South Dakota

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

South Dakota

Centuries ago invading armies threatened

Their existence with poisoned blankets

Smallpox infested gifts of the civilized tribe

The Lakota survived

In the great westward expansion

Blue coats fought native warriors

Outgunned and outnumbered

To a standstill dividing the tribes

Forced them to live on reservations

Sent them to Indian schools where

They cut out your tongues

And buried them in history books

The Lakota survived

They massacred the buffalo

To the edge of extinction

Destroyed the Lakota way of life

In every way they could

The Lakota survived

Now the white man’s government

Threatens the tribes once again

With their determined ignorance

Discarding science and medicine

Condemning all to suffer the ravages

Of a deadly pandemic

The Lakota will survive

But at what cost?

How many lives will be lost

To the white man’s folly?

Bury the Dead

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Bury the Dead

Mass graves in Central Park

Cremated remains in Lake Pontchartrain

A tribute to the heroes the survivors

And the families of the dead

The dead themselves no longer care

Pray they have passed to a better place

Though in truth we know not where

How many died in vain?

How many deaths ordained?

We must all wonder though

Few will voice the words

We let it rest

Leave it for another day

We cry we mourn we pray

But we will not ask

How many died in vain

Until the dead are put away

Until the day after we ask

Where do we bury the dead?

Silence

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Silence

Broadway at midnight in the midst

Of the great pandemic

New Orleans’ French Quarter to Jackson Square

Columbus Avenue in San Francisco

Grant Park Chicago on a Sunday afternoon

There is a silence that bears the weight

Of a planet’s worried souls

There is a sorrow deeper than the depths

Of the human heart

From stadiums in the great cities

To small town bars and restaurants

A silence descends like a curtain on

The darkest night

None dare speak its name

None dare summon its power

Take cover and hide

Quiet do not breathe

We know its name

But we will not speak it aloud

Not now

Not ever

The Great Cleansing

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

The Great Cleansing

The heavens opened up her gates

And down poured the rains of Eden

To wash away all our depravities

And clean our very souls

A hundred million voices sang as one

Forgive us our misdeeds and let us live again

For we have learned our lessons and

We have paid a price in sorrow far

Greater than the seven salted seas

And the rains came down and thunder

Cracked the eternal sky

Until alas there were no more tears to cry

And every mother’s son and daughter

Knew we would survive

To breathe in joy and sorrow one more time

And everyone alive swore

On all that is sacred and pure

This time we will do it right

This time we will care for the poor

This time we will lift humanity over wealth

This time we will embrace our role

As caretakers of the earth

This time we swear

One

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

One

One world one planet one path

To survive the great pandemic

And resume the human race

We’ve lived through a Great Depression

Pestilence famine plague recessions

We’ll live through this and more

And rise in a state of grace

The lesson of this tragic tale

Is simple as true things are

We are not alone on this journey

We are one of infinite stars

The Lakota in their wisdom say

We are all of us related

We share the same ancestry

And to the same end we’re fated

The motto of this nation is

From the many we are one

If we fail to heed this message

As a species we are done

The Missing Moments

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The Missing Moments

Life is a series of moments

Moments we embrace and treasure

Moments that give us pleasure

Like a precious stone to a jeweler

An image to a photographer

A revelation to the faithful

We gather our moments together

Store them in the attics of our brains

Sort them out and gaze at them

When times get rough or

We get sentimental

We like to think our moments

Belong to us like photos in a box

That can never be taken away

But time and circumstance

Like thieves in the night

Can strip them from us

Bury them or twist them till

We no longer recognize

Time and circumstance are stealing

Moments now that never happened

Welcoming a newborn babe

Into a bright and loving world

Catching a foul ball with a bare hand

Sharing a sunset in the sunset of our lives

Finding comfort in a crowd of friends

Witnessing nature in her naked glory

Basking in the warmth of family

Communing with precious friends

All the moments that might have been

Vanish with the poisoned wind

May we all create new moments

But we cannot have them back again

Normalizing the Abnormal

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Normalizing the Abnormal

Total transformation

In the flicker of flight

A dance in the darkness

With the shadows of doom

Flames jumping in glimmering light

Horrors receding on a fiendish night

A new way of living our daily lives

No bars no pubs no congregations

We exist now in isolation

A nation of loners is not a nation

We live in perpetual segregation

We walk our chosen paths alone

Observe from a distance

Converse on the phone

Interact on social media

Forever at home

We cease to be what we’ve always been

This new normal is foreign and strange

Without impulse or freedom of being

Like a marriage that’s been arranged