Poetry

June 13, 2018 Poetry , POETRY / FICTION

AFP photo

 

By

Penn Kemp

 

 

 

Trooping the Colour

 

 

That would be the infamous orange he sports,

 

this lost Westminster Fox, who joins the fanfare

in celebrating the Queen’s birthday (or we will

all run away). Did he too want to glimpse her?

 

From under the stands he darts onto the Horse

Guards Parade, an open field without cover.

 

Who was more startled, the crowd or the fox?

Frightened but unfazed, he dashes alongside

delighted onlookers, kids cheering him on.

 

He looks askance at a lady’s scarlet fascinator

as if it contained a birds’ nest he might inspect

or under sudden duress could run to for cover.

 

How to return to his den in St. James’s Park,

not too far and a good address close to ducks

galore, but a world away from abhorrent din.

 

In embellished tales he will tell his kits how

he brazenly taunted those who would hunt him

down but are no longer allowed to in town. How

 

he as conquering hero bows to circus applause

and retires to recline on his laurelled haunches.

 

 

 

 

 

Mary McDonald photo

Penn Kemp

Penn Kemp is an activist Canadian poet, playwright and editor.  Her latest works are Local Heroes, and the forthcoming Fox Haunts. Recent books include Barbaric Cultural Practice and two anthologies edited, Women and Multimedia and Performing Women. See www.pennkemp.weebly.com.

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