Livestream: Wunderkammer

Poetry | Kate Meyer-Currey

Today the Hapsburgs would be tweeting 

and uploading new photoshopped, cropped

additions to their wunderkammer collections

of arcane, abstruse, bizarre and grotesque 

objects. They’d pose like Kardashians beside 

two-headed sheep, making sure their lantern

jaws were square and chiselled. They might 

even decide that two heads was a bit weird 

and put up a content warning. Unless it was a 

piece by Damien Hirst or Tracy Emin of course. 

They’d bang the nails in the coffin of all those 

relics of the True Cross beloved by their ancestors 

and give the Turin Shroud a facelift. Instead they’d 

fetishise Madonna bras, Elton John’s Rocketman 

crown, Freddie Mercury’s PVC French maid’s dress, 

or even Tupac Shakur’s sweaty vest. Prayer books 

would be replaced by graffiti walls, preferably by 

Banksy, or a gold disc by Stormzy behind bullet-

proof glass. They couldn’t whip up a frenzy with 

Phillip II’s flail and hair shirt so instead they’d 

substitute a film clip of Matt Hancock to arouse 

public curiosity and titillate the media. No more 

court jesters or lapdogs pictured sitting at the feet

 of sulky princesses. Offensive on all counts. Wedding 

planners and personal stylists are the new minions, 

the acceptable face of a private celebrity retinue. 

And they come with loads of followers. Bonus. 

Skeletons of convicted felons are bad and broken, 

but you might just get some wear with one of El 

Chapo’s shirts (if it’s designer), a snap of the Krays 

with their mum (they were good boys really) or an 

Orange Is The New Black Jumpsuit. Odd items of

serial killer memorabilia defy anti-virus software 

which is why we have a sculpture by Jeffrey Dahmer 

and some of Ed Gein’s furniture in our secure vault. 

(It appears the delivery driver mistook them for 

flat-packs from IKEA). Paranormal is fine; however. 

Alien babies get the most hits. No grisly medical relics 

please; Covid 19 has a whole gallery to itself. What 

was once a game of dynastic Top Trumps played out for a 

few hard-to-please ambassadors from far-flung 

principalities if you had a plain daughter or reclusive 

son to marry off is now virtual reality for new generations 

of internet dark tourists reared on fake news with an 

insatiable appetite for the abnormal.  It’s funny how 

history repeats itself and we gawp at freaks of nature, 

wilfully blind to the monsters of our own creation. Any 

medieval peasant who went online now would feel right 

at home, just another a pilgrim on the internet superhighway.