Fall of a Monarch

From Mykonos to Marbella

in beach side bars and chiringuitos,

the monarchists while away the time,

swatting away jewel-backed flies

with a tabloid or Take a Break.

It’s no Dunkirk.

This repatriation, Freudian-slipped into rescue

by a lizard-brained spokesman on

the illegal BBC in the corner of the bar,

will summon the British Bulldog spirit.

Beer will be drunk, cocktails sunk

for the sun will be over the yardarm

somewhere in the long-lost empire.

It’s no problem.

Keep calm and summon the waiter,

hope you can be the last to board

on the last flight out of paradise,

clinking bags along the travelator.

For it’s a sign, if you’ve a mind

for reading symbols in names

and auguries in the tea drinker’s leaves.

It’s no portent.

Just a coincidence, a monarch falls,

so what? The song might as well be

Monarchy in the UK

- for nothing has changed.

We were punch-drunk on glorious punk

but they emerged into middle class light

and spit downwards from comfort.

It’s no ending.

We’ll bugger on, keep on buggering on

to the next new dawn, the false start

of returning to a golden age that

never was, that we never had so good.