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Poetry

How Will God Save the Queen?

by Chengde Chen

The annual Queen’s Speech to open
Parliament is an administrative programme
written by the Government But it must be
read by Her Majesty, to add the regal
weight. I often wonder: if she disagrees
with what she has to read how will God
save the Queen?

She can’t change it – that would be
interfering in politics. Nor can she refuse
to read it – constitutional monarchy is a
deal. The only thing she can do is to
pretend to support it – reading it clearly,
naturally, and before the world. God help
her act successfully!

However, in the spaces between those
solemn words there must be a wronged
soul begging for understanding:
My words are not my words.
My look is not my look.
I am not me!

Humiliation is about contrast
But even a bankrupt millionaire
begging in the streets or a defeated
general crawling through his conqueror’s
legs cannot compare with the Queen
being a mindless instrument as it shows
the golden crown is merely a straw hat.

To show off dignity is to lose dignity
In this cruel mathematics of constitutional
monarchy she undergoes the
greatest humiliation in the world. This is
why she deserves the highest respect as
well as not paying inheritance tax.

© Chengde Chen

Chengde Chen wrote this as his contribution to the Golden Jubilee. He is author of Five Themes of Today: Philosophical Poems, Open Gate Press, London, £8.95.

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