Wild Beasties by: Kathlene Lisle, Oil on canvas, 2012.
North of Paradise
by: LD Novick
Sure as silence chases sound
And restless youth will turn the page
The warbled drone of days long past
Diminished by the early morning’s reverie
Echoes across a chasm of darkness
And into the canyon below
Paid in full by a fractured riverbed
Because Sheriff always keeps his word
Locked and left out the fool barred the door
Tonight children will sleep on the porch
Amongst dirty floors and discarded squares
A metal gate keeps the world outside
One chain-linked society of four
Sheriff skipped town Sunday
And nobody seen him since
We live and die by the dirt and grime
As dust choked lungs breathe a blazing sky
Where old men tell tall tales
To doe eyed children
Mostly lies of Highwaymen
And some dead hero from afar
But also of simpler times
In calloused voices of reason
God up and left
The rest who had nowhere else to go
Panicked by the prospect of paradise
They headed North to be
Cursed by those who remain
Like the drunkard throws a fit at the five and dime
‘Cause you still can’t buy a beer on His day
So we’ll scour our hands pink by the fluorescent light
Face grown roots long past due
Our paradise squandered by wills of wicked men
And yet, we still pray for rain