[Jerome Betts]

Why does the curving of my spinal cord
Give curious pleasure to this scrum I see
Of busy fools all flocking round my bones
In the dull confines of the car-park buried?
I had a tomb, but other busy fools
Dispersed the monks and overturned their church
And I was left with not a stone to show
That here lay Richard, Shakespeare’s future star,
Who thrills the playhouse with his pithy wit
And ready way with axe and chopping block.
I staged my own ascent, to some applause
(Arranged by allies, nothing left to chance,)
And nearly beat that grasping Henry Tudor
Had I but found another willing horse.
Interred again in Leicester? Dismal fate!
York is the place where I should rest in state!