Perversity is de rigueur,
that ‘feeling-good-by-feeling-ill',
the pleasure of self-laceration.

The past was not like that, no sir
or not our special part.
I've rummaged through their footnotes,

sniffed the snuff of ancient papers
and seen just what the orthodox
can make of nothing much.

Our governments, unlike some others,
had only pure intentions.
I¹ve found them stacked there in the archives.

Restrained by Christ, our colonists
would have no wish to kill.
The hapless brought it on themselves,

disorganised and backward,
inclined to murder and rapine,
offering their women up

to catch a sad disease,
not knowing any better.
Forensics is the metaphor;

count only what would count in court,
sworn by men of good repute,
JPs or country parsons, maybe,

providing they were not soft-headed.
What deaths there were
were mainly pox

or failure to adapt.
They couldn't reconceive themselves
as subjects of a king.

The past, or our own minor role,
was pretty much untroubled.
Other empires could be cruel

but ours was just a quiet expansion,
livestock threading off through parkland,
frontier huts with twists of smoke

and women stooping at the wash,
their men out felling trees.
The darkness mainly kept its distance

or hung about to loot the flour
and spook defenceless women.
Those who¹d have it otherwise

deceive themselves like nervous children;
they shiver at their own inventions.
They¹d have our country black with blood

and scupper its morale
the future an apology
kowtowing to the past

or their own lachrymose account,
teetering on dodgy footnotes.
I¹ve wandered in those basements too;

I¹ve cranked my way through microfilm
and read the correspondence
the governors reporting home,

the sergeants in their honest longhand.
Forensically, there's nothing there
or nothing that stands up.

And, overall, I like my work.
Lonely? Sometimes. Musty? Yes
and dangerous at conferences

or drinking in the pub.
I¹m putting back the past we knew
the hapless on their distant fringes

and picturesque at best,
where nothing spoiled our pure esprit
and someone always stayed at home

to keep the windows shining.