New Zealand’s demi-official poet laureate Victor Billot composes an ode for the Prime Minister
In the Court of the Red Queen
O fair zephyr of empathy! O rainbows!
A harp strums most tuneful on the meadow.
The scene: Queen’s Landing.
A flock of non-binary pink unicorns gambol past.
From the other side of the Great Wall of the Polls,
there comes the faint sound of lopping and wails
as The Pretender, Lady Judith, executes more traitors.
Queen Cindy the Kind sits in her candy stripe Tower
brushing her long, luxuriant locks.
In the corner, The Grand Master of the Royal Mint
dutifully winds the crank on his printing press.
The Queen drums her fingers on the throne.
I am not content, she pronounceth.
Royal Consort Gayfforde twirls his moustache
and scurries off with the Princess under his arm.
“Change time,” sayeth he.
The Queen sighs heavily and stares down.
Below the fluffy clouds peasants gather
on the palace lawn far below.
Fights are breaking out between pink unicorns
and burly yeomen with sixteen wheeler farm carts.
What is going on down there? she wondreth aloud.
Count Faffofaffi unrolls a giant parchment,
giggles, and shouts down at the restless plebeians.
“By command of the Queen you shall be nice
to each other – on pain of death! I think?”
No one pays him any attention whatsoever.
A pock marked ruffian yells back from the mob.
“Oi Queenie! Your loyal subjects request some hovels!”
The rude lout is consensually dragged away
by pink unicorns to a safe space for rehabilitation.
“Your Majesty!” sobs a minion. “The people want bread!”
The Queen sighs again and waves him away.
A large contingent of merchants has arrived
bearing fine satin gowns and rare extended mix 12” vinyl
for the upcoming Royal Wedding.
“Let them eat power sharing and constitutional reform,”
quoth The Good Queen as she twiddles with her DJ headphones.
Distant screams from the far side of the Great Wall
drift by on a fair zephyr of empathy.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write odes for such New Zealand luminaries as Todd Muller, The Son of Key, Trevor Mallard, Mike Hosking, and Garrick Tremain.
