GEOFFREY CHAUCER, REFURBISHED: A parody of the General Prologue from “The Canterbury Tales.” Trafalgar Square on a Summer Evening. London. (link). First published on MuddyUm. https://medium.com/muddyum/yanks-on-holiday-fc8c64b684f1?sk=14e829da992877e8e1c7ffe05f3f8aa2 Here bygynneth the book ō̆ver behōste tō the worldHere begins the book Overland to the World

*When in June and the spring showers end —

And disperse the rains to the heavens, and send

The pigeons to peck the crumbs at Trafalgar —

And prompt the public to thumb the vernacular;

When Admiral Nelson, with his commanding physique —

Choking from exhaust fumes and pathogens discreet —

Gazes upon his Square, teeming with tourists,

His glories known only to the purest;

When Londoners are all cell-a-Tweetin’ —

Who text away with fingers a’ bleedin’,

(So Nature's a stage where Shadows do play) —

Then the Yankees partake a holiday.

A fortnight feast of the ripe, old Country —

Tales uncoiling with bathos, and ribaldry;

From England ‘cross the Continent to Rome —

To snap a pic of Saint Pete's to text home;

Through a coach window they'll take The Grand Tour,

To tick off the sites, gleaned from a brochure.*

This is the opening prologue for my parody-mock-satirical novel, Overland to the World, a collection of interrelated tales about Americans on a European coach holiday, which has been published in serialised form on Medium. As a pretentious and affected Anglophile, I purposely used the “s” instead of the “z.”

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