Nine Days in September

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

Nine Days in September

 

When once the temperature began to cool

At least a little at the beginning of school

Now the mercury rises

(a shock that nature supplies us)

to over three digits Fahrenheit

We know this can’t be right

Our bodies drenched in sweat

Every day feels like a debt

that we can never repay

The heat comes and here it stays

Throbbing like a drumbeat

Tomorrow and tomorrow it will repeat

Nine straight days in September

The elders will always remember

The young will shrug and say

It’s the price we have to pay

For what our parents did not do

(we all know how much it’s true)

Remember the warming fight?

Blow out your candle and say

Goodnight

 

The Queen

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  LIFE SONGS

The Queen

 

The Queen is dead

Long live the King

Elizabeth of Windsor

Of thee I sing

 

She was a rare and dignified breed

A certain majesty and grace

She fulfilled a uniquely British need

She maintained a monarch’s pace

And passed down the royal seed

 

It is perhaps time to let it go

The monarchy belongs to the past

All the monarchs must surely know

Their place in history cannot last

But she was precious beyond words

Her reign was long and filled with love

Her subjects cried on the day they heard

Their queen had gone to the place above

 

The Queen is dead

Long live the King

Queen Elizabeth

Of thee I sing

 

Supporting the Blue

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  POEMICS

Supporting the Blue

 

You do not support the blue

If you allow madmen and criminals

To possess weapons of war

Knowing the harm they will do

 

You do not support the blue

If your people attack agents of the FBI

Or turn a blind eye on those who do

Put your foot in another’s shoe

 

You do not support the blue

If you encourage violence on the streets

When it suits your purpose

To push your own political views

 

You do not support the blue

If your support depends on party

On the kind of cap they wear

Or whether they agree with you

 

You do not support the blue

When you become the mindless mob

That attacks the people’s house

And they will not support you

 

American Fascism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Fascism

 

How dare the president declare

MAGA Republicans semi-fascist

MAGA Republicans support a free economy

A free economy is not fascist

Therefore MAGA cannot be fascist

 

Let us be clear:

Fascism is authoritarianism

MAGA Republicans are authoritarian

Fascism is totalitarianism, dictatorship

Despotism and autocracy

It invariably favors the corporate elite

It is intolerant of racial minorities

It embraces nationalism

It wishes to oppress all ideas

And ideologies that are not their own

Fascists are determined to eliminate

Political opponents by all means

 

While scholars may disagree on specifics

They all agree that fascism is opposed

To all variations of democracy

 

By what reasoning are MAGA’s

Not representative of fascism?

Yes, the president misspoke in declaring

MAGA Republicans semi-fascist

The modifier was completely unnecessary

Drought in China

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Drought in China

 

Droughts in China and Arizona

Floods in Texas and India

There is such irony when

Global warming strikes back

At its biggest offenders

 

But let us not forget

A change in climate affects

The innocent as the guilty

 

The powerless people of Pakistan

Do not deserve this climate hell

The voiceless of India and China

Are not responsible for the negligence

And indifference of their governments

 

A tornado does not distinguish

Between polluter and non-polluter

The exploding storms do not choose

To ravage only regressive states

 

In the short run some nations

May face more of the consequences

Of our paralysis and inaction

But in the long run we will all pay

We will all face the horrors

The devastation and destruction

Together