Invasion of the bowling balls

 

The invasion of the bowling balls

began on a quiet winter's evening

when the moon looked like the 

face of Dean Martin.

People were snug in their warm homes,

choking on unpopped kernels of corn

and buttering slices of frozen pizza.

In the tropics, the tanna leaves bloomed.

World leaders were caught unawares.

With their pants down and their dander up.

Parliaments and congresses blithely played

tiddlywinks with slush funds and easy aces.

Even Barney Greengrass closed for repairs.

I myself was involved in a minor contretemps

with a professor of English, via email,

concerning the Oxford comma;

Citing irreconcilable differences,

we had both filed as amicus curiae.

Looking back, it all seems so footling now.

Then it happened.

The invasion.

And overnight everything changed.

The grass was no longer greener on the other side.

Scrabble was banned in Boston.

Anyone talking about the cinema

when they meant the movies was lynched.

And the Yucatan Peninsula declared for 

Wilkes and Liberty.

At Christmas people hit each other

over the head with heavy reinforced 

boxes of Whitman's Sampler.

And clowns went color blind.

But then, at the eleventh hour,

a person on horseback arrived

to save us in our skins.

He rallied the troops.

She never said die.

They kept the home fires burning.

And we all set sail together

to question the universe

about reverse mortgages.