Walking around on Resurrection ground
April 11, 2012 Leave a comment
Shot through the head with stray logic –
That’s what happened.
A position held for a lifetime was permeated.
The souvenir dishes of self-satisfaction lay shattered.
I changed my mind from pro to con,
And awoke to find that life goes on
In spite of my wounded ego.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
January 21, 2012 Leave a comment
The first snow of the year fell last night
– speckled opacity, sifted talc – dusting the frigid day’s ice.
Hoary halo-ed street lights assembled for white-caked cars carrying the store-bound in search of milk and diapers.
****
Today, old women worry in picture windows,
But children, out in droves, charge willy-nilly,
Nature’s imposed accumulation yielding to youth.
*****
Later, the plow man may show us the way “Through the white and drifting snow”.
He never seems to come, though, before I want to go.
I’ll not hold my frosty breath for him.
********************************
© Jennifer A Johnson, 2018, All Rights Reserved
December 11, 2011 2 Comments
When I think of Christmas I think of the King of Love laid in a manger –
Sovereignty supine under sterling stars twinkling through millennia of delight,
Sublimity submitted to the gaze of cherubim and seraphim and slack-jawed shepherds.
When I think of Christmas I think of a Son,
A Son, whose tiny hands, emptied of Omnipotence, outstretched from the eternal Embrace,
Nailed to a tree –
A tree of death – bearing my Exclusion!
When I think of Christmas I think of swaddling clothes
Later to be exchanged for a seamless robe and then for a torn veil,
And then, for a burial shroud turned inside out.
When I think of Christmas I think of no room in the inn
And later finding an upper room so as to lay my head on Him Who breaks His Body,
Who pours out His blood,
Who lays down His life for His friends.
When I think of Christmas I think,
Friends walking in Embrace:
“Do not our hearts burn within us, from that first day until now,
Whenever Christmas comes to our house?”
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
October 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Where do I go when the music starts?
When I blow my horn and jazz blurts out?
Maybe I am holed up in the right hemisphere with the shades drawn
– the motel existential.
Maybe I go underground and then
Maybe, man, I am submersed head-to-toe in liquid sublimity –
Me being all lava-in-a-lamp like.
Where do I go when the music starts?
I go with it.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
September 16, 2011 Leave a comment
When I saw the beacon,
The light in your eyes,
I followed its beam to the shore.
Adrift so long,
So far from any harbor
I sailed to you.
Yet, another now stands between us
Eclipsing love.
The sea now rises above the horizon.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
*****
June 18, 2011 Leave a comment
Dad,
Masquerading man –
Provider, Decider, Chronicler,
Motivator and Love’s unlikely dance Partner,
A mischievous Mirth-er who’s my mother’s lover
(Confused by Eve but not alone),
A baseball phenom:
Always at bat for me;
Always fielding my bloopers;
Always never keeping score,
A figurine in flannel wearing
Camouflaged feelings in the blind
Savior of children’s happiness with
Strength born of recycled weakness –
Dad,
A Giver given.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
June 7, 2011 Leave a comment
Divorce
Devastates,
Divides,
Devours,
De-vows,
Devalues,
Denigrates,
Decouples,
Destabilizes,
Denatures,
De-energizes,
Deviates,
Distasteful,
Disables,
Disappoints,
Disenchants,
Disheartens,
Deadens,
Disputes,
Dashes,
Diverges,
Disintegrates,
Disrupts,
Disperses,
Disbands,
Displaces,
Dissolves,
Distresses,
Distorts,
Disdains,
Diseases,
Destroys,
Demolishes,
Denys,
Deflates,
Defines,
Demands,
Deprecates,
Damages,
Divests,
Defeats
And
Disillusions.
Done.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
June 4, 2011 Leave a comment
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
D.H. Lawrence
April 23, 2011 2 Comments
Tornado
I stand at the edge of suddenness,
Hair on high alert:
Brazen edged clouds huddle
Agonizing over the fixated land,
Until, as one, they dispatch
A turbo-quill,
Scrawling graffiti onto
Parchment earth’s thicket.
Abruptly, the signing ends
Dissipating into
Further thought and
Exhalation.
Annotation fully noted,
The air is shocked by the news.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
Cindy Wity 
The “American, You Can’t Handle Your Liberty” Rap
May 20, 2012 Leave a comment
American, You Can’t Handle Your Liberty
American, you can’t handle your liberty,
Drunk with democracy you flirt with tyranny;
You whine and you cry about your life’s lot –
Not what the providential Constitution sought.
Our people are now lacking in self-government,
Living relativism that’s not heaven-sent,
Lacking all self-restraint, thinking they’re “free”,
They will tolerate anything but liberty.
Though free and equal, born with rights inalienable,
You whine and pine for freedom more palatable;
Unjust laws disguised as “social justice”,
Such religion of humanity does thwart us.
Myopic history sees the lie you so need,
“A People’s History…” makes bleeding hearts bleed;
Our nation’s true exceptional-ism,
In college taught as just cause for derision.
How are we the most generous nation on earth?
It is because of what our Founding Fathers birthed!
Take a look at the world around and see,
We as a nation donate most charitably.
Yet you squander democracy onto yourself,
While pure opportunity is put on the shelf,
Cradle to grave you whimper and pine,
“Hoping” and “Changing”, charging the taxpayer’s dime.
All men are created equal yet there are some,
With hubris bang the affirmative action drum,
And so betray our common good,
To play favoritism as any injustice would.
American, you can’t handle your liberty,
You want politicians to give you to what you please,
You clamor for “rights” thinking you’ll be free
While working the calculus of felicity.
Why is it that we fear our country’s liberty?
Because the rigors of responsibility,
We “Hope” and “Change” to be rid of the strife,
So we vote for someone who will pay for our life.
Wake up America and smell the flag burning,
Your “Hope” and “Change” are both lacking in discerning,
You whine and you pine and act all distraught,
While ever mocking what our Constitution taught.
© Sally Paradise, 2012, All Rights Reserved
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Filed under 2012 election, Culture, Life As I See It, Poetry, poetry, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, Writing Tagged with A People's History of the United States, America, current-events, Economics, freedom, generous nation, god and the constitution, howard zinn, human-rights, Liberty, Occupy Wall Street, patriotism, Poem, Poetry, politics, social justice, unconstrained view, US Constitution