Enemies of the Earth

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Enemies of the Earth

 

Destroyers of the rain forest

From the Amazon to the Artic

Vampires of life on earth

Pirates of exploitation

 

It begins with logging

Clear cutting vast swaths of forest

Trees older than any nation

Wiped from the planet

To make way for corporate agriculture

Which in turn gives way to drilling for oil

Mining for precious metals

Injecting the earth with chemicals

Until the once fertile soil

Becomes a toxic wasteland

Unfit for human or animal habitation

Now comes urban development

Concrete towns and cities

That choke the good earth

Where the forest used to be

 

A crime against nature

A crime against the planet

And all life forms it sustains

 

Bolsonaro, British Petroleum

ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical…

Enemies of the earth

A legacy of destruction

 

Epic Killers

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD HISTORY

The Epic Killers (The Killing Spirit)

 

The epic killers of history

Enjoy a modest reputation

By comparison to what they did

It merits investigation

 

Mao was an epic killer

Known for his little red book

Many thousands lost their lives

Though Chinese history will not look

 

Stalin was an epic killer

Who purged political enemies

Execution was his trademark

He killed men as if they were fleas

 

Custer and Crook were epic killers

Sand Creek and Washita River

They massacred women and children

With a coldness that makes you shiver

 

But the most epic killers in history

Are those yet to come

For the killing spirit is alive and well

And the scale will leave us numb

 

(see Wasichu: The Killing Spirit

By Jack Random)

 

The Flood in Nigeria

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The Flood

 

Nigeria faces an epic flood

Ethiopia confronts biblical starvation

While the world discusses climate change

Much of Africa pleads for salvation

 

The flood in Nigeria reminds us

That those who pay the greatest price

Of global warming are often those

Who gained the thinnest slice

 

The famine in Ethiopia informs us

That the effects of industrialization

Do not spare the relatively innocent

But impact equally all nations

 

Islands sink in the deep blue sea

Crops fail and rivers run dry

We pray to our gods but cannot wonder

The clear and obvious reasons why

 

A Fragile Republic

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

A Fragile Republic

 

The experiment that began centuries ago

With a declaration of independence

That survived a multitude of assaults

That survived the Alien and Sedition Acts

That endured the institution of slavery

That triumphed in a bloody civil war

That outlasted Jim Crow reconstruction

That overcame a Great Depression

That suffered through attempted genocide

That pushed through women’s suffrage

That demanded essential reforms

A constant moving forward toward

The better angels of our being

Now totters on the razor’s edge

of popular autocracy

 

The question now to every one of us

is whether we will be the generation

That allowed our democracy to slip away

on the promise of a charlatan?

 

Stealing Children

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Stealing Children

 

The depravity of the great dictator

Drives to a new low

Stealing children in Ukraine

Sending them to Russian homes

Feeding them with Russian lies

To grow up with hatred in their hearts

To fight against their own

 

Have you not enough orphans in Russia?

To train with endless brainwashing?

With needs that suit your purposes

To become loyal soldiers

To arm with Russian weapons

To send into brutal wars

 

To steal the children of another land

To fight your dirty wars

Sets a new bar for immorality

That will reverberate through the ages

Drawing the tears of mothers

For generations to come