Exceptionalism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Exceptionalism

 

We know beyond reason

It cannot happen here

We’re the best in the world

We’ve nothing to fear

 

The finest physicians

That money can buy

Our great politicians

Tell the best lies

 

It only happens there

Where they piss in the road

And they don’t seem to care

Like frogs and toads

 

Maybe they’re human

We don’t really know

But we go very fast

And they go really slow

 

But it can happen here

Best heed the warning

If we pretend that it can’t

It’ll be here by morning

 

Time

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Time

 

Time is a freight train

It bears down on you like rolling thunder

Like a buffalo stampede on the open plains

It beats you down and tramples you

Under waves of pounding hooves

A most horrible refrain

 

Time is the eye of a raging storm

It comforts you with a sense of calm

Before it yields to nature’s wrath

Ripping limb from branch

Uprooting tree from earth

Shattering our chosen path

 

Time is a river flowing

From a gentle easy rolling stream

To roaring rapids of impending doom

Spawning life to whole ecosystems

Taking death into her sweet embrace

While a deepest darkness looms

 

Time is a whisper in the darkest forest

Time is the silence of the deepest sea

Time bends folds sits still and rolls

Time is the ultimate mystery

 

Epic (for Bob Dylan)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Epic (for Bob Dylan)

 

Now this is a story about

A man named Jed

Lived out in the holler

Barely kept his family fed

He went out to dig a hole

God only knows the reason why

Out came a stream of oil

Lord it painted all the sky

So the bankers came a calling

With a word for Mister Jed

Sign here you’ll be a millionaire

Before you go to bed

 

So Jed took that paper

And he did not think about it

That man seemed nice and friendly

He had no reason to doubt it

So Jed took a silver pen

And affixed his given name

He signed away his future

His fortune and his fame

 

They took his home and his land

Dumped him in some random alley

Jed became a homeless man

In the Shenandoah valley

 

Jed never knew what happened

He just never understood

He’d always been an honest man

He did the best he could

 

Now Jed becomes a symbol of

Displacement of the masses

Or maybe he personifies

Separation of the classes

 

He always thought it kind of strange

And maybe a little funny

What happens when the bankers come

To offer up a lot of money

 

(after Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream)

 

A Man without a Soul

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POETRY OF POLITICS

A Man without a Soul

 

A man who does not fear

The solemn judgment of history

The honest voice of retribution

The ill will of an entire nation

The widespread outrage of the world

The lost affection of friends and family

Is a man profoundly alone

 

A man who does not fear

The righteous wrath of his people

The mounting rage of the oppressed

The abandonment of moral grounding

A universal sense of shame

A desperate yearning for change

Is a man who should never be

Entrusted with power

 

For the man who has no fear

Is a man without a soul

 

A Dictator's Fear

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

 

A Dictator’s Fear

 

When everyone who speaks

Loudly and out of turn

Must fear for her freedom

Fear for her family

Fear for his life

The question must be asked:

What does the dictator fear?

The answers are many and clear:

An honest election

Freedom of speech

The right to gather in protest

A well-spoken opponent

A glimpse of true democracy

A mere taste of freedom

An independent new media

A voice of the people

The right to organize

A people’s rebellion

A balance of powers

An uncensored truth

 

In the fullness of time

A dictator’s greatest fear

As his end draws near

Is the inevitable end itself

For a dictator never surrenders

Power without blood