Of
course, it was not the famous Marie
Who had the line about eating cake,
And it wasn’t even cake after all.
An
earlier Marie, probably her mother
Spoke the line.
Still, history has paired those words
And the hapless Habsburg.
Headless Marie became the symbol
For the callousness of kings.
Funny,
she comes to mind.
And you, George the Two,
What will you become to history?
Effortlessly upsetting apple carts,
And calling out the guns and troops,
For what?
For
the gleam of black gold in your
Texas oilman’s eye?
To avenge Daddy?
Didn’t
we give up that monarchy thing?
Didn’t we tremble at just the words, “George
the Second”?
And
the hapless Queen,
Who according to her biographer,
Did not really say the line,
And may have been moved to tears
For starving Parisians in her day,
She too had her hour in the apple cart,
And never needed a hat again.
George,
you too,
So willing to risk so much,
Our nineteen year olds, almond-eyed
Iraqi toddlers,
Old women too slow to run,
Can’t you hear the wheels of your own tumbril
Turning?
Do you fancy yourself immune?
Even
the young queen, pretty despite the hint of
The Habsburg chin,
Must have wept before they came for her,
Sitting in a cold cell,
Listening to Louis Vingt-Sept below,
Crying for his Mother.
