To Be English

[cidermaid]

Your poem has really caught my attention and i wanted to try and offer some feedback for you. The tone seams to one of alternating depression and contempt which sort of oozes out in an apathetic dribble through the words....which i think is very apt for the subject and story of the poem. For me it is a sad poem made typically British with self depreciation.

I was not really sure why you had included the quote though. i did not add anything to the read for me.

"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, I like what I think you are trying to say here but not sure what image "Empire" sums up, i get an emotion of percieved greatness or reach of power, but if feels a bit vuage. This said I think it is worthy and should be kept
or the depressed brown grass that remains
when a castle has been torn down. I really liked this image and it forms a strong picture of derraliction where once there was power and infulence and compined with Empire above think this makes for a very good opening.

Our lords and ladies, Lords N Ladies has a double image of English nature and historic peerage and works on both levels for me. As it enhances the picture of the above castle / seat now taken over by nature
once kept from public view like sacred relics
meant to be admired but nothing else,
are flashing their artifacts at us, for a price,
in a shallow attempt at faux-siblinghood. ? siblinghood as a word choice but no alternatives to offer.
They are one with their suits of armour,
their coats of arms, their history of oppression, Not my strong point to comment on punctuation but would it read better with a semi-colon after arms instead of a comma?
crumbling beneath them
as sand through a baby's fist. Made me think of a crumbling sand castle, but I agree with wildcard about turning this into an image of an old hand.

Lady Sue and Lord Reggie are opening their doors
to the unwashed multitudes, revealing their relics at last These two lines made me smile, nice
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
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. I like how you build the layers of emotion and disparaging tone through the poem

With each dying spasm comes an ascendance,
a paving with our lordship's bones The lead in form this line to the next feels odd. ? the use of: "the path towards"
the path towards enlightenment,
where the worthless - race, gender, "Britishness" - Did not feel that gender was needed
is replaced by what marries us all: the impermanent soul,
and death, that truly united kingdom.

Overall i really like this one and think you have aptly expressed a common missgiving and thought in this nation.