Note (19 May 2016): This poem was written in rugged ottava rima which I have come to think of as too rugged. Hence I have revised the poem for greater smoothness, and quietly amended it in situ.
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Bronze
statues glowing under London rain
Declare,
forlorn, a bankrupt history:
Nelson
and Cunningham who held the main,
Napier
and Havelock seizing victory,
Are
swamped in Nelson’s square beneath the vain
Roarings
of Muslim demagoguery.
Disdained
is public beauty, Roman, Greek –
The
fourth plinth occupied by a crop-haired freak.
Pinioned
before a screaming crowd a scold
Is
ducked, her tongue strapped by an iron bit;
Of
country stock, like seasoned oak, she told
Unnerving
truth, shared in the ancient writ
Of
peoplehood, now banished behind the fold
Of
a hand in taverns. Magistrates sit
In
well-soaped watchfulness; their rolled-up laws
Poised
to curb honesty like a grim monk’s tawse.
Borders
create cultures – a steepled range,
A
sweeping river or the jagged sea –
All
nurture smoky camps which swell to grange,
Then town
and city, time-bedecked, whose glory
Is
marble, and where golden towers arrange
The
twilight sky. But should a foreign bee
Seduce
the hive, feud engulfs the honeycomb:
Polis,
comity, art come tumbling down.
Art
is corralled – a gleaming stallion
Gone
broken-winded in a muddy field;
Its
maker’s brio that of a scullion
Scouring
pots: Hockney’s colours all congealed
Like
Barbie make up; Hirst enjewelling bullion
For hedge-fund men; and Emin loath to wield
A
pencil but Professor nonetheless –
Insubstantial
putty, an infant’s cess.
Sentiment
triumphs. On a pastel couch,
A lout in
jeans and trainers howls, urged on
By
cameras to hug his winnings in a slouch
Of
gross delight. Such is the snotty guerdon
Of
grammar-masters’ age-old work to vouch
For
man’s civility and learning’s garden.
Did
Scipio act so, when Hannibal fled
The
plain of Zama, disgrace upon his head?
The
straits are breached, the towns are seized; the marches
Bristle
with mute despair: Tariq bin Ziyad,
Kettledrums
pounding, stacks the Guildhall’s arches
With spoils of war. His thin-eyed mullahs of Ryadh
Uncrate
their close-writ texts, their Law which starches
All
it grips. Ambrosius, torn, ill-clad,
Conspires
revolt, but his captains, cold and nerve-shot,
Cravenly
slink away to barn and cot.
Low
cloud and rain hang upon the town square;
Gottlieb
Biedermeir goes home for lunch;
A
medieval clock tower rattles the air;
Moroccan
street toughs, Roma girls, a bunch
Of
scuffling Poles, and him, attract the stare
Of
batoned police: move on, ignore the crunch
Of
glass. Think nothing. Lunch is cheese and fruit;
After,
Herr Fless calls with fabrics for a suit.
====================
©
April 2013. Revised May 2016
