The Bust

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: MUSK

 

The Bust

 

The man who bought the president

Who won the people’s trust

Who became a White House resident

Has gone from boom to bust

 

He wishes he had never worn

That silly MAGA hat

He’ll curse the day the thought was born

How could he think of that?

 

He was the richest man on earth

He wears that title still

He lost so much of what he’s worth

He’ll take the bitter pill

 

Tesla was his golden baby

It never could go wrong

Will it recover? Who knows? Maybe

Its forecast is less than strong

 

It’s time for fortune’s star to fade

On the man who had a vision

Despite the fortune that he made

It all ended in derision

 

The Occupation

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA

 

The Occupation

 

They are starving in Gaza

The children eat birdseed

The siege is in place

A blockade of all needs

 

The Israeli Occupation

Has captured the Strip

A complete subjugation

The crack of a whip

 

We pretend it’s not real

The world turns away

A spin of the wheel

There’s no more to say

 

But if you’re living in Gaza

You have no choice

The bombs keep on falling

Drowning out your voice

 

Will no one bear witness

To the crimes of this war?

We’ve turned out the lights

We’ve bolted the door

 

The Day Saigon Fell

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

The Day Saigon Fell

 

The day that Saigon fell *

Ended fifty years of hell **

Fifty years since that day

We’ve learned there’s a price to pay

 

For fighting endless wars

That wound us to our core

Wars in other people’s lands

Iraq and Afghanistan

 

Wars that leave a lasting stain

Yemen and Ukraine

I wonder if we’ve learned at all

Fifty years since the fall

 

We’ve pledged to end all war

We’ve sworn to fight no more

But then the bugle sounds

And another war goes down

 

Soldiers by the thousands die

As mothers wonder why

Their children are deceased

When will we live in peace?

 

* April 28, 1975

** British, French and American wars

Parade of Pariahs in Moscow

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Parade of Pariahs

 

In the parade of pariahs

Showing solidarity with the beast of brutality

from the northern empire

The most surprising of these is

Lula da Silva of Brazil

We expect little of those nations that live

in the shadow of the former Soviet empire

We expect little of the Chinese dictator

We expect nothing less from those who

survive at the mercy of Russian military aid

But we expect better of Lula

The elder statesman who revived Brazilian democracy

The man who defeated the Trumpian tyrant wannabe

Even Modi of India refused the embarrassment

of associating with the world’s leading oppressors

The republic of the United States of America is

suffering at the moment but we have not stooped

to the level of Vladimir Putin

It is you who should be embarrassed now

You betray your own democratic ideals

You give legitimacy to the invasion of Ukraine

Step back, Lula da Silva, and reevaluate

Russian oil and military aid is not worth the

sacrifice of sacred principles

 

Kashmir

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Kashmir

 

When the British drew the border

They divided the state of Kashmir

They knew it would cause disorder

And a perpetual state of fear

 

Between India and Pakistan

Two fierce and nuclear powers

A battle over no man’s land

Would break out every hour

 

It’s a war that none can win

Without a chance of annihilation

Every time the fight begins

It’s a threat to every nation

 

Where then is the calm negotiator?

Who will bring them to the table?

The vengeful and the rabid haters

There is no one who is able

 

We must live in constant fear

That vengeance will win out

As the days of reckoning near

The planet’s future is in doubt

 

60 Minutes Sellout

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: THE PRESS

 

60 Minutes Sellout

 

When CBS caves to a frivolous suit

The death knell sounds its toll

The free press is ripped out by its roots

The fourth estate crumbles and folds

 

Extortion is a very nasty word

But it hardly covers this

An act so cowardly it’s almost absurd

CBS goes down on my list

 

Of the companies that have sold out

To a man who would be king

Their cowardice goes beyond all doubt

The death knell of freedom rings

 

Remember when the press stood strong

Against our proud nation’s foes?

Those were times so far and gone

We remember with bitter woe

 

When 60 Minutes joins the crowd

Of those who have lost their way

No longer can we stand up proud

To salute Independence Day

 

(Paramount moves to settle frivolous

Trump lawsuit.)

 

Starvation in Gaza

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA

 

Starvation in Gaza

 

Starvation in Gaza: it’s a part of the plan

Bebe Netanyahu: you’re the man!

 

You killed them en masse

With your missiles and bombs

Just to prove you’re the boss

Which we’ve known all along

 

You define genocide in all possible ways

It’s the cause of humanity you have betrayed

 

You believe this is winning

The mass devastation

The devil is grinning

At the curse of your nation

 

When will you learn this isn’t the way

The curse will strike back some dark dismal day

 

 

Apple Moves to India

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRADE WARS

 

Apple Moves to India

 

In the great American trade war

Is this what you had in mind?

They’re shopping for a back door

The cheapest labor they can find

 

They’re not moving to our nation

Not at this or any time

They will find another station

It’s a dollar to a dime

 

It’s been known throughout the ages

They will go where costs are cheap

In the matter of living wages

What you sow is what you reap

 

Where they go others will follow

It’s whack-a-mole to the core

All your promises are really hollow

In the wastelands of your war

 

We all want to bring back jobs

But brother this is not the way

It’s like paying a thief to rob

Or asking an atheist to pray 

Power Failure

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TECHNOLOGY

 

Power Failure

 

Power outage across Portugal and Spain

Life goes on without electricity

The fuel that runs our electric brain

That powers our towns and cities

 

No one knows what caused the shock

But everyone feels the pain

Get out of your cars and take a walk

Your legs may feel the strain

 

We had to know this day would come

Our computers run the world

Without their power they soon go dumb

All their systems come unfurled

 

We are left to ponder the consequence

Of our dependency on machines

We are meant to question what we’ve spent

And to wonder what it means

 

We await the coming of the night

When all the cities will go dark

Will the people calmly seek the light

Or will madness light a spark?

 

Bipartisan Failure

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Bipartisan Failure

 

The Republicans were the party of wealth

A plain and simple story

They played the Christian cards

Abortion, sanctity of marriage

God hates the homosexuals

They took the corporate money

And praised Jesus to the bank

They threw the door wide open

For a populist without conviction

 

The Democrats were the party of pretend

They took the corporate funding and

Pretended to represent the working class

They compromised on healthcare

Allowing insurance companies to

Rob, hustle and con the people

They offered symbols of oppression

Minorities and women

While doing little to improve their lot

They too opened the doors of change

Any change would do

So he grabbed the opportunity and

Walked right through

 

Both parties share the blame

For neglecting the people’s interests

Both choices seemed the same

The MAGA’s a little less

 

Canadian Pride

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CANADA

 

Canadian Pride

 

Our Canadian friends have won the day

With an assertion of Canadian pride

Once again they will show us a better way

More compassionate and more dignified

 

Our president gave them no respect

With constant threats of annexation

We wonder what he’ll think of next

That will arouse their indignation

 

The love well their independence

They do not wish to be consumed

They wonder where their friends went

With all these threats of doom and gloom

 

The Canadian Liberal Party rises

From the depths of obscuration

They chose the leader who was wisest

In defending the Canadian nation

 

Though the future is in question

Their proud nation will not fold

There will be no lame concessions

That are less than free and bold

 

(P.M. Mark Carney wins full term.)

Rights of All

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: DEMOCRACY

 

Rights of All

 

Our rights are not a property

They can’t be bought or sold

I’ll claim them as a part of me

Until the heavens fold

 

Those rights belong to everyone

Who lives on planet earth

Until the setting of the sun

By virtue of their birth

 

The age of freedom will not end

By anyone’s decree

No matter what you may intend

We will not bend the knee

 

Our students have a right to speak

Without intimidation

Rich or poor, strong or weak

In a democratic nation

 

You want us to be silent now

No protests, no resistance

But some things we do not know how

Our freedom is insistent

 

The Killing of Lorenz

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POLICE VIOLENCE

 

The Killing of Lorenz

 

Maybe he lost his mind

No one really seems to know

Were the police color blind

Or did their bias show?

 

He sprayed gas into a crowd

What kind they didn’t know

He seemed mad and crazy loud

He absorbed five killing blows

 

He was dead right on the spot

And the people gathered round

Was this a terrorist plot?

Was the shooting sound?

 

We may never know the answers

Why this young black man is dead

Is this an incident or a cancer?

A day all Germans dread

 

He was victim number 22

For the year 2024

In the red, white and blue

There were 1,343 more

 

(A black man shot by police

in Oldenburg, Germany.)

 

A Pope for the Masses

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POPE FRANCIS

 

A Pope for the Masses

 

The leader of an ancient church

A conscience to humankind

In humble heart we held him first

A unity of heart and mind

 

He opened up the pearly gates

When once those gates were chained

He criticized both church and state

Though his kindness never waned

 

His words spoke to all of us

The wicked, poor and feeble

He understood desire and lust

He drove a stake through evil

 

He spoke to all the masses

The hopeless and oppressed

The rich and lower classes

Every one of us was blessed

 

We’ll never see his like again

Of that we can be certain

To every soul he was a friend

He carried a heavy burden

 

(On the death of Pope Francis,

may he rest in peace.)

The Martyrdom of Darya Kozyreva

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PUTIN'S RUSSIA

 

Darya

 

Darya Kozyreva is nineteen

She loves poetry and yearns for freedom

Darya Kozyreva will spend three years

in the gulag for poetic dissidence

 

She pasted a verse from a Ukrainian poet *

on his statue in St Petersburg Square:

 

O bury me, then rise ye up

And break your heavy chains

And water with the tyrant’s blood

The freedom you have gained

 

It did not use the tyrant’s name

It did not need to

It didn’t mention the war in Ukraine

It was self-evident

 

Darya Kozyreva was a known dissident

Now she is a known hero

She valued truth over her own freedom

She felt the suffering of her Ukrainian friends

She refused to remain silent

 

She is one of hundreds in Russian jails

For speaking out against their president

For speaking out against his dirty war

 

In America we do not imprison dissidents

We detain and deport foreign students

For writing anti-Israeli editorials

 

In America we find more creative ways

to punish those who criticize the president

and his oppressive policies

 

We are not Russia but we are on the path

that Putin laid out before us

where dissent is outlawed

and public protest is treason

where even listening to an opposing view

is a punishable offense

 

* Taras Shevchenko

Escalation

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Escalation

 

The war in Yemen escalates

The war in Ukraine accelerates

The war in Gaza venerates

A once and would-be king

 

He was the master deal maker

He promised war would end

He was a giver not a taker

His deals would make amends

 

The bombs in Yemen fall

The missiles in Ukraine

They’re building up the walls

Mass destruction is in vain

 

All his promises are broken

His words a waste of breath

All his efforts are a token

To a world of endless death

 

The war in Ukraine escalates

In Yemen war accelerates

A land that Israel decimates

A long-forgotten king

 

The Shadow of Istanbul

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

 

The Shadow of Istanbul

 

What happens in Turkey does not stay in Turkey

 

Its shadow of darkness spreads

like a chilling wave over the land

and across the sea injecting poison

into the body politick even in the

land of the free

 

What happens in Istanbul does not stay in Istanbul

 

It foreshadows the nightmares to come

as the gathering force of protest and

resistance builds in towns and cities

across the nation

 

How long will the president endure the

indignity of dissent?

 

He has imposed the Alien Enemies Act*

to deport residents to foreign prisons

 

How long before he declares martial law

to nullify the right to assemble in protest?

 

He has ordered mass deportation without

regard to due process of law

 

How long before he orders the mass

detention of law-abiding protestors?

 

They are holding show trials in Istanbul

to see how far they can go

 

Are there enough prisons to imprison dissent?

 

There are if we count El Salvador

 

What happens in Turkey does not stay in Turkey

 

By tomorrow it will be here

 

* Alien Enemies Act of 1798

Open Letter to the Russian People

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RUSSIA

 

Open Letter

 

People of Russia I humbly speak

I appeal to your humanity

If peace is what you seek

Do not yield to your vanity

Don’t believe that we are weak

 

You are not your dark leader

We are not the same as ours

In a forest of hard cedar

We have both built our towers

We have listened to deceivers

 

But we do not desire war

Despite all you might have heard

When you knock upon our door

We will hear your honest word

And we will travel to your shore

 

As for the matter of Ukraine

We believe in basic rights

Let us make it very plain

We do not believe in might

We will not embrace the pain

 

We believe in sharing views

We believe in compromise

Let us walk in common shoes

Let us form more common ties

If we fail both sides will lose

 

For the world and for ourselves

We must end this bitter hate

Put our differences on the shelf

Let us forge a better fate

Let’s regard each other well