Voting in a War Zone

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Voting in a War Zone

 

Imagine your home invaded by armed thugs

Miraculously you fight them back

But they hold the living room

With guns drawn they insist on a vote

To decide who will inhabit this space

Vote for them and life goes on

Until they deny you passage through

Your own living room

Vote against them and they open fire

 

This is what Russia did in Crimea

This in what they have done in Luhansk,

Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia

Voting in a war zone is not democracy

It is the opposite of democracy

It is itself a crime against humanity

It makes a mockery of democracy

Just as the Russian Federation does

With its mock elections

 

Voting with a gun to your head is not voting

Voting with a gun to your head is survival

 

Why would a dictator conduct such mockery?

It reveals his weakness and foreshadows

The depravity to come

 

The Return of Italian Fascism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

Fascism with a Pretty Face

 

Mussolini rose to power in Italy

As an elected prime minister in 1922

In three years he became dictator

In 1940 he entered the great war

On the side of the Nazis

Five years later he was captured

And executed by his own people

 

Five decades later

In the tradition of Italian fascism

Italy elects Giorgia “Mussolini” Meloni

Fascism with a pretty face

She represents Italian nationalism

Praises Mussolini

Condemns multiculturalism

Shows sympathy for Nazi collaborators

And repressive morality police

 

Despite past support for Putin

She has promised to support Ukraine

We will see, we will see

Would Mussolini have opposed Hitler

If his election required it?

 

Let’s not pretend it cannot happen

It can and anywhere

Where fear of others supplants patriotism

Where racial purity a silent virtue

Where years of austerity

Poverty and homelessness

Feed our biases and terror

It happens when we forget who we are

And what we stand for

It happens when we care only for

Ourselves and nothing for others

 

Nuclear Threat

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  UKRAINE

Nuclear Threat

 

A poker player does not show his ace

A chess master does not tip his moves

A commander does not reveal his strategy

A leader does not threaten nuclear war

Unless he is desperate and cornered

 

The pariah of the new world order

Has raised the specter of annihilation

Mutually assured mass destruction

He has evolved from a toothless beast

To a madman in a collapsing kingdom

He is no longer the Russian strongman

He is no longer the untouchable leader

His veil of invincibility has shattered

The myth of his mighty military gone

 

He has ruled in an age of his own demise

He has guided his ship into the rocks

He has led the great regression

Away from freedom and democracy

Toward dictatorship and greed

 

His story is already written

His legacy is a toppled statue

The once great commander of the north

Has fallen in disgrace

 

The question now is:

Will the Russian people follow

His path to self-destruction

Or will they rise to the moment?

 

(Note: The people are rising; the question

Now is what will the military do?)

Britannia

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Britannia

 

Beneath the glory of the pageantry

Beneath the sorrow and the mourning

The decline of Britannia presses on

As they christen an age of austerity

With a new conservative prime minister

The Brits will double down on Brexit

While they renew their pledge to NATO

And the war against Russia in Ukraine

Their pledge to war on inflation

Runs contrary to the war on warming

And threatens to crack the alliance

 

The world is once again divided

The free world against the oppressed

The abusers against the abused

The exploiters against the exploited

 

There are nations committed to change

And nations determined to regress

At a time of catastrophic disasters

There are nations that do not care

There are nations that see the world

And those that see only themselves

 

Britannia is at a crossroads

Which way will you go?

Will you hold with the civilized world

Or will you choose to walk alone?

Either way there will be sacrifice

Either way there will be blood

 

The Warnings

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The Warnings

 

We should have known

We had more warnings than we can count

We should have known when Katrina

Filled the Gulf of Mexico before

Leaving the ninth ward a ghost town

We should have known

 

We should have known when torrential

Floods ravaged India and Pakistan

When Hurricane Rita slammed into Cuba,

Texas and Louisiana

When Ivan brought havoc to Venezuela,

The Gulf Coast and the Caribbean

We should have known when Ike

Ran its course from Texas to Iceland

When Sandy buried New Jersey in floodwater

When Harvey made waste from

The Yucatan to Texas

We should have known

 

Tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons

Storms the size of continents

Glaciers falling into the oceans

Polar icecaps melting

Islands swallowed by the sea

 

No one can say we were not warned

No one can say we didn’t see it coming

We saw, we knew and we turned away