It was so cold…

The horses on the carousel refused to budge.

Notes of music froze and
shattered with prismatic finality…
The mimes couldn’t change their expressions.
When a bread truck overturned and
baguettes were suspended in mid-air
pigeons were afraid to leave their roosts for the feast.
Women in expensive fur hats could not retract icy stares.
Rats went skating on rivers of frozen dog piss.
Double busses refused to straighten out
continued running in circles indefinitely.
Terrorist bombs exploded in s l o w m o t i o n
allowing everyone to escape harm.
A fountain in the Place Edmond Rostand became
a crystal pineapple inhabited by eskimos.
A Norwegian with a pickax broke off pieces for souvenirs.
Outside Paris waterfalls retreated back into mountains.
God Himself became an irrelevant ice cream vendor
slowly scooping a ball of lemon sherbet
from horizon to painted horizon.
©1986, Whitman McGowan

It’s not that cold here in Madison today. It’s a balmy twenty-three and I’m off to take dad to a funeral. His last living golf partner and bowling buddy, Bob Wandel, passed away this week. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the event. So what have we got? Cold, short days, bowling, golf, a demented old man and a dead one, a funeral mass, and–OH! After the funeral we’ll be dropping in on Aunt Mary with a bag of burgers from the local fast food joint.

On the way home I think I’ll pick up a couple hundred pounds of bird seed.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah!…
Lala how the life goes on.