Here’s to the narcissistic parties of number 10
and food banks and the Tory toff
who cuts the ribbon with chunky fingers
and gleaming teeth and Brexit and Lords
and Ladies and celebrities with boob jobs
and face lifts and OnlyFans and Instagram.

Here’s to the Jubilee and princes and payoffs
and the commonwealth and Bangladesh and
Sierra Leone and Churchill and ‘beastly Indians,’  
with their ‘beastly religion,’ and the famine
and the mass starvation and ‘breeding like
rabbits,’ and the flags and bunting and parties
and the Boer War and the crown and the throne
and the Queen on her own.

Here’s to Thatcher and trickle-down economics
and dams and reservoirs and multinational
corporations with record profits and chief
executives with record bonuses and the single
mother sleeping in one room unable to
afford the bills and kids with worn out
second hand shoes and nothing left to lose.

Here’s to the Victorians and their incredible
inventions and their factories and workhouses
and children up chimneys from disease ridden
slums and Dickens and Darwin and missionary
sex and whorehouses and a thirst for things.

Here’s to Henry VIII and his wives and lavish
parties and courts and castles and the Fields
of Gold and William the Conqueror and
and Richard III and peasants and pheasants
and medieval banquets with bird within bird
and the leftovers half eaten alms for the poor.

Here’s to Nero and his mother and Roman
decadence and debauchery and Boudica
and Cleopatra and Ramses and pyramids
and servants and slaves and being buried alive
and sarcophaguses and the rise and fall of empires.

Paul Truan grew up in Cornwall and currently lives in north Somerset.
Wolves Come Grovelling. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email [email protected].