Congratulations to the winners of the New Zealand Poetry Society Winter Instagram Poetry Competition for 2017:

Baraa Hamandi (@baraahamandi) – Winner

Ti Point
I came back to the place you love,
and just so you know,
that graveyard of abandoned cars,
that’s still there. ~
Yes love, that’s still there. ~
In the shadow,
of that token Myrtle;
Tawhaki’s blood,
now it’s ancient crust;
stands the burdened wharf;
an aeonian pair.
Each rooted; to have and to hold;
her earth; his water.
Mute testaments to decay. ~
That’s all still there, honey. ~
Where that carcass lies,
crucified for its pedigree lines.
Whose eyes pant,
for a forgiving past.
Whose marrow lactates,
a tidal blood,
quenching the wood
with it’s flood.
Leaving behind a guilty stench,
in our inhale. ~
Baby, that is all still there. ~
And so, I walk back down the aisle,
to the shadow you love.
A ghost, amongst ghosts;
between two lands.
And I cry out mute attempts,
to force substance
to our shadow.
But the undercurrent pulls,
a void between us. ~
And so it is;
lovers, unloved.
Just so you know,
we are no longer there,
in the place you love.

Niamh Hollis-Locke (@_tea.and.biscuits_) – Runner Up

Christchurch II
I cut myself on the broken edges of this city;
the long-necked cranes and
tortured spires, which rend
the steely sky
assunder, draw down
dusk over the parched-pale hills.
Toppled forms of Sheppard,
Shackleton,
list, like dusty drunkards,
from their plinths
by the silt-strangled Avon.
I sit above the city,
fading out into the gloaming, while the
Sea-spray, salt-bitter as tears, sinks
clammy fingers into rotting plasterboard, drawing
the blank faced houses of Beachville
inexorably into the swell.