Faces of Covid 19

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Faces of Covid 19

 

They are only numbers

Digital abstractions

Statistical notations

Lines on a graph

Check marks on a page

They yield no emotion

Something less than real

Until the numbers have faces

Friends and families

 

A mother from La Jolla

Her children called her Santa Marie

A gifted athlete from Chicago

Could have made the major leagues

A promising poet from Omaha

With a dream of living overseas

A grandfather from Los Angeles

Do we mourn the elderly?

A golden child from down the street

Who’ll never know the vagaries

Of life and love and victories

Stolen by this cursed disease

 

Dark Shadows

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Dark Shadows

 

They crawl out of the cracks

Of America’s nightmare

Loom in the hazy background

Watching with great care

Ready to pounce

Spinning a lair

Taking a life

On a dare

 

They mark the path of the fools parade

Follow those who do not know

Who did not care

Go with the flow

A defiant stare

All for the show

Too much to bear

 

They carry a seed of deadly disease

Steals your breath away

Make you weak and feeble

Make your body sway

It has the number

You must pay

The shadow knows

The shadow grows

So bow your head

And pray

 

Irony

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: 2020 ELECTION

Irony

 

Our president is a civil rights candidate

(he sponsors the great disenfranchisement)

He’s a champion of women’s rights

(who never heard of the ERA)

He stands for the little guy

(minimum income 500 K)

He got us out of the Middle East wars

(without removing our presence there)

He faced down the great pandemic

(180,000 dead and counting)

He rebuilt a failing economy

(rescued Wall Street with borrowed cash)

He is the greatest president since Lincoln

(the worst since Herbert Hoover)

He will save us from ourselves

(or will he fool us once again)

 

The Great Instigator

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

The Great Instigator

 

The leader of the western world

Is coming to your town

To put on a show

To “settle things down”

 

Don’t mind all the thugs

They’re here to protect you

If you wear the right hat

They won’t disconnect you

 

For I am the chosen

The great instigator

And I am the righteous

The truth propagator

 

We’ll mow down the protesters

And put order back in place

With blacks on the bottom

On the top the white race

 

For I am the chosen

The great instigator

And I am the righteous

The white liberator

 

The Burden

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

The Burden

 

The young carry the burden

The old must leave behind

What greater burden could be left

Than the one that we now find

 

A generation of negligence

We’re the ones who forgot the world

We sought out our own adventures

While the earth’s demise unfurled

 

We didn’t mean for it to happen

We just forgot to ask

About our role as caretakers

We neglected our basic task

 

You have a right to be angry

We handed you this mess

We can say we didn’t know

We’re not guilty we protest

 

We were seeking higher consciousness

And for some it may be true

But we failed to hold the horror back

Failed to push change through

 

Bubble World

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Bubble World

 

I have seen the future

A strange and foreign view

A vision of fear and separation

A world not brave but new

 

It began when a virus

Spiraled out of control

Then protest brought violence

That compromised our souls

 

So the wealthy took refuge

In bubbles of their own device

Self-sufficient isolation

Purged of disease and blight

 

They created a bubble

To keep the riffraff away

When the virus was vanquished

They kept it that way

 

Why take any chances

If you feel a bit wary

And you’ve got enough money

It’s not necessary

 

Live your life in a bubble

No worries or fears

Protected and guarded

From anger and jeers

 

Rest in Peace

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Rest in Peace

 

When one we admire

Or one we love

Falls from this earthly realm

It is with compassion and love

We respond

Rest in peace

 

One wonders in reflection

If that is what the fallen desires

When an individual has spent a lifetime

Fighting for justice

Fighting for peace

Fighting against the hard fist of oppression

Is it eternal peace one desires

 

When I travel to the world beyond

(as I choose to believe there is such a place)

I do not wish to spend forever in peace

I do not wish to rest in perpetuity

 

Rest in peace may do for others

Not for me

I wish to be challenged

I desire to move forward

I strive to rise above

 

Therefore when I rise or fall

From this mortal existence

Let those who love me

Or hold me in esteem

Not wish that I should rest in peace

But that I should gather the strength

In death that I had in life

To continue the fight

 

For there will always be darkness

And there will always be light

Let me stand my ground

With the good and the right