Bard Billot farewells 2022
The Crystal Ball of the Red Queen
Your Majesty: the talking crows have returned
with reports from all corners
of our misty and uncanny lands.
In the north, Barbarian King Alaric the Brown
holds sway in Occupied Auk;
in the south, the yeomanry rumble menacingly
in their air-conditioned 96 wheeler carts.
To the west, Baron Luxon provides life advice
to the little folk in their humble garages.
To the east, beyond the Fifty Eight Waters,
the tribespeople co-govern and send orders
to you from the Mighty Taniwha Nanaia.
In the Badlands, rebel saboteurs roam
in search of the legendary UN Agenda 2030.
The plague is over; or rather, it never happened,
and no one will talk of it on pain of cancellation.
There have been fierce and merciless battles.
There was the Battle of the Palace Lawn,
when Sheriff Coster banished the Pure Blood dervishes;
then there was the Battle of Nadia
when King Simon was trampled by the Eurasian Fluff.
There was the Rampage of Sir Lancelot Uffindell
and his magic bed leg Excalibur,
before his conversion to Christian ways.
There was the Battle of Monetary Policy
when Head Necromancer Adrian simultaneously
inflated and deflated the Royal Air Force balloon
before a bemused crowd of serfs.
There was the Struggle of Tron West,
where the Amazing Illusionist Sharma turned himself
into a rabbit and disappeared back into his own hat.
There was the Crusade of Yahweh Brian,
who rode off into the sunset with Yahwehness Hannah
on their glowing stallion, Late Model Harley.
And at year's end, the outing of Court Jester Seymour
as the capering Prick.
This week's Ode concludes the Ode on Sunday series for 2022. Victor Billot will return around about March 2023 - and there are rumours he is in talks with publishing executives at Luncheon Sausage Books to produce a Book of Odes at the onset of the general election.
