We’re thrilled, elated, quite bewitched
That Will and Kate are getting hitched.
There hasn’t been a Royal bash
Since that funeral (post-crash).
Now out across the royal domain
The Union Jack shall fly again!
Across the land are bands of Nanas
Knitting flags and painting banners.

Cometh the day, cometh the man:
The good, the great, the also-ran:
The organ swells, with trumpets blaring
Bloody Hell! What’s Beatrice wearing?
How’s she going to find a hubby
Channelling a Tellytubby?
Every balustrade is burnished
Here’s the queen with David Furnish,

And David Cameron showing that
His wife cannot afford a hat.
The gathered crowd all strain their necks
To sneer and bitch at Posh and Becks.
But nothing’s shabby, nothing sinister
In the Abbey of Westminister
Where trees are in the congregation
(To give Prince Charles some conversation).

And every rank of royal vermin
Spank themselves with whips of ermine
Then gird their loins, and tighten trusses
To board the sordid minibuses.
Wave a flag and find a hankie!
Here’s Queenie tucked up with a blankie
And if she nods off, quite serene,
It’s Philip’s job to poke the Queen.

The BBC shows maps as graphic:
Weren’t they lucky with the traffic?
When in the Mall the multitude
Of unwashed plebs is in the mood.
Watching Bishops march in rows
(not diagonally as we’d supposed).
Then after singing and ‘I do’s’
It’s time for canapés and booze!

‘All back to ours!’ cries Mum, her Highness,
‘Put away all thoughts of shyness
To the balcony, migrate
A million subjects at the gate!’
Camilla does a baby dangle
As, photographed from every angle,
It’s: ‘Touch my sword’ and ‘Touch my lily’
‘Kiss me Kate! Yes, kiss me Willy!’

© Clare Kirwan
Royal Wedding Guests in Pictures
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Clare Kirwan is a serious poet who also sometimes writes silly stuff... or vice versa. She blogs as Broken Biro in a silly and serious way. www.clarekirwan.co.uk

My daughter remarked this was a Disney
weekend; a prince married a ‘commoner’
and the U.S. helicopter cavalry
killed the bad man to save
the world - again.
In truth, none of this actually matters to me
but what would have been really magical
would have been West Ham getting three points
away to City - all things considered
that would have been a miracle.

© P.A. Levy

West Ham match report
-------------------------------------------------
P.A. Levy has been published in many magazines, both online and in print, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’, and is a founding member of the Clueless Collective.

on the morning of yet another
royal wedding i got up late
and unplugged the telly
choosing not to watch bargain hunt
(not rhyming slang) with all
that royal doulton royal worcester
all kinds of chipped and broken royal tat
or some other boring daytime chit chat
about what colour
kate’s royal knickers would be
‘cos i knew that today the media
in a bid to patriotically outdo each other
would be non-stop waving union jacks
as a regressive demonstration
of what a backward nation
we really are
with all that ancient pomp and ceremony
uniforms and royal etiquette
curdling the milk of me cornflakes
and when cutting a slice of bread for toast
it made me think of eating cake
madame guillotine
and finding the money to pay the bills
twenty first century job seeking man
running amok
in the museum of modern england

© Paul Levy

The Royal Wedding
------------------------
P.A. Levy has been published in many magazines, both online and in print, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’, and is a founding member of the Clueless Collective.

I didn’t get an invite to the wedding
and, frankly, it is hard to mask the hurt.
I suppose there isn’t any point in threading
this button on my Marks and Spencer’s shirt.
My present lies beneath the stairs, inert,
(newlyweds cannot have too much bedding)
but, feck them, it’ll stay there gathering dirt
‘cos I didn’t get an invite to the wedding.

The postman brought no invite to the wedding.
Apparently I amn’t on the list.
This was the very thing that I’d been dreading –
being callously and royally dismissed.
Frustration at my absence from their tryst,
like poison, through my psyche has been spreading.
I’m sure my august presence will be missed
by those that got an invite to the wedding.

It seems that I’ve no invite to the wedding.
My diary is empty for that date.
I’d booked a B and B in downtown Reading
beside a nice industrial estate.
The yellow men behind me indicate
the salty trail of tears that I’ve been shedding.
Snubbed, not just by William, but by Kate,
I never got an invite to the wedding.

Did I mention I’ve no invite to the wedding?
But Ryanair will recompense my flight.
My Gatwick ticket’s only fit for shredding
but the airline’s sympathetic to my plight.
Thanks to this right royal oversight,
it isn’t down to London I’ll be heading.
When I get married, they can go and shite
if they think they’ll get an invite to my wedding.

© Peter Goulding

Riffraff at the Royal Wedding but no Tony Blair
----------------------------------------------------------
Peter Goulding works in a warehouse in co. Kildare, Ireland and has bribed editors in four continents to accept his poetry. He has no practical talents whatsoever.

Where's my Prince Charming?
Even when I drop my left shoe
along the stairs
someone just picks it up
and places it back
with it's right one
I should have known
a fairytale wouldn't begin
with a doc marten boot.

Where's my Prince Charming?
Have I left him behind
in my pop-up fairy tale books?
Even when six
I thought the princess
looked a little passive
I wanted to be the one
on the white horse
racing through the woods.

Where's my Prince Charming?
There he sits watching the news
and carrying the heavy bags
in from the Tesco shop
I sigh and look in the mirror
and ask 'Who is the fairest of them all'?
My prince Charming replies:
'You, it's always going to be you'
I am the star of my own fairytale.

© Brigid O'Connor

Royal wedding: Fans camp out at Westminster Abbey
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Brigid O'Connor is an Irish writer. She writes short stories and poetry.
Her work has been broadcast on Irish radio and her stories have been included in anthologies and literary publications.