The first snow of the year fell last night

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

When I Think of Christmas

 

 

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

Twinkle Twinkle Little Occupiers

We are the ninety-nine percent.

We spent our wad and out it went.

We have school debt we thought we might pay.

But now we hope to protest it away.

We are the ninety-nine percent.

We occupy pointless dissent.

We scream and we yell at Wall St. greed,

While anxiously awaiting the next Twitter feed.

We are the ninety-nine percent,

Useful idiots, Mr. President.

Obama, Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn

Please provide us with your political porn.

We are the ninety-nine percent.

We want to smoke pot and pay the rent.

We are one percent happy and ninety-nine not,

We don’t “rightly” have what others have bought.

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Where do I go when the music starts?

 

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

October

 

OCTOBER

 

Old earth tone

Palettes congregate,

Line the streets

*** 

Crispy air

Shuffles khaki leaves,

Remember

 ***

Cinnamon

Sticks in the throat

Of mull jugs

***

Pumpkins gloat

As ghouls beg for more,

Wrappers fall

 ***

Full moon lit

Shadows emerge –

Negatives

 

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Lost At Sea

 

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

*****

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qsC5k_LjI&feature=related

“Well, what did you think?”

“Well, what did you think?”

 

“Well, what did you think?”

I’ve heard people ask,

As if a snide comeback,

Was up to love’s task.

 

“Reasons, all reasons.”

“We’re not by your side.”

“Our life has its reasons,”

They’d chortle and chide.

 

“With friends like these friends

I’ve learned to just say,

“I’ll continue along,

Get out of their way.”

 

“Well, what did you think?”

They won’t hear me ask,

I’m so far behind them,

I walk in their past.

 

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Dad

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

D is for Divorce

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

Self Pity

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