Said Queen Victoria to the circus dwarf
who climbed onto her lap
midway the command performance.
Nor was she amused at the tour
undertaken by the Prince of Wales,
the Black Sea made the backdrop
to his sordid embassy.
Feasting nightly till he vomited,
after which he’d wipe his mouth
and call for more;
explaining, at every stunned
turn, the workings of the mechanical chair
which followed him by train,
a customized affair of pads and leather,
designed to ease his obesity, facilitate
his lechery.
Even diluted rumors
unbalancing the scales
in favor of revulsion.
The shrug of Pandarus in gold braid …
‘honi soit to those who print the truth’.
What amused Victoria were the antics
of her dogs, whose discipline and obedience
contrast neatly with the pouting bathos
of her gross and wayward son. And a choir
of Scottish children, hymning out of doors
in sunshine and chill, this also
appears to have pleased her,
as a candid grainy photograph atypically attests.
More commonly, the royal features
gloss a plump and mild scowl,
reflecting temperament (perhaps) or equal parts
dignity, vanity, resolute middle age.
The Queen’s expression aligns
the common wealth (think of Welsh miners
in their fresh-from-chapel picnic clothes or,
most serious of all, those children).
Barely stranger to the age
I seize upon exception,
the occasional whore or sportsman.
The smirk, the leech, the opioid grin
of Frenchie Guinness in her garter-
snapping alleymouth; the beam, the haw,
the Curacao toothiness of Lord Thus-And-So,
pheasant-bagging at the edge of the blue-
chinned moor.
The whore’s ‘before’,
the hunter’s ‘after’,
hilarities frozen in two-tone phosphor.
As final panel
to this arbitrary
triptych of patronage:
I once saw, in Dr. Bump’s
precarious study, a photograph, framed in cork,
of William Rossetti laughing in a garden,
leaning forward from his perch among the cupidons,
a sheet of scribble offered to the barking lens.
A limerick from one of the older, darker siblings;
a naughty or a hard-earned entry for the OED;
a recipe for brandy trifle.
Dr. Bump didn’t have the answer
although he agreed that yes,
the gaiety of Wm. deserved a moment’s speculation.