Our 2011 ICOMS Asset Management Conference poetry competition challenged delegates to create a poem that included the following words:

• Crashing
• Majestic
• Foaming
• Blue
• Drowning
• Motion
• Urchin
• Powerful
• Energy
• Ongoing

Jamie Ferguson from Transfield Services wrote the winning poem. Other submitted poems include:

Asset Dreaming

Share price crashing down
Owners foaming at the mouth
Market Analysts made a blue
Maintenance drowning in breakdowns
Capital program hiding urchins
Business needs powerful plan
Asset Management create forward motion
Life Cycle thinking so majestic
Sustainable solutions they’re ongoing
Great teamwork gives energy

Steve Bequist, Fluor Australia

The crashing waves, blue and powerful;
Majestic and ongoing, vast with its energy;
Urchin caught up in the foaming drowning motion;
Without limits without end – the sea is forever.

Claude Dametto, Lockhead Martin

The Ocean in our Lives

The ocean constantly in motion
Crashing foaming ongoing
Matching our lives sometimes
When we feel like we are drowning
We need to visit the ocean
To take in the calm blue sea
To look at the urchins basking
In the rock pools above the blue
And take from this renewed energy
The feeling of being powerful
To start our lives anew

Bob Guy, Parsons Brinckerhoff

From Rags to Riches

Rangi, a street urchin, out of luck
Drowning in debt, needing a buck
Went to sea, deep and blue
Full of energy, lots to do
Sea’s rolling motion, makes one beg
For a powerful stomach, to gain sea legs
Crashing waves, on the bow pound
Foaming water, all around
Majestic ship, strongly made
Provides ongoing wealth, bills are paid

Murray Wall, Infigen Energy

A Surfers Poem

With a surge of energy
The majestic blue waves
Came crashing down over me
With a powerful thrust
The motion failed to release me
The foaming ocean won its battle
And claimed me as I was drowning
Until a spiny urchin’s painful sting
Awoke me from my slumber
To bring me back to the ongoing grind of reality

Yvette Lavazania

The water lies peacefully, its blue hue’s glistening
Barely detectable motion, approaching the majestic dam
Gently foaming at the headgate
Crashing turbulence in tail race
Energy flowing away – tall giants tied together 

The water on its journey to the ocean
Children playing unaware of its powerful forces
A thrashing body fights drowning
Urchins scatter from the disturbance
Clam returns to the waters ongoing cycle

Peter Litchfield, Mighty River Power

The Nantucket Committee

The AMC branch in Nantucket
A blue urchin they kept in a bucket
The committee was frowning
With it foaming and drowning
If an oyster, one motion would shuck it.

But majestic committees do need
Powerful ongoing energy freed
There’s no need for bashing
And arguments crashing
So eager in knowledge they feed.

Andrew Morgan, Oyster Consulting

An Urchin’s Dilemma

An urchin with assets unbounding
Was frothing and foaming and frowning
The equipment kept crashing
Blue lights won’t stop flashing
What to do just to stop him from drowning?

With low energy causing the mess
And majestic ideas to address
He would put into motion
The powerful notion
Of ongoing joy and success

Andrew Morgan, Oyster Consulting