Preparing for a cataclysm
Not for the faint of heart
Tornadoes are tempestuous
Tsunamis, quick to start
A lethal strain of chicken-pox
Can wander on the breeze
And flu attacks acutely
With an uninvited sneeze
But no historic incident
Disaster or decline
Can match that of the Wobbling
Of nineteen fifty nine

It started over breakfast
With a rippling in the juice
The spoons were jiggled savagely
And dentures rattled loose
The condiments were quivering
The sauces sat and twitched
Cookies cracked and crumbled
And couples came unhitched
Horses bolted randomly
And ran around in squares
The pensioners reverberated
Rocking in their chairs

The birdies in their downy nests
Were bounced about the trees
The cars rebounded in the street
And stacked themselves in threes
Eyeballs turned alarmingly
The clouds flipped upside down
The church bells all played chopsticks
And the fish began to drown
The roads became entangled
And bunched up into knots
The pencils slipped their cases
Leaving tiny lines of dots

The cities were in uproar
The noise like solid thunder
As puddings toppled needlessly
And Jelly fell asunder
Furniture was undulating
Hats abandoned stand
Sailors found their sailing legs
A hundred miles inland
But just as it had started
The tremble shook no more
And one again, humanity
Could start to trust the floor

The roads were combed and straightened
And nestled back in place
The spoons were fastened safely
And eyeballs turned to face
The parrots were sedated
And locked up in their cages
Books were shelved and sorted out
With bookmarks in their pages
The world returned to normalcy
And soon, no single sign
Was left to tell the tale
Of the Wobble of fifty nine

**