Competition entries

@moonlitslumberbecomesher

A Return to Her

Years (and much more) had passed since visiting these childhood shores. Guilt and grief drowned the token relief that it wouldn’t ever be the same.
Flashback echoes of wide open roads, skies bleeding into the horizon, sun firing earths red glow. Often leaving breaking greys behind. The deeper darkness following us everywhere -even north.
I don’t regret my choice, those rose coloured glasses never fit.
For now, this trip would be my own Winter Summer. Memories encased in Her abundant waters, blanketed by galaxies, dingoes chanting their chorus. My escape from the dungeons I can now lay to rest.

Abigail Spiers

Seeing is Believing

The beauty of the Kimberley cannot be expressed in words. Seeing is believing.
Red dust is all around you, and spectacular crimson skies showcase the sunrise and sunset splendour. What a sight to behold.
The thrill of a helicopter ride only to realize there are no doors and only a seatbelt holding you in.
The adrenaline rush when the pilot banks from one side to the other so the passengers can take in the beauty and breathtaking scenery of the Cockburn Ranges, the Pentecost River, and its surrounds.
We will remember our weekend stay as an experience of a lifetime.

[Inspired by Home Valley Station, Gibb River Road, Kununurra WA]

Aileen Boyer

Close encounter

Close Encounter
The barrel heaves, lip shivering. I’m pummelled forward as I hear a crunch. A silver streak darts across my hazy vision.
A gnawing pain erupts below, the cause speckling the spray red. My pounding heartbeat reverberates, filling my headspace. I’m sinking, drowning, or worse.
I surrender.
A hand reaches out, grabbing onto my wetsuit. I’m being pulled.
I feel the familiar soft white sands of Prevely cradling my broken body, bone jutting through jagged skin.
Fear abates as I suck on the green whistle offered by ambos.
“You bombed mate!”
“Could’ve been a ripper.”
“Rookie mistake. Better luck next time.”

[Inspired by Prevely]

Alicia Valli

Blue Streak

“Get up! We need to go, now!”
We were running around the campground like headless chooks while Mum and Dad hooked up the caravan. Before I knew it, we were racing down the red dirt road. When we got here, Dad was beside himself with excitement.
We all filed out of the car and walked over to the building. We had a look at the wreckage of the Blue Streak Rocket. Then one of the meteorologists came out. She said we’d missed the weather balloon launch because of the time difference. I’ll never forget the disappointed look on Dad’s face.

[Inspired by Ngaanyatjarra-Giles]

Alison Davis

A taste of the great life

‘I’m lookin’ for the Big Banana,’ he said to the petrol station cashier.
‘Why’s that, then?’
‘Thought’d be worth a look.’
‘On the other side of town.’ She jerked her chin. ‘That way. Can take you if you like. After my shift.’
He waited outside in the shade, sipping chocolate milk through a straw.
When they pulled up in front of the banana, he realised what a disappointment it was. But her skin looked soft and she smelled of jasmine.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Amazing.’
She knew it was underwhelming. But he seemed so excited.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s bloody brilliant.’

[Inspired by Carnarvon]

Alyce Schotte

Underneath

In the shadows of the jetty, five meters below the gentle swell of the Bay. Blowfish investigate, looking around I see hundreds of Herring pass by.
Flashlight on the pylons marvelling at plant life, colour flash small and bright, hiding where it can, thriving. Jellyfish tendrils longer than I am tall with little fish actually swimming inside it? Yes, how are they not food?
Touch the sand, disturb a crab, he’s defensive immediately, survival depends on it, but I’m not the local octopus hiding nearby. Its a different world down under on a Sunday morning dive.

[Inspired by Kwinana Bulk Grain Terminal]

Alyssa Shapland

The Gap

On the very edge of the coast, buffeted by an Antarctic wind off the Southern Ocean, giant granite guardians watch over the waves. A strong steel platform has been hammered into their ancient surface and it stretches out over the gap. Thousands of visitors hover over the cliff, their feet sprayed with sea mist as the water pummels the rocks.

They found his car abandoned in the gravel, the driver nowhere to be seen.

[Inspired by Albany]

Amanda Viviers

The Secret She Keeps

She whispers in the morning. Ignored by dwellers near. Her collection of untold stories chant beauty.

Metal shadows cast along her shaped length. Protecting with fortitude the dunes withheld. Smokestacks seen in the distance, divert the pockets of wonder—smiling.

She heralds in the evening. Friends with the space between. Turtle factories, penguin sanctuaries and seal symposiums are afoot.

A mono-story circles her institution, shame framed by those who have passed her by. She holds her secrets close, jewels untouched. Bays of plenty, whimsical pursuits of pleasure.

She winks another day into submission. The secret shadowy bays of contempt.

[Inspired by Shoalwater Bay]

Amberley Laverick

Hyden Seek

They said this place was 70% water. I was counting on it: my planet’s been dry for years.

Stealing a starship, I had time enough only to aim at a planet and hurriedly choose a spot to crash-land. Emphasis on ‘crash.’ Wave Rock. I need water and that sounded perfect.

But there’s no water. I slept a week in a motel swimming pool before anyone noticed. They fished me out, then kicked me out.

I’m a stranger in a stranger land, and the newspapers say: ‘Worst drought in a decade.’

The wave has turned to stone. I think I’m next.

[Inspired by Wave Rock]

Amy Budrikis

That weird holiday that one time in Exmouth

On the highway out from the airport my friend asks how fast I think we’re going, the speedometer is broken. The sun is shining and she looks great. We have cocktails at the resort and ponder divorce. The next morning I pick her husband up from the hospital. This isn’t an airbnb for crazies, grumbles the nurse. We go kayaking in the blue, calm waters near the naval base. He could take me out with the paddle but when I turn around he’s looking for turtles. Thanks for coming, says my friend. I had the best time, I say.

[Inspired by Exmouth]

Ana Lynch

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

‘There's no place like home.’

Albany California, Albany Georgia, Albany Illinois, Albany Indiana, Albany Island Queensland, Albany Iowa, Albany Kentucky, Albany Louisiana, Albany Minnesota, Albany Missouri, Albany Nebraska, Albany New Hampshire, Albany New York, Albany New Zealand, Albany Ohio, Albany Oklahoma, Albany Ontario, Albany Oregon, Albany Pennsylvania, Albany Piccadilly, Albany Tennessee, Albany Texas, Albany South Africa, Albany Vermont, Albany Wisconsin, Albany Wyoming, Albany Nova Scotia...

There’s no place like mine.
Albany, Western Australia.

I’ve learnt from those who know.
Kinjarling/Ke-nyellup/Kep-jarling/Kep‐tarling/Ken‐gortch/Kincinnup/King Yanup/ Kingilyiling/NewCornwall?/King George the Third’s Sound/Fredrick Town/Albany

[Inspired by Kinjarling/Albany WA]

Angela Aris

Along the Coast

Up-North palm trees are stapled to the Earth and down-South pines are drilled into it, soon to be replaced by a hotel. We started seeking approval at the same time, I was rolling up my shorts in school; now I’ve no desire for anyone to see my thighs.
‘Do you know why they’re planted here?’ Dad would ask. I hazard a guess, this is how I learned to think critically.
‘Pines are salt-resistant, they could use the timber close to sea.’
Now, I exist somewhere between North and South and I still don’t understand why we planted pines here.

[Inspired by Broome, Albany, and Perth]

Anna Leah Luna-Raven

WUNDER©

Wander? I wonder. Experience life? Or escape it?
Is it to…
Savour a heavenly rainbow, dewdrops on Pink Minks and Dusky Bells, and chirping Honeyeaters
Delight in the calming and exciting Bunker Bay beaches
Appreciate velvety pink-and-purple sunsets, majestic Karri forests and Gloucester Tree, a Big Brook Dam picnic
Feel the beaming full moon, sip dark Olde Eastbrook Shiraz, and devour delectable Marron and Rainbow Trout
Snuggle with a favourite book in the crackling fire’s warmth in our rammed-earth chalet
This miracle town, now favoured and beloved, I ask…

How far will I wander, I wonder? To witness Wunder.

[Inspired by Pemberton and Bunker Bay]

Anna Leah Luna-Raven

WUNDER©

Wander? I wonder. Experience life? Or escape it?
Is it to…
Savour a heavenly rainbow, dewdrops on Pink Minks and Dusky Bells, and chirping Honeyeaters
Delight in the calming and exciting Bunker Bay beaches
Appreciate velvety pink-and-purple sunsets, majestic Karri forests and Gloucester Tree, a Big Brook Dam picnic
Feel the beaming full moon, sip dark Olde Eastbrook Shiraz, and devour delectable Marron and Rainbow Trout
Snuggle with a favourite book in the crackling fire’s warmth in our rammed-earth chalet
This miracle town, now favoured and beloved, I ask…

How far will I wander, I wonder? To witness Wunder.

[Inspired by Pemberton and Bunker Bay]

Barry Divola

A Bench At Cottesloe

We sat on a bench at Cottesloe, the sun dying, the light fading, the gulls screaming. She said it was her decision. She did it the next day. I didn’t go. Her brother drove her. I left Perth soon afterwards. When I came back fifteen years later it seemed like a city in a hurry to grow up. I passed that bench yesterday for the first time in years. I was with my wife and two sons. I stood there for a moment, the sun dying, the light fading, the gulls screaming. And a sadness that came late, but strong.

[Inspired by Cottesloe Beach]

Belinda Rowe

Long Haul from Perth to Exmouth

A hot wind blows across the tussocky grasslands as the truck hurtles along the North-West Coastal Highway.

When the tears well, he pulls over to the side of the road, climbs down, drops, and does fifty push ups in the shade of the cab. Wedge-tailed eagles drift above him on thermal pockets of noonday heat.

Bill’s conciliatory letter and invitation had shocked him. It had been a long time between tenderness and cups of tea in bed. Back on the road, heading towards that touch, termite mounds blush the woodlands and budgerigars pitch and yaw across long-ago, deep-time country.

[Inspired by Gascoyne Region, North-West Coastal Highway]

Bianca Breen

Solace in the Forest

‘Here?’ I asked the possum.
The possum stopped licking its paw; stared down at me from the eucalypt.
‘Here, yes,’ said the possum.
But my shovel couldn’t pierce the orange dirt, grey stone.
‘You’re searching too hard,’ said the possum. ‘Just lay yourself down.’
I was desperate to keep looking. But when a possum tells you to lie your head, you listen.
I closed my eyes. The scent of eucalypt up my nostril, the stray leaves stroking against my head with the breeze as if to say 'there there'.
Nothing but nature’s heartbeat.
I had found it.

[Inspired by John Forrest National Park]

Brody Stevens

Nature’s Bridges

As I trek Western Australia's gruelling 1000km Bibbulman Track, a singular kangaroo paw flower catches my eye - its vibrant red and green cockatoo-like crests, forever an iconic symbol of W.A.'s diverse wilderness. Pausing to appreciate its beauty, I also contemplate its cultural significance to the Aboriginal people, who have nurtured and harvested the kangaroo paw for generations.
Onwards, each subsequent kangaroo paw I encounter becomes a symbolic bridge, further connecting me to the land, its people, and Australia's rich and ancient history.
Unexpectedly, my journey along the Bibbulman Track became not just physical but also profoundly spiritual.

[Inspired by Bibbulman Track - Kalamunda]

Carolyn Abbs

Woman at Gothic Window

I am drawn to a daub of yellow, freesia on a sill, set deep in the lime-stone wall. Jarrah boards creak as I move towards it. Old glass obscures the outdoors; diamond-shaped lead-lights, triptych panes, secured with solid brass locks. Slight breeze, soft calico brushes my arm.

Were you confined for days, months, years? Your breath still mists this window. Did you dream of buttercups, sunlit like freesia? You are no flimsy ghost, or ghastly apparition, they’re for tourists. You are absolute presence.

[Inspired by Fremantle Arts Centre (previously a women's asylum)]

Cass Rowles

Outback Lizard Life

I blink slowly, stretching luxuriously in the morning sunshine, and scenting its aromatic air with my fine forked tongue. Flickering fast — in! out! — it has a mind of its own.

This is living; red dirt, hot sun, and bountiful bugs to hunt.

Wait. I smell them: humans again.

Aren’t they satisfied with the giant monstrosities they’ve scattered across my home? What are they building this time, in the name of their ‘science’? Forests of metal trees and I can’t even climb them.

You can’t guess what humans use anything for, their behaviour is too alien. Time to nap.

[Inspired by SKA-Low which will be the world’s largest radio telescope, and is currently being constructed at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia]

Charlotte Kemp

Red Dirt between my toes

The dirt was red, the air was hot. The days were long and simple, filled with hard work and good company. But every once in a while, the town would come alive with sound of the roaming cattle and sheep. The echoes of cattle dogs can be heard from a distance. It was a place where everyone knew each other's names, and where a smile and a wave were the norm. The gum trees of the station remain calm and still. Life may have been quiet, but every town has it secrets.

[Inspired by Banjawarn Station]

Chrissie Horley

The Secret of Roebuck Bay

Nine Japanese fighters approached, like angry mosquitoes, without warning, or challenge. Tracer bullets destroying the calm of the bay, streaming down relentlessly. Fiery fuel patches, and wreckages ablaze, littered the ocean. Sinister black smoke smothered the sky, the stench of death oppressive. All hopes of reaching safety destroyed in a matter of minutes. Dutch, Australian, military, civilians, identities indistinguishable in the chaos. Bodies bobbed like buoys, lifeless in the water. Some escaped to safety, though not unscathed. Occasionally, at sunrise, the tide will betray its secret. A skeletal graveyard of birds that lost their wings, eternally buried in the mud.

[Inspired by Roebuck Bay, Broome]

Christine Smith

Walking With the Moon

The sun is setting, and the inky night sky is casting the day sky aside. The full moon rises above the famous Busselton jetty, a golden orb looming low, glowing above the darkening sea. Moonlight reflects creating a silvery trail across the water. The rippling sea causes the light to shimmer and dance. The sky darkens, and I try to imagine the constellations as astrologers do, joining stars together to make intricate symbolic images. The amber warmth of twilight has disappeared. The sun has set. On the western cape, the lighthouse signals a rhythmic light, a sentinel guarding Geographe Bay.

[Inspired by Geographe Bay, Busselton]

Christopher Young

Sentinels

I can not resist this place. Sentinels shield me but the violence of open water is unnervingly close and evident in their plump faces. They nervously watch as I quietly traverse their desolation. Why is he here?

I will not resist this place. My bare feet would bleed readily in the sharpness of this sand. Salts move like sandpaper across my skin and thin sprays of ocean touch my tongue. This is my stillness.

I dare not resist this place. I am too cowardly to open my eyes but I will not fight any darkness that should come.

[Inspired by Merchant Rock]

Claire Stewart

Kings

“Fifteen seconds!”

She rushed to the front of the blowhole, miraculously without slipping and interlocked her hand with his. The moment of impact was imminent as they turned towards the camera.

“3, 2, 1. Smile!” She leaned over and kissed his cheek at the last moment as the shutter blinked back in response.

The wave ferociously hit the rocks, surging a bigger than anticipated white foam jet soaring into the air. It was a glorious, powerful explosion of a fine spray against a bright blue backdrop. Everything was captured on camera.

They would have been proud of the last image.

[Inspired by Blowholes at Point Quobba near Carnarvon]

Claire Stewart

Kings

“Fifteen seconds!”

She rushed to the front of the blowhole, miraculously without slipping and interlocked her hand with his. The moment of impact was imminent as they turned towards the camera.

“3, 2, 1. Smile!” She leaned over and kissed his cheek at the last moment as the shutter blinked back in response.

The wave ferociously hit the rocks, surging a bigger than anticipated white foam jet soaring into the air. It was a glorious, powerful explosion of a fine spray against a bright blue backdrop. Everything was captured on camera.

They would have been proud of the last image.

[Inspired by Blowholes at Point Quobba near Carnarvon]

Daniel Tang

Passing By

A cat - small, brown, black swirling waves.

It watches me, on the bridge. Am I a threat? Is he staying? What are you?

Bored, it surveys the Horse Hire Park trees, a symphony of whistles and wind. It closes its eyes. Peace.

Its ears switch sharply, a bell. Another cat. It scrambles, slowly, not making sound, but fast enough to leave.

The cat, sniffing, tail down. A foreigner. Frail. Young. Afraid.

It goes around the bush, glimpsing the young cat attempting to catch a bird. Stupid. He's in the open. The bird is taunting you.

And he walks away.

[Inspired by Horse Hire Park - Success]

Dawn Wellsted

A Perfect Mirror

One hardly breathes; afraid to fracture the majestic stillness of the water or to disturb the air. The mist, cloaking a monochrome bricolage of shadows fades, and copious canopies of trees and lowly scrub crystalise as sunrays clarify vision. Morning has dawned and the shoreline is mirrored spectacularly upon the water. Double delight. Such perfection processed through eyes of Earth’s most destructive of species, creates the conundrum. A species capable of appreciating nature’s glory, is the one willing blindness, one to commodify all it can see and touch, one to finally shatter that perfect mirror.

[Inspired by Walpole Inlet at Rest Point Caravan Park]

Diana Grove

The Farm

“Morn’n!” called Jared’s neighbour from his quad bike. “You hear about the prisoner on the loose?”

Jared nodded, continuing to dig around the fencepost. “Erin phoned. She was worried about letting Hailey walk to school.”

"Hope it’s not one of them murderbots. They want to end all of us breathers."

Dropping the shovel, Jared said, "Give us a hand?"

The old farmer scanned the paddocks for androids hiding behind eucalypts and Jersey cows before dismounting.

“They aren’t so smart after all,” he said huffing. “The cops will catch it, say it resisted arrest and just erase it.”

“Yup,” agreed Jared.

[Inspired by Wooroloo Prison Farm]

Elizabeth Spencer

dunes like white elephants (with a nod to Hemingway)

Dunes like white elephants ( with a nod to Hemingway)

The first white dunes appear five miles out from Cervantes. To her left driving North along the Indian Ocean Road they rise to hide the ocean and her grief rises to meet her. So many family car trips, too many wrinkles, her Geraldton Mother long gone ashes scattered and dissolved where the mouth of the Greenough river meets the ocean.

And yet the dunes persist.

[Inspired by Cervantes, Indian Ocean Drive on route to Greenough and Geraldton]

Emily Robertson

Winds of Ash

Smoke rolls down the hills, a blurry blue haze masking the green as that howling easterly pushes its way out to sea once more. My eyes itch and throat burns from the never-ending push and pull of the wind, dragging it out and bringing it in once more. Prescribed burn season, I know its safer this way. But the melted roads of Yarloop, the ash and embers soaring on treacherous winds towards our town are branded on my soul. It is this terror in the night that chases me from sleep. Can you smell something burning?

[Inspired by Yarloop]

Emily Robertson

Winds of Ash

Smoke rolls down the hills, a blurry blue haze masking the green as that howling easterly pushes its way out to sea once more. My eyes itch and throat burns from the never-ending push and pull of the wind, dragging it out and bringing it in once more. Prescribed burn season, I know its safer this way. But the melted roads of Yarloop, the ash and embers soaring on treacherous winds towards our town are branded on my soul. It is this terror in the night that chases me from sleep. Can you smell something burning?

[Inspired by Yarloop]

Emily Tsokos Purtill

The return

From the morning sand at Pinky’s, you see the city across the ocean as a final, irregular heartbeat.

The white lighthouse towers over the beach as you remember it. The colours of the sky and the ocean also the same as in your memory print. Their graduating blues still remind you of a cake your mother made with ombré icing. The galette knife.

But this isn’t about cake. Or the ocean. Or your mother.

It’s a story of what happened on this beach - what you saw here, the morning after the party, and how you could never let it go.

[Inspired by Pinky's Beach, Rottnest]

Esme Lee Wilmot

Tooth Fairy

The night the tooth fairy was meant to collect Lily’s tooth was the same night a meteorite landed in the back paddock. The crater was the size of a paddling pool and covered in shiny black glass, which broke underfoot.

After chewing on her lip for a while, Lily climbed down into the centre, pushed her tooth into the soil and prayed that the tooth fairy was all right. Two days later, the tips of twenty-four teeth poked up from the ground, arranged like an open mouth…

[Inspired by Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater]

Eva Cocks

Home Time

You wanted me to write about somewhere lovely. Tough. I am writing about somewhere real. A weekday quagmire if you will. A place where the pointed tongue of the 9-5 grind licks damp the armpits of commuters, with heads bent into their phones as they shuffle across grimy grey tiles. The late afternoon sweat tinges the air, waltzing a dirty tango with oily bus fumes. A lady’s high heels clack an urgent staccato as she hustles down Platform C for her bus. She won’t make it in time. The bus and its stench pull off towards home. Lovely, isn’t it?

[Inspired by Elizabeth Quay Bus Station, Platform C, Stand 4]

Faith Pollard

Midnight Wash

The moon grabs me tonight. Scrubs me all over. She washes away all this hatred and uncertainty, the remains of it bleeding upwards into space. I watch her face and remember the sigh of seasons, of sunshine running through wheat crops. The days when I knew how to be; skipping around and scraping knees. Before I became a library of rules and reckoning. I float now, in this lightless water, letting the lorikeets scream away my anguish.

[Inspired by Cottesloe Beach at 11pm]

Fiona H Evans

Indian Gift

We ride bikes to the beach, laden with boogie boards and warm bottles of coke, coasting down hills, hooded towels flapping, worn thongs slipping off pedals, radio blaring the latest songs. Wheels stashed in the dunes, we sprint hand-in-hand for the sea and duck under breakers, loud-shrieking our joy. We doze legs-entangled, suck hickies on salted arms, stay till the sun kisses the sea. We never imagine losing our innocence, blood on our thighs, that you’ll let the blue take you, how I’ll seek you in every sunset, still dream of those long summer days with you.

[Inspired by Lancelin]

Gay Taylor

Shank’s Pony: Margs to Rosa Brook

The listening bush, humming and alive, jarred by the crash of a skinny boy’s footsteps. Blind to the bracken’s fragile filigree, he makes his unheralded return from another term of loneliness. His only thoughts are of home, where no-one thinks of him.
The old man loves to take us out, treat us to a meal at the Tav, talk about the old days, laugh, drink, bask in his success. “I made it, I made it” his eyes seem to say, but in his ears, the lonely footsteps are louder than the laughter.

[Inspired by Margaret River]

Glennys Marsdon

Progress

Towering over scurrying ferry patrons. Chiming 14th century bells fill hearts with delight. Dividing opinions when proposed for a dawning millennium. Passing decades. Rising hotels dwarf history. Lengthening shadows cloak previous concerns. Cowering, the Perth Bell Tower reminisces about sunlit days.

[Inspired by Perth Bell Tower]

Hannah Cockroft

Swimming Lessons

The teacher tells us not to put our head under the water while she’s speaking, but it’s hard to drown out the noise above the surface; splashes and squeals, whistles, the quacking of thongs against wet tiles. The smell of vinegar on soggy bags of piping hot chips – this is what is waiting for me at the end of this, but I think the lesson has another 52 hours left. I go under the lukewarm water, turning down the volume. I sit at the bottom and watch as the open jaws and dead eyes of the creature glide towards me.

[Inspired by Terry Tyzack Acquatic Centre]

Heather Wallace

Anticipation

Roo poo on the front lawn every summer morning as there are poor pickings elsewhere. Purple bougainvilleas separate the lush green lawn from dry paddocks awaiting the rains of the new season. The smell of smoke over the whole district as stubble is burnt in preparation for the new crops to be sown. Men smell of oil and grease as they do final checks on machinery backed up in the sheds waiting to burst forth into action like a buck jumper at a rodeo. Seeding is around the corner.

[Inspired by Geraldton]

Humphrey Tipping

Water-Colours

My memory is blurred
The details run together
Like a watercolour painting
Or a wet newspaper.

Cool water presses softly against me
I’m too entranced to notice
My shivering limbs
And chattering teeth

Sunlight dances across the seabed
Sparkling like rough-cut gemstones
One thousand fish flit through the water
Seagrass sways with the shifting tides

A solitary sea-turtle
Wanders elegantly through the shallows
The orange corals and turquoise waters and white sands
Swirl together in a spectacular wash of colour.

I'll be back soon
The long drive, the hot car
The pies, pastries and chocolate milk
From the halfway road-house.

[Inspired by Ningaloo Reef]

Isabelle Biondi Saville

Swerve

We pass another one, sprawled on the side of the road, sun burnt skin clinging to sandy bones and stretching over hollow spaces where dirt red muscle use to flex.
“I’d close my eyes if I was about to hit one.”
Between patches of white sand, scabs of bush blister into grey salt scrub, and up ahead, pulling away to the east and the west, the dunes. Someone once told me they change overnight.
“Don’t tell me that while you’re driving.”
The road roars underneath, “I was kidding.”
We both know I wasn’t. She drives the rest of the trip.

[Inspired by Jurien Bay]

Isabelle Southern

Starving in Plain Sight

Each year the landscape seemed to change.
The feeding trees were farther apart. Great islands of warmth pressed up against their bodies as they flew across the Swan coastal plain. Searching.
They flew in twos and threes, rarely more. The pickings were becoming poor. A macadamia tree, nuts still too young. A jacaranda tree, a desperate snack. A pine tree, salvation.
People posted photos in their excitement.
“I saw some red tails today.”
“I’ve never seen them in my tree before!”
“How special to live in Perth!”
Off they flew, over the growing islands of heat; islands that swallowed trees.

[Inspired by her garden in Rivervale]

Jane Hall

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The short trip down Hospital Avenue brings mixed emotions. Sadness that gleaming green panels and windows with glimpses of toys in the Children's Hospital hide fear, pain and sickness. So too the austere concrete panels of the older more daunting hospital nearby. Gratitude though for those who bring comfort and wellness, and those who tied a banner on the corner to thank them. Wonder at seeing the Kid's Bridge, like the yellow brick road magically leading somewhere unseen. Its kaleidoscopic rainbow colours end where sunny breezes, birdsong and whispering trees remind those who journeyed there is a better place ahead.

[Inspired by Hospital Avenue Nedlands]

Jane Wallis

Colours of Coastal Life

Her mood changes daily – azure blues, sunshiny sparkle, and turquoise – radiating the brilliance of nature. The birds revel in her glories. Everything is right in their unpretentious world with a balanced mix of light and colour. There is no hatred and no misunderstanding. Born under the same sky in a diverse world.
Ominous clouds roll in, the wind stirs, whipping up a frenzy. Waves heave and slam onto the alabaster sands. Birds are silenced. Danger and tension prevail. Beauty still exists. Everything is in harmony.
Our W.A. coastline’s iridescent ruggedness through the six seasons is a gift for all.

[Inspired by South West and Great Southern coastlines]

Jay Chesters

In the Pink

“It’s a long drive to dispose of a body,” Kate says. I jump at her voice.

“Sorry, my bad.”
“You’re ok. I was… somewhere else.”
“I know. But we’re here, Hutt Lagoon. Sounds like something from Star Wars.”

Grandpa loved this place. I haven’t seen the pink lake in years, I’d forgotten it was so vibrant. I didn’t know anything could feel that way any more.

“Come on, we have miles to go before we sleep.” Kate gestures to the silver urn at her feet and softly touches my hand.

“Time to go, Grandpa,” I agree. “Before someone sees us.”

[Inspired by Hutt Lagoon, Port Gregory]

Jeanette Stampone

The Last Feast

It had been too long since she devoured her last victim. She ached to wrap her jaws around another unsuspecting fool. They had become smarter lately, fewer falling for her charm. It was only a matter of time though, she knew that. One would succumb eventually. They always did.

As predicted, she didn’t have to wait long for her feed. A distant hum of a truck. The driver oblivious to his fate. She salivated in anticipation.

Crash, crunch, munch!

She gorged greedily, without remorse. But little did she know that was her last meal.

RIP Bayswater Bridge 1910-2023

[Inspired by Bayswater]

Jeimer Ng

Safe For Use

The Bald Head Trail, wild and rugged, re-opened after what seemed like forever being closed for maintenance. Boundless blue seascapes of the Southern Ocean were once again on display. I trekked through its powerful winds following a woman just ahead who beckoned me onward. Treading between the raging ocean on both sides – misery on my left and sorrow on my right – all my legs needed was her blue sky.

My heart, eroded and weathered, re-opened after what seemed like forever being closed for maintenance.

[Inspired by Bald Head Trail - Torndirrup National Park, South of Albany]

Jen Rewell

I Should’ve Told Someone Where I Was Going

The bullet-grey clouds splintered open, unleashing solid blocks of rain across the wide horizon. Water rushed down the bluff and sluiced through deep rocky gullies, gushed down ancient channels. Trickling drips crept round spinifex, following pliant lines that puddled and pooled and spilled into each other, running over red earth into the ancient riverbed that snaked away from the ranges.
I saw the fat thumbs of the flood rolling down the river and I scrambled up the bank. The low wave swept through, relentless and invincible, carrying away my old Pajero in a wild wash of brown foam.
What now?

[Inspired by Karijini]

Jess Checkland

Search History

Google Searches, 12 May

Perth Airport flight SQ3146 status
Maps terminal 1 Perth Airport
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crcked iphOne ascrE n repaiR

[Inspired by Perth Airport]

Jess Gately

The precipice

On a remote beach, counting turtle eggs, you caught one to take measurements and let me hold it. A life – one unlikely to last.
When it emerged from the nest, the hatchling would have to make the treacherous journey to the ocean, contending with seabirds and sharks before it found a patch of floating seaweed in which to shelter, carried by the ocean currents, until it was old enough to return here and lay eggs of its own.
I held this precarious, precious future in my hands. Just as I once held you, back when you would let me.

[Inspired by Barrow Island]

Jodie Watts

Slumbering Giants

They sit or lie on ancient ground, unmoving, silently guarding.
Sculpted from the trees of old they contain the memories and wisdom of those that lived and died long ago.
When the moon embraces the sun, and the halo shines in the darkness, the giants lumber to their feet.
They shriek their agony to ebony sky, to any who would listen. A piercing timbre.
In return a barren silence, that says everything.
For 76 seconds they release their hurt at the cruelty of some, they mourn their friend, their hearts splinter.
When the birds sound again, their slumber has resumed.

[Inspired by Thomas Dambo's Giants of Mandurah]

Jodie Watts

Slumbering Giants

They sit or lie on ancient ground, unmoving, silently guarding.
Sculpted from the trees of old they contain the memories and wisdom of those that lived and died long ago.
When the moon embraces the sun, and the halo shines in the darkness, the giants lumber to their feet.
They shriek their agony to ebony sky, to any who would listen. A piercing timbre.
In return a barren silence, that says everything.
For 76 seconds they release their hurt at the cruelty of some, they mourn their friend, their hearts splinter.
When the birds sound again, their slumber has resumed.

[Inspired by Thomas Dambo's Giants of Mandurah]

Joe Tomai

Summer Ghosts

I hear ghosts whisper in the breeze. The summer easterly wind speaks of the past and tales of old. Long ago, of a man who trekked these parts, hunted for sustenance, land and sea, bush terrain and meandering waters. He wandered through the land, his mind asking the great sky for guidance. Stars glistened and the moon shone, illuminating the path before him. He ate and laughed, sighed and cried. In a state of oneness with his surroundings, he journeyed on. A nomad on the land, caretaker of the beauty and ruggedness, he journeyed on. Searching, for the summer ghosts.

[Inspired by Swan River, Perth]

Joel Huey

Subterranean Desert Dwellers

They once covered the continent, Dracula’s denizens of humid forests. A prehistoric wilderness that was already vanishing before the marching dunes. They were monsters in the dappled light, preying on the soft and ripe. Long sensitive legs probed for life in the decaying litter, crushing the pitiful between fiendish jaws.

No longer.

Now they hide in a darker abode, below the searing deserts that replaced their homes. They crawl sightless and hungry through crack and crevice, hidden from human eyes. Except here, under the ancient fig by the circular pool, where they still rule the surface.

[Inspired by Karijini NP]

Josh Radwell

Frightened of A Beautiful Thing

I've got one foot in the wet sand and one in the dry and it's a taunt, if the ocean can hear me, my actions my words. The water ebbs, it comes closer each time but maybe it's frightened of me the way I am of it. Come closer, I say, Everyone else loves you, the whole coast, you're beautiful, best beaches in the world, so why am I scared? The water rushes to me, it crosses that line in the sand, it leaps up to my chest, it's cold as ice, and it pulls me down. I see now.

[Inspired by Cottesloe Beach]

Josiah Smith

Foresters Wood Picnic

“Ouch,” its voice is slow and aged, years working in the cellar will do that.
There’s colour in the voice, I think blue.
“You’re my favourite,” I reply.
Before us is a park, overrun by blackberries and neglect. Pockets of trees are losing their leaves, and a brook plays below. “Why do you always bring me here?” it asks.
I spread my arms, and breathe. My lungs are greeted by autumn. It is silent.
“Exactly.” I reply.
I lean in - it greets me with a presence - and take a bite, it tastes good. I love cheese.

[Inspired by Foresters Wood]

Jude Bridge

Boab

King’s Park baked in the lazy heat, drowsy with bees. Selfie-takers came and went, iPhones attached to their eyeballs, eschewing the magnificent view and foliage in favour of their own tilted faces.
The Giant Boab had not lived for over seven hundred years, travelled three thousand kilometres and survived replanting to be a backdrop for Mia’s virtual life on Instagram. She aimed the phone at her face. The river behind gulped waves, reflecting distracting white light zaps at the camera. Mia staggered backwards into the Boab, clutching at bees, and was never seen again.
Her followers moved on.

[Inspired by King's Park]

Julie Duxbury

Flotsam

She was found by a local as they wandered along the beachfront. It was like she'd been thrown there, out of a car, or, perhaps, washed up with the waves. She'd been in the water a few days and her appearance ended a mystery that had surrounded Esperance for the last few weeks. What had happened to Jennifer Thomas.
The answer was written on her. Carved into her chest and down her side. Large lettering had torn chunks from her skin.
'Mummy made me do it. I didn't want to.'
The police were already champing at the bit.

[Inspired by Esperance]

Kate Lippiatt

A Natural Pause

Breathe in. Hear the patter of tiny feet, children, joeys, echidnas, and…what is a woylie?

Breathe out. An old steam train passes through the banksias and the eucalypts. A rich tapestry of bushland, wildlife, heritage, and culture awaits you.

Breathe in. Long, quiet paths for reflection and recreation. Leading to a city lookout. Surprisingly close to feel so far.

Breathe out. One of the largest metropolitan parks in the world. Just the right size to make you feel small.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

[Inspired by Whiteman Park]

Kate White

Garage Sale

‘It’s just stuff,’ Uncle Ed waves a lazy hand over Nan’s yard.
I take it all in. Haphazard piles of furniture and whitegoods and sagging boxes of bric-a-brac. Nan’s beloved plants lined up like orphans against the fence.
Stuff. My grandparents’ home, split down the centre, emptying its guts on the lawn.
‘That you, love?’ Mum drifts out of the garage, eyes red from dust or sentiment or maybe both. ‘Come give us a hand with these.’
These turn out to be Pa’s beloved paperback westerns. I slip one into my pocket and hoist a box onto my hip.

[Inspired by Perth]

Katelin Hawes

Looking Up

Again, I reach out. My effort wasted as a I crumble through the sand, each granule snags before I wither away. The coastline stretches far. Soft sand slips between my waves as I reach up towards those impossible cliffs. They hold the weight of the sky but do not buckle. I look upwards as the clouds pass overhead only to disappear. The sun warms my back before it too retreats away, and as the moon shines bright over my water, those ribbons of red and orange remain in the cliffs, a memory that will repeat the next evening.

[Inspired by Kalbarri Coastline]

Katherine Sanders

The Reassurance of Ghost Gums

Trees at the park in the next street up from mine in Bicton mirror the neighbourhood–old, white, Australian.
The pale ghost gums that grow there are healers. My favourite has generous folds at its base as if its pale skin has stretched and sagged with age.
Breathless from the long covid that makes even this a challenge, I walk amongst those ghostly trees and listen as they whisper, ‘Look at us. Even when our bark falls in strips, we keep on standing and so do you.’ I return to our house, reassured by the history of trees.

[Inspired by Bicton]

Kaz Campbell

That Rock

They called it a croissant, a seal, a mouthguard, a bobtail lizard. They saw a slug, a sea horse, a crab, a mythical creature. That same piece of rock sitting in shifting sands for eons sparked a multitude of interpretations.

Billie knew it as THE place to hide when it was one of the other kids’ turn to seek. Then as the place to hide when the others were laughing in plumes of smoke further down the beach. Then as the place to hide after that day when nothing was ever the same again.

[Inspired by Dunsborough, Wadandi Boodja]

Keith Critchett

Memories

She smiled.

I can smell it now, the sea.

I breathe in, it smells good.

I can feel the evening warmth on my face and the slightest of a mid-summers breeze., with those bloody cockatoos screaming spoiling the ambiance.

I hear the sound of people’s voices, laughing, shrieking, kids playing, running, the sound of their footsteps whilst being chased by friend, brother, sister, memories both past and present.

Feeling the sand between my toes, the sound of a wave washing ashore grew louder the closer I got.

It’s the most amazing sunset I can remember, being blind only provides memories.

[Inspired by Cottesloe Beach]

Kim Aikman

Disrupted Water

I was crossing the bridge when I realised that I was pregnant. The train was heading north and there were dolphins just below, smooth backs arching out of the swirling water.

Weeks later, bleeding and heavy with loss, I saw them again as I sat on a balcony at Longreach. A pod of them swam across the bay, the ocean opaque as wet concrete, a feeble yellow light breaking through the clouds.

I never tire of crossing the bridge. The port changes; the sky and water move through endless variations of texture and hue. I always check for dolphins.

[Inspired by Fremantle Port and Longreach Bay, Rottnest]

Kim Aikman

Disrupted Water

I was crossing the bridge when I realised that I was pregnant. The train was heading north and there were dolphins just below, smooth backs arching out of the swirling water.

Weeks later, bleeding and heavy with loss, I saw them again as I sat on a balcony at Longreach. A pod of them swam across the bay, the ocean opaque as wet concrete, a feeble yellow light breaking through the clouds.

I never tire of crossing the bridge. The port changes; the sky and water move through endless variations of texture and hue. I always check for dolphins.

[Inspired by Fremantle Port and Longreach Bay, Rottnest]

Kit Holmes

Rocky Shores/Rocky Road

We used to go to Hillarys on weekends. I would beg to go – mostly for the ice cream, really. But I haven’t been in a long time.
I’m sure it’s changed. I’m sure they’ve remodelled and added all sorts of new things I’d hate. I’m sure I wouldn’t know. It scares me, how little I seem to know anymore. I don’t know the name of the tree in my backyard, I don’t know if stingers hurt as much as they used to. I don’t know the last time I actually went swimming at Hillarys.
But I think I want to.

[Inspired by Hillarys Boat Harbour]

Kyeesha Bonney

Waves

I sit and soak.
Soak up the faint wind as it brushes through my hair,
The sun on my caramel skin
The waves as they delicately crash against the shore,
The birds as they sing so eloquently.
But most of all
I let my surroundings soak the stress.
The stress that knowingly and unknowingly lies between each crease and line on my sun kissed skin.
Letting the delicate waves wash them away just as quickly as I allow them back again.

[Inspired by Matilda Bay]

Lal Perera

Winter, Wadjemup

She’d stopped their text exchange suddenly, more than an hour ago, but he’d thought she’d still turn up.

[Inspired by Wadjemup/Rottnest, looking out towards the mainland]

Laura Scott-Brown

Along a Quiet Road

She cradled the head when no-one was looking. It felt illicit: exploring sensations through fingertips, testing degrees of touch in a morbid squeeze that couldn’t be returned. Caressing its seemingly slumbering weight against her palm, it anchored her as she had craved. Its features soaked in the colours of the surrounding outback, fleshy peaks amplifying the vermillion of a setting sun. She considered hacking it off, keeping some comfort with her, but the sinews demanded tools she’d need to borrow, and that risked detection. Habitual, gnawing guilt for her own living stole in as she turned away from the banksia.

[Inspired by the road into Kalbarri]

Lauren Cirillo

Mettams

The uneven terrain nipped at Abby’s feet while the sun brazenly coated her delicate skin. The lagoon was dotted with snorkelers and the occasional abalone fisher but mummy had no trouble weaving her way toward the rocky reef top.
“The water is coming to me!” Abby squealed as they nestled into the turquoise shore. Mummy pat ragged edges until she felt smooth oval shells on her fingertips. “Keep these on,” Mummy instructed snapping goggles in place. With gentle coaxing Abby dipped her head under to see the stubborn molluscs cemented along the pristine pool- the Abby’s were finally meeting.

[Inspired by Mettams Pool]

Laurie Steed

Wish

Most school days, Kayla and I walked Third Ave until we reached Beaufort Street, and after that, I'd veer left and on to Fourth. One day, I stayed and said, 'You want to go out sometime?'

She said, 'I'd love that.'

So we went out but then we broke up. Even now, I can't find the fault with her, or us. I had just never believed in magic.

The day after, I walked Third Ave until I reached Beaufort Street. I waited, counting the cars until she returned. At some point, I lost count but kept waiting, just in case.

[Inspired by Third Avenue, Mount Lawley]

Lea Smith

Rottnest Island – Wadjemup

We played in the shallows, in brown skinned innocence under vast cerulean skies. Salt clung to carefree hair, crusted on thirsty lips, as white sand squeaked under bare feet. The breeze carried the waft of freshly baked bread, beckoning an assembly of seagulls on the bakery wall. We did not know then, what we know now: the dark side of white history on this precious place across the water. Four thousand men and boys incarcerated from far flung lands, some buried in unmarked graves, now shadowed by the cells that held them captive.

[Inspired by Rottnest Island]

Lea Smith

Rottnest Island – Wadjemup

We played in the shallows, in brown skinned innocence under vast cerulean skies. Salt clung to carefree hair, crusted on thirsty lips, as white sand squeaked under bare feet. The breeze carried the waft of freshly baked bread, beckoning an assembly of seagulls on the bakery wall. We did not know then, what we know now: the dark side of white history on this precious place across the water. Four thousand men and boys incarcerated from far flung lands, some buried in unmarked graves, now shadowed by the cells that held them captive.

[Inspired by Rottnest Island]

Leanne Tololeski

A Return to Her

Years (and much more) had passed since visiting these childhood shores. Guilt and grief drowned the token relief that it wouldn’t ever be the same.
Flashback echoes of wide open roads, skies bleeding into the horizon, sun firing earths red glow. Often leaving breaking greys behind. The deeper darkness following us everywhere -even north.
I don’t regret my choice, those rose coloured glasses never fit.
For now, this trip would be my own Winter Summer. Memories encased in Her abundant waters, blanketed by galaxies, dingoes chanting their chorus. My escape from the dungeons I can now lay to rest.

[Inspired by Exmouth]

Lee Reader

Road Trip

THEN
Kilometre after kilometre, squeals, appeals for silence, sobbing.
Not enough room, not enough air, not enough anything.
“WELCOME”….to Hell, or the New World?

NOW
Crinkle, twinkle, swish, swirl
(Repeat)

Flutter, swoosh, pause, whirl
(Caress)

Icing stings the tongue, crumbs cascade over belly-wobble custard
(Devour)

Screeching, sweeping, suspended
(Listen)

Water, wanderers, wild
(Bliss)

[Inspired by Jurien Bay]

Lisa Wolstenholme

Welcoming Committee

My friend stands on the gravel driveway, phone out, head down, checking the entry instructions for our bush accommodation. A grey kangaroo approaches, slow, tentative, stopping before her as if to say, ‘Who goes there?’ My friend heads to the door. Grey remains, so I approach, offering my outstretched hand. Grey sniffs it, then my legs, reminding me of my dog’s inspections when I return home with a myriad of scents clinging to my skin and clothes. Statue-like, I give Grey time to decipher if I’m friend or foe. Grey decides ‘friend’ and lets us pass.

[Inspired by Margaret River]

Lydia Evans

Sunset

Best you don’t come, they said. The water is too cold. The wind is too strong. The sand is too soft. So I wander through the house I built while they wander to the sea loaded with towels and tips for salary sacrificing. They will come home and shower in the bathroom I screeded and tiled and grouted. Before then, it was bore water out the back that washed the sand off. The sand that’s too soft for me now. The sand my pronating feet can’t be trusted on. The sand that’s as soft as their palms.

[Inspired by Golden Bay]

Lydia Evans

Sunset

Best you don’t come, they said. The water is too cold. The wind is too strong. The sand is too soft. So I wander through the house I built while they wander to the sea loaded with towels and tips for salary sacrificing. They will come home and shower in the bathroom I screeded and tiled and grouted. Before then, it was bore water out the back that washed the sand off. The sand that’s too soft for me now. The sand my pronating feet can’t be trusted on. The sand that’s as soft as their palms.

[Inspired by Golden Bay]

Maggie Szabo

Tending the vines

Pain rips suddenly at his chest.
A gasp dribbles from his lips.
His body collapses beneath his beloved vines, his head hits the loamy soil, the secateurs slip from his gnarled fingers. His last breath plumes through the strawberry, plum, and apricot-coloured leaves. His unseeing eyes lock on the dusky grey-green eucalypts nearby. A sharp wind plucks at the velvety white roses at the end of the row, petals tumbling across his body.
A startled flock of brown-headed ducks takes to the air, their fluttering feathers whisper to him.
Weightless, he soars.
Just like in his dreams.

[Inspired by Swan Valley]

Makenzi Prince

Sea Monster

Sea Monster

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Her grandmother was visiting from the city and had gaped at every weeping green tree and sunny bend they had passed.

“It sure is” she replied.

She had always loved the ocean, but this was something different.

They looked down at the beach, where a four-headed creature had breached and laid its giant head, its ruby-red tongue sliding down its spine and into the cold churning gut of the sea.

Wistfully she watched the crowds surging into its belly.

There is beauty here, but also something deeper.

[Inspired by The Busselton Jetty]

Mara Alice Papavassiliou

Mining Accident, One Dead

She sees the wrecked CAT machine that marks the place. She sees the small apocalypse of the mineshaft below, the black collapse of granite.

‘Ribs are designed to be broken, mum,’ he’d reason after cricket accidents, ‘to protect the important stuff inside.’

A breeze licks the wasteland, as deserted as the tongues that whispered the empty words, the practiced consolations, the settlement offers.

The Earth here will heal like a bone, thicker than before, detectable by satellite autopsy. But his bones will not heal, and neither will she.

The news headlines pry open the wound: Mining Accident, One Dead.

[Inspired by Abandoned mine site outside Kalgoorlie-Boulder]

Marceline Luna

Halo

In front of the queer youth ball,
In the back of my friend’s truck.
My ill-fitting skirt, a gift from you
Catches on the seatbelt as I hang out the door,
Hovering over the pavement.
It’s light inside, all colour and flash;
I’m out in the dark, choking on my shame.
The cold bites my unshaven legs;
They bite their lips and breathe heavy
Against each other amidst the heat of the floor.
But you’re in the doorway, adorned with a halo
As you look out in the night
And see me as me.

[Inspired by Cockburn Youth Centre (Pride and Progress Ball)]

Maria Blackman

Dust

Red, red everywhere. Red sand, red dust. It got into every crevice, sill and frame. Red dust in the eternal summer months, red mud in the brief winter.
Above the earth, the sun burned white-hot in an electric sky. Tenacious trees bent to the coastal winds that never ceased blowing the red sand into every crack, every crevice. It got in around the window sills and the edges of the door, no matter how much you tried to keep it out.
The dust-filled wind whispered to the house: you don’t belong here.

[Inspired by Greenough/Walkaway]

Mark Dove

Bron’s Lament

Bronwen scans the hollow horizon. Out in the bay bronzed surfers soporifically take their last dance with the oily ocean. On the jetty where she sits, fisherfolk descend from the town to set up their night lines.

Holiday-makers, hedy with the sweat of salt, begin to round up their UV-glistening brood and make the pilgrimage to Leakey’s Chippy where, once full of oceanic delights, will start to wilt, worn out with sandcastles and squawking gulls redolent in their sleepy memories and the thoughts of a slumbering bunk and a new day tomorrow just about keeping their eyes open.

She weeps.

[Inspired by Rockingham]

Marlis Grosseholz

Being Lost

I walk and walk
Do you need a lift?
Thank you, no, I am fine.
Although lost
There is freedom in not knowing exactly where I am.
Six years roaming beachside neighbourhoods
My wandering mind takes me astray
I cannot really be lost with technology in my pocket
If I want it
I don’t.
I climb the sand dune highlighting Doubleview’s water tower
Behind me stretches housing, Perth City, the Darling Range
In front the Indian Ocean
Where lies my heart and soul
I head towards it every day thankful
To be living a dream
In an ocean suburb home.

[Inspired by Doubleview]

Marq Sebastiano

Southwest Allure

You are lifestyle goals.
I am just a passer-by.

I talk of you with intent and willing.
You reply with warmth and shade.

Your downtown vibe,
Easily matches my uptown grind.

To hold you, to call you mine.

[Inspired by Busselton]
Will never be, I am just a passer-by.

Yet you tease and lure,
The thrill of the chase.

The selfies and excitement.
Bounded, sent with hast.

The forbidden fruit is sweeter,
Than the nectar of home.

The grass always greener,
Than the house, I call home.

Until next time,
Your beloved, Passer-by.

Max

Matilda Bay

My palms relish the sunlight sands beneath,

Approaching pairs of black swans cruising to their next shaded spot,

Along with the ripples of kayaks entering my ears,

I ought to watch the diamond waters reflect the singular cloud,

Swimming in the calm of the sky.

My left familiarises the horizon of Mounts Bay Road to lengths unknown.

The opposite, an ocean that leads to the outback of the West – where I originated a decade ago.

Years of education have led me here: the spectacularism of a scene unfolding before my eyes.

This is it; this is now.

This is home.

[Inspired by Matilda Bay]

Megan Anderson

Just Another Glass-off at Binalup

The flat sea chews morning sunlight into tinsel. Early swimmers slap and glide in the shark net, its smug necklace of buoys glowing 'You're safe' gold against platinum. No-one clocks my boat.

'Perfection!' gloats a teabagger. 'Gin clear!'

'Day for it!' comes back. 'Paradise!'

Like every other no-news day.

They think that when they hit the showers, they’ll be trading gossip and ribbing Barbara for hogging the hot water as usual. Doubt it.

I approach the net from the east, drifting. My prize catch, a still-quivering reef shark, slides across. There’s barely a ripple at first.

[Inspired by Binalup/ Middleton Beach, Albany]

Melanie Hobbs

Welcome to Gnomesville: Population 7000

There had been four of them, see. Two adults, two younglings. The dream. I could taste that suburban life. Hills hoists. Barbecues. Backyard cricket games.

Instead I end up here. Grinning garden gnomes as far as the eye can see. Worse than the warehouse. Some poor souls are disintegrating. Many sport gross indignities like national flags painted on their hats. Some are forced to hold dreadful signs that say things like “Only the Gnomely.” Each day more of us arrive.

Now I dream of being stolen. Snatched by some wayward youth. Stashed under their bed in glorious solitude.

[Inspired by Gnomesville, Ferguson Valley]

Mia Millar

Perspective

The relentless pounding in my head starts vanishing with each crunching step.
Why now, alone in this endless expanse of forest?
The sun slowly peeks through thinning trees—
And the world opens up.
As I step up onto a fallen log, stunned by the magnitude of life around me, it sinks in.
Because this is where we belong, that’s why. Not in our chaotic, stuffy lives back in ‘reality’. But here, here where the river’s calming flow, soft songs of fairywrens and gentle rustling of leaves combine in a harmony so beautiful it renders any nagging thought of mine negligable.

[Inspired by Warren National Park]

Michael Burrows

The Giants

The giants have always watched.
They saw the ships arrive.
Tired men fighting through bush.
Bushrangers on horseback hiding in their roots.
They watched the tallest trees topple.
A generation of young men sent off to war.
A heart carved in bark. Lovers loving.
Cars and trucks and grimy exhaust.
Another war. Crying at night.
The lovers’ children. Tiny hands on trunks.
Smoke among the leaves.
Forests of fire blackened branches.
A walkway strung between the canopies.
Grandchildren, now, marvelling from high.
Carnaby’s squabbling in the treetops.
Bored great grandchildren on their phones.
Higher and higher.
The giants keep watching.

[Inspired by Valley of the Giants, Denmark]

Michael Burrows

The Giants

The giants have always watched.
They saw the ships arrive.
Tired men fighting through bush.
Bushrangers on horseback hiding in their roots.
They watched the tallest trees topple.
A generation of young men sent off to war.
A heart carved in bark. Lovers loving.
Cars and trucks and grimy exhaust.
Another war. Crying at night.
The lovers’ children. Tiny hands on trunks.
Smoke among the leaves.
Forests of fire blackened branches.
A walkway strung between the canopies.
Grandchildren, now, marvelling from high.
Carnaby’s squabbling in the treetops.
Bored great grandchildren on their phones.
Higher and higher.
The giants keep watching.

[Inspired by Valley of the Giants, Denmark]

Michael T Schaper

Taking my old dog out to be shot

I don’t want to do it, my father says, as he picks up the silencer.

I’ll do it, I volunteer.

He never hears the bullet that hits him.

And the dog sleeps through it all.

[Inspired by Dingo flour mill, North Fremantle]

Michele Nugent

Call your own Bluff

when little miss "i need to test my physical and mental resolve 12 months post-surgery for a life-mangling ruptured L3 disc" meets unblinking mr "i am Bular Mial; call my bluff at the foot of my 1,098m summit and i will grant you access to the peak of my many-eyed knoll, and a sense of self you thought you’d lost"

[Inspired by Bular Mial (Bluff Knoll)]

Minela Ibisevic

Letting Go

As the sunset at Two Rocks, I gazed in awe. The clouds were painted in fierce hues of red and orange, tinting the sea. They intertwined creating a magnificent, celestial tunnel.
‘You always loved a good sunset.’ Brad said.
‘Remember what you called me?’ He was silent.
‘I’ll never understand why you left me like that.’ The green in his hazel eyes glistened.
As he moved closer to the water, I noticed he had something in his hands.
‘ It’s time to let you go, my opacarophile.’
I watched my ashes dance into the celestial tunnel.
Peace at last.

[Inspired by Two Rocks Beach]

Molly Tipping

When the Gorges are Gorgeous

When sun shines low over campers drinking tea
and fingers of light creep down ashen walls
When the sun unfurls its commanding heat
and layers are sequentially pulled off
When Butterfly's erupt into plumes from the dust
and ancient beauty is bleached by the sun
When laughter and splashing, slipping and dipping
turn the gorge into a playground for all
When the sun falls west and the triumph of success
calls walkers to soak in the beauty
When gorge walls are painted across glassy pools
and balmy light makes picturesque every shot
When the sun burns out a tree-less horizon
and flames of amber chase docile clouds

[Inspired by Karaijini National Park]

Mona Farrokhi

That summer at our favourite place was where we got the best of him.

We’d run across the sandbar whenever it emerged at low tide, and when sea foam appeared, we’d pretend it was snow.

River swims. Sugar highs. Sliding on cardboard down sand dunes.

We found an abandoned dinghy on the river shore, and he used my gum to repair its hole.

Up the river bend he rowed until a turtle’s flapping signaled its distress.

He rowed closer and we watched him in admiration, cutting the line and freeing the turtle. Our hero saved the day!

He left when summer ended, and we never returned to our favourite place.
Bubblegum won’t fix this.

[Inspired by Moore River/Guilderton]

Natalie Leitao

Perth to Geraldton

In the flurry of final farewells to family and friends I’m distracted from the reality that my youngest is leaving home. Until I’m confronted by the suitcases. Two of them. Standing side-by-side and holding tightly within their bellies all the things Luke will need. And I look down at my belly, where I once held him. Safe. Protected. Within me. And I look at the six-foot something of the man he has now become and I know it is time to say “good-bye.” As he nestles in my embrace the truth falls from my lips, “I’m going to miss you.”

[Inspired by Geraldton]

Natalya Hawrylak

Road to Me

I am not city nor country. I don't know where I belong. Skyscrapers and concrete blemish Perth. Pigeons forage at my feet for crumbs of hope. Winds change. They beckon. I pack the car. Veins of bitumen carry me to Boranup Forest. I don't carve my name in trees like others. I am an outsider. Although the bark knows my name. Has done for years. My car pulses along Caves Road. Carrying me further along the coast. Gradually, my windows lower like our sunsets. I think I know me by now.

[Inspired by Caves Road. The drive from Perth to the South West]

Nicole Wilson-Rogers

Transformation

“Aliens” Sam squealed, threading one tiny arm around my leg like a corkscrew, the other pointing skyward towards the long metal skeletons of the turbines. Woosh their metal claws rotated, slicing the sky, drawing from the wind and injecting energy into the arteries of the town.
His eyes widened watching the perpetual orbit of the alien army from the lookout. Embraced by the shrubbery, they were staggered across the escarpment like chess pieces, counter positioned to the ferocity of the Great Southern.
Swish, their gentle roar.
“What’s that sound?” Sam asked.
I smiled. “Transformation.”

[Inspired by Albany Wind Farm]

Nicole Wilson-Rogers

Transformation

“Aliens” Sam squealed, threading one tiny arm around my leg like a corkscrew, the other pointing skyward towards the long metal skeletons of the turbines. Woosh their metal claws rotated, slicing the sky, drawing from the wind and injecting energy into the arteries of the town.
His eyes widened watching the perpetual orbit of the alien army from the lookout. Embraced by the shrubbery, they were staggered across the escarpment like chess pieces, counter positioned to the ferocity of the Great Southern.
Swish, their gentle roar.
“What’s that sound?” Sam asked.
I smiled. “Transformation.”

[Inspired by Albany Wind Farm]

Nikki Wilson-Smith

Synchronised fishing

A flock of pelicans circled overhead. One by one they landed on the lake. Gently paddling to form a loose circle towards its centre. Hypnotising.
I stopped and ran past. Ear pods and pace counters. Tracing a path in their minds and missing nature’s show.
One man stopped. It’s called synchronised fishing. He said. Answering a question I hadn’t asked.
I walked the pavilion and removed a list from my pocket. 20 things I would do after the surgery. 20 things that made me happy. And I crossed out the word walk and circled “Lake Monger” while the pelicans fished.

[Inspired by Lake Monger]

Pat Saunders

Albany Wind Farm

I brought her here for a reason. A surfer since she could swim, it had to be wind or waves. My irrational fear of sharks clinched it.

Towering sentinels stand guard. I lean in, towards her ear, for this must be a secret between us. Wooooomph… The impatient blade slices down.

My love is deep. My breathing shallow. Blood pumps in my ears – BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP – drowning metronomic turning turbines.

The air between us silent, still. My nervous lips part.

“ I…” Wooooomph. “…you.”

I held my breath.

She held my hand.

Her head tilts.

Her cheek kisses my lips.

[Inspired by Albany Wind Farm]

Pete Mitchell

The Ring

We’d go fishin’ every Sat’day. I’d catch enough to keep the kids from getting hungry for a day or even more.
The kids have all left home now. I’ll get a note from Laura or a postcard from the twins, maybe once or twice a year. We still go fishin’ these days and I’ve bought myself new gear.
I don’t know where she was comin’ from. I’d just cast out when she said she’d had enough and was chucking in it all. She cracked the shits and threw her wedding band right in. I s’pose I’ll be fishin’ solo now.

[Inspired by Ron Courtney Island]

Phillip William

Sibling Mountain

I’m a rock, this is my rock brother. A sedentary chore up front of the deep blue lake. Plump frog came by, brother says, ‘Watch where you hop… frog!’ Frogs don’t say much. Snake came by; we were scared lost for words.
‘I don’t love being a boring rock in this boring spot,’ I said.
‘Hear, hear,’ said brother.
We ripened in our sorrow. Young girl appeared; her big brother followed, lifting us to their chest.
‘We’re alive,’ we cried, raised high.
The siblings skipped us on the deep blue lake; what a ride, for my rock brother and I.

[Inspired by Karnup, Western Australia]

Pip Brennan

Taylor’s well

Before he died, some of us went to Taylor’s Well, Pingelly with Dad. He’d lived there in the 1930s, the first place he ever remembered. The house was gone but the unchanged bush, his true childhood home, embraced him with its scrubby scent and crunch of gravel.

With a bottle of milk and a slingshot the boys would head out all day, to catch rabbits for their lunch or for pelts to sell to the rag and bone man.

His memories clattered past before I could scoop them up, treasure them for later, for when he’d be gone.

[Inspired by Pingelly]

Rachael Jane Little

Intent

The water is always described as crystal, but you can’t see all the way through crystals. This water was completely transparent, but blue as a diamond. Maybe that’s why they called it crystal blue.
There wasn’t a rock in sight, only pristine white sand. Or it used to be pristine. The rubbish from the tourists was everywhere. Actually, it wasn’t only the tourists. I had seen a local in thongs and boardies simply miss the bin with his rubbish. He briefly thought about picking it up, but he merely walked away.
At least the intent had been there.

[Inspired by Mullaloo Beach]

Rachael Robertson

Leafy Sea-Dragon Adorning the Shores of the South West

Leafy Sea-Dragon. What a sight! Relative of seahorse though no twisty tail.

Named after mythical Chinese dragons in legends, alluring frilly appendages like tulle dancing in the sea.

Devilishly handsome, measuring 35cm.

Swimming is not their strength, they are, however, masters of disguise, elegantly camouflaged in seaweed. Chameleon of the sea.

No known predators. Phew.

Mouth like straw, though no teeth or stomach, they suck up shrimp, crustaceans, plankton, and larval fish.

Species under threat.

One mate for life. Female passes 250 eggs to male ready for incubation. After 6-8 weeks, the male gives birth to live young. Imagine that.

[Inspired by South West]

Rashida Murphy

Haphazardly put together

Like the sentinel Boab trucked in from the Kimberley to Mooro Katta, the bus driver is big bellied and small headed. His voice cuts in and out as he swings past roundabouts, pointing out views over the river, a statue, guardian trees and pavilion before waving us towards Aspects for an art experience. Inside, the kids fret, whip out phones, scroll takeaways, whisper in tongues, lean into each other, unmoored. I tap the Boab and ask him to take us home.

[Inspired by The Boab at Kings Park]

Ray Doyle

The Old Courthouse

Twas convict hands that built this place
With blood and sweat and stone
Their tortured bodies made it rise
For them it would be home

A place where Justice came to those
Who sought to break the rules
It stands today as history’s nod
To those delinquent fools

Lush verdant grounds surround it now
A short walk from the Swan
And tourists come to learn how Law
Was done in days long gone

Our State required a bigger Court
When this one closed its doors
It’s served us for a hundred years
And still supports the cause

[Inspired by Old Courthouse/Supreme Court of Appeal, Stirling Gardens, Perth]

Rebecca Higgie

The banksias and the bees

‘Go on, babe, flip off Old Vicky.’
I refuse but still follow. He breathes in the lemon air from the gumtrees and breathes out his confession.
‘I love you’, he tells me, ‘like the bees love the banksias.’
For months, we run. Through manicured native gardens. Through dry untended bush. We always pass her. Queen Victoria, that marble monarch. He gives his middle-finger salute, then winks at me.
The banksias. The bush.
Him.
The things I love were not brought by her.
So I flip off Old Vicky.
‘I love you,” I tell him, ‘like the banksias love the bees.’

[Inspired by Kings Park]

Richard Grant

Sunday Brunch

A lonely figure sat by the statue.
His wheelchair bathed in sunlight. Families relaxed on the benches having brunch while their children stormed the park, racing through the rows of flowers. The man recognised none of them, but their smiles were familiar. The clock above the statue rang eleven times and he turned his wheelchair towards the cafe on the corner of Rokeby Road. Waving goodbye to the statue he smiled at the sound of a familiar engine chugging to a stop. The laughter of his grandchild filled his heart as he rolled towards the cafe.

[Inspired by Subiaco Fallen Soldiers Memorial, Rankin Gardens. Subiaco]

Robin Bower

River shells

All day we dug. It must be big enough for a man, she said. The sand was white, but as we dug a greyness emerged, then black. The hole was deep now. We need shells for the bottom, she said. To trap that man, the one by the river. Picking through the topsoil, we found sharp, white pieces of shell and placed them down in the dark, their edges poking through the black sand. We gathered bamboo and small shrubs to hide the hole. It was subterfuge in the sand, a trap by night. Just like his, she said.

[Inspired by South Perth foreshore]

Rory Lefroy

Salt Town Waltz

Eyes to floorboards punctuated by stolen glances. Floor, look, floor. Floor, look, floor. Our first time at one of these things and everything is awkward. A tune cuts the stifling air. I look to her and for a moment it’s just us in the room. But also him. Even here he’s in the way. The music makes me want to dance with her, but I know she wouldn’t say yes. Couldn’t say yes while he’s here. I don’t know much, but I know you’re not meant to dance at these things. Maybe I’ll just say hello at the wake.

[Inspired by St Nicholas Anglican Church, Onlsow]

Rosanne Dingli

Taken Too Soon

Fists clenched in pockets, she stopped at the edge. The notice on the steps announced another beach closure. She wanted to be down there, toes nudging the lacy edges of the surf. ‘Thank you, City of Rockingham.’ Under her breath the words sounded grateful not angry. She was furious, but not at being held from her daily walk on the sand. No, it was Lewis. ‘How dare he … how dare he.’
Without turning, she knew someone watched. She raised a hand to wave them away.
‘Come, Cora. We’ve got to plan the funeral. Come on home.’
She nodded.

[Inspired by Safety Bay, City of Rockingham]

Rosanne Dingli

Taken Too Soon

Fists clenched in pockets, she stopped at the edge. The notice on the steps announced another beach closure. She wanted to be down there, toes nudging the lacy edges of the surf. ‘Thank you, City of Rockingham.’ Under her breath the words sounded grateful not angry. She was furious, but not at being held from her daily walk on the sand. No, it was Lewis. ‘How dare he … how dare he.’
Without turning, she knew someone watched. She raised a hand to wave them away.
‘Come, Cora. We’ve got to plan the funeral. Come on home.’
She nodded.

[Inspired by Safety Bay, City of Rockingham]

Rosemary Argue

The Reef

The car shudders over corrugations and ancient reefs until we reach the sea. We unpack and trek across the soft bleached sand where golden crabs scuttle into the aquamarine. After throwing on goggles, snorkels and flippers, we slip into the shallows.

The current tugs us along the coastline where I hover, watching fish, purple stars, giant clams and sea slugs in their coral home. Then, in the shallows I spy a long, thick indigo tail, all else concealed. I paddle away, afraid. On a second pass, the Wobbegong remains, fin ends rippling in the current.

Exhausted, elated, we rumble home.

[Inspired by Gnaraloo Bay]

Rosemary Argue

The Reef

The car shudders over corrugations and ancient reefs until we reach the sea. We unpack and trek across the soft bleached sand where golden crabs scuttle into the aquamarine. After throwing on goggles, snorkels and flippers, we slip into the shallows.

The current tugs us along the coastline where I hover, watching fish, purple stars, giant clams and sea slugs in their coral home. Then, in the shallows I spy a long, thick indigo tail, all else concealed. I paddle away, afraid. On a second pass, the Wobbegong remains, fin ends rippling in the current.

Exhausted, elated, we rumble home.

[Inspired by Gnaraloo Bay]

Ross Jackson

The Driver

Rain along the tracks. Crows lurking each station of the Armadale Line.
Whenever not seeing an unscheduled passenger on the rails, you were never quite fast enough applying brakes, pulling down the blind. The delay - ambulance to come first, then police with their chaplain, whatever could be done meantime to screen the corpse. You might pull the novel out of the bag but ‘Anna Karenina’ or ‘Shane’ was hard work.
Differences in your night school paintings. No portraits anymore; stilled lives with sudden tonal changes.
These not uncommon incidents which remained in wait for us.

[Inspired by The Armadale Rail Line]

Sabian Wilde

The Recurring Milestone

When I was younger, I’d distract myself from the decrepitude by trying to see bums peeking from hospital gowns. Looking at things to avoid seeing events.

As I got older, and the visits more personal, I’d joke with the staff to avoid saying, “I’m afraid”.

Now I walk past St Mary’s Cathedral to the Royal Perth cardiac ward, past the amputees and grey-skinned people, smoking cigarettes like motorcyclists popping wheelies while overtaking ambulances.

I see the events now. I say I’m afraid.

But I didn’t bring my cigarettes to this appointment.

It is a small lie about self-respect.

[Inspired by Royal Perth Hospital]

Sabian Wilde

The Recurring Milestone

When I was younger, I’d distract myself from the decrepitude by trying to see bums peeking from hospital gowns. Looking at things to avoid seeing events.

As I got older, and the visits more personal, I’d joke with the staff to avoid saying, “I’m afraid”.

Now I walk past St Mary’s Cathedral to the Royal Perth cardiac ward, past the amputees and grey-skinned people, smoking cigarettes like motorcyclists popping wheelies while overtaking ambulances.

I see the events now. I say I’m afraid.

But I didn’t bring my cigarettes to this appointment.

It is a small lie about self-respect.

[Inspired by Royal Perth Hospital]

Sarah Leighton

Family Holiday in the 1960s

We kneel on the back seat of the station wagon, stare out the dusty window.

Our mother stands resolute, holding on to her big floppy hat, handbag clutched tight, dodging gravel stones that flick up from our accelerating car.

The road, infinite corrugations of billowing red dust, swallows her as we leave.

Dad, face like the heavy grey clouds looming overhead, sucks hard on his cigarette.

We scream “Go back!”

Our guts in knots.

Ravens grazing roadkill hop then fly, disturbed. Watch from low branches of dusky eucalypts.

We beg, yell, beg some more. He heads back.

She’s not there.

[Inspired by Gravel road through southwest forest]

Scott-Patrick Mitchell

When Did My Life Suddenly Become A Movie?

I am standing in Rabble, looking at the poetry books on the rotating bookshelf when he appears. Him: slightly taller, with long blonde hair like marri blossoms in sunlight.

“Any recommendations?”

I laugh, pick up The Bruised Universe, hand it to him.

“I’ve heard good things about this,” he says, voice like gravel. “Very tender.”

“Thanks,” I grin. “I wrote it.”

He smiles wickedly. “You should read this then.”

He hands me Inflorescence, cover resplendent with lilies arranged to form a male body.

“Yours?”

“Mine”

“We should autograph each other’s book…”

“And grab a coffee?”

“And grab a coffee.”

[Inspired by Rabble Books & Games, Maylands]

Serena Reese

Reflections

Years had passed since they had been back to the lake, the place where they had once fallen head over heels. But as they drove up the hill, hand in hand, it was as if time had stood still. Memories flooded back to them both, of lazy afternoons on the jetty and late nights by the campfire. As the sky darkened and they entered the gates, they felt the same love they had always felt for each other. They knew that no matter where life took them, they would always be drawn back to the place where it all began.

[Inspired by Lake Leschenaultia, Chidlow]

Shannon Brie

Morning Stroll

A howling wind tries to wrest my coat. I clutch it tighter, my arthritic hands screaming in protest and swollen cheek stinging from yesterday’s elbow.

He scolds me for the tenth time today. I am talking too much. Deliberately. In his annoyance, he does not notice the ‘Danger – Temporarily Closed’ sign.

Nearly there. We’ve never been to this part of Yallingup before. Fortunately, since retirement, he pays no attention to the news.

I trail behind, firm-footed.

When the Herculean ocean rises and knocks my husband off the rocks, I turn away, warmed by the sunlight now cracking through stormy clouds.

[Inspired by Canal Rocks, Yallingup]

Shannon Meyerkort

Where the Koonacs Play

Delia Owens stole my line.

The car is hot, an old cloth nappy flapping in the window.

‘We’re almost there,’ Mum says. Passes me a polony and sauce sandwich.

She’s been saying that since Dongara, half an hour down the road.

I’m waiting for the trees that grow horizontal to the ground, brought low by salt air and fierce winds. Delia’s ‘trees so bent they wore the shape of the wind’ were in the swampy marshes of North Carolina, but when I see them on the dry windswept plain of Greenough…

…then we will be almost there.

[Inspired by Greenough]

Shannon Meyerkort

Where the Koonacs Play

Delia Owens stole my line.

The car is hot, an old cloth nappy flapping in the window.

‘We’re almost there,’ Mum says. Passes me a polony and sauce sandwich.

She’s been saying that since Dongara, half an hour down the road.

I’m waiting for the trees that grow horizontal to the ground, brought low by salt air and fierce winds. Delia’s ‘trees so bent they wore the shape of the wind’ were in the swampy marshes of North Carolina, but when I see them on the dry windswept plain of Greenough…

…then we will be almost there.

[Inspired by Greenough]

Sharon Kennedy

The Old Dray

Slowly sagging, rusting into the lumpen gravel soil. Vainly resisting the roughening and chiselling wind.
Life chirps on around the old dray, oblivious.
Echoes of stamping horses, shouts and curses have long since faded.
Gum trees watching, spreading protective branches.
Spectators to the inevitable.

[Inspired by New Norcia]

Sharron Hough

On the Road to Mullewa

Mid-West miles in silence, save the wind through heads of wheat. The distance is insignificant to the gap between our seats. I scour the golden landscape for one bright flash of hope, but the wildflower season has ended early this year. Disney plays ad nauseam on the CD player. Shrill and exaggerated cheeriness, a macabre backing track to the broken and bloody, left to bloat and burst in the sun. We should have got the windows tinted. Time to turn me around. I’m done.

[Inspired by Mullewa]

Shelley Timms

Seat 7A

The plane tilted gently to the left, bringing into view the expanse of the Esperance coastline.
Kilometres of white sand—scientifically proven to be some of the whitest in the world—cut
between the shimmering turquoise of the ocean and the deep green bushland. White caps rolled lazily across the water’s surface, broken only by the jagged rocks sharp as shark’s teeth along the isolated shores.

As we turned towards the airport, the view changed and every so often a farmhouse would come into view, a tiny white dot of a ute like a full stop on the red-dirt driveway. Home.

[Inspired by Esperance]

Sophie McGeough

Scarecrows

They were planted along the main road of Balingup, draped in their creator’s old clothes. I remember their faces detailed with markers and bellies stuffed with straw. I had laughed as we drove by, their features and limbs appearing too animated to induce fear. But I also remember the one we made in my grandparents’ backyard. It waved to me through the window as I tried to get to sleep.

[Inspired by Balingup]

Susan Braghieri

But Now I See

Bagpipes invade the daybreak quiet luring her across the road to Whitfords Nodes. Wintry open-mouthed waves assault the shore. Rotting seaweed, an overpowering stench.

Amazing Grace emanates from a windswept sand dune peppered with scrabbly coastal heath. Fiona ignores the fencing, dugite warnings. Feet dig in for the steep ascent. Muscles burning. Breath, laboured. The musical conversation ends as she reaches the summit. Eyes frantically search. A flash of tartan disappears. She collapses on the sand, weeping.

Every year, her father plays her mother’s farewell song. He never stays to confront a daughter’s accusations, to acknowledge his own guilt.

[Inspired by Whitfords Nodes Park - before the health hub was installed]

Tahnee Clarke

The Family Bones

I was digging up the family bones outside Old York Hospital when a soldier tapped me on the shoulder. I knew him from passed-down photos. He looked like me.

“I stabbed a man here, in front of these stained red bricks. I would’ve killed everyone in this godforsaken town for your grandmother.” His accent was a world’s difference.

We don’t regret the blood spilt in these haunted streets, or how we ran from them. We’ve long vacated the dry dirt and rotted ghosts. They buried my grandfather far away from here.

That derelict hospital never needed to take us alive.

[Inspired by Old York Hospital]

Tegan Huntley

To the Islands

The waves are as hard and grey and wild as the granite hugging King George Sound. Not a good day for boating, but you insisted.
Michaelmas and Breaksea Islands loom ahead, the swell groaning beneath us like a warning.
We don’t turn back.
Behind us lies the jetty we jumped off, the pontoon we swam to, the cove where I couldn’t say I love you.
Have we sailed far enough? I wish I knew. I wish a lot of things.
I cut the engine, reach for you. My words catch on the wind with the ash I throw like confetti.

[Inspired by King George Sound]

Tegan Huntley

To the Islands

The waves are as hard and grey and wild as the granite hugging King George Sound. Not a good day for boating, but you insisted.
Michaelmas and Breaksea Islands loom ahead, the swell groaning beneath us like a warning.
We don’t turn back.
Behind us lies the jetty we jumped off, the pontoon we swam to, the cove where I couldn’t say I love you.
Have we sailed far enough? I wish I knew. I wish a lot of things.
I cut the engine, reach for you. My words catch on the wind with the ash I throw like confetti.

[Inspired by King George Sound]

Tess Allen

Worlds Away

Overlooking the darkening landscape, I sit. The chair’s creak sounding as tired as I feel. Citronella wafts gently around me as I reach for a blanket. Shiraz in hand, I lose myself in the panorama. Here, above the Swan Coastal Plain, the expansive sky contrasts against the silhouette of the city. The blanket of suburbia lays before me.
It’s the reason I’m here. My escape. Feeling worlds away. The black cockatoos make sleepy calls as invisible cicadas tick nearby. Tomorrow, I’ll return to normality. But, for now, I curl my weary legs under the blanket and cherish this scarce solitude.

[Inspired by Swan View/Darling Escarpment]

Thomas O'Reilly

Crays

We sit atop a rolling blue field, constantly in motion. As day melts to dusk, the sea breeze gives up its daily labour. Mum, seizing the steadier moment, chops vegetables on the stowaway table. Her lazy knife strokes evoke a calmness lacking in our mainland kitchen, where dinner is a step in a routine that demands completion. As if summoned, Dad tumbles from dinghy to deck, brandishing a snapper on three roughened fingertips. “Get the barbie on!”

The happy racket from chalets along Rottnest’s shore soundtracks while we eat together, wedged in nooks like crays in the reef below.

[Inspired by Rottnest]

Ying Xiong (David) GOH

Palimpsest

Time is a landscape composed of billions upon billions of memories.
As each life comes into existence, it leaves a unique imprint on the universal fabric;
And with every death, another layer of the cosmic tapestry will have been laid.
The autumnal leaves at Karrakatta welcome the departed with arms of sunset orange and melancholic emerald.
A hearse drawn by hundreds of horses arrives at the cemetery gates.
The galloping of the horses is heard faintly as the mechanical creature exhales.
With each step in the procession, echoes of the past reverberate through to the present.

Ab origine, ad finem.*

* From the beginning, to the end.

[Inspired by Karrakatta Cemetery]