The John Lewis Bridge

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: EQUAL RIGHTS

The John Lewis Bridge

 

Edmund Pettus was a leader of the KKK

They named a bridge after him

And on that bridge years later

They beat the hell out of black marchers

Marching for equal rights

Marching for the right to vote

Marching to be recognized

 

In an enlightened age there would be

no Edmund Pettus Bridge

It would be torn down stone by stone

Iron beam by iron beam

Scattered across the nation

Placed in museums and town halls

to remind us of our former ignorance

 

Instead let us remove the name of

Edmund Pettus and replace it with

one of the brave souls beaten on that

fateful day: The John Lewis Bridge

 

Let it be remembered by all who cross

the price that was paid that day

 

Let it serve as a reminder of the triumph

of the human spirit

The power of light over the darkness

Of good over evil

 

John R. Lewis Bridge

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD/CIVIL RIGHTS SERIES

 

John R. Lewis Bridge

 

MLK marched on Washington

To assert the rights of all human beings

To live in relative peace and freedom

To buy homes in decent neighborhoods

To receive a quality education

To seek justice in a court of law

To expect decency from law enforcement

To vote in fair elections

 

John R. Lewis marched alongside MLK

Across the Edmund Pettis Bridge

To demonstrate his courage and resolve

They marched on in silence

As dozens of cops with clubs drawn

Stormed the marchers

Beating them down like animals

Trying to end the civil rights movement

Once and for always

 

Until the Edmund Pettis Bridge

Is dismantled piece by piece

Replaced with the John R. Lewis Bridge

We will not be home

We will not be free

Until every last vestige of white supremacy

Is uprooted from blood-stained soil

The cause will not be done

Indeed we will only have begun

 

Effigy to Robert E. Lee

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

Effigy to Robert E. Lee

 

We bought the whitewashed story

The noble Southerner

The native son who fought

For his people

For his homeland

For his way of life

 

As God is my witness…

 

We bought the whole narrative

Of the proud and brave South

Fighting against all odds

For an old-fashioned righteous cause

The plantation as an industry

Where blacks were merely workers

Where they were given meaningful lives

Grateful to their masters

For food clothing and shelter

And honest labor

 

All hail Robert E. Lee!

 

The finest of his generation

Number one in his class

Defender of the abomination

Of racial bigotry and slavery

 

As God is my witness

He will never be revered again

 

Guilty

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Guilty

 

There was more than a man on trial

More than an officer of the law

Justice itself was on trial

Compassion was on trial

The nature of truth was in the balance

 

There was more than a man on trial

More than a silver badge

More than the state of Minnesota

More than law in America

 

The history of race relations

The history of slavery and discrimination

The history of lies and betrayals

The history of civil rights

The blood of the martyrs

Tears of the fallen survivors

 

There was more than a man on trial

More than this nation

The tainted history of civilization

The oppressed and the oppressor

Centuries of recrimination

An honest reckoning for reparations

 

We were all on trial

The privileged and the innocent

The naïve and unknowing

The products of culture and education

Centuries of indoctrination

 

We were all on trial

And we were found guilty

Guilty of not knowing

Guilty of not believing

Guilty of not caring enough

To make the necessary changes

A long time ago

 

Justice in a Time of Passion

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN JUSTICE

Justice in a Time of Passion

 

Justice is not angry

Justice is cool calm and calculating

It desires truth as the poet desires love

It leans on facts as the toddler

clings to her mother’s hand

 

Justice is not vengeance

It is a balancing of the account

It is an assurance that injustice

will not and cannot happen

without appropriate consequence

 

Justice is not the great redeemer

Justice is not the avenging angel

Justice is not an impassioned warrior

Justice is a blind woman with a scale

 

She serves no one’s cause

She answers no one’s call

She stills herself to listen

She absorbs all the facts

She measures their worth

and delivers her judgment

 

If justice does her job well

no one is fully satisfied

but we are empowered

to accept her decree

and move on

 

How many tears?

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

How many tears?

 

How many times must we bear witness?

How many tears must we cry?

How much sorrow must we endure?

How many souls must die?

 

As we depart the days of winter

And breathe the freshness of spring

It is a time of revival and rebirth

When the robins and angels sing

 

Yet the time of mourning still lingers

The wail of the nightingale’s song

The executioner’s gaze still haunts us

With the dead of society’s wrong

 

It seems we will never learn

As it happens again and again

The nightmares of history repeated

The horrors that have always been

 

So how much blood must flow?

How many tears must we cry

Before we learn beyond knowing

That too many people have died?

 

Color Blind

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Color Blind

 

To be black or brown in America

Is to be born a person of interest

A perpetual suspect by birthright

 

To wear the blue in America

Is to be beyond question

Beyond suspicion or reproach

Beyond the reach of justice

Beyond the veil of accountability

 

To be black or brown and angry

Is guilt beyond all reason

A verdict preordained

A sentence without mercy

Without doubt or second thought

 

For justice is not color blind

It sees the colors black and brown

And hands a sentence down

It sees the color blue

And presumes the word is true

 

No justice is not balanced

And it is not color blind

For it depends on your skin

The justice you will find

 

The Streets of Protest

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

The Streets of Protest

 

The streets of protest

Are lined with the blood of martyrs

From the slave uprisings of ancient Rome

To the storming of the Bastille

From the modest Boston Tea Party

To the Haymarket Labor Riots

From the Freedom March on Washington

To the suffragettes for women’s rights

From the Free Speech Movement

To the Vietnam sit ins

From the global challenge to the Iraq War

To the George Floyd upheaval

The pages of history are marked

By the rising of the Left

The cause of humankind

 

Throughout the course of time

Liberty Freedom Justice Equality and Peace

Have always depended on Free Thinkers

From the Left

Never from the Right

The reactionary Right has always

Stood against the march of progress

Always

 

So when the Right cries Freedom!

We answer:  Freedom for who?

For the oppressed white men?

For the overprivileged class?

 

So when the Right comes to the streets

Of protest with their arms and helmets

Their riot sticks and bullet proof vests

Do not mistake them for liberators

Do not pretend they stand for order

They are the insurgents

They are thugs and bullies

Hungry for power and ways

To wield it

 

The Proud Boys

The Klan

The Secret Society

By any other name:

They are the enemies of the people

Enemies of America

Enemies of all we hold dear

 

Timeline

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

Timeline

 

Another needless death born

In a dingy smoke filled room

Murder by the men in blue

Nothing seen is nothing true

The ugly and sublime

The horrid and the kind

All things come out in time

 

The global warming hoax

An environmentalist joke

By now we all know it’s real

Does not matter how you feel

Say a prayer and make a deal

Wonder why we were so blind

Everything reveals in time

 

The myth of racial justice

A gaping wealth divide

Barren trees and fruitless skies

A long and twisted ride

Preachers spreading fantasies

Leaders telling lies

You have your facts

And I have mine

The truth comes out in time

Oppression

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Oppression                                                                                                     

 

Oppression is not a flash of lightning

The heavy hammer of abuse

It is not the swift slice of a sharp blade

Or the sting of pounding blow

 

Oppression is a dull throbbing ache

Always present never fading

Always building like waves of heat

 

Oppression never reaches its crescendo

With the end of day or the fall of night

 

Oppression is a constant haunting

Like the shadow of a thousand miseries

In a hospice or a funeral home

 

It is a pall that never lifts

A pain that has no remedy

A ghost in living flesh

 

To live with oppression

Is to be imprisoned without bars

In agony without relief

In perpetual apprehension

Of the days and nights ahead

 

Oppression in its purest sense

Is to be oppressor and oppressed

In an endless cycle of horror

Vigilante Justice

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

 

Have you seen that vigilante man?

Have you seen that vigilante man?

Have you seen that vigilante man?

I been hearin’ his name all over the land.

 

W. Guthrie

 

Vigilante Justice

 

Another black man shot

By the men in blue

Another city on fire

Before it’s through

 

Some came to seek justice

Some came for the sun

When you come to a protest

Do not bring a gun

 

The vigilantes are here

And they’re looking for trouble

They’re looking for blood

And they’ll find it before it’s done

When you come to a protest

Don’t carry a gun

 

They don’t care who they hurt

They don’t care who they kill

It’s a war on the streets

They’ve come for the thrill

If you tell them they’re losers

They’ll tell you they’ve won

When you come to a protest

Bring your own gun

 

(Two dead in Kenosha 8/26/20)

 

Aurora

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Aurora

 

Home of Columbine

Where the weapons industry thrives

Where memories of mass shootings

Are planted in the collective mind

 

Aurora cops stop the wrong car

And force a black family face down

On the punishing pavement

Hands cuffed behind their backs

No apologies no decency

No sympathy for crying children

 

What is it about Aurora that leads

Humans to behave so callously

To commit such atrocities

To build a legacy of hate

 

Is it the water

Is it the militaristic mindset

Is it the culture

Is it a history of racial injustice

 

If ever a community required therapy

If ever the schools needed change

If ever the cops needed reform

It is now in this place and time

 

The Problem is Me

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

The Problem is Me

 

The problem with this wayward world

Is people who cannot see

The writing on the wall

The way it has to be

The problem with this world

Is old white men like me

 

We’ve ruled this land for centuries

Through hard times and disease

Wars at home and overseas

Civil rights and great upheaval

Systemic failures heartfelt pleas

Through twisted turns of history

The problem with the world is me

 

We keep on marching for the cause

We push for changes in the laws

We pledge our solemn solidarity

Moving forward in singularity

We hold on to the dream

And pray it comes to be

Through it all it’s plain to see

The problem with the world is me

 

White Privilege

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

White Privilege

I have known the hand of privilege

Been forgiven for my sins

Don’t they know under the surface

I am red beneath the skin

I have advanced above my betters

Some will lose while others win

Don’t they know under the cover

I am black beneath the skin

I earned more than my fair share

Don’t know where I should begin

Don’t they realize it’s all a mask

I am brown beneath the skin

No one tells you that its wrong

Like a song below the din

You accept the solemn truth

That it’s all about the skin

Man of Honor (for John Lewis)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Man of Honor

Man of honor

Man of dignity

He overcame the weight of history

To become the conscience of the people’s house

They beat him down on the Edmund Pettus Bridge

They beat him back on the bus to freedom

He spilled his blood on the long march

to the promised land

Yet he never lost hope

He carried more than his share

of his generation’s burden

Yet he always believed he would get there

He marched with King

Stood beside Jesse Jackson

and prayed with Reverend Al

He broke bread with adversaries

and converted many to friends

It is tempting to believe

it is all for nothing

John Lewis was always there

to remind us where we’ve been

and remember how far we have come