Loud Thoughts at the Prince Albert Memorial

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w1LkfgE0qA

 

Loud Thoughts at the Prince Albert Memorial

 

It’s always an awkward moment:

some enthusiast at a game

I cannot fathom waves

a Union Jack. I think of

Amritsar, the Irish Famine,

concentration camps filled

with twenty-seven-thousand

Boers, and English boys

lining up for bayonets

and the Somme.

 

And there you are, plinthed

and magnificent, surmounted

by pinnacles of gold, as camels

– symbolising Africa –

endure the English weather,

Asian elephants prostrate

themselves under nubile

topless wenches, a bison

bows his head beside

the Noble Savage, as though

Buffalo Bill was never born,

and Europa does her best

although it’s all a load of bull.

 

And still you gaze across the fug

of London, your eyes ablaze

with zeal for British industry,

British religion, British disease,

bearing dutifully the White Man’s

Burden, and doing it all

so beautifully. Times haven’t

changed. They’re still doing

a roaring trade in

Union Jacks. Look:

 

can you see the Crystal

Palace burning

down?

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2012.

 

More pictures below.

Done