Without any apology

I traced my genealogy

In hope I’d find an entry

Replete with well-heeled gentry.

Perhaps a Duke without an heir

Yet to bequeath his titled lair

Or better yet a Duchess

Who’d keep me in her clutches.

I dreamed of billionaire tycoons

Who sipped and supped from silver spoons

Whose present state of wealth

Fared better than their health.

But no! I learned my great-great-gran

Was jailed because she shot a man

Who wooed her in a heath

Then ran off with her teeth.

Another ancestor trained bears

To ride on bikes and dance on chairs

Until they grew to hate him

I guess that’s why they ate him.

Much further back, one of our crowd

Could summon rain down from a cloud

But locals weren’t that smitten

Because they lived in Britain.

If you’ve swung through my family tree

Please have the cheque made out to me

Because this brachiator

Wants paying now, not later.