Primary Winner 2nd Place

Cosmic Home By Theo Chi Ting Chan

Far beyond the stars so bright,
A lonely planet hides from light.
Neptune shimmers ocean-blue,
Holding storms like secrets too.

Vast tempests whirl in restless flight,
Painting darkness into night.
Thunder stirs the silent deep,
Waking dreams the winds still keep.

Saturn glows in golden rings,
A quiet song the cosmos sings.
Ice-dust glitters round its crown,
Falling softly, drifting down.

The Milky Way, a silver thread,
Sewn through skies where wishes spread.
In its heart, where shadows rise,
Light bends fate beneath its guise.

Stars and gas in swirling grace,
Etch their journeys into space.
Hope is written in their spark,
A whispered promise in the dark.

Stars awake with trembling fire,
Reaching out like soft desire.
A constellation shaped as love,
Guiding wanderers from above.
The Moon glows calm with watchful eyes,
Cradling Earth through velvet skies.
Its beams fall gentle, soft and mild,
A lullaby to every child.

The Sun, a fierce and faithful flame,
Calls each planet by its name.
Through storms and dust, its steady light
Holds their orbits close and tight.

Asteroids drift through endless night,
Shadows threading silver flight.
They tumble through the starry skies,
A cosmic dance to mesmerise.

Earth, our blue and living sphere,
Waves beat like hearts that sing here.
From mountain peaks to oceans wide,
Life stretches, dances with the tide.

Though stars may stretch the universe,
And distant worlds seem far, dispersed,
Love binds us all, we are never alone;
With care and heart, we share one home,
A truth that glows in everyone, across all space, we live as one.

Secondary Highly Commended

Meteor Soup By Muskan Kumari

Grandma stirred a pot that smelled like night,
she waved the spoon and stars fell in.
The kettle popped with comet-light,
and steam wrote maps above the bin.
We sipped the soup and found a thyme,
and tasted planets shaped like pear.
A cracker sailed like skipping rhyme,
and pepper planets danced in air.
The tablecloth became a galaxy,
and forks turned into little moons.
My brother slurped a rocket-boot,
and burped the sound of summer tunes.
A meteor slid between our chairs,
it clinked like china, soft and bright.
We fished it up with careful stares,
and toasted marshmallows by its light.
The dog sat sober, watching steam,
as stars sank slow in saucer rings.
We wrapped our spoons around a dream,
and tied our hungry hopes with string.
"Take some sky for your backpack," Gran said,
"and keep your wishes warm inside."
She sealed the pot with flour-dust hand,
and set it on the sill so wide.
Night folded up the kitchen-cold,
we carried bowls with lamp-light glow.
Each slurp put tiny courage bold,
and left a sparkle on my toe.
We folded the recipe into our map.

The Gravity of Washing Up By Zachary Andrade

The plate falls from my fingers and swirls once in the skin of the water—a small white moon with a sea of gravy.
The tap sings its endless orbit.
My son is upstairs, telling the story of his Lego planets stretched throughout the galaxies on the carpet threads.
I listen for the crash that signals creation.
Outside, the bin men amble past—the hiss of their lorry provides the sounds of comet dust.
And the world goes on spinning, even though the milk has spoiled again.
Each mug becomes layered with time—each the rings of our mornings—the half forgotten spoons too.
This kitchen is my universe—toaster nebula, kettle star, cupboard dark with constellations of spice.
I know it by feel, not sight.
"Mum, look!" he calls, and I almost drop a sun.
His voice will draw me, always the tide that will never retreat.
Some nights, when he sleeps, I will stand here,
the water cooling again into a mirror,
and both of our faces hold still and drift—his face, smaller, rising,
mine, ringed in steam, and more years.
The refrigerator hums the rhythm,
the slow tick of the living.
What keeps is not vastness,
but light on water that pulls,
the orbit of care— repeat, rinse, repeat.
Tomorrow, I’ll wake him,
pull back the curtains,
let morning flood the floor.
My universe will whirl,
small hands reaching for
toast for stars, for me—
still here, still spinning,
steady in the sink's bright rim.

Secondary Winner 1st Place

The Beanstalk Between Us (inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk) By Randev Schonfeld

He started with little
Just dirt, dust, and quiet determination
No castle, no treasure
Only calloused hands
And a dream too big for his pockets -
But dreams are like seeds
They don’t look like much at first
-
I picture him younger
Not yet the man I know
But the boy who planted hope
Where others saw nothing
-
He sits beside the one who raised him
A ball balanced on his shoulder
His hoodie zipped
And wonders how high he’ll climb
-
He climbed quietly
Step by step
Never waiting for giants to move
Just finding ways around them
-
I see myself in his eyes
The same spark
The same belief that more is always possible
He doesn’t talk much about the climb
But I feel it
In the steadiness of his hand
In the way he watches the sky
-
I used to think he was already at the top
Now I know
He built the beanstalk
So I could go even higher
-
And every dream I chase
Is a leaf he helped grow
-
We both started small
But now, I carry his story
Like seeds in my pocket
Waiting
For the right time
To plant my own

Adult Bronze Prize Winner

The Dragon of Snow Hill by Roy Kibbler

1955
I am 6 and I'm going to see my Nan
she lives in Pennylan Lane, Oswestry
where everyone seems to know her name
sucking in breath as they say it
and although she frightens me
I know that as long as I smile and am polite
I will be released soon enough
and then my adventures can begin
fighting five foot high thistles
with a wooden sword in Messa Land
swimming as near as I dare
to the whirlpool in Ponduncan
creeping through Candy Woods
where the tramp, who eats pigeons raw, lives
but for now
I am at Birmingham Snow Hill Station
with the toes of my polished shoes
just touching the white painted warning strip
on the edge of the platform – any closer
and trains will suck you under their wheels
I am glancing nervously at the mouth
of the impenetrably black tunnel
when the lines start to sing
in a sweet high whine
a sudden chill stilling the air
and everything begins trembling
smoke and steam belching
before with an all-consuming roar and an acrid stink
a green-liveried “King” locomotive
a snorting mechanical dragon
bursts out of the cloud and bears down on me
my father gently encloses my hand in his
as if sharing his understanding
of what it is to be a young boy
excited, afraid
trying hard to be brave
 

Adult Gold Prize Winner

Sestina by Maella Cottin

The sea wears a string of bobbing pearls.
I swim in the crook of its collarbone
(so white it's blue), dotting the i
of my own shadow.
My head threads the crying waves, sewing
shut their blossoming mouths.

Scattered across the surface like blossom, mouths
tossed back, are seagulls. Grey pearls
roll down their gaping faces, sowing
salt into the water. A pool of it settles in my collarbone
as I lie back. I am a floating rock pool, casting a long shadow
onto the ocean floor, an undulating I.

The moon soon reflects an i
over the bay. The hungry horizon opens its mouth
like a splitting seam, sucking the sun into its shadow,
sucking the sea out from under me, leaving behind a pearly
white line of scum like a collarbone,
the pockmarked sand left scarred, unsewn.

In the morning a tractor will appear on that hill there, sowing
yesterday's seagulls behind it as it traces Is
into the tilled soil. The glowing crescent of the sun’s collarbone
will burst over the clouds and swallow them whole in its fiery mouth.
Its white fingers will polish the cliffs to a milky shade of pearl,
swiping at stubborn shadows.

But now, those cliffs are one terrible shadow
looming over a hollow ocean, sowing
silence into the throats of gulls like a black pearl
rolling off the unspotted i
of the reflected moon. My tongue is a stone in my mouth,
the only sound an insistent beating below my collarbone.

In this unbearable darkness, stretched across the harbour's collarbone,
buoys flicker bravely between sheets of liquid shadow
like so many white teeth in a smiling mouth.
They are little balloons of love, sewn
into the ocean, dotting the i
of their own bodies. The whole world cradles me like an oyster’s pearl.

The black mouth of this ocean is not so far from its collarbone.
They share the same salty pearls and winged shadows,
sown by gulls, and moons, and I.