Swept Away

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Swept Away

 

Everything you own

Everything you’ve worked and fought for

All of your working life

Everything your parents and grandparents

Worked and fought for

Swept away in a matter of hours

Your home, your truck, your car

All of your appliances and clothes

All of your tools and supplies

Your kids’ belongings

Your photographs and memories

All of it gone, swept away

By the storm of the century

Only it ain’t the storm of the century

Cause here it comes again

 

What do we do?

Where do we go?

Everyone we know is about as

Bad off as we are

That’s why we pray

We pray to God the government

Comes through

Cause we know damn well

The insurance companies won’t

 

Yeah, we been through hard times

Yeah, we’ve gone without

We’ve worked two shifts

We’ve worked two or three jobs

Just to pay down the debt

And carry one

But this feels different

Cause it is different

Our whole damned world

Swept away

 

Ghost Towns

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Ghost Towns

 

In the old west there were ghost towns

Towns that sprung up overnight

Along the trail of wagon trains

To feed the great migration

Along the path of gold and silver

To feed the dreams of poverty

Boom and bust towns

Towns that rose from the dust

Drowned in rotgut liquor

Played hard and fast with women

Indulged in life’s forbidden pleasures

And vanished like a dream

Like a wanton drunken dream

People came and settled in

Until the gold dried up

Until the railroad moved on

Until the boom went bust

 

We’re about to enter a new age

Of the boom-and-bust ghost towns

Desert towns deserted

For lack of drinking water

For lack of irrigation

Towns overrun by rust and waste

Towns that bet it all on false promises

False gods, false prophets and false profits

Towns that thrived on agriculture

Towns that imploded on technology

Gambling towns and tourist towns

Towns that used to court life

Before the party ended

Now all that remains are memories

And ghosts

 

The Purge

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The Purge

 

What happened on January Sixth?

Nefarious purpose is glaringly clear

Destruction of evidence is a crime

The eyes of justice are bearing

Down on the agents of government

Who erased essential documents

Leaving their complicity most evident

Their motives demented and bent

 

They covered the crime of the century

To serve their treasonous boss

Who unleashed his terrible fury

Threatened them all with such loss

As the strongest of men could not bear

Were they cowards or were they corrupt?

With the republic at stake, who cares?

They purged the republic of trust

Now it’s time for them to be purged

Let us do what we can and must

Let justice and honor be served

For until they are gone one and all

Americans should be appalled

 

Congo Compromise

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

Congo Compromise

 

At a time when global warming

Kills people by the thousands

In every corner of the world

The Congo decides to auction off

Its rain forest for oil and gas development

Blood for oil has become the norm

The Congo has an excuse

They are not alone in compromise

 

The European Union reclassifies liquid gas

As a source of clean, green energy

As all of Europe from Stockholm to Madrid

From London to Naples

Suffers its hottest temperatures

In the history of recorded time

Europeans have an excuse

They are dependent on Russian oil

 

America has its own compromise

But it is time we recognized

There will always be an excuse

We can no longer allow our reasons

To block the way of action

In the case of the Republic of Congo

The wealthy nations of the world

(sans China, Russia and Brazil)

Must purchase the rain forests

To ban oil and gas development

 

Is it enough?  No, but it is a step

Can we afford it?  Yes.

We cannot afford not to do it

 

The Worm Turns

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The Worm Turns

 

The hearings drew a picture

That everyone could view

The former president was behind it

It is so obviously true

 

The loyalists who backed him

Have fully earned their shame

Though they ran from the mob

They’re still playing the party game

 

In case you didn’t see them

Here is what you missed

Instead of being worried

The president was in bliss

 

He planned the whole affair

He roused them to a fury

Now he sits in Mar-a-Lago

Afraid to face a jury