queen
queen among mortal women
your long austerity
reaches through the imperial air
with hands as soft as the ingenuity
of a mother and a woman of high prospect
for everything is gesture and posture
where luck and omen are the trade pieces
of an insecure people in an uncertain world
but inside is there a core like a mallow
soft and toasted in its sweet delicate welcome
and inside is there empathy whose quick dimension
can displace one into the world of the unfortunate
and inside is there the dedicated heart of parenthood
that recognise the happy child and itself
is full of joys happy laughter
for to sail against
all prevails of caution and propriety
love has made a boat
to encompass that bold new world
its unseen sails that are the tapestry of hope
its steadfast keel avoids the rocky crags of chance
then let luck set the breeze and lodestone of fortune
to the north and i said let me be there
and affront the impracticality of the enamoured
let the sea monsters rise from the opprobrium of the deep
let opinion rise from its many clustered caves
and form to the colossus of fear
let xenophobia lift its sly cutthroat eye and flick-blade of bigotry
and the heroes of your empire will
heap them all in rotting shame upon
your floor or i will do it myself
and shame your tribe
love has many hands
so how would this sound in translation
ask an Englishman what a Scot has said
or a Belgae the correctness of the spoken French
or ask a Greek to speak in Turk
even the air is a bad intermediary
the ear is worse
so wonder then a translator
might locute what was said above
curses cast - wars might ensue
or we might be lucky
and observe the language of the body
and the river flow of meaning
in which it bathes
and deduce its candour
and its shams
its constructs and its shambles
its boldness and humility