhead
sun absorbs all of you, cools and
fades into the darkness of night.
Maureen Sexton
- Cathy White
Bright sky
the landscape
familiar
a sun glows
your face
folds images
like cards
I tie ribbons
in your hair.
Rose van Son
aeolian blues
sky today, in seen minor,
near empty but for a
few scrawls of cirrus
and soil, in done major,
damp and set,
spade into stories long folded
but dreams? yes,
dreams are in aeolian blues,
tales stretched and pageless,
a smattering of all the hues
Kevin Gillam
- Janine Noonan
A pattern of flowers
across the canvas of day
yellow buds with white flowers
protruding from this landscape
above zig-zag trenches
bleeding blue and green arrays
to hold all in geometric order,
a harmonious combination
of elements as in a symphony
working together to take you away.
Mike Greenacre
Patterns of life,
Patterns of time
Forming nature
Forging colour
Creating a sound,
soundwaves crossing
and weaving through
red dust.
Joanna Wakefield
- Karen Forbes-Smith
will you carry the fabric through a field
a couture more fashionable than
what drapes mere bodies?
you’ve dressed us for warmth
for flowers, for geometry, for colour
a patchwork coat assembled like a quilt
that itself knows what to wear,
what to take off outdoors
Nathan Hondros
mothers china on the sideboard
mandarins in a blue bowl
shadowed in the patterns on the blind
red tea towel covers silence
a thread of moments
shapes we occupy
Gail Willems
- Justin Carter
Paint box on the one hand –
Pencils, pastels, pens and texta-
Music box on the other,
Blasting hellish music from the Underworld,
Or reaches out to the farthest stars,
Has conjured up the Dameilitoch,
Peaceful mushroom eater in his quiet planet,
Unlike the many other moments of bombast
That creates worlds of skulls and flames,
Where Tyronosaurus Rex stalks and kills.
Peter Jeffrey OAM
Dameilioteh is alien
part llama part coyote
he always dreams humans
when he eats too many mushrooms
or drinks too much peyote
Tash Adams
- Delores Purdie
Along High Ridges
Along high ridges
a blade thin horizon
slits the belly of sky
blue leaks into snow shadows
casts dark on rock faces
wrestles red into purple night.
Coral Carter
Indigo does not want of colour
filling silks and skillets, crowding the rounded
black of each tip of raven feather, shifting the slow
kimono of the dancer who covers the stage
then bows low the robe, blue
a dash more red
Amanda Joy
- Stephen Franklin
Decomposing
Life simply refuses
to remain still
Feeling green
apples escape
their bowl of meaning
and roll like an overture
thunderous, indifferent
to arrows and temptation
Liana Joy Christensen
Pearls
Give it a shot
give it a go
Give it a crack
give it a whirl
When you are a voyager
looking for pearls
Your artistic oyster
is the whole world!
Julienne Juschke
- Greg Barr
A railway line
a track
a train
coming through
we are off –
a countryside
a lake to picnic
a world to see.
Rose van Son
In Dark
In dark forces
cross a river –
fleshing out a
crimson tide
where mud crabs
rip, tear
in their silent scuttle.
Christopher Kennedy
- David Brainstater
Adventure Piratical
Led by our Captain fanatical
seeking adventures fantastical
we sail across seas that are nautical
to a world that is wildly exotical.
Orange light splits the sky pyrotechnical
broad grins split our faces so badical,
Big guns we let fly firatical
Yes! We are the crew piratical!
Veronica Lake
Peace And A Fish Hook
up river, down river, peace
on the end of a barbed hook,
in the whir of a two stroke,
in the splash of the one that got
free
Christina Gammon
- Chris Reynolds
Two Suns
sky discordant, all too
unresolved – in fingers
a bruised plum comes to mind
but daisies, a pair, so
plucky in their upness
and outness and whiteness,
so resolved, these singers,
bright as opera, an
aria in yellows
for this chilled and drab morn –
and two suns come to mind
Kevin Gillam
She Loves Me
“She loves me, she loves me not”
2 daisies dancing in the wind.
Come, Chris, let’s make a daisy chain –
a lot more we can gather in.
A field of daisies over there,
yellow centres, petals white,
we’ll make a garland sweet and fair
basking in the bright sunlight.
Meryl Manoy
- Kristen Cameron
Your brush strokes like a hurricane
rushing through dense greens
and ocean blues, reaching
higher to the white of snow
bringing to life pulsing moments,
a whirlwind of colour
that stretches with open fingers
towards the sky.
Mike Greenacre
When They Turned the Sprinklers On!
I love the dance of colours
When sunlight glows on grass,
When shadows shift
And windblown leaf and feather drift
As clouds blow past…
But most I love how colours run,
Having fun
When they turn the sprinklers on!
J.R. McRae
- Ric Sullivan
you and I could laugh together
at the blue mouth of the green man
his red sun flowers coming out by brush
exactly where they’re buttonhole perfect
like rifleshots discharged in sudden colour
before you turned away
easy like a swimmer in the deep
swimming through paint
swimming through, like you swim in water
like a hand held in another hand
Nathan Hondros
Birthday Party
After the party,
after the jelly and butterfly cakes,
tiny tots giggle and squeal,
run and tumble,
leaving the cleaning up
to Mum.
Jacqui Merckenschlager
- Sharleen Jespersen
Jolly Good Show
Gentlemen’s club, some snub, shoulders rub
glasses clink, whiskies drink, nod and wink
feathers prance, members’ dance
wives away, discreet valet, quite risqué
oh, I say! Pip pip hooray!
Max Merckenschlager
A memory of leaves forest turning honey brown
I held my Grandfathers hand stepped
between air and light danced with the trees
as they turned in the breeze
so vivid before they laid a freeway
Gail Willems
- Lisa Joyce
Like A Lolly?
Ever seen a kid’s eyes
go all colours of desire
seeing behind sweet-shop glass
rightness of brown toffees,
the gilt of barley sugars
or the red gleam of ju-jubes?
But for purest delight it takes
The wavy shapes of lolly snakes!
Glen Phillips
Dragon Breath
Hot wind from the desert
releases ochre dust
to fume through dry air.
This is the Dragon’s Breath;
one vast exhalation of heat
rippling over sand,
blazing over country,
scorching our dreaming.
Veronica Lake
- Peter Dixon
Cavern of Lights
Where is the Ali Baba Cave?
In the hearts of those who brave!
Where’s the Cavern of Delights,
Imagination taking flight?
It’s there,
When I lift my brush and dip
Into the rainbow’s tip!
J.R. McRae
Gravity
Your paint
when wet
a mix of wild emotion –
crimson
over jacaranda blue,
has set
begun to fade…
Now I see
the yellow tears
Carol Millner
- Gillian Deague
Ghosts Of Flanders Field
Like lost souls
remembrance poppies float
bright youth lost in bloody battle
forever fresh in our hearts.
Jacqui Merckenschlager
Positive Result
Through the eye piece
her Dr sees red corpuscles
appear in blood watery
with too many white cells.
Smiling, he gifts his girl
a pair of love birds and
hand picked tomorrows.
Jan Napier
- Lara Goodger
The Pioneer Ball
Our livestock are barned and I’ve harnessed the jinker
Old Tom stamps; he’s restless beside placid Tinker
their leathers are glowing, they dazzle and glitter
let’s skip the fantastic! Have you called a sitter?
My military blue’s – standing proud, double-breasted,
your plum-coloured gown ex-mothballed, aired and rested.
Now lightly my darling, let’s trip from the stall
and join country folk at the Pioneer Ball!
Max Merckenschlager
Rapture’s Repose
in a good year, i
bring it to close
thru pose that’ll
highlight stoic
nose & people
shall applaud in
proper accord
, how we make
it a good year by
just being, yeah !
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- Michael Chandler
Blue
Periwinkles growing close to the ground
Want green leaves? Just add a little sunlight.
Leschenaultia, springing up by the side of the road.
Native blue flowers, such pure delight.
Or blue hydrangeas framed by milky jade leaves.
Changing colour if the soil is right.
Lapis Lazuli, a beautiful, honest blue
Threaded through with gold pyrite.
Deb Micallef
Oasis
Oasis colours –
yellow green, blue, azure, gold
Spring at mid-winter
Carol Millner