Victor Billot
Victor Billot is a writer from Dunedin. He is the author of the poetry collection The Sets (Otago University Press, 2020) and writes a weekly satirical Ode for Newsroom every Sunday.
Read Room
The Bard Platforms the Mayor of Guy Williams
The strong man
Lo, far from the cosmopolitan roads
from the Grand Capitol of Queens Landing,
beyond the wild lands and the Great Swamp,
beyond the burps of the Rotorua badlands
and the low-rise depression of the Slough of Plenty,
the Kingdom is in the North.
Dead center of the desert lies The Hamlet of Auck,
a tattered jumble of brothels and swill pens,
outside the rules of ministerial policy guidelines.
Villains and varmints and bandits
raid the brothels and swill pens at night.
Enough! The border people come together
to select a strongman to defend
the ruined hamlet of Auck. Ordeal by battle!
The little people cheer on their champion Chief Efeso.
The merchants salute Lady Viv of the Golden Order.
Across the street in Bedlam, the prisoners sing to Lord Craig.
A crowd of hired slobs do the can
in a worthy promotion for wizard Waynolf de Bruine.
But listen! To the sound of blaring trumpets
a mysterious figure on a dark horse arrives:
Behold, here comes Molloy the Great!
He sweeps through the doors of the low tavern
with a fit of virile potency.
A gang of soles tries to get to his bag.
Molloy the Mighty stands firm.
“Untie me, you soft cocks,” he laments.
A group of robbers tries to steal his beer.
Molloy the Outstanding is not holding back.
“Weak,” he says.
A desperate cabal of pink unicorns
try to gag and bind our hero.
Molloy the Magnificent just chuckles.
“Time for shelter, wake up virgins!”
The rough townspeople yawn in astonishment.
Lo, not only is Molloy the Sublime
a strong man, but he also wields
the sparkling rapier humor and the urban style
very popular with border people
from the hamlet of Auck.
Victor Billot felt rather moved to compose Odes for greats like The prime minister, Louise Wallace, Mike Hosking, Clarke Gayford, Brian Tamaki, and Garrick Tremain.
Start your day with
a curation of our top
stories in your inbox
Start your day with a curation of
our top stories in your inbox