Perspective

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Perspective

 

The world has taken a horrid turn

If there’s anything left

There’s something to learn

We’ve gone our own ways

No thought for our brothers

A tilt of the axis

And we’ll lose all the others

 

We’ve taken a ride

On a suicide train

Can’t stay dry when

You’re nude in the rain

Moving faster and faster

When we should slow down

Crops don’t grow on

Dry cracked ground

 

There’s got to be a better way

Don’t we all know it?

You feel it in your heart

But you’re afraid to show it

 

Take a long look around

Don’t like what you see?

Change your perspective

See what it could be

 

There’s a dozen ways

All better than this

But it will not get better

Without cease and desist

 

Undecided

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Undecided

 

Democracy or despotism

However can we choose?

Incompetence and bigotry

What have we got to lose?

 

We’ve watched this rolling train

Like a virus on the loose

We see what looms ahead

We’re riding in the caboose

 

We can stay on this errant track

If we’re determined to die

Or we can slam on the brakes

Put an end to the great lie

 

We will have to rebuild of course

There’s no way around it

It’s broken and scattered

That’s the way that we found it

 

But don’t tell me it’s hard

To choose between the two

There’s no choice at all

It’s the false and the true

 

What we choose to do now

Sets the future in place

The fate of our children

And the whole human race

Thirteen Days

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Thirteen Days

 

Thirteen days to the thirteenth

Most important election

Of my lifetime

 

I don’t remember who

I voted for back then

I know I never voted Republican

(It’s not in my bones)

I know I never voted for war

(Conscientious objection)

I know I never got the chance

To vote for a Kennedy

(I saw Bobby on the train to LA)

 

I do remember voting for Nader

I remember voting for Leonard Peltier

I remember voting for Hope

Remember Hope?

 

Every time every election

Every four years I was told

It was the most important

Election in my lifetime

 

Vietnam

The Gulf War

Afghanistan and Iraq

Global warming

Global pandemic

American democracy

Voter suppression

Voting rights

Civil rights

Women’s rights

Universal healthcare

The next Great Depression

Fire wind and rain

The fertile earth

 

This time they’re right

This time it’s real

This time all the cards

Are on the table

 

The Power of Spite

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Power of Spite

 

Can spite and malice grab the chalice

That enables four more years of power?

 

Can the power of spite fill hearts with fright

That extends this nightmare another hour?

 

What twisted thoughts run through his brain

Like a man in a flood who prays for rain?

 

What next awaits our horrid fate:

The entire nation in a desperate state?

 

There is no answer to metastasized cancer

We await the song like a forlorn dancer

 

Herd Immunity

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Herd Immunity 

 

Survival of the best and brightest

(at least the richest)

Genocide of the poor

(the old and sick)

Winnowing the herd

(eliminating the slow and feeble)

Sacrifice the common masses

(the nameless horde)

Let the weak and useless go

(who needs artists actors poets?)

Call it population control

(like China’s one child policy)

Throw the dice and let it ride

(you can run but you cannot hide)

 

What’s a few million or more?

 

But who decides who lives and dies?

The con man and the hustler?

The man of infinite lies?

 

Who decides who dies and lives?

The man who admires dictators?

The man who never gives?

 

We think not

We’ll take our chances

With good old Joe

And science

Good old science

 

Damage

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Damage

 

A flat tire can be fixed

A friendship can be revived

An old car can be replaced

A leaky roof can be patched

A scratch on a wall can be forgotten

A bad experience a broken chair

But a damaged nation is hard to repair

 

Like a façade in a local play

The nation stood on shaky ground

Its healthcare system strung together

With chicken wire and duct tape

Its poor falling into homelessness

Its rich growing richer

At the expense of all others

Its military engaged in endless war

Desperation at the door

 

Now we teeter on the edge

Of absolute collapse

A runaway contagion

Two steps from a Great Depression

Thousands dead and thousands dying

Democracy imperiled

 

It’s getting harder to bear

I must wonder: Do we care?

One false move and all is gone

To our children it’s not fair

A damaged nation is hard to repair

 

Cataclysm

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Cataclysm

 

The guy with the shifty eyes

Tells lies all the time

Lies to hide his evil crimes

Behind the splendor of his office

Inside the smile of his disguise

Behind the curtains of his show

Inside the secrets of his rise

 

The cataclysm is upon us

The great destruction has begun

Hope hangs on by a thread

Two hundred thousand people dead

 

We are the decimation nation

Our leader is out of order

We have lost our first world status

With our obsession at the border

 

The entire world is crying

How did it come to this?

We did our best it seems

But there’s something that we missed

 

We forgot about empathy

We forgot how to care

When others suffer we protest

It’s just too much to bear