Remember Kent State

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN HISTORY

Remember Kent State

 

Back in the year 1970

(most of you don’t remember)

The National Guard in the state of Ohio

Shot four students dead

They were not violent

They were not breaking the law

They were shot dead for being there

Shot dead for caring

Shot dead for the war machine

In Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam

 

We knew they hated us

We didn’t know they’d kill us

After Kent State we knew

We’d never forget the bloodstained path

The tears of innocence

The end of an era of hope

 

More than any other event of the decade

Kent State divided the nation

Kent State burned itself into our psyche

It spawned a generation of distrust

A distrust of government and authority

Passed down the years to today

 

If you love this nation

If you love its principles and ideals

If you want America to endure

Then remember Kent State

Remember Jackson State

Remember the age of protest

Remember the disenchantment

And make sure it never happens again

Worse than Buchanan

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Worse than Buchanan

 

Worse than Buchanan

Worse than Franklin Pierce

His defenders were none

His opposition remained fierce

 

Buchanan, Pierce and Fillmore

Paved the road to Civil War

As colossal failures to the union

You could hardly ask for more

 

Historians know the value

Of a president’s true worth

They chose our number 45

As the nation’s very worst

 

He betrayed our democracy

He failed to build his wall

He divided all Americans

As he fulfilled treason’s call

 

His followers stand by him

Despite his fatal flaws

His ego and his ignorance

His defiance of the law

 

No one could be worse than him

He’s as bad as it gets

Will the nation have him back again?

Who knows? Place your bets

 

Teaching True History

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

Teaching True History

 

In Carolina the Underground Railroad

Was a smuggling operation

In Florida slavery was job training

In Alabama the Civil War was fought

Over economic differences

In Mississippi (goddamn) Strange Fruit

Were Kiwis and Kumquats

In Tennessee the Trail has no Tears

In Oklahoma Tulsa has no ghosts

In Texas the Rangers never killed Mexicans

In North Dakota Wounded Knee was a battle

In California we teach the truth

We didn’t always but we do now

 

If a child does not know where he came

From she will not know where to go

If a child does not know true history

He will not be prepared for the world

If a child is raised on mythology as if

It were the truth that child is condemned

To a future of disappointment

 

You cannot hide the truth forever

You can ban books but you cannot banish reading

You can bend facts but you cannot revise the truth

When you lie to your children over and

Over you guarantee disenchantment

And you will never win their trust

 

Teach your children the truth or

They will grow to resent you

And they will be right

 

Boots on the Ground

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Boots on the Ground

 

Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan

They did not ask us to lend a hand

We fought our wars on their land

We hoped they’d understand

 

Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan

We put our boots on their ground

We asked them not to let us down

When we unleashed the hounds

 

Iraq is not Ukraine

The differences are plain

Like sunshine and forever rain

They do not want our soldiers

We do not want their grain

 

Ukraine is not Afghanistan

Though they share a common thread

The Russians once invaded them

An act they came to dread

An act the world condemned

 

Ukraine is not Vietnam

They do not want our troops

They don’t want our boots on loan

They only want their country

They want to defend their own

 

Overcome (for MLK)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Overcome 

 

The sickness and the sorrow

Invades my soul this day

Of all the things I know

No one reveals the way

I don’t know where I’m going

I don’t know where I’m from

And yet I still believe

We shall overcome

 

I walked a lonely mile

With Bobby and the King

I marched into the setting sun

When he sang Let Freedom Ring!

There’s nothing left of them

But the instrument I strum

And yet I still have faith

We shall overcome

 

We overcame the monarch

We overcame the Klan

We overcame the royalists

Who fought the Rights of Man

I hear the soldiers crying out

The pounding of the drums

We will not turn and run this day

We shall overcome

 

I bathed in sacred waters

I reached a distant shore

When hunger stood before me

I knocked upon the door

She said I have no whiskey

But I’ve got a little rum

I shed a tear of joy and said

We shall overcome

 

The Storming of the People's House

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Storming of the People’s House

 

The people of Paris stormed the Bastille

14 July 1789 to overthrow a despotic

government. A monarchy, an aristocracy,

hereditary succession, a royal king.

 

In Washington the people stormed congress

6 January 2021 to overthrow an elected

president, to install a monarchy, hereditary

succession, an aristocratic king. 

 

The storming of the Bastille toppled the

king, introduced the guillotine and begat

the Reign of Terror, a river of blood that

swallowed its leader: Maximilien

Robespierre.

 

The storming of the people’s house fell

short of its goal, dozens of instigators

captured and jailed while its leader went

free, opening the door to a period of

uncertainty and the promise of revenge.

 

The storming of the Bastille was a turning

point in history; one by one the monarchs

fell, replaced by elected governments,

representative democracies that shined

from Europe to across the sea. 

 

The storming of the people’s house is an

unfinished story: a defense of democracy

or its tragic fall? A period of unrest or a

reign of terror? For better or for worse,

let the people decide. 

 

A Modern Mussolini

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

A Modern Mussolini

 

He sounds a lot like Hitler

But he is not the same

Hitler was an orator

Who had a feel for art

The Don is a pretender

Whose speeches fall apart

He’s more like Mussolini

The Italiano beast

They both hold their girth

And hailed from the east

The original fascista

As everybody knows

Wherever Hitler points

Mussolini goes

Like Vlad and the Don

We know who’s on top

If Vlad is the chief

The Don is the cop

He’ll do Putin’s bidding

Without question or doubt

In the end he’ll ask Vlad:

Can you help a poor boy out?

He’s a modern Mussolini

But he never read the story

If he had he would know

The end is pretty gory

 

Tears for Henry

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Tears for Henry

 

The man who toppled Salvador Allende

The man who championed dictatorship

The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize

For carpet bombing Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

The man who never saw a strongman he didn’t love

The man who held Nixon’s hand through

The sorry days of Watergate

The man who said we should never let an election

Stand in the way of our interests

The man who was in love with power

The man who tried to forge an empire

 

He died today at the round age of one hundred

One wonders if he negotiated a deal with the reaper

How many lives for one old man?

Shall we shed a tear for Henry?

How many tears did he shed for Chile?

How many for Argentina?

How many tears for Southeast Asia?

How many for the innocents lost?

 

I am sorry for his family

I’m sorry for those who loved him

I’m sorry for those who fell to his diplomatic sword

But I have no tears for Henry

He was and always will be a war criminal

A man without a heart

Dust Bowl Emigre

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN HISTORY

Dust Bowl Émigré

 

This rich and fertile valley

Was made on the backs of émigré

Not from somewhere below the border

Nor from Ireland or Eastern Europe

Not from Canada or Germany

Nor Australia or the Far East

The ones who answered the call

To work the orchards and fields

To till the soil and work the land

To pick the peaches, oranges and nuts

To bring the crops to market

Were the poor white folks of Oklahoma

The tenant farmer of the Dust Bowl

As hard a worker who ever lived

They came by hard luck highways

Their belongings packed on old cars

That broke down along the way

 

When they overcame all hardships

And finally arrived in the Golden State

They were called disgraceful names

Okies and Arkies and dirt farmers

Who came to take our good jobs

To steal our women and commit mayhem

To ruin the state the gold diggers built

But they didn’t take our good jobs

They took what others wouldn’t do

They didn’t steal our women

They didn’t crimes or mayhem

Any more than anyone else did

They were good hard-working people

Poor as dirt but grim determined

They had no place else to go

They became the good citizens

Of the great central valley

Along with others of darker skin

Also good hard-working people

Together they built the foundations

Of the great state of Golden Gate

 

Ironic ain’t it? that the very same people

Who were derided and abused yesterday

Deride and abuse others today

Civil War

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Civil War

 

Back in the days of racial unrest

When the cities burned with rage

When the FBI hunted panthers for sport

When the suburbs became gated communities

When fear gripped the psyche of America

When the children of peace went off

on their own

A friend whose skin was darker than mine

Looked into my eyes and said:

If the race war came I’d shoot you

That’s when I knew we had a problem

 

To those who say it could never happen

Take a good look around

People buying weapons like candy for Halloween

People so divided we look like postwar Berlin

People living in media bubbles and

Leaders feeding the mob

What I don’t see now and did not see before

the insurrection is the passion and the rage

 

So I look into your eyes and ask you:

Is that what you want?

Blood on the streets?

An era of violence and unrest?

Americans against Americans?

Civil war?

 

The hope of the nation and the world

is that the vast, vast majority of us

say no

Glorifying Killers

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GENOCIDE

 

Glorifying Killers

 

When you glorify a killer

You guarantee the killing will go on

When you turn your back on genocide

The ghosts of genocide remain

Waiting for a chance to rise from the dead

When you rewrite history with lies

History will rise to write the future

Bosnia / Darfur / Rwanda / Cambodia

Each time we are horrified

Each time we swear: Never again!

Yet we return to bear witness

Again and again

 

We return with our promises

We return with our tears

We return with our rage

We return with our fears

 

Yet we allow the glorification of killers

We allow the falsification of history

The promise of never again

Begins with the truth

No matter how painful

No matter how hard to bear

The children must learn the truth

My Lai / Sand Creek / Wounded Knee

The truth

The unvarnished truth