To Be English

[Wildcard]

"I've got it now. I have to say - just look at these bloody rocks - "This a good place," and everyone laughs till the tears come." - Graham Greene, The Comedians

To be English is to be the shadow of an Empire, --maybe it is the avatar, but I get all Star Wars here-- for me it is a good thing because of the connection
or the depressed brown grass that remains
when a castle has been torn down. --Heh? When I think of an abandoned castle, I think of trumpet vines taking it over.

Our lords and ladies,
once kept from public view like sacred relics
meant to be admired but nothing else,
are flashing their artifacts at us, for a price, --ahh the double entendre, nicely done
in a shallow attempt at faux-siblinghood.
They are one with their suits of armour,
their coats of arms, their history of oppression,
crumbling beneath them
as sand through a baby's fist. --why a baby? If weakness is what you see, I'd suggest an old and feeble hand to drive the wilted/faded/crumbling mechanism

Lady Sue and Lord Reggie are opening their doors
to the unwashed multitudes, revealing their relics at last
to us peasants, us cretins, with our cameras
and fashionable shirts.

The slow death of the aristocracy,
who bathed their whores in Ireland's blood
and clothed them with its skin,
is a great comedy at which I guffaw -- next three lines are my favortie
into my £2 ice cream,
while clutching a program
covered by their mopey faces.

The royals remain, beneath a pretence of "tourism",
courting grubby dollars and Euros
like the streetwalkers they've become.

With each dying spasm comes an ascendance,
a paving with our lordship's bones
the path towards enlightenment,
where the worthless - race, gender, "Britishness" -
is replaced by what marries us all: the impermanent soul,
and death, that truly united kingdom.

I had little to add, but this caught my attention.

There are a lot of wise phrasings and beautiful language used here, but it felt more like a commentary done by a poet than a poem-- hope that doesn't sound insulting.

>< Thanks for sharing and feel free to ignore me.