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

Birthright Citizenship

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IMMIGRATION 

Birthright

 

The corporate supremes have dignified

The idiocy of the administration

The lamest case they’ve ever tried

To the detriment of the nation

 

The 14^th amendment is very clear

There is no modicum of doubt

No matter what you read or hear

We’ve figured this one out

 

They feel obliged to coddle him

The bully in the White House

Though his moral light grows very dim

It’s the case of Doctor Faust

 

He’s sold his soul to the dark one

He can never reverse course

His reality becomes a stark one

He’s the King without a Horse

 

But he doesn’t own the Court Supreme

Though he granted them their power

He saw them bowing in a dream

His awakening waits the hour

 

(SCOTUS agrees to hear the case

against birthright citizenship.)

 

The Honorable Senator

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

The Honorable Senator

 

The good and honorable senator

From the great state of New Jersey

Stood for hours against our president

And he showed him little mercy

 

Have you no sense of shame, sir?

Have you no dignity or pride?

Your government is lame, sir

Greed and power are your guides

 

I will speak until tomorrow

I will stand up proud and tall

I will speak of people’s sorrow

I will stand until I fall

 

For you, sir, are the enemy

Of all that we hold dear

Our freedom and democracy

You’ve made yourself too clear

 

This may not bring an end to you

But this message you’ll receive

That we are not a friend to you

And we will never be

 

(Cory Booker breaks the record

holding the floor of the Senate for

over 25 hours.)

Are We Better Off Today?

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

Better Off

 

You’re a worker in an auto plant

Your right to organize is done

You’re just a line of worker ants

The management has won

Your union is all but banned

You work longer hours for lesser pay

So tell me, mister Trump’s your man

Are you better off today?

 

You’re a seller on the market floor

Selling shares of stocks and bonds

Your brokerage shows you the door

The final curtains drawn

They wanted less, you gave them more

You are not where you belong

They wanted you to show the way

But every way was wrong

Are you better off today?

 

You’re the manager of a warehouse

Your workers come and go

They’re all as quiet as a mouse

Until the border agents show

Most of them will run away

What you do you do not know

Who works so hard for lower pay?

So now that you have fallen low

Are you better off today?

 

Your family is a source of pride

That bond is made of gold

You take the changes all in stride

Though some of them are bold

Your second son is married

To a woman who was sold

Her former spouse was buried

For not belonging to the fold

You’d cry out but you are afraid

Are you better off today?

 

No matter where you call your home

No matter where you roam

You know that we have lost our way

Are we better off today?

Following Orders

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP DAZE

 

Following Orders

 

All of you who follow orders

Who only do as you are told

Who walk the edge of evil’s border

Who pretend you haven’t sold your soul

 

If you live with rats you become a rat

If you run with weasels you are a weasel

If you hang with cats you become a cat

If you serve evil you become evil

 

It may take a little while

It may not happen overnight

You’re just keeping the master’s files

Soon you don’t know wrong from right

 

If what you do offends you

Take a look around the bend

If your own people won’t defend you

You are serving evil men

 

But you’re just following orders

Someone else would do the same

It’s the curse of moral disorders

The inability to feel shame

Defiance

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RESISTANCE

 

Defiance

 

When they come for you with shackles

Do not go quietly

Defy!

 

When they come for your neighbor

Do not stand by

Defy!

 

When they come for your reporters

Stand up for them

Defy!

 

When they come for your representative

Demand to know why

 

When they fire all the rangers

Refuse to comply

 

When they take away your rights

Raise the rebel cry

 

When they take away your vote

Get angry

Defy!

Medicine Man

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

Medicine Man *

 

Cod liver oil for measles

Prayers in place of vaccines

The medicine man will cure you

He’s the greatest you’ve ever seen

 

Kids are dying in Texas

They’re dying in Arkansas too

They’ll be dying all over the country

Before this man is through

 

He believes in the methods of science

Unless they aren’t in his book

He’ll insist on absolute silence

While he gives it another look

 

He recommends echinacea

For all ailments without a clear cause

All remedies from parts of Asia

Where they eat wild animals raw

 

He’s the medicine man American style

With a cure for every disease

If it’s not in his miracles file

He will charge you a modest fee

 

* Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Fight Back

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RESISTANCE

 

Fight Back

 

Never give up the fight

When the fight is in the making

Keep your enemy in sight

Take what’s for the taking

 

They will try to break your spirit

They’ll push you til you bend

They think you’ll come to fear it

They hope you won’t defend

 

Show them what you stand for

You’re the ones who will not quit

Keep knocking on that grand door

Until the victory light is lit

 

You may not always win

But you will always stand up proud

When you give the wheel a spin

Say it clear and say it loud:

 

We’ll fight against all odds

We’ll fight for all it’s worth

We’ll fight against the gods

And the beasts who rule the earth

 

The Brute Society

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

The Brute Society

 

LBJ gave us the Great Society

(with the exception of Vietnam)

Now we’re filled with great anxiety

(we’ll do the best we can)

 

It’s the heartless Brute Society

They’re the ones who do not care

An endless wave of improprieties

We are captured in their lair

 

They don’t care about our elders

They don’t care about our poor

They’ll defund the homeless shelters

They’re all heartless to the core

 

They will cut and slash for others

While they all enrich themselves

No more aide for single mothers

Tell them all to go to hell

 

It’s the age of cold brutality

They’re all laughing to the bank

If you don’t like this reality

You will have to thank yourselves

 

Tariffs & Fair Trade

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  FAIR TRADE

 

Fair Trade (and Tariffs)

 

Tariffs are a means to an end

A way to level the field

Not a bludgeon to punish our friends

Or a weapon for power to wield

 

If the goal is to reach fair trade

Our tariffs would balance cheap labor

We would honor the deals that we’ve made

But we’d punish the modern-day slavers

 

For the nations whose standards are higher

For working conditions and wages

Beware all sellers and buyers

Understand why they fly into rages

 

We’re betraying our closest friends

While the Russians are being spared

We’ll all pay for it in the end

A punishment we’ll all share

 

I strongly support fair trade

But this has the mark of the beast

Our hopes for prosperity fade

While the rich are preparing a feast

 

Hamas Must End

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA

 

Hamas Must End

 

Our hearts go out to Gaza

But Hamas is not your friend

Our tears flow like lava

This day Hamas must end

 

That they have let you down

Is clear beyond all doubt

Your voices have been drowned

Hamas must be pushed out

 

The destruction of your cities

The annihilation of your land

It fills our hearts with pity

The state of Israel be damned

 

And yet it must be known

That Hamas is much to blame

The animosity has grown

As your leaders have no shame

 

Hamas and Netanyahu

This message we must send

We’ve known since we first saw you

Both of you must end