by Shannon Frost Greenstein
The bells
like a leviathan
breach the membrane of the liquid dark,
tumbling forth like a vanguard
incited by adrenaline and the call of drumbeats.
The God Paradox States:
1. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, He has the power and also the desire to end evil.
Through the open window, the January air
bites at the alveoli
lodged deep behind my sternum;
moonbeams litter the asphalt in geometric shapes
refracted by a million prisms all the way down.
2. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, He has the knowledge and also the power to end evil.
3. If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent, He has the knowledge and also the desire to end evil
The night is austere, the world holding its collective breath
for the dawn of sunrise and the gift of another day;
I drive by the specter of the old cemetery,
and the bells continue to toll
calling the faithful back to God.
4.) Evil exists.
5.) Therefore…
My unfinished Ph.D.in Nietzschean philosophy
floats into my forebrain like an air bubble.
“God is dead,” I tell the bells,
recalling my catechisms from a former lifetime
with a sardonicism that feels almost like mourning.
“This is not for God,” the bells tell me. “This is just for you.”
I drive and I listen
to the notes dancing through the dark on the way to my ears –
the chimes and the melody and the perfect fifths –
as the night opens up ahead of me
and the rest of my life beckons from
right down the road.
Shannon Frost Greenstein (She/They) resides in Philadelphia with her family and cats. She has authored “Through the Lens of Time” (2026), a forthcoming fiction collection with Thirty West Publishing, and “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things” (2022), a book of poetry from Really Serious Lit. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work appears in McSweeney’s, Pithead Chapel, Nimrod Journal, and elsewhere. Shannon’s passions include Friedrich Nietzsche, anti-racism, the Seven Summits, the Hamilton Soundtrack, and acquiring more cats. Find her at X & Bluesky: @shannonfrostgre; Insta: @zarathustra_speaks http://www.shannonfrostgreenstein.com