Eleven September

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

Eleven September

 

The eleventh of September

A day we’ll always remember

A day of infamy

Like a symphony of horror

 

The day Americans united

In fear and trepidation

The day we became overtly

A vengeful warrior nation

 

It was early morn in California

When the first plane hit the tower

We knew somehow it was intended

A play for global power

 

Our president cried out Revenge!

They named the enemy bin Laden

How they knew that name so quickly

Is a mystery we’ve forgotten

 

We went to war in Afghanistan

Though they offered him a trial

We could not hear appeals to reason

It would have to wait a while

 

We moved on to Iraq

Before the dust had cleared

Iraq became the nightmare

So many of us feared

 

Two decades have gone by now

Since the towers fell that day

We remember it with horror

As the day we lost our way

The Day John Lennon Died

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

The Day John Lennon Died

 

On the day John Lennon was shot down

Outside the Dakota Hotel

On Central Park West

In the heart of Manhattan

Like a common criminal

Or a rapper on the wrong side of town

A song was written in Liverpool

Three singers harmonized in Nashville

The final chapter wrote itself

In the life of a troubadour on the run

Outside of Boulder Colorado

A dancer found her groove

A native movement was born

On the third and fourth mesa

In the Great Navaho Reservation

In Arizona and New Mexico

Where a circle of shamans

Smoked a pipe of peace

And a child took his first breath

In a corner drugstore on Bleeker Street

 

Life goes on the wise man says

Life goes on

 

Sequoias

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Sequoias

 

The magnificent Sequoias of California

Are now an endangered species

A twenty-year drought drained the lifeblood

And the fires reduced them to kindling

 

Cry not for these majestic creatures

Though they have stood for a million years

Cry for those who will never behold

In all their glory and towering strength

The pounding pulse of their eternal grace

 

Cry for all humankind

Entrusted with their care

Cry for the forest and all the life

Dependent on the Sequoia cover

Cry for the father of all beings

Cry for the earthly mother

 

We are witnessing the final days

Of one of nature’s greatest miracles

And we know as a mother knows her child

It is only the beginning

 

Denial and Rage

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Denial and Rage

 

When someone you love gets covid

You do not want to accept it

It cannot be

You took all the precautions

You did all the right things

You considered others

You watched your step

You vaccinated

You wore the mask

You dined outside

You did not attend large gatherings

 

You faltered once or twice

Is that all it took?

One simple misstep

One walk on the wrong side

Of the street

 

Some random conspiracy theorist

Some antivax zealot

Some fool without a mask

Invades your breathing space

And you contract the disease

You become the victim

You become a carrier

Of denial and rage

 

Inequity

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Inequity

 

He does not deserve this indignity

He does not deserve this disgrace

When a man of honor is victimized

The house of equity is out of place

 

We may look back on this day

And despise those who did not care

Enough to compromise their freedom

Bringing our right to life to bear

 

Are they so blind to the consequence

Of giving the virus room to grow

Of refusing to listen to science

Of being proud not to know

 

You’ve taken too many mothers and fathers

You’ve taken too many sons and daughters

The great pandemic should be over

But you believed in four-leaf clovers

 

Go away and take your family

Go away and take your friends

Thanks to you the plague lives on

Thanks to you there is no end