“Frozen Love” by Thomas W. Case

Living on the Scandinavian streets have
humbled her.
No Christmas cards with
a 20 spot anymore.
No trust fund from
Mom and Dad.
All the money vanished like
the last spider of vodka,
like a dropped bottle of beer.
She could go to a
shelter by herself,
but she chooses
life on the
streets in the
brutal winter to be
with her Swedish boyfriend.
Love is lunacy–sometimes frozen.
Two dead friends last year on
a mad moonlit night.
Human icicles on
the Iowa City streets.

One time while drunk,
her and I stole
the neighbor’s canoe.
We had her little
black dog with us.
I dubbed him,
Senator Ted Kennedy;
probably because we
were all drunks,
(not the dog) I don’t think…
We wrestled the canoe into
the Iowa River, and
immediately proceeded to
tip it over.
The Canoe sank like
a bad bet by Hunter S. Thompson.
We could’ve easily drowned, but we
laughed our asses off,
choking and splashing,
except for Teddy, who swam
for Boston.

Thomas W. Case was born in California and now lives and writes out of Iowa. He has published 3 volumes of poetry. His latest is entitled Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, and it’s available on Amazon. His work has been featured in Lyrical Iowa and Poetry in Public Project Iowa City several times. He has published poems in many anthologies from around the world. Many have compared him to Charles Bukowski and Leonard Cohen.