Up a heathery mountain in Edinburgh City
I gallivanted, gazing over the Firth of Forth to Fife,
when I met some Californians (what a pity),
a tam-o’-shantered hazy surfer dwarf and his wife
who inquired of me, “Hey, man. What d’you call this pretty
little stretch of water here? Is it the English Channel?”
My answer lit up their tooth enamel.
“The what? The Froth of Frith? How can that be?
Does that wash out into the Irish Sea?”
I explained, “……Yes. Welcome to Wales.”
Welcome to Britain, the imaginary nation
through the eyes of guys who pack their bathroom scales,
through an American tourist’s imagination.
The Queen can be seen feeding ravens aubergines
and Lady Grey tea on the Mile End Road
just by Loch Ness where John Milton Keynes
turned that Danish monster into a toad
or a bowl of porridge, or was it some beans?
He killed the Irish anyway (that much I knowed
from school) and he stopped them from wearing their greens
or eating them or something. The thistles that growed
in the paddy fields were their only food when it snowed!
Come and see Britain the imaginary nation
through the eyes of a statue-snapper with a heavy load,
through an American tourist’s imagination!
Come to Stonehenge where wenches spilt
the blood of Jack the Ripper and his mom
at a ceilidh, while Churchill danced in his kilt
behind the Old Bailey, which was some
Australian immigrants’ thing they built
by Bannockburn, near the English Channel,
out of magical Lake Excalibur silt,
dragons’ phlegm and Henry the Sixteenth’s flannel.
If you want a can of coke you’ll have to haggle.
Come and see Britain the imaginary nation
with those on Horseguards Parade without a saddle,
through an American tourist’s imagination!
Where Joan of Arc impaled an orange over Shakespeare’s head
Boadicea sure did see a spider burning cakes
and politicians listened to the things the people said,
democracy would flourish fecund as the District Lakes,
so now it doesn’t matter how an Englishman is bred,
the miner’s son who reads the extra chapter overtakes
the pheasant-munching lord who spends the afternoon in bed,
and Robin Hood said “Touch me, Monty” when he was shot dead.
Come and see Britain the imaginary nation
through the eyes of someone blinkered and overfed,
through a Tory’s or a champagne-liberal’s imagination.
