First Prize:
Benefiting the Publick Pocket​
​
There is no more melancholly Object
than that of the Manufacturer of Bombs
& Bastinadoes during a Time of Peace.
For how is this estimable Worthy
to feed himself when his Emoluments
are precipitately diminished?
It is, therefore, an incontrovertible Principle
that this enterprising Briton must be ever
alert to the Casus Belli. There being no Lack
of such in the Levant, it is entirely in Accordance
with Charitable Precepts that Bombs & Bastinadoes
be dropped from a great Height upon the malignant
Philistine, notwithstanding that it is admitted
on all Sides that such a Proceeding is wholly
devoid of Purpose & may do sterling Service
as a Kind of Recruiting Officer to the Enemy
whose desire for Revenge is thus inflamed.
Yet it is wholly desirable, for doth it not afford
Grounds upon which the Manufactury is called
to produce and sell yet more Noxious Weapons,
thus benefiting the Publick Pocket? This, I say,
improves the State of this proud Nation’s Health
& Education & is used to prevent the Encroachment
upon these Shores by ill-disposed foreign Persons.
It is not to be thought that when those Weapons
which we have willingly supplied are used
for more nefarious and less easily justifiable Ends,
viz. the bloody Extirpation of newborn Babes,
& the deliberate Imposition of Murrain and Plague,
that we forbid their Sale. Quite the contrary.
​
Josh Ekroy
Second Prize:
The Mortgage​
The woman that my sister killed,
rolling her car in a blink of fatigue,
follows her through every room,
turns up to all the same events,
callow as last year’s clothes, faded
as an old unfavoured fashion.
She laughs when my sister laughs,
a little late as though the joke
had taken time to reach the place
where she is now. My sister
never speaks her name, or
introduces the woman at her side
and I don’t think they’d ever met
except that time the metal screamed,
the lights collapsed into one spot,
but nevertheless, she’s always there,
one step back, one breath less,
auditing the files of my sister’s life,
the last guest to ever leave, though
she’ll never leave my sister’s house,
empty as unbidden thoughts, and we
have never heard her speak, though
sometimes my sister cocks her head
as though she had, but never sound,
until the day my sister dies, when
the woman that my sister killed
will walk to the lectern, past the priest
and she will tell the strangest truths.
​
Damen O'Brien
Third Prize
​
The Month-by-Month Guide to the Allotment Book
To Jane with love & thanks
In this difficult year
I bake you fish with ordinary potatoes,
which are some comfort.
But observe on page 12
of The Month-by-Month Guide (section: unusual crops)
which you gave me today,
in a future year,
our potatoes can be
pink, red, purple even daringly black,
and if I chose to add carrots to our Sunday dish
they could flourish
red, white or yellow;
then if come Summer
I make you a salad,
it could glow with golden beetroot,
purple-podded peas,
shape-redefining
round yellow cucumbers,
and wonder of wonders –
though you claim not to believe -
rainbow-striped aubergines.
Robert Seatter
