Snowbound in Morgan Park: Chicago Idle - Well, I am anyway.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wittier Than Whittier? -Naw It's Too Cold.


The snap and crackle on sidewalks white
Signal colder fingers all through this cold night,
And Dawn's Toes that froze all the way from the car,
Do now warn the brain-pan -'Tis Cold out Th'yar!'
Stiffer than Wanstead when given the Slip,
By Mrs McCaskey through Angelo's Lip;
Bears that care do not maul the foe,
And all of Chicago nods,'Wanny Must Go!'-
Lovie-Like snows once froze the Hydrant's pipe
And Water Department guys mended it Right,
On Rockwell 108th just the other day,
And Obam's Transition had nothing to say.

Sub-zero Factors ride Big Shoulder's gelid wind
And close Ord's Runways -Extended Stay Inn.
The Short Man on Five wants new kinds of salt
For Streets and San Men to cast from the Vault
Of Horded Plenty white crystals that melt
Nature's cold spittle with Taxpayer's gelt.
North Wind and Sun did Battle in Aesop's Fable
To tell all and sundry who better was able
To get Man to strip his garments gay and bright
The Sun, it was, proved who could get the thing Right.
Sol/Boreas, Madigan/Blago, contend in like manner for Public Approval
The Sun heats all Truth -watch Blago's Removal.

Boreas blew like the Bears' Recent season
And forced ice and wind on Jim chilled by all Reason.
But Man yanked his duds tighter 'round his shivering bones
And warded off North Wind until Jim he got home,
Where the Missus and kids thawed Dad's Polar Limbs
And Souped, Peoples Gassed, hugged, thawed tired Jim.
Sol did much better with gradual heat
Last Summer than Boreas the North Wind Sol Beat.
Jim stripped his Drapes in easy gay layers
To his Banana Hammock as a willing and gradual player
Witched to the whispers of persuading fellow
Warm Sol's Barrelhouse invite 'Get Naked and Mellow!'

Persuasion gets Man to do as might,
While Blowy Dictums pull Drapes around tight
The Freezing Man. Who endures Boreas and Daley
And Blago, and Taxes frozen pipes daily.
Warm Sol and persuasion and brotherly chat
Get more peels of raiment's and Taxpayer Fat
For the Fires that energize Government Bunnies
Who gobble your clothes, your cabbage and monies.

This Thursday is Cold, Frost-Hoary and Mean!
North Wind and Sun do battle on Man. Lean
Government like Orange rhymes with no word
The Thaw is coming. Peel dollars clothes-ward.
That Rhyme was forced, like a bartender's treat.
Screw it. Must scrape the clogged ice on my street.