Exhuming the Grave of King Richard III
Oh, poor hunchbacked bastard!
Beneath a parking lot, your remains
Were excavated: the grave of a dastard
Crouched in purgatorial chains
Of sewage pipes and rooty veins.
An arrowhead at the base of your skull
Spelt a merciful death in battle—
But oh! A sword in your ass? How cruel!
Not so merciful post-mortem: like chattel. ,
Your naked corpse, paraded by your subjects’ bloody prattle,
Was tied to a horse and dragged through bloody soil,
Then strewn upon the steps of Lady Newarke’s chapel
For all to jeer at your short-lived reign of toil.
Your birth was sinful as Eve’s apple:
A shunned son. A savaged cripple.
The Tributary 