I tried to teach a variety of poems to my students, including this one which has some wonderfully wacky and funny descriptions, and yet so perfectly describes an icy city. I first went to Paris when I was thirteen, to stay with some family friends who had a flat there. it was not a wholly enjoyable experience, they had a young child and a nurse-maid and I seemed to be bored much of the time; my host, although a lovely and friendly woman expected me to be able to speak in French to her although I’d only been learning the language for eighteen months, three of which I had been off school with glandular fever. I did however, see some wonderful sights, and did get to grips with French a little more, even though I was too shy to speak it very much.
I next went to Paris when I was a student and it was a much more enjoyable experience, and I really did love the city; I suppose I’ve been there three or four times now… but it is some time since my last trip, and I have never been to France with my husband, so maybe we should go!
Paris, February 1986
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.Whitman McGowan
Lois Elsden 