A History Lesson

For National Poetry Day, which I would have missed had Bookshop not emailed to try and sell me poetry books, I give you Miroslav Holub (from the Czech):

A History Lesson

Kings
like golden gleams
made with a mirror on the wall.

A non-alcoholic pope,
knights without arms,
arms without knights.

The dead like so many strained noodles,
a pound of those fallen in battle,
two ounces of those who were executed,

several heads
like so many potatoes
shaken into a cap - 

Geniuses conceived
by the mating of dates
are soaked up by the ceiling into infinity

to the sound of tinny thunder,
the rumble of bellies,
shouts of hurrah,

empire rise and fall
at a wave of the pointer,
the blood is blotted out - 

And only one small boy,
who was not paying the least attention,
will ask
between two victorious wars:

and did it hurt in those days too?

(Taken from 'The Rattle Bag' edited by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney)