THE PEOPLE HAVE THE PALACE
I am looking at the future,
It is after another one of those: weddings, engagements or births,
One of those things where you can put the word Royal in front of it,
And report it as news,
Whilst benefits get cut,
Strikes get planned,
And governments crumble.
It is much, much after that-
And the Queen has moved out.
Rent prices in London just simply weren’t enough for her,
Or perhaps her blue blood could not take the heatwaves,
But she can’t put Buckingham Palace on Rightmove,
And prime property won’t stay empty for long-
The people have taken the palace.
It started slowly at first,
The men and women and children
That breathed England,
That sleeped and dreamed England;
The homeless,
The desperate,
That were moved every time there was a parade,
Those that slept outside in the rain,
They felt it:
That new emptiness inside,
And found themselves a place
No, a palace to reside.
Now there are barbecues in the gardens,
And they’ve torn down the gate,
We serve the dinner we made together
Around half eight,
We sold all the paintings,
And returned all you stole,
There are rumours of a Corbyn wing
on the third floor.
We’d fit a city in that building,
That you kept for a family.
I think,
You’re one step closer to building a home,
If you make a chair instead of a throne.
****
TO BE KNOWN
I want the universe to know me.
I want history to familiarise itself with my name.
No one wants to be forgotten,
But not everyone wants fame.
The Mason marks the wall,
Signs his stone like a painting.
Engraves his initials,
As if it were the inside of a wedding ring-
Expects the castle to love him back.
Thinks to himself, I built this,
Built it well,
Fit for a king
And it will surely outlive me
As my stories outlive me.
Yet his name will fall through the cracks,
Along with his legacy,
Along with the facts,
Time too often appeases amnesia.
And on the walls,
On the doors,
Names have been clawed.
Scratched into the surface,
Etching to be known,
Leaving scars on the stone.
We can only hope to be remembered
As long as a castle stands.
Some men,
Few,
Make it in to myths,
In to tales of boys who rule countries,
In to stories,
That warrant dragons in the gift shop.
But yesteryear
Refuses to take an accurate register;
And time itself will bury us all,
Make us legends or fools.
****
EXECUTIONS
I asked my mother
If I could go to the castle,
I wanted to dance with the Lords and the Ladies:
To eat fresh bread and drink fine wine,
Or grape juice,
Or something.
It is hard to know what it means to be a child in times like this.
My mother retorts,
Her hearty rough laugh,
That quickly turns into a cough,
A howl,
A summon for the grim reaper-
But she is laughing at me.
Says there’s only one way,
Paupers like us end up in the castle.
And I had forgotten that they keep the crown among the convicts,
That they always party above the prisoners.
We watched them drag them to the hanging point once,
Lined up in a death’s row,
Their fates sealed
Like the chains on the feet.
And we thought it fun,
The excitement of it all,
The town gathered-
Cheered!
As death roared back.
Before I think about dying for too long,
Start to count the siblings I have outlived,
Or the friends stuck in chimneys,
Or the girls crushed by donkeys that surprisingly can’t fly,
My mother reminds me we are not aristocracy,
Reminds me that, that is what castles are for,
That they are there to remind of us war,
Of us and them.
I do not suspect she’ll be around for long,
To tell me where I can and can’t go.
Death is a next-door neighbour
Who visits far more often than grief.
These poems were commissioned by First Draft and first performed at our Flying Donkeys event at Newcastle Castle as part of our Let The Artists In! project.
Ruth Awolola is an award-winning poet based in London who’s work has been published in Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry. She is a talented writer who has performed all over the country.
Find out more about Ruth: www.achuka.co.uk/blog/new-young-voices-in-poetry-1-ruth-awolola/
First Draft 