Courage (On Tyranny)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: ON TYRANNY

Courage (Choose Sides)

 

There are many kinds of courage:

 

The courage to speak out

When others remain silent

The courage to be silent

When others say too much

The courage to go to war

And put your life on the line

The courage to refuse to fight

When a war is unjustified

 

We should not be lulled into believing

Democracy has no price

Like anything of value

It demands sacrifice

 

We speak often of our founders

As if they were gentlemen of reason

But when they fixed their names

To the declaration

King George proclaimed treason

 

They are heroes now because

They were on the winning side

Had we lost the war we cannot know

The nature of the world in which

We now reside

 

They had great courage

They were willing to give their lives

They expected no less of us

If the republic is to survive

(Based on the excellent pamphlet  On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder) 

Book of Forms

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Book of Forms

 

Because it was written long ago

Some will say it must be so

Perhaps it was written that god embraces

A privileged class of superior races

Some would say it must be so

Why?  It was written long ago

So some are smitten

With what was written

Not I

 

I must find my own forms

My own guiding principles

My own codes and philosophies

My own measures of being

My own methods of seeing

Let others walk the trodden path

I will brave an unspoiled forest

Of dreams and novel mythologies

Exploring untold psychologies

Knowing that many years from now

My path may also be trodden

And braver souls will find

A braver and bolder way

To keep the faith

And claim the day

So be it

Monet's Garden

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Monet’s Garden

 

Explosions of light and color

The simple mind cannot contain

Reflected in a pool of pristine water

A sky of hovering grace

A mirage of beauty so striking so clear

It challenges the fiercest imagination

A symphony of water lilies

Colors so vivid they awaken the senses

The sweet scent of spring in bloom

Embellished by genteel parasols

Enchanting faces beneath white bonnets

Blessed by the sun’s full glory

This earth this whirling sphere

Has never been so teeming

With the breath of life

Rules

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Rules

 

The rules of economy

The rules of civility

That guide our morality

And inform common decency

 

Broken and scattered

Pummeled and shattered

Like particles imploded

Nothing lasts forever

To change we are devoted

 

The laws of gravity

The laws of motion

Suspended with revulsion

The real beneath reality

We haven’t got a notion

 

The rules of writing

The rules of grammar

Smashed to pieces

With a two-ton hammer

 

What’s young is old

What’s old is new

Yesterday’s false

Is sometimes true

 

The children have abandoned school

Their teachers are a band of fools

They don’t need no goddamned rules

They have their own survival tools

 

And so it is for old folks

Our truth becomes their joke

Accept it and then move on

We’re here and then we’re gone

 

Genocide in Gaza

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Genocide in Gaza

 

The Holocaust

A policy of extermination

The buffalo massacre

Forced relocation

The slave trade

The Trail of Tears

Milosevic and the Serbs

 

There are many kinds of genocide

From methodical mass murder

To the evacuation of a people from

Their homelands under threat of harm

 

When we think of genocide

We think of the Nazi’s and the Jews

We think of the American Indians

We think of the Armenians in Turkey

We think of the aborigines in Australia

Maybe we think of South African apartheid

 

We never think of Israel and Palestine

We rarely think of Gaza

The forced relocation of Palestinian

Families women and children

Perhaps we should

 

If there is no right to fight back

Against genocide

Then there are no rights

 

The irony is just too rich

Israel

Palestine

Genocide

War Crimes

 

Are our memories so short?

Less than a century later

The victim becomes the perpetrator

 

Leaders Lost

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  WORLD DEMOCRACY

Leaders Lost

 

Adrift in a rocky sea

Deserted in a naked desert

Tied and suited on a sandy beach

Untethered in an empty place

Floating through oblivion

Like a drifting speck of dust

 

Our leaders lost our way

Absent map compass or divination

No one noticed until the day

We awoke in a foreign place

Where everyone had much to say

But no one had salvation

 

You promised us a rose garden

You delivered only thorns

We turn away in consternation

Curse the day you were born

 

Where now shall the people go?

To whom shall we turn?

After all we’ve seen and suffered

We’ve lost our will to learn

 

We struggle to find our bearings

Struggle to stay afloat

We’d settle for a good night’s sleep

Safe passage on a sturdy boat

 

Throw the captain overboard

Let him swim himself to shore

Take all our lousy leaders

And toss them out the door