Ukraine Strikes Back

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE WAR

 

Ukraine Strikes Back

 

Deep in the heart of the Kremlin

They are feeling Ukrainian pain

The work of intelligence gremlins

Has left a lasting stain

 

Now the war will take its toll

Beneath all Russian eyes

Vladimir will blame the whole

On Ukraine and Europe’s spies

 

But that is not the story

As Vladimir knows too well

For starting this wrong war he

Will find his place in hell

 

For Dante knew his kind

His greed and thirst for power

As time and fate unwinds

He nears the desperate hour

 

And no one will take pity

On the man who would be king

For the bombing of the cities

The consequence will sting

 

 

 

 

Germany Steps Up

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

 

Germany Steps Up

 

In the absence of an American ally

To lead in the defense of Ukraine

Chancellor Merz has applied

With a promise of critical aid

 

There will be no limitations

On the range of Ukrainian strikes

Next target the Moscow station

Raining missiles into the night

 

Now Russia reaps what it sows

And Putin takes the blame

He is lost on a lonesome road

That leads to nowhere but shame

 

If this is what is required

To bring Putin to negotiations

Then set the Kremlin on fire

Let them plead for salvation

 

They did not want this fight

But they will surely answer back

They stand firm for what is right

Against a brutal Russian attack

 

Now your people will feel the pain

That proceeds from your dirty war

When there is nothing more to gain

What are you fighting for?

 

 

Appeasing Vlad

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP & PUTIN

 

Appeasing Vlad

 

If you appease a war criminal

In a position of power

You are a war criminal

In his darkest hour

 

If you simply do not care

How many children die

If you are minimally aware

If you have never asked why

 

You’re the one who feeds the beast

You’re the one who lets it pass

You’re the host of the disease

You’re the flag at half mast

 

This war will never end

As long as Vladimir perceives

The Americans are his friends

Their leader will appease

 

The world must be appalled

Ukraine must feel betrayed

The ceasefire talks have stalled

Don’t you know you’re being played?

 

Around the World

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Around the World

 

The war in Gaza rages

The war in Yemen holds

The wars progress in stages

The Ukrainians will not fold

 

The tariff wars intensify

Across the global stage

Our leaders taking foreign bribes

The Saudis are in play

 

Everywhere we plant a seed

The future is in doubt

Autocracies grow like weeds

Democracy is out

 

The war is raging everywhere

Our rights are on the run

Those in power do not care

The reckoning has begun

 

The warming is the greatest threat

To all that live on earth

We’ve just begun to pay the debt

How much is the planet worth?

 

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

 

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

 

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

Dear Citizens (of the World)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Dear Citizens (An Apology)

 

Dear citizens of Ukraine

We’re sorry about our president

All out efforts were in vain

To change the message that he sent

He doesn’t care about your nation

We tell you this in confidence

He only wants your resources

What he said is what he meant

 

Dear citizens of Canada

We’re so sorry about our leader

He’s a man who has no principles

He’s a winter without a heater

When he threatens to annex you

He does not speak for us

We’ll do our best to stop him

In him we do not trust

 

Dear citizens of Greenland

We’re sorry about his threats

We should have known beforehand

We’re forever in your debt

We know that land is your land

There is no tete-a-tete

If you like the Danish brand

The map has long been set

 

Dear citizens of the free world

All around this twirling sphere

He has no love for freedom

It is power he holds dear

We are sorry for his ignorance

He would like to reign in fear

We’ll stand with the resistance

When the tipping point draws near

Broken Promise

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP & PUTIN

 

Broken Promise

 

He promised to end the war

With fairness, honor and dignity

Instead his clumsy White House roar

Called for surrender without indemnity

 

If you don’t intend to keep your word

Let it be behind closed doors

For now all the world has heard

Your betrayal on the war

 

You are a Putin underling

You answer to his orders

When he snaps his fingers you must sing

Expand the Russian borders

 

You’ve broken this and every other

Promise that you’ve made

For you are Putin’s little brother

The best of plans you’ve laid

 

To redraw the world’s geography

The Russian American empires

To write a new biography

To set the world on fire

 

The whole of Europe is alarmed

They will not let this pass

They will not yield to Putin’s charm

Or bow down to the American …

The Blood

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WAR

 

The Blood

 

You called yourself a champion

To the cause of global peace

But the only thing you have accomplished

Is to embolden the beast *

 

You control the air defenses

That block the bombs of war

You may be good at walls and fences

But it’s not working any more

 

Look down upon your bloody hands

The bloody hands of war

While you make your play for foreign lands

You’re creating World War Four *

 

You’ve set the stage for Vladimir

To build his bloody empire

Our former friends are filled with fear

For a world you’ve set on fire

 

How dare you claim diplomacy

When you’ve set the stage for war

But what you get is what you’ll see

You’re bloody to the core

 

* The beast of war.

* The Cold War was WW III.

 

In Bed with Putin

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PUTIN

 

In Bed with Putin

 

The world condemns Russian aggression

Demands withdrawal from Ukraine

Laments the dictator’s oppression

Yet their protests are in vain

 

Exempted from the world’s opinion

In a measure of disgrace

Are the fascists and their minions

The United States is out of place

 

Our president has made it clear

He despises all democracies

We are on the side of Vladimir

And all the world’s autocracies

 

We’ll pretend it is the cause of peace

As we form a dark alliance

Democracies we’ll value least

As we face the world’s defiance

 

We’re in it for the money now

We will hope that we survive

We’ll watch the NASDAQ and the Dow

For the oligarchs will thrive

 

Zelensky Stands

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

 

Zelensky Stands

 

Our president disgraced himself        

In the vaunted Oval Office

Before the eyes of the world

In full view of the people

A display of cowardly rudeness

For everyone to see

 

Every American who stands against Zelensky

Stands against the sacred vow

Every nation that stands against Ukraine

Stands against freedom and democracy

Every nation that stands with our president

Stands against justice and the rule of law

 

We don’t need to know what Vladimir Putin

Holds over our president

What we have seen in the glaring light

Of public outrage and embarrassment

Is more than sufficient

 

Zelensky is a champion of liberty

Standing up to a powerful despot

That our president chooses to stand

With the despot against democracy

With the dictator against freedom

With the mass murderer against

The defender of Ukrainian sovereignty

Is beyond the bounds of human dignity

 

Every American should be embarrassed

Every European should feel betrayed

Every citizen of the free world

Should be forewarned

 

America is on the wrong side of justice

America is on the wrong side of history

America is on the wrong side of decency

 

As America falls

Zelensky stands

The Shakedown

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

 

The Shakedown

 

We expect you to sit idly by while

We negotiate your existence

 

You want weapons?

You’ll have to pay

You want a future?

You’ll have no say

 

We want your mineral resources

Or we’ll send you to the dogs

 

You want a nation?

Get out of the way

You want your freedom?

You’ll need our okay

 

We will give you what you need

If you give us what we want

 

This is our game

Would you like to play?

We have no shame

It ends today.

 

The Opposite of Truth

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP

 

The Opposite of Truth

 

It is one thing to deceive

To deny and obscure the truth

It is another to proclaim the opposite

To describe the elderly as youth

To state the hero of the story

Of Lincoln’s assassination

Was really John Wilkes Booth

 

The confederacy fought for freedom

The union fought for slaves

Those who stood were cowards

And those who ran were brave

Global warming is a fallacy

It is really the Big Freeze

Caused by wind and solar

We can solve it with ease

 

Zelensky is a tyrant

Who wanted this brutal war

Vladimir Putin is a hero

Who pays tribute to the poor

White people are oppressed

Black people live in ease

There’s no such thing as covid

Or any other strange disease

 

Triumvirate of Fear

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

 

Triumvirate of Fear

 

Russia invaded a peaceful nation

Without the slightest cause

They didn’t bother with invocation

Of international laws

 

Putin tipped the old world order

With an act of aggressive war

A violation of sovereign borders

The monster at the door

 

We answered Ukraine’s desperate call

For help in time of need

Now we’ll witness Ukraine’s fall

As Putin take the lead

 

We cannot be the least surprised

We saw this horror coming

We warned the people far and wide

We witnessed the great dumbing

 

Putin, Trump and Elon Musk

A triumvirate of fear

The blood will flow from dawn to dusk

Their intentions are quite clear