Old Man

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: VISIONS

 

Old Man

 

Old man old man

What can you do

You have lived your life

You must now say adieu

Will you retreat inside

Will you push the world away

Will you plead for one last ride

One last plan to go astray

You had so many chances

To change what went wrong

But you were lost in your world

You were tossed in your song

Now you’ve made your bed and garden

It’s too late to change the end

You look back on your deeds

And the wreck you must defend

They will turn the world over

They will make the earth anew

Old man old man

What can you do

 

Young Woman

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: VISIONS

 

Young Woman

 

Young woman young woman

What path will you take

Will you bury the past

This world to forsake

Will you forgive all those

Who shook the earth to its core

Will you seek a new start

Will you open a door

Will you burn the bridge behind you

Will you bid us farewell

When you have your own children

What stories will you tell

About those who came before you

Who forgot the ones to come

Who were blind to the future

To the past deaf and dumb

What love will you harbor

What hearts will you break

Young woman young woman

What path will you take

 

Young Man

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  VISIONS

Young Man

 

Young man young man

Oh where will you go

What future do you see

What seeds will you sow

This world has turned inside out

You would have to be a fool

If you were not filled with doubt

Everything you see and touch

Everything you feel and know

Scattered like the dust

The way the wind blows

We have taken your world

Flipped it on its head

Due to our neglect

Millions are dead

Does it matter that we’re sorry

Does it matter we regret

We are like the lost horizon

Won’t be here to pay the debt

Young man young man

Oh where will you go

 

Faces of Covid 19

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Faces of Covid 19

 

They are only numbers

Digital abstractions

Statistical notations

Lines on a graph

Check marks on a page

They yield no emotion

Something less than real

Until the numbers have faces

Friends and families

 

A mother from La Jolla

Her children called her Santa Marie

A gifted athlete from Chicago

Could have made the major leagues

A promising poet from Omaha

With a dream of living overseas

A grandfather from Los Angeles

Do we mourn the elderly?

A golden child from down the street

Who’ll never know the vagaries

Of life and love and victories

Stolen by this cursed disease

 

Dark Shadows

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Dark Shadows

 

They crawl out of the cracks

Of America’s nightmare

Loom in the hazy background

Watching with great care

Ready to pounce

Spinning a lair

Taking a life

On a dare

 

They mark the path of the fools parade

Follow those who do not know

Who did not care

Go with the flow

A defiant stare

All for the show

Too much to bear

 

They carry a seed of deadly disease

Steals your breath away

Make you weak and feeble

Make your body sway

It has the number

You must pay

The shadow knows

The shadow grows

So bow your head

And pray

 

Irony

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: 2020 ELECTION

Irony

 

Our president is a civil rights candidate

(he sponsors the great disenfranchisement)

He’s a champion of women’s rights

(who never heard of the ERA)

He stands for the little guy

(minimum income 500 K)

He got us out of the Middle East wars

(without removing our presence there)

He faced down the great pandemic

(180,000 dead and counting)

He rebuilt a failing economy

(rescued Wall Street with borrowed cash)

He is the greatest president since Lincoln

(the worst since Herbert Hoover)

He will save us from ourselves

(or will he fool us once again)

 

The Great Instigator

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

The Great Instigator

 

The leader of the western world

Is coming to your town

To put on a show

To “settle things down”

 

Don’t mind all the thugs

They’re here to protect you

If you wear the right hat

They won’t disconnect you

 

For I am the chosen

The great instigator

And I am the righteous

The truth propagator

 

We’ll mow down the protesters

And put order back in place

With blacks on the bottom

On the top the white race

 

For I am the chosen

The great instigator

And I am the righteous

The white liberator

 

The Burden

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

The Burden

 

The young carry the burden

The old must leave behind

What greater burden could be left

Than the one that we now find

 

A generation of negligence

We’re the ones who forgot the world

We sought out our own adventures

While the earth’s demise unfurled

 

We didn’t mean for it to happen

We just forgot to ask

About our role as caretakers

We neglected our basic task

 

You have a right to be angry

We handed you this mess

We can say we didn’t know

We’re not guilty we protest

 

We were seeking higher consciousness

And for some it may be true

But we failed to hold the horror back

Failed to push change through

 

Bubble World

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Bubble World

 

I have seen the future

A strange and foreign view

A vision of fear and separation

A world not brave but new

 

It began when a virus

Spiraled out of control

Then protest brought violence

That compromised our souls

 

So the wealthy took refuge

In bubbles of their own device

Self-sufficient isolation

Purged of disease and blight

 

They created a bubble

To keep the riffraff away

When the virus was vanquished

They kept it that way

 

Why take any chances

If you feel a bit wary

And you’ve got enough money

It’s not necessary

 

Live your life in a bubble

No worries or fears

Protected and guarded

From anger and jeers

 

Rest in Peace

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Rest in Peace

 

When one we admire

Or one we love

Falls from this earthly realm

It is with compassion and love

We respond

Rest in peace

 

One wonders in reflection

If that is what the fallen desires

When an individual has spent a lifetime

Fighting for justice

Fighting for peace

Fighting against the hard fist of oppression

Is it eternal peace one desires

 

When I travel to the world beyond

(as I choose to believe there is such a place)

I do not wish to spend forever in peace

I do not wish to rest in perpetuity

 

Rest in peace may do for others

Not for me

I wish to be challenged

I desire to move forward

I strive to rise above

 

Therefore when I rise or fall

From this mortal existence

Let those who love me

Or hold me in esteem

Not wish that I should rest in peace

But that I should gather the strength

In death that I had in life

To continue the fight

 

For there will always be darkness

And there will always be light

Let me stand my ground

With the good and the right

Danger Zone

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Danger Zone

 

Hundreds gathered onto the South Lawn

Of the peoples house

For the president’s big night

Hundreds flaunted their recklessness

Daring the virus to strike them down

Talking in close quarters

Cheering embracing shaking hands

Like madmen at the devil’s ball

Like lambs for the slaughter

What folly is this?

The sheer brazenness of their defiance

Is this the face of courage?

Is it brave to walk the ledge

Of a nine story building?

Shall we cry for those who fall?

Shall we mourn their loss?

Shall we salute them

And give testament

That they died for their beliefs?

That they died for their beloved leader?

Or shall we shake our heads in shame?

 

Saint Donald

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  TRUMP

Saint Donald

 

The great Saint Donald

Beloved of the Navaho

(except in their hour of need

when the virus ravaged the reservation

while the president claimed it was a hoax)

Liberator of the blacks

(and fervent advocate of Blue Lives Matter)

Champion of Latin Americans

(unless you don’t have your papers

then you’re killers rapists and thugs)

Reformer of the prison system

(as the private prison industry thrives)

Destroyer of regulations

(like clean air water and worker safety)

Bringer of prosperity

(for stock holders and CEO’s)

Builder of a sound economy

(except for the last eight months)

Guarantor of thriving times

(working people’s wages in decline)

Appointer of rightwing corporate judges

(who pander to religious zealots)

Champion of industry

(denier of climate change)

Propagator of the truth

(if truth is propaganda)

Defender of American heroes

(Jefferson Davis and Jim Crowe)

 

Behold Saint Donald!

Savior of the nation!

(destroyer of the world!)

 

(Day 2 of the GOP convention)

Vigilante Justice

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

 

Have you seen that vigilante man?

Have you seen that vigilante man?

Have you seen that vigilante man?

I been hearin’ his name all over the land.

 

W. Guthrie

 

Vigilante Justice

 

Another black man shot

By the men in blue

Another city on fire

Before it’s through

 

Some came to seek justice

Some came for the sun

When you come to a protest

Do not bring a gun

 

The vigilantes are here

And they’re looking for trouble

They’re looking for blood

And they’ll find it before it’s done

When you come to a protest

Don’t carry a gun

 

They don’t care who they hurt

They don’t care who they kill

It’s a war on the streets

They’ve come for the thrill

If you tell them they’re losers

They’ll tell you they’ve won

When you come to a protest

Bring your own gun

 

(Two dead in Kenosha 8/26/20)

 

End of Days

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

End of Days

 

First came the leader

With his army of the enslaved

Then came the virus

That he claimed was fake

Then came the fire smoke and haze

And we worry it’s the end of days

 

Our cities went on lockdown

Our people fell sick and died

Police abuse rose to the public light

Millions answered the call to rise

To march for justice and equality

To get beyond this desperate phase

And we worry it’s the end of days

 

Each day grows a little darker

Every night brings new fears

We hold on for dear life

And hold our loved ones near

We want to overcome

We want to persevere

We try to find our separate ways

While we fear inside the end of days

 

The Elder

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

The Elder

 

(for Noam Chomsky)

 

His long white beard is full and untamed

(like his spirit and his voice)

As if he hasn’t been out of the house

Since the pandemic set in

 

He lives a life of solitude now

Alone with his intellect

Alone with his books

Alone with his writing

Alone with his thoughts

 

He is an observer of real politics

He has an ear for the truth

He has an eye for propaganda

He has a nose for bullshit

 

He tells you how it is

Without concern for how you take it

He’s heard it all seen it twice

And taken it in stride

He wrote the book on modern politics

And principled dissent

 

When the old man talks people listen

So listen to him now

 

Listen when he tells you

The man in the Oval Office

Is the greatest threat to civilization

And survival in the history of the species

 

Listen when he says without hesitation

Worse than Hitler

Worse than Mussolini

Worse than Stalin

Worse than Genghis Khan

Worse than Mao Tse-Tung

 

Look at the sincerity in his eyes

And in the lines of his face

A man without reason to lie

He has no horse in the race

 

Listen and believe

Dual Hurricanes

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Dual Hurricanes

 

As dual hurricanes slide toward the gulf

We remember Katrina

We remember Andrew and Camille

We remember the fear

The failures in response

The botched evacuations

Devastation and heartbreak

 

We remember and pray

The past is not prelude

 

Fire and smoke encapsulate the west

Hurricanes advance like enemy fronts on the gulf

Tornadoes and dust storms strike at the heartland

Floods await the eastern seaboard

 

What unknown horrors will unfold

Before we’re allowed to sleep

What natural disasters line up

To wreak havoc on the innocent

What manmade catastrophes still await us

While we wait

For someone

Who cares

 

(Hurricanes Marco and Laura

Enter the Gulf of Mexico 8/24/20)

 

Navalny

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PUTIN

Navalny

 

The long thin fingers

Of the Russian dictator

Reached out at last for the throat

Of his leading opponent

 

From an induced coma

In a hospital bed in Berlin

Navalny takes his place

In a long line of political victims

Journalists and dissidents

Imprisoned poisoned or gunned down

On the barren streets of Moscow

 

Will he live to speak again?

Will he live to be silenced?

Or will he simply pass to the hall

Of martyrdom to be remembered

For his undying courage?

 

Why now? 

 

After years of vocal opposition

Mass gatherings on the streets of protest

 

Why now? 

 

Could it be the silence of the White House?

 

A world in crisis is fertile ground

For a dictator’s brutality

 

(Alexei Navalny is in critical

condition in Berlin 8/23/20)