New Zealand's unreal poet laureate composes an Ode for political aspirant Mark Richardson
The Achilles Hamstring
The year draws to a close, the strange and murky year;
and such a year it was, a dream seen as if underwater.
Our Queendom was in the hold of subtle magick,
a soporific spell did close our eyes and nod our heads.
The Red Sorcereress did float overhead in her balloon
as rebels marched in circles, slowly dropping from ague.
See the Blue Banners, scattered upon the land forlornly;
Simon the Unfortunate, Toad of Mullet,
even Lady Oravida, gone, gone, scattered to the winds.
Baron Luxon is engaged in hand to hand combat,
bogged down in the Slough of Despond.
Yet the darker the night, the brighter the flame;
and a mounted knight appears, his silhouette upon the hill.
A Lordly presence, severe and dauntless!
He blows mightily upon his own trumpet,
Sir Mark of House Richardson!
His reputation precedes him in large quantity.
His batting average, and advice on The Block,
such nimble skills freshly arrayed –
this indeed is the “real world”, we are instructed,
whence such steel is forged in fire.
Thou’st must be tough on the serfs, he scoffs,
for they only understandeth a hot fork
in their rumps; and the peasants cheereth
to hear such unvarnish’d homely wisdom.
And thus he charges down the slopes,
sword raised and glimmering in the rising sun,
towards the field of battle, closer and closer;
as overhead in her balloon, the hovering Sorceress
sticks a pin in the hamstring of her voodoo doll,
with a sinister cackle.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write Odes for such New Zealand luminaries as Christopher Luxon, Jacinda Ardern, Brian Tamaki, Willis and Rawnsley, Dr Siouxsie Wiles, Duncan Garner, and Garrick Tremain.
