New Zealand's demi-official poet laureate Victor Billot composes an ode for National's colonial affairs spokesman Paul Goldsmith
The Best of All Possible Worlds
When I was quite young and small for my size
I met this strange fellow who gave me a surprise.
He popped up in a suit and beamed frightfully.
Good morrow! I’m Professor Paul Pangloss, MP.
If colonisation makes you feel like you want to cry –
just look at me! I’m a glass half full guy.
It all comes out in the wash. The good and the bad.
It cancels itself out and you should be glad!
You see we civilised folks frankly disagree
with the things you did that we find nasty
until we came along with our Bible and Laws.
We don’t steal, lie or cheat. We never have wars.
We don’t run around bothering others.
On their birthdays, we send flowers to our mothers.
Forget ol’ Te Whiti down Parihaka way:
think positive and beautiful things happen each day.
You may have been chased from your home,
but you got KFC and this cheap mobile phone.
And the greatest invention (for which you can thank me)
is this magical box we call the TV.
After you’ve been colonised, in a century or two,
you can sit down with one and watch me tell you
just how lucky, how ever so lucky,
O just how lucky, my ducky,
(on balance) you are.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write odes for such New Zealand luminaries as The Son of Key, Trevor Mallard, Mike Hosking, and Garrick Tremain.
