A Thousand Little Fires

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RESISTANCE

 

A Thousand Little Fires

 

You cannot fight a war

With water guns and whistles

It does no good to roar

When the enemy’s firing missiles

 

He starts a thousand little fires

He knows we can’t address them all

Before long we’ve grown tired

We just can’t answer every call

 

He lights a fire in Ukraine

He lights another at the border

He pretends to be restrained

He cries out for law and order

 

He wants Greenland under ice

He wants Canada to pay

He’d like us to pay the price

To send our working force away

 

There are a thousand little fires

Every single one is burning bright

Every circumstance is dire

It’s all too much for us to fight

 

So choose your battle and take aim

Keep your target in your sights

Exposing lies and naming names

Holding justice to the light

 

 

The Washington Post

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: FREE PRESS

 

The Post

 

The Post is dead

(long live the Post)

The Washington Post is dead

Jeff Bezos’ Post to Trump is wed

The revered Post is dead

 

And Bezos is the killer

A real-life reporter’s thriller

He shot the famed newspaper dead

He favors propaganda instead

Bezos is the killer

 

Does anybody care?

The press is running scared

Replaced by sycophants and bums

The retail journalistic scum

Does anybody care?

 

The gestapo is in place

They cover up their faces

They threaten violence everywhere

Defy them if you dare

The gestapo is in place

 

So who will tell the truth

About the voting booth?

They’re setting up the lie again

Who will lose and who will win?

And who will tell the truth?

 

Our democracy is in danger

We’re run by wealthy strangers

When you lose free press

You will lose the rest

Our democracy is in danger

 

 

Losing Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Losing Democracy

 

When the oligarchs bought the news

We did not sound the alarm

We’ve other sources we can choose

What could be the harm?

 

When the bought our elections

After buying out the courts

It’s just natural selection

It happens in due course

 

Now they’re controlling information

What we see and what we think

We’ve become a hollow nation

In time our ship will sink

 

They control our foreign trade

And all the laws that we defy

All the fortunes that were made

By selecting winning sides

 

The oligarchs are rising

Like the waves in a monster storm

There are no measures we’re devising

That can save the ones we mourn

 

But we can save our nation

If we rally to the cause

And we can save our reputation

As a nation ruled by laws

 

Cowards

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

Cowards

 

The Speaker of the House

A once revered position

Cowers like a timid mouse

Defending treason and sedition

 

The party of corporate greed

Taking profits for themselves

While the constitution bleeds

They’ve got seats reserved in hell

 

The wicked wealthy oligarchs

Who paid for influence and power

May your kingdoms fall apart

May there come a reckoning hour

 

The corrupted Court Supreme

They’ve tossed away their dignity

While their hands were never clean

They are now the court of infamy

 

The party of the opposition

Where is your urgency of now?

If we were in your position

We would never bend or bow

 

Now’s the time to rise as one

Join the people in the streets

Now is your moment in the sun

Get off your bum and on your feet

 

Seize the moment and the day

I’m not advocating violence

We all have our parts to play

Do not squander it in silence

 

A New World Order

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

A New World Order

 

Europe and India have made a pact

China and Canada follow suit

How will the United States react?

With a handshake or the boot?

 

The American leader has changed it all

Beginning with his infernal wall

He’s thrown out all our former friends

Creating wounds that may not mend

 

What sort of order will evolve?

An American hemisphere domination?

There are problems now we cannot solve

We may become an isolated nation

 

Nobody informed our president

The colonial age is done and gone

Now he wonders where our allies went

A new world order has dawned

 

Now the president sits in his tower alone

He cries out in lonely despair

No one will even pick up the phone

Not even the sycophants care

 

Where Were You?

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POLICE STATE

 

Where Were You?

 

We were taught that everyone is free

We were taught that all belong

We were taught that everyone has needs

To neglect them would be wrong

 

Where were you when the icemen came?

Were you hiding in your shed?

Did they have a list that had your name?

Did they tell you where it led?

 

This country is a melting pot

That’s what our teachers said

It can’t be something we forgot

It was planted in our heads

 

So where were you when the men in green

Came knocking at your door?

What terror did their knocking bring?

Did it shake you to your core?

 

Remember when we sang our songs

This land of liberty

To discriminate was plainly wrong

We pledged equality

 

So where were you when the whistles blew?

Did you run or did you hide?

And where were you when you finally knew

That the ones we trusted lied?

 

 

Fair Elections

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Fair Elections

 

When the government gains access

To detailed voter information

We’ve failed the democratic test

We’ve become a different nation

 

Yet this government demands

Full access to the voters lists

What’s behind their crooked plan?

There is something gone amiss

 

That states control the ballot place

Is what our law decrees

It is obvious on its very face

Corrupt intention is the deed

 

They will find what they intend to find

Though the ballots are intact

The product of corrupted minds

A disregard for any facts

 

Do not trust what they will tell us

Let them know you see the lie

It’s a story they would sell us

You can see it in their eyes

 

(FBI seizes Fulton County ballots)

 

 

Carney Stands Strong

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CANADA

 

Carney Stands Strong *

 

Canada is standing strong

Against the bully to its south

A deal with China isn’t wrong

When faced with all this doubt

 

When most of Europe comes along

The US may be out

His arrogance does not belong

That’s not what we’re about

 

There’s only so much you can take

Before the bindings snap

The alliances are bound to break

Our friendships will collapse

 

Those who stand in opposition

Can face the coming days

With the pride of knowing their decisions

Will light a better way

 

The day will come when all will see

Through the bluster and vainglory

This president was a tragedy

The villain in this story

 

* Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

 

The Cowardly Court

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: SUPREME COURT

 

The Cowardly Court

 

That the Court is corrupt is well known

Justice comes at a high cost

But our doubts have only grown

As the Court seems to be lost

 

They may rule on the rights of guns

They may rule on the Federal Reserve

But on tariffs they seem to be stunned

The high court will bend and swerve

 

As a trade war with Europe unfolds

The cowardly court defers

When it should be forthright and bold

They refuse to utter a word

 

Though the law is exceptionally clear

Tariffs are the business of congress

The Supremes prefer not to hear

Any case that provides a fair test

 

Perhaps they will rule on the Bible

As an appendix to the Bill of Rights

Perhaps they’ll reclassify liable

Or maybe they’ll give up the fight

 

The only thing we know is true

Is that they serve the president’s will

When the president wins, the people lose

Yet they serve in silence still

 

In Defense of Democracy

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

 

In Defense of Democracy

 

Bolsonaro committed treason

Though he did not go as far

Attempted coup for obvious reasons

The people fought back hard

 

They put the man in prison

A fair trial before his peers

It was not a hard decision

You could hear the people cheer

 

South Korea’s Hun Duck-Soo

Signed on to martial law

Now he’s serving twenty-two

For a failed insurrection plot

 

It seems the people get it right

Nearly every chance they get

Their democracy is worth a fight

If you doubt it place your bet

 

Donald Trump is the exception

He holds his party in his hands

He has practiced his deception

To maintain his evil plan

 

He stands ready to betray

We stand ready to defend

There will come a time and place

When our democracy could end

 

 

The Killing

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PROTEST

 

The Killing

 

They’re killing us on the streets

Just for being who we are

They’re killing us in our cars

A sense of heartbreak and defeat

 

We remember Rodney King

We remember George Floyd

Through our tears we feel the sting

When the soldiers are deployed

On the streets of our cities

In the center of our nation

Have you no heart and no pity?

Have you no sense of indignation?

 

We remember Kent and Jackson State

That’s when we knew they were willing

To shoot us down at the gates

To answer protests with killing

That’s when we had to contemplate

The cost in blood and the chilling

That’s when we knew the rabid hate

In their thugs they were instilling

 

Now we’re back to where we were

Law and order is their cry

Before the dead have been interred

They are spreading deadly lies

 

(In memory of Renee Good & Alex Pretti) 

 

The Peace Board

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

The Peace Board

 

In the biggest fraud ever created

Even greater than his word

The truth cannot be overstated

The Peace Board is absurd

 

A billion dollars will buy your ticket

To sit on the board forever

They will tell you where to stick it

If you challenge their endeavors

 

The Don will lead his empire

With a throne and crown of gold

His reign will be the rule of fire

And Greenland will be sold

 

The Nobel Prize is his at last

In exchange he won’t bomb Norway

He’ll build a castle out of glass

And he’ll greet you at the doorway

 

All the world will bend the knee

A humble tribute to his glory

The greatest man you’ve ever seen

His sons will write the story

 

 

Consolidation of Power

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Consolidation of Power

 

The autocrat’s quest for power

Requires consent of the masses

Not just the elite in their ivory towers

But the middle and lower classes

 

His push to take the hemisphere

A far cry from America first

Has the world trembling with fear

It has made our security worse

 

We all know he wants to be king

The crown of a royal empire

He would do almost anything

He would set the sky on fire

 

But he cannot achieve it alone

The people must line up behind him

While his ambitions have only grown

The opposition will confine him

 

This remains a true democracy

As long as the people hold

There will be no gilded autocracy

For the people will not be sold

 

 

Alien Nation

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Alien Nation

 

Canada forms a new alliance

With a China trade agreement

Breaking up their old reliance

On American investment

 

All of Europe stands with Norway

On Greenland’s independence

If the US wants to play its games

The world’s patience has been spent

 

We’ve become an alien nation

We are running out of friends

In our quest to create sensation

The American age is at an end

 

We do not own Venezuela

Arctic Greenland or Australia

If we continue on this path

We’ll have earned the free world’s wrath

 

It is past time to mark an end

To this mindless game of power

To strike a balance we depend

On a trust beyond the hour