Guilt and the Sickness

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Guilt and the Sickness

Like a gentle breeze in the silent night

It comes to steal your life

We have been cautious

We have kept our distance

We have covered our faces

Avoided gatherings

Yet questions haunt me

For there are times

I might have slipped

Times I might have allowed

Someone to come too close

Or stay too long

Or share too much air

We are all human after all

And yet I am certain

We have been far more careful

Than nearly everyone we know

It does not seem fair

That we should be haunted

By guilt as well as the sickness

itself

The Bounty

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

The Bounty

Russia offers a cash bounty

On American soldiers in Afghanistan

Money for bodies like coins for scalps

And the president stands down

The blood of our warriors

On his cold trembling hands

And America stands down

Vladimir to Donald:

Who owns you babe?

Who butters your bread?

Who paves the road ahead?

Bow down before your master!

Bow down and take your pill!

Nobody has to know

But you and me and heaven

Give me Georgia and Ukraine

Get me back in the G7

If it costs a few soldiers so be it

Remember when the union was Soviet

So be a good boy and bow your head

The American century is dead

Now Mother Russia rises again

And populates the earth

With strong Russian men!

Code of Honor

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Code of Honor

A warrior never leaves his fellow behind

In the heat of battle

He remembers the weak and wounded

He risks his own life to save others

It’s his code

His sacred honor

Without which he could not live

His life in peace

We have passed 100 thousand casualties

In a war that has no end in sight

Collateral damage is mounting

And we have only begun the fight

Our commander sounds the alarm

To signal our retreat

He’s tired of fighting a virus

He has market numbers to meet

He will leave behind the wounded

He will not count the dead

He’ll stake his reelection chances

On the Dow Jones instead

What of sacrifice and honor

What of the warrior’s code

Honor is for losers

It is not the horse he rode

The Lord and the Virus

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

The Lord and the Virus

The Great Plague

The Black Death

The Spanish Influenza

The religious have always claimed

The lord would protect the righteous

They were wrong

They have always been

A virus does not examine

The spiritual status of a body

A virus has no regard

For religious fervor or piety

A virus does not distinguish

Between Christian or atheist

Between Muslim or Jew

A virus does not determine

Who is spiritually true

A virus thrives on human tissue

Any body will do

(Two thirds of a religious gathering

in Eastern Oregon tested positive

for the Coronavirus)

Family Circle

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Family Circle

Doing the right thing

Staying at home

Keeping our distance

Not taking chances

Staying safe the way we should

But I wonder now and then

How everyone is doing

Not in the abstract

Not on the phone

Not on social media

But up close and personal

My folks left some time ago

Never had to face this test

But the rest of us are near

Still living around here

My brothers and sisters

Nephews and nieces

Love them all to pieces

Babies being born

Some folks moving on

Kids growing up

Living lives without us

I miss the family circle

I miss looking them in the eye

Each and every one

Hearing what they have to say

Seeing what they really mean

I miss their tender love and caring

Moments that we shared

I miss the lazy days we spent

Shooting the evening breeze

Singing songs and telling stories

I know those days will come again

At least I hope they will

And we will cherish them all the more

For the gaping hole they fill

(for Ethan on his birthday)

Lynch's Irish Pub (Fifteen Ladies)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Lynch’s Irish Pub

Fifteen ladies went to celebrate

A night at the pub

A memorable date

A night to remember

As cold as fate

Fifteen ladies all sick today

No masks did they wear

Needless to say

The virus did not care

Now the Irish Pub is gone

They had to close it down

Because ladies should not die

For a night out on the town

The ladies didn’t die you say

They got sick and some recovered

But each went home to someone

And they infected one another

The truth is we’ll never know

How many lives were lost

We know it was not worth it

No matter what the cost

Hold the Line

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Hold the Line

We’ve been pushing so long

Our bones are starting to push back

Decades of resistance

Centuries of struggle

Truth be told

Millennia of pressure

On our worried minds

Hold the line

So tired my eyes close by themselves

My back aches my legs pulsate

My brain screams at the endless plight

Every step reminds me

Of the struggle ahead

And the struggle behind

Hold the line

Work until your fingers bleed

Talk until you fold

March until the sun rises

Watch until you’re blind

Hold the line

Nothing worth achieving

Was ever accomplished with less

Than everything you’ve got

This is our time

Hold the line

No matter how many times

They beat us down

And trample us

No matter how times

They batter us

No matter how many times

They take our money our homes

Our peace of mind

Hold the line

We will prevail

We will take what is rightly ours

We will right forever wrongs

We will stand our ground

We will not fall behind

Hold the line

For all who came before us

And all who will follow

For our children

For posterity

For all that we hold dear

For peace and prosperity

For justice and equality

For the good and the kind

Hold the line

Mount Rushmore

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Rushmore

 

While we’re taking down statues

Of confederate heroes

Consider the abomination carved

Into the sacred mountains

Of North Dakota

 

Think of them what you will

Slaveholders or emancipators

Conservationists or buffalo killers

Racists or liberators

The great white fathers

Do not belong in the Black Hills

Sacred ground to the Lakota nation

 

Crazy Horse belongs in the Black Hills *

Sitting Bull belongs in the Black Hills

Black Elk belongs in the Black Hills

Big Foot belongs in the Black Hills

 

Take down the defenders of slavery

Deglorify the traders of slaves

Break down the great white commanders

In the home of the free and the brave

 

Replace the symbols of white supremacy

With the defenders of equality

Replace the champions of treason

With the proud guardians of reason

 

We are what we deify

We are what our books embrace

When our history teaches lies

Our entire nation is disgraced

 

* (Crazy Horse Monument is just down

the road from Mount Rushmore; its

inscription reads: “My land is where

my people lie buried.”)

To Mask or Not to Mask

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

To Mask or Not to Mask

To mask or not to mask

That is the question

Whether it is nobler to display loyalty

To the man in power

Or enhance survival of the species

To mask yet ask no questions

Demand no answers

To let the virus work its darkness

Or stand in opposition

And by resisting perchance to stop him

Ah there’s the rub

What further damage might

Our species do if allowed

To spread and thrive?

The species or the planet?

Will not destruction of the former

Spare the latter?

I shall despair

Paralyzed in procrastination

Frozen with indecisiveness

I wait and wait again:

To mask or not to mask

That is the question

The Real World

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

The Real World

We leave behind our virtuality

Just as we all prayed

We must wonder where we stand

In the brutal light of day

We have made a great investment

In the realm beyond our view

Must we question all our musings now

What is false and what is true?

We have formed new attachments

And we must wonder if they will hold

Have we made too many commitments?

Were we restrained or were we bold?

The real world awaits us

It never really went away

We lower expectations

And hope the world will stay

Twisted History: A Legacy of Shame

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Twisted History

400 years since slaves arrived on the American shore

220 years since the birth of the Underground Railroad

200 years since the Missouri Compromise

163 years since Dred Scott

159 years since the inception of the Civil War

157 years since the Emancipation Proclamation

156 years since the burning of Atlanta

155 years since the 13^th Amendment

154 years since Lincoln’s assassination

154 years since the birth of the KKK

153 years since reconstruction

150 years since the dawn of Jim Crow

124 years since Plessy V. Ferguson

99 years since the Tulsa Massacre

83 years since the death of Bessie Smith

81 years since Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit

75 years since the Civil Rights Act

65 years since the lynching of Emmett Till

56 years since Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddamn

55 years since the killing of Malcolm X

55 years since the summer of Watts

52 years since the assassination of the King

51 years since the Hampton and Clark

29 years since Rodney King

7 years since the nullification of Voting Rights

7 years since Black Lives Matter

6 years since the murder of Michael Brown

6 years since Tamar Rice and Eric Garner

5 years since Jamar Clark

4 years since Philando Castile

3 years since Charlottesville

2 years since Botham Jean

1 year since Danquirs Franklin

4 months since Ahmaud Arberi

3 months since Breonna Taylor

2 months since Sean Reed

1 month since George Floyd

1 day since Rayshard Brooks

After 400 years of twisted history

False promises exploitation

And brutality

Atlanta burns

America wonders why

The Band Plays On

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

The Band Plays On

The death toll rises

As the band plays on

Fire fills the western sky

And the band plays on

Old folks keep on dying

While the band plays on

Loved ones are crying

As the band plays on

Our hospitals are overrun

Our cities smell of rot

A shadow lurks o’er the sun

Our happiness is not

We live in sorrow day and night

The horror has no end

We hide our eyes from dreadful sights

As death becomes our friend

Blindness is appalling

When it is willful ignorance

When it harms the ones we love

And offends intelligence

The death toll keeps rising

Our faith is almost gone

Our sympathy is fading

While the band plays on

Acceleration

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Acceleration

The virus finds its mark

Zeroes in

Attacks like a pack of wolves

Spreads like a murder of crows

In flight

Accelerates like a diving bird

Of prey

We thought it would go away

Returned to our ordinary lives

Locked our old folks in their place

Stopped tracking the daily toll

Placed our fate in the hands of god

Rolled the dice and played the game

We are where we are because

We wanted to be free

We are where we are because

We refused to be controlled

By some incomprehensible enemy

Because our leader went to sleep

Dismissed all the guards and

Told us not to worry

Because we are Americans

Always in a hurry

The virus doesn’t care

What we say or what we think

The acceleration is happening

As we stand on the brink

Return of COVID-19

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Return of COVID-19

Like a grade B movie from the fifties

A horror flick no one wanted

And no one flocked to see

Back by unpopular demand

And stubborn insistence

It’s COVID-19

Killer of the elderly

The frail and the infirm

With a penchant for darker skin

It strikes by day strikes by night

Travels by air and evades sight

It claimed 100 thousand lives

And still got no respect

So it returns in form

To claim 100 thousand more

No one can say

We did not have fair warning

It comes like a whisper

To lead us in mourning

We know what to do

But we’ve lost our patience

We’ve lost our will and common sense

So let the old folks go

Let the weak fall down

Let the young and strong

Seek solid ground

Contrary to wishful opinion

It did not disappear in warmer weather

It did not thrive on media attention

It survived without intention

Like a shadow in the dark

It worked its deadly spell

On frail and unsuspecting prey

One by one the weak ones fell

Gone from view it now returns

To ravage us in light of day

And we are left with little to do

But bow our heads and pray

Random Facts (A Roll of the Dice)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Random Facts

If you live in Taiwan or Sweden

South Korea or New Zealand

If you’re Asian or Caucasian

If you’re healthy and strong

If you live in a house

If you work at home

If your income is secure

If you have little stress

If you’re under fifty-five

Without conditions underlying

Then you’re the lucky one

The odds are with you

Throw the dice

If you live in Italy or Brazil

New York or Great Britain

If you’re black or brown

If you live in the barrio or favela

If you reside in the projects

If you lack fresh vegetables and fruit

If you’re over sixty-five

If you take medications

For conditions underlying

Then your luck is running thin

Let the prayers begin

If you’re feeling a little sick

You’ve drawn the short end of the stick

Are you lucky my friend?

Depends

On who what and where you are

One roll you survive

Another

You don’t get out alive

Random chance random facts

First second or final act

Roll the dice and let us see

What alas your fate will be

Confluence of Catastrophe

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Confluence of Catastrophe

Wildfires in the west

Hurricanes in the east

In the midst of a great pandemic

The reaper is preparing a feast

We are walking in our sleep

Too dazed to think ahead

We know we should get ready

But we’d rather play games instead

Is there anybody out there

Who knows what we should do?

Is there anybody out there

Who can help us see it through?

We are a ship without a captain

Like a rig without a wheel

We are adrift in open waters

And we don’t know what to feel

We are waiting for a hero

To shake us from our gloom

If we do not soon awaken

We are sure to meet our doom

Back to School

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Back to School

Can I go back to school today

Me and Johnny want to play

I promise to do my homework

And the president says it’s okay

You cannot go back to school today

You cannot go back tomorrow

There are just too many questions

Better safe than sorrow

But I have to go back to school today

I have to see my friends

Johnny’s mom is letting him go

Cause the world is on the mend

You cannot go back to school today

But you must go back soon I know

We can’t keep you home forever

But at least we can take it slow

We’ll pray for little Johnny

As we pray for all the kids

I fear you are paying the price

For the terrible things we did

Willful Ignorance (for James Baldwin)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Willful Ignorance

The words of a great man

From a former generation

Haunt the white man’s world

With the weight of eternal history

And the depth of eternal knowledge

“If you can overcome the curtain of my color”

Then we can live in peace

If not we will be at war perpetually

A war like most wars that no one can win

“I want exactly what you want”

I want to be left alone

I want to walk the streets of America

Without fear of never returning

To my home

I want my children and theirs

To grow up in safe neighborhoods

Where kindness and wisdom thrive

Where hatred and brutality fail

“You will listen or you will perish”

And we will perish together

Like pigs in a pen

Like fools in a pool of madness

We are human beings

We are not bison or beavers

That you can hunt into extinction

We are not leaving

This is our land as much as yours

You brought us here as slaves

But we are free

We have won our freedom

And we will not yield equality

We are here to stay

Make peace with that reality

(respectfully for James Baldwin)