The Prole Laureate Poetry Competition, 2018

Prize

Winner: £200, Publication in Prole 25 in April 2018.

Publication on the Prole website

2 x runner up prizes of £50, publication in Prole 25.

Publication on the Prole website

Judge

All entries will be read by judge, Kate Garrett whose latest pamphlet You’ve never seen a doomsday like it, was released by Indigo Dreams Publishing in July 2017, and her next pamphlet, Losing interest in the sound of petrichor, will be published by The Black Light Engine Room Press in early 2018. She is currently writing the sequel to Deadly, Delicate, as well as her first full collection of history and horror poems.

Time scale

Entries from August 1st 2017 to January 31st 2018.

Winners will be announced in issue 25 of Prole in April 2018 and on our website by April 20th 2018.

All work must be the original work…

Sunrise on Midsummer Morning
 
A full moon falling, the sky lit
with last night’s charred and crumbling embers

across the field, thin spills of misty light

visiting spirits haunt the hedges
or try a cry in the canal’s bandaged ear

dung reeks and steams, a horse’s hoof strikes home

and out of the trees the great bird rises
wings spread and beating the sky into flame

and the great egg of the world is hatched

with an outflung shout and tumble of voices
many and many, song of all songs.

*

Later on oak’s shoulder
an owl puts on a mask of light

and the big mothers with their babies
stand among thistles and stare.

David Calcutt is a playwright, poet and novelist. He is the author of four novels and three collections of poetry. His plays have appeared in the theatre and on BBC radio. He lives in…

watercolor 6/2017

In Japanese mythology, a fox who lives long enough and gains a great deal of knowledge will reach an enlightened state, the Eastern sense of the ‘fox spirit’. 

I was exploring the spirit of the fox via google and discovered this song in which fox is presented as a kitsune or fox who is trying to reach heaven in the form of a shooting star. 

“To you my beloved to the land that lies beyond. Soaring through the heavens, she is moved to tears. I will fly out, I will dance in the night sky at the moment when this body disappears.”

So that’s what a shooting star is……. the Celestial Fox flying through the night sky.

purchase this painting

when disbelief is as plentiful as grass,
when abstract nouns are emergency rations
and love and integrity are pilots on enemy soil,
hidden in safe-houses, with doorposts
marked by the blood of the lamb,
while all of hell’s angels roar down the bypass.
Now, the prophets are out of a job,
we are homeless and stand on a new ground zero.
It is time to predict even a present, let alone a future, without us.
It is time to do more than bury ourselves in landfill,
time to commit acts of love, without measure or return.

(To the tune of “buddy can you spare a dime”)

Once there was a tower
I called home
Washing pegged out on the line
Once there was a tower
Now it’s gone
Smelly old me all the time

Given her a facelift
Poor old soul
Given her a brand new tone
Given her a facelift
On the cheap
Better they had left her alone

Often of an evening
Watched the planes
Following one by one
Carrying the wealthy
Slow as slugs
Into the setting sun

Once I had a family
All I had
Quarrels and laughter and love
Once I had a family
Now they’re gone
Mister, can you give me a shove?

---

June 15, 2017

The environmental  challenges are complex, an understatement I know.

• Big Ag pollutes our waterways and groundwater, air and soil. Some wetlands, rivers and their tributaries can no longer sustain life. Much pastureland is befouled with pesticides, animal waste, phosphates and nitrates and other toxic residue from unsustainable farming practices.
• Sudan Relief Fund, World Food Program, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Fund, Buddhist Global Relief, the World Food Program and many other organizations are working to mitigate widespread  hunger, which is a problem of economic injustice as well as environmental degradation and environmental injustice.
• Drought and resulting famine are devastating the Sudan, the West Upper Nile and Yemen.
• In many areas of the world, access to potable water is sorely lacking.
• Lack of access to clean water is exacerbated by a want of toilets for some 4.2 billion people, which has a  huge impact on public health.  The result of…