Soapbox 6



Middleton pregnant
Media deploying multi-
Crews of redundant
Interviewers emerging
From breadbin vans
Satellite twirl
Outside the hospital
In safety zones
Of Edward the VII
Outside the real news
Of Damascus, Cairo,
Gaza or Doha—
Not climactic enough
No curio in guerilla
Moralities—not here
When the home front
Is such a deep well
Of cheapened news—
Leveson incest
Via Tory bunkbed
Close-ups of Clifford
His harried mug
Now shying away
From the royal WE
Of celebrity—anchorman
Cutaways to Osborne
Gallows noose for
Benefit fraudsters
So that (by George)
Those in our society
Who cannot work
Shouldn’t have kids
(No babycare state)
And yet the headlines
Blur and liquefy—
Kate and her balding
Blue seedman
Who cannot work
But are heroically
Unemployed—he
Arriving in cashmere
Gant swagger
A knightly smile
To fend off
Hyperemesis Gravidarum
(Spelling bee-stings
For dear Middlebrow
Who, even if allowed
To speak intelligibly,
Always fails to
Pronounce any-thing)
The Onion satirises
A fetal monster
Demanding pebbles,
Mud, raw beef and
Ale, but the BBC
Nationalist home-
Movie is cataract-blind
And reminds us that
The affliction is real
And is real news—
Our catwalking
Mother-to-be princess
Now leaving the strain
Of the King Edward
With a singing bouquet
Of nursery-yellow
Roses—hither dither
Of nine months
The gestation period
That cracked Diana
Is court dressers
Plumping her silks
Or at the blue rim
Of the royal toilets
At worst shooed
Away by the palace
To the all-expenses
Private ward paid
By our taxes. (My
Mother stole a teabreak
Of sickness per child)
And yet how wintry
The days ahead—
The cruel dilemma
Willie weeks apart
Heavy with father sorrow
The useless façade
Of helicopter flights
While the ascendant
Fetus of a king
Grows in her belly
The Examiner’s source
(The Examiner) reports
Willie set to splash out
On a ‘cozy cottage’
In the family backyard
At Balmoral—
A holiday home
For when they are
‘Not working’
So frenetic are they
Who to cut charity
Ribbons? Who to
Fingerpaint at the
Toddler crèches?
The commonwealth
Agenda-settings
(Propaganda shots
Of Willie tousling
Heads of tribesmen)
Set to snooze—
Poor Kate and her
Anorexia weight
Of responsibility
A maternal cheque
Signed for them
By us, in their hands
Already cashed

 

6th December 2012

James Byrne

Photo: John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins

 

 


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