Guerre du Nord

by T.P. Wilkinson / November 22nd, 2015

Bourbon vanilla
lily white,
the corporate flavour
in the tricolour:
Vindictive wrath
wraps bourgois vanity
slaves repressing
with all their might.
Vicious virtue
forms violent weapons,
fall incinerating lamps
from the City of Light.
In the Palais d’Elysée
Equality hated,
fraternity distained,
liberty betrayed
with bombs of Mars
from the Quai d’Orsay.
Non-Europeans slained
that realpolitik may reign
Christian vultures
feed on ancient cultures
flocking French capital’s
raison d’être,
Rousseau for whites
for all others de Maistre.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..

This article was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2015 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.