The Way it Goes Down

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS (Visions of Armageddon)

The Way it Goes Down

 

With a bang or a whimper

A rumble or a moan

Will it sneak up on us

Like a cat on the prowl

Like Katrina in New Orleans

With a quick and a quiet

With a slam and a roar

Will it bombard us

Like a declaration of war

Like shock and awe

Like a sudden storm

 

When it all goes down

How will it go down?

Will we even know it?

Will we smell it in the air?

Will we taste it in the morning sun?

Will we see it coming

Like a dust storm on the horizon

Like darkness over the sea?

Like a wave of destruction

From a clear and present danger?

Will we know and fight back

Or will we simply know?

When it all comes down

Will it even matter how?

 

The Danube

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES

 

The Danube (River Series)

 

The Danube runs from eastern Germany

Through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia

Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine

There it empties into the Black Sea

Where it has watched human history

From the front row balcony

 

It has seen the wars that humans fight

It has seen the stone, bronze and iron ages

It has traced the rise and fall of the Roman empire

The mongrels and the Ottomans

Atilla the Hun and Alexander the Great

It has watched the crusades of Christians

And the conquests of the moors

 

The grand Danube river suffered through

The age of industry as massive pollution

Filled its waters with chemical waste

 

The Danube is running low now

As Europe’s five-hundred-year drought

Wipes away the river’s vibrant flow

Exposing relics of the second world war

Altering flood plains and threatening crops

Protestors in Bucharest plead for revise

As water supplies are rationed

Hydroelectric power is reduced

And river transport is compromised

 

Those who have depended on the Danube

For hundreds and thousands of years

Are reaching the desperate hours

We cannot go on pretending

Nothing has changed when

Everything has changed

 

The river Danube is running low

Before long it may run dry

Unless we take drastic action now

 

Send Us Your Working Poor

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IMMIGRATION

Send Us Your Working Poor

 

Texas sends migrants to Manhattan

In what they consider a declaration of war

But with a severe shortage of labor

There is a reality we cannot ignore

 

Send us your poor, your huddled masses

We need them at restaurants and bars

We don’t need a war between classes

We don’t need your right to bear arms

But we’ll take Willie Nelson and Austin

We acknowledge that Texas has charms

 

So send us the workers you do not want

We need them to help fight our fires

We don’t need you to take us backwards

But we do need a whole lot of hires

We need nurses and teachers and aides

Send them before ours retire

 

We need them to work in our plants

We need them to work in our schools

All we ask is an honest day’s labor

And we’d like you to honor our rules

We’ll give you a good hearty welcome

Unlike those Texas fools

 

Need to Believe

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Need to Believe

 

“I want to believe.”  X Files

 

The key to understanding America

In the early twenty-first century

Is to realize our need to believe

That everything is fine

The march of progress is unstoppable

Our rights can never be taken

Our freedom is secure

The great warming is just a rumor

American greatness is beyond question

American democracy cannot die

And every generation will be greater

Than the last

 

We so need to believe the mythology

That we are willing to abandon reason

Eager to demonize science

Happy to discard medicine

Ever anxious to believe that a two-bit

Con man is our greatest hope

 

Americans have always been

Creatures of divine faith

Credulous to the ultimate extreme

Yet we have always shaken

The chains of gullibility

At times of historical need

 

Maybe this time is different

Maybe this time we’ll sleepwalk

Through the days of Armageddon

Or maybe we’ll awaken in time

To understand that only we

Can arrest the decree

 

Order and Chaos

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Order and Chaos

 

Organisms in nature seek chaos

A natural dissolution of order

A progressive rusting away

 

Despite the way of nature

Humans are driven to create order

Structures imposed upon the chaos

Like dams upon the Mississippi

Like agriculture in the barren desert

Like roadmaps in the expanse of space

 

We have created concrete cities

Highways, bridges, and railways

We have created tunnels beneath us

Pathways in the skies above

We navigate the deep blue seas

 

We have constructed a civilization

To stand several millennia

Knowing it will not likely endure

The next wave of destruction

 

Chaos is the way of the world

And we poor humans

Can only hope or pray

That some small remnants

Remain in the rubble of

The final days