Bard Billot on Queen Cindy the Kind
The Ice Queen Cometh
The wild winds of Spring whistle
around the windows of the High Keep.
Queen Cindy the Kind stares out
at the passing clouds, and the occasional
pink non-binary airborne unicorn
swept past by extreme weather events.
She drums her fingers on the arm of the throne.
From far below comes the sound of screeching
as peasants float around jabbing one another
in the Mighty Moat of the Three Waters.
“Gayfforde,” she says, “I am not content.”
It had been two long weeks since the
address to the United Queendoms,
and the magnificent banquet at the glam hall
of Lord Trudeau of Quebec.
“It is timeth for another mini-break,”
the Queen declares.
Royal Consort Gayfforde sighs with relief
and gathers the Imperial DJ turntables and fishing rods.
“We are going ICE SKATING!”
the Queen declares.
Royal Consort Gayfforde sighs with despair
and climbs into his spandex ice skating bodysuit.
“Fire up the Royal Hot Air Balloon HMS Mandate!”
orders the Red Queen.
Chancellor Grantus Roberticus hauls another sack
of paper doubloons aboard for the roaring furnace;
and over inflates the HMS Mandate
until it is bulging with hot air.
“Set the controls to the Polar Wastes!”
instructs Her Kindness.
Lo, and so the HMS Mandate drifts serenely off,
far above the ransacking Raiders of Ram,
far above the Great Lakes of cattle beast effluent,
far above the griping money changers of the Temple,
and heads due South to the Ross Shelf Ice Rink,
with the Red Queen accompanied only
by Count Gayfforde, Chancellor Roberticus,
a biography of Ernest Shackleton,
and a crack platoon of twenty seven communications advisors:
all bound for extremely thin ice
to skate upon.
Victor Billot has previously felt moved to compose Odes for such luminaries as Christopher Luxon, Wayne Brown, Bishop Brian, Mike Hosking, and Garrick Tremain.
