The Deadly Mystique of Monarchy


 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Queen is an hereditary Head of State
Led to believe she’s above the law,
Due to a weird ceremony when she thought God told her
Of a role that he’d singled her out for.

At one point in the Coronation, in a notorious aside,
She’s told by a man in a dress and a golden mitre
That Almighty God has been spinning the web of State
And he’s chosen her as its divinely ordained spider.

Since then Her Majesty’s seen it as her delusional duty
To promote a royal mystique –
Backed by armed forces swearing loyal oaths,
And supported by a land owning clique.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her army and her police’s first duty is to the Crown –
To a superstition, instead of to democracy,
Which means they can take secrecy to any extreme
And commit crimes in the name of security.

Her Military Reaction Force in Northern Ireland
Is caught randomly killing unarmed civilians;
Just as in Aden and Kenya, Her Majesty’s colonies,
Dissent was crushed with criminal violence.


 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

The Crown’s divine right to be above the law
Has even allowed it to commit treason:
It gave the nod to the abortive anti-Wilson coup
And, in Australia, it deposed Gough Whitlam.

A headline declares, “Secret Whitehall guide reveals
How royals can veto new laws” [1]
The royal household can override the democratic process
By varying displeasing statutes behind closed doors.

The Queen’s known as a great fan of horseflesh
(A taste she shares with Catherine the Great),
But to sustain the ‘sport of kings’ her horses are shot
When they no longer amuse the Head of State.


 

 
 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

To maintain the mystique of the royal family’s kudos
Sacrificial sprinklings of blood are due 
To this fetish object, the Crown, Britain’s imperial bling,
The establishment’s reactionary glue.


 

 

 

 

 

 

There are only twenty-two countries world-wide
That Britain’s Royal forces haven’t invaded
And the Queen sits, like Miss Muffet on her tuffet,
On the stolen goods that her Empire has raided.

The Queen presides over a stifling family cabal
Of animal-slaughtering parasites –
One of whose members kills Afghans for fun,
But not one member inspires or delights.

Yet tragically people die for Queen and country,
They still fight without knowing why,
Though the war machine’s bad fairy doesn’t apologize;
She never says, “We’re sorry you had to die’.

Outside her Palace, soldiers in blood-red uniform
Wear the skins of dead bears on their heads
To guard the Head of the Armed Forces and Commander-in-Chief –
Complicit in a conveyor-belt of the dead.

Wars in Northern Ireland and Iraq and Afghanistan
Are meat and drink to arms dealing Tories,
And with a royal figure-head giving murder some class
Britain can be the US’s suppository with impunity.

The royal family is allowed to monopolize the mass media
Compliant journalists push other events to one side.
Royal births, deaths, and weddings are described as ‘historic’
For zombiefied audiences to gawp at them pie-eyed.

Without examination her grandson goes to Cambridge
To study agriculture, milking and crop rotation.
He has no qualifications save that his family have taken it
In turns to milk the public for generations.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Ironically, the Romanian Tourist Board is exploiting
The royal family’s blood-letting skills:
Since the Royals claim descent from Vlad the Impaler
They now endorse Dracula’s castle’s thrills.

To some the royal fairy story is harmless Disney-fication,
Though to others it’s tied to the Darker Arts,
But imperious vampires who treat their subjects as objects
Can end up with a stake through their hearts.

 
Heathcote Williams

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[1] Robert Booth, ‘Secret Whitehall guide reveals how royals can veto new laws: Watchdog rules manual must be published; Government fought to keep details confidential. London: The Guardian, 1 Sept.2012

 

 

 


By Heathcote Williams

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