Issue 34: Kevin O'Farrell

Mock-Tudor

                                                                                           i. Smouldering

He owns he owes everything to her,

except the miracle of his beauty,

the rhotic curse of the Devonshire burr.

With his goatee upturned like a codpiece,

in robes sequinned in crescent moons (her sign),

Sir Wa-ter Rawley, casually smoking –

Swisser Swatter, as the ladies call him –

is Majesty’s favourite bit of ruff.

A Gaveston that would be Tamburlaine,

who gained notice mansplaining savages

such as he had – ahem – met in Munster;

glossing over irrelevant details

(the Smerwick slaughter, a bastard daughter),

only playing notes sweet to her hearing.

                                                                         ii. Mouldering

Playing notes sweet only to her hearing,

she aimlessly tortures the virginal,

with elegant fingers splaying the keys

like ivory laid upon ivory.

These hands have held hands at more than arm’s length

long enough, so now needs must lie empty.

[Clap, clap] and they banish such thoughts, beckon

Gentlewomen of the Privy Chamber –

Elizabeth Throckmorton among them,

who’ll paint this scene for her lover. Alum,

eggshell, borax, lemon and camphor are

mixed in water for the Queen’s complexion;

then vermilion, cochineal redden cheeks

ashen and cratered as the moon’s blank face.

                                                                  iii. The Two Gentlemen of Virginia

HARRIOT [with telescope]           Ashen and cratered is the moon’s blank face.

RALEGH                                            I need no lens to countenance it so.

HARRIOT                                          Barren, they say, and only glows by light

                                                             purloined.

RALEGH                                                                Yet controls water’s fall, or rise.

                                                                Enter MANTEO and WANCHESE

HARRIOT                                          These two must feel as though transported there.

RALEGH                                            Best they play lunatic like the rest so,

                                                             and thus advertise our good enterprise.

                                                             Replace their savage furs with taffeta;

                                                             teach their tongues to be likewise silken:

                                                             then behold envoys to conclude our work.

HARRIOT                                          Much could we profit from their example.

RALEGH                                            More shall we do so if they follow ours.

                                                             No entreaty is more welcome than that

                                                            of a prospective conquest’s to relax.

                                                            iv. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

                                                            If a prospective conquest’s to relax,

                                                            the fashion now’s for cigarettes, but

                                                            the mind and landlocked body of Wa’ter

                                                            have grown stagnant since his ships departed

                                                            to colonise and proselytize to

                                                            the poor Injuns of Roanoke Island

                                                            (with a little piracy on the side),

                                                            and failed rather spectacularly.

                                                            And just to give his cock another twist,

                                                            he’s halfway through ye olde three score and ten;

                                                            more her ‘silly pug’ than top dog at Court;

                                                            rumoured dean of an atheist school;

                                                            and have you seen that Earl of Essex? Fuck.

                                                            ‘…mi ritrovai per una selva oscura…’

                                                                              v. Howdy, Youghal

                                                 I found myself within a forest darke,

                                                 On the outmost edge of his uast estate.

                                                 As his men fell’d trees to strip off their bark,

                                                 I told of wilde Ireland’s present state –

Sir Walter being but fled here of late.

His song was all a lamentable lay,

For he sees onlie through his own conceit;

And so, farre from her, was never away.

My own epic, he’d not even assay,

But was glad it were all about the Queene:

                                               And counsell’d me – if not to cause dismay –

First discover what I intend it mean;

Promising he’d give of me good report

As soon as he is return’d to the court.

                                                                   vi. Amor et Virtute

As soon as he has returned to the court,

their secret grows increasingly unkept –

he has been lying with Elizabeth –

and the next ship he boards recalled to port.

He who sometimes thought himself her consort

is cursed for being such a stupid get

and sent to a cell with pleasing prospect

of the first racquet-smasher’s tennis court.

There, Ralegh resumes his Petrarchan schtick

with the XXIst book of his “long” poem

(lifehack: say a lion ate the rest of it) –

really, a sorry, not sorry dick pic

masquerading as an encomium

for the woman he is not in love with.

                                                                  vii. Horse and Carriage

Not for the woman he is in love with,

such verses, or poses – just a hush-hush

wedding; and for the honeymoon,

his’n’hers in the Tower of London.

She stayed attending her namesake at court,

except two weeks either side of the birth

of l’arriviste (wait for it) Damerei

on the ultimate busman’s holiday;

ignored by her spouse before and after

her arrest – which lasts several months more

than his – including during their son’s death,

and the release he has zilch to do with.

This is the price of becoming E.R.:

everything he owns he owes to her.

Kevin O’Farrell is a poet and visual artist from Dublin. He was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions 2024. Other poems have appeared in The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Wild Court, Stand, Southword, Subtropics, The Dark Horse, Poetry Birmingham, Cyphers, New England Review, and Abridged.  

Copyright © 2025 by Kevin O'Farrell, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.