Must the Show Go On?
When, finally, a monarch’s life is spent,
Then a precisely scripted spectacle
Is enacted, highly political,
It becomes a theatrical event.
Cue republicans who are expected
To heckle from the fringes, even though
There would be a very similar show
For a head of state who’d been elected.
The crown becoming dislodged by fate
Poses the point, what need for any head
Of state is there, either living or dead?
Indeed, why have a nation or a state?
Only when capitalism’s interred
Can a leaderless future be inferred.
D. A.