HP, We Miss You by Gerard Sarnat

"There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened."
-- Harold Pinter, Old Times

Prologue. HBD party revelry for the ages, planned by and for nobody
[dull as paste, the HRH father figure had neither friends nor family]
raises the defiant curtain on his final celebration maybe -- at least
everyone's wary since Hewlett-Packard printed cue cards in Français
vaguely noted the culmination of our host's ninth decade or eighth.

I. The fete proceeds well into a third swell week. Attendees
[including vicious Vichyers unknown to one another during the war]
stack interior lives in cubbies, collaborate in a provisional ceasefire under effigies
of the suave caretaker's Dress British, think Yiddish swank sartorial silhouette.
A cavalcade of détente stragglers slags into the WC to munch Rice Krispies.

II. Feuding guests stab each other in the back while inhabiting stairwells.
[A downtick in gunned-up fishmongers gets knackered on bathtub gin].
Phantoms cohabit in shite overflown from brocaded loos. Starched authorities knock on
ceilings then arrest an editor who gaffed herself to the top from publicity for omitting
emojis in a lauded Japanese haiku. Plaster in Paris conspires to refuse sobriety tests.

III. Federer's gentleman serves sit up like obedient pups in a Marseille bistro.
[Post the French and pre-Wimbledon, he's the second best player in all of Switzerland.]
Since his less charismatic countryman Wawrinka came out of Roland Garros' shadows to
clobber Roger in straight sets. It's easier drying out in Gstaad than it was back in Los
Angeles where torrents of drugs come from nearby Mexico or Honduras.

IV. Hunky Stanley Champion then proceeds to outhit favored Djokovic.
[The world's speedy number one hailed from Belgrade, walks that path alone.]
It is rumoured Novak's asthma learned how to breathe on the court from
non-compliant Serbian neurodivergent opera singers before he moved his endorsement
racquet to Monte Carlo where it's a joke his ilk don't pay taxes.

V. Dénouement Quilting Society teatime is full of fake pauses/ real cocaine addictions
[that somehow never indeed spoil tee time décor for our menacing collective trust].
Twin ventriloquists named Richard III interrupt a closed Open Rules Committee
pantomime deciding if golf ball divots you can repair but no one remembers are fair.
Refugees from the flagstick's lip guzzle from the Claret Jug, lob Camembert chunks.

Epilogue. Made-for-Smellovision was rebroadcast Eiffel Tower to the Arctic Circle.
[The classic affair proved a critical bust yet pith helmet commercial success.]
Variety said Understanding Why's Easy: post-nup mad hatter check-kiting flings,
pawned scones and Devonshire Cream plus pratfalls that conveyed domestic warmth.
Even now most reviewers savage us as a rather flash-in-the-pan public occasion.