Enough Knowledge about the British Isles to Fill a Leprechaun’s Sporran

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.