Back Page Ramble (Nobody Knows)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Back Page Ramble (Nobody Knows)

 

To be so young and to know so much

Makes me wonder how long we’ve been in touch

I have wasted most of my time so long

Now everything I thought was wrong

For when I was a child I was innocent

I fought to find what the message meant

So I grew up fast and I grew up strong

When others led I went along

I could not find the power

It was not my finest hour

 

If we knew now what we knew then

Would we have the strength to start again?

Nobody knows

 

Now that I am old I know just what to do

But I lack the strength to see it through

So I wait for someone to come for us

To get on board the big yellow bus

To take us where we’ll start again

We know it’ll come we don’t know when

We will stand up like the towers

It will be our finest hour

 

If we knew then what we know now

Would we find a way somehow?

Nobody knows

 

(regards to the immortal Bob Dylan)

Replacement Folly

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  SOCIAL JUSTICE

Replacement Folly

 

Fear is its name

Fear of others

Fear of colors

Fear of change

Fear of losing hold

Fear of another race

Fear of being replaced

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident

That the white Anglo Saxon race

Was born to reign above all others

The supreme sisters and brothers

 

They’re coming to get us

They’re coming to marry our daughters

They’re coming to fill our spaces

They’re coming to replace us

 

Be afraid

Be very afraid

Be afraid of dark skin radicals

Be afraid of brown and black

Be afraid of open borders

Be afraid of a frontal attack

 

We own this nation

We fought for it

We committed genocide for it

We killed the buffalo for it

We claimed the land

We planted the flag

This land belongs to us

 

We are a white Christian nation

All others can clear the way

We conquered the land from sea to sea

You can bet we’re here to stay

 

The Great Reckoning

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

The Great Reckoning

 

Goodbye Christopher Columbus

You were never the man we thought

We bestowed on you a hero’s status

But a hero you were not

 

You enslaved and killed the natives

As if it was your god given right

For centuries the myth prevailed

Now the reckoning is in sight

 

The statues are being dismantled

The street signs are coming down

Soon a walk in the Columbus district

Will be a walk in Geronimo town

 

Do not worry you are not alone

Our history is being rewritten

From the slaughter of the buffalo

To the founding zealots from Britain

 

The Homeless Problem

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

The Homeless Problem

 

They used to hide the homeless problem

Put em on a bus to the next town

Let em find shelter in the countryside

Banish them and put them down

 

Now there are more homeless than ever

Under bridges and along the tracks

They live in villages of tents

They keep count of them in stacks

 

They used to call them Hoover towns

Before they moved them underground

Now you see them all around

The black the red the yellow and brown

 

Portland is a city that cares

Providing services and shelters

Many cities could not care less

Running roughshod helter skelter

 

The line dividing us from them

is as fine as it could be

Lose a job or have an accident

Turn around and then you’ll see

 

What happened to the homeless

could easily happen to you or me

Woman of the Mountain

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Woman of the Mountain

 

As I traveled the lonesome highways

In the adventuresome days of my youth

I took a journey to the mountain top

Where I caught a glimpse of truth

 

She was standing in a tunnel of light

I was humbled by my bed

I was praying silently for miracles

She just said it is in your head

 

She said you’ve always been a poet

She said you only need a start

She reached out and gave me the seed

That feeds our giving hearts

 

I visit her in the mountain

I see her in the stream

I found her and I lost her

In an early morning dream