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.
3 Comments
Oh, that intro paragraph! What an imagination! Who is Whitman and how does he do it?
Now I really know I should quit attempting “to write”. LOL
Sad when you start losing all your peers, I imagine.
Mm… sounds good – I’ve just spent a week in the central city with the thermometer lodged at 100 degrees plus (113 in surrounding towns) and today, with the weekend on the horizon, the wind’s picked up and looks set to blow us back into the mid-70s with a bit of rain and a touch of the 60s on Sunday. I’d prefer the temperature to stay where it is a while longer. Statistically, we don’t do a good job organizing our weekend weather in Cape Town. Practically, when – from a city centre office block – you can feel the weather to be perfect but you can’t see, touch, or taste it, it’s a real downer.
ZOMG… that bit about “last living bowling buddy” was so wrong! I hope Podey doesn’t read my blog.
Mike, you’ve confused me. When it’s broiling outside, then a nice day at work in the air conditioning seems preferable to an authentic touch of the bare feet on the griddle. Then comes the weekend and the weather turns cool and breezy and you have a chance to wander the coast and shoot more of those beautiful pictures of the mists boiling off the sea and rising into the coastal mountains, well, then that’s a bit of paradise, innit.