New Zealand's semi-detached poet laureate composes an ode for Solar Ella
One Lorde to rule them
A weird and uncanny mood falls
upon the land of the long white nitrate plume.
On both sides of the Great Wall of the Polls,
premonition hangs, heavy as a wet sheepskin;
bandits roam the highways, snorting snuff,
waving muskets at passing travellers,
and the lowlands floodeth with slimy mud.
Some say we have displeased the Gods.
Far across the Pond of Dreams, in the West Island,
our distant kin are stricken yet with plague
and suffer under the torments of Sheriff Barnaby,
who once again serves the Kangaroo King.
Queen Cindy the Kind has retreateth
to her chambers with a tension migraine.
Lady Judith of Oravida runneth in circles,
trying to hitch a lift on a sixteen wheeler cart.
Who can we turn to? asketh the Common People.
Who will lead us to the Promised Land?
Baron Luxon? Jester Seymour?
The Shawrax, who has taken a permanent vow of silence?
They pleaseth us not, sayeth The Common People.
We would prefer to poketh ourselves in the eye.
But hope springs eternal: for there from the heavens
descendeth in green strobe lighting, our Lorde;
on her hot forthcoming album Solar Power she showeth
the way from our Slough of Despond.
Lo! So it has been written by the ancient ones
that one such would walk amongst us,
with her entourage of lithe young cult members,
with her yellow beach frock and phreaky moves.
One Lorde to rule us all;
One Lorde to bring the funky seventies vibe;
One Lorde to represent us on US talk shows
and provideth us with a flicker of reflected glory;
thus arrives Our Saviour
in this long, queer Winter of all our discontents.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write odes for such New Zealand luminaries as David Seymour, Jacinda Ardern, Todd Muller, The Son of Key, Mike Hosking, and Garrick Tremain.
