The Gateway

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

 

The Gateway

 

They stormed the gates of the Bastille

They stormed the gates of Brandenburg

They stormed the gates at Buchenwald

They stormed the gates of hell

 

Whenever change is needed

Wherever people are bound

Whatever hand oppresses

A gateway must be found

 

We are known for building barriers

We are famed for building walls

But a wall without a gateway

Is a wall that must soon fall

 

A way to bend both time and space

A gateway to beyond

A path to save the human race

And build a stronger bond

 

We are trapped within an endless maze

Desperate to escape

We are searching for a gateway

To take a leap of faith

 

Round Numbers

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Round Numbers

Humans are drawn to round numbers

Bicentennials and millennials

Decades and centuries

The three minute mile

Fifty ways to leave your lover

A hundred years of solitude

500 miles away from home

The first one hundred days

Top ten on the hit parade

One hundred meter dash

Ten thousand meter run

 

Two hundred thousand dead

From the novel coronavirus

Two hundred thousand humans

No longer in physical existence

Two hundred thousand mothers

Fathers sons and daughters

Uncles aunts and grandparents

Two hundred thousand doctors

Nurses farmworkers plant workers

Grocery store clerks and teachers

Two hundred thousand lovers

Loved and beloved ones

 

Are we paying attention now

Have we lost enough to care

Have we cried enough tears

Is it now too much to bear

 

Stop the destructive madness

Now that we see where it led

Toss them all overboard

Into the sea of the living dead

 

The Sacred Crow

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: VISIONS

The Sacred Crow

 

I gazed into the eyes of the crow

And saw what came to be

Days of darkness nights of fear

Catastrophe in threes

 

We tasted fruit from the poison tree

Where many fell and did not rise

The crow will always find its way

Piercing a sea of lies

 

I saw a scarred and barren land

From the eyes of the crow in flight

Trees ripped from their mother’s womb

A horrid tortured sight

 

I saw the land turn dry and crack

Cities swallowed by the sea

Smoke filled skies and burnt horizons

No place of rest to comfort me

 

The crow escapes to untouched heights

And leaves me far behind

To seek what solace welcomes me

What fate for me unwinds

 

If we measure pure intelligence

By the talent to survive

The human will long vanish

The sacred crow will thrive

 

Be more like the crow

That lives within its means

That leaves the land intact

And honors what it dreams

 

Timeline

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

Timeline

 

Another needless death born

In a dingy smoke filled room

Murder by the men in blue

Nothing seen is nothing true

The ugly and sublime

The horrid and the kind

All things come out in time

 

The global warming hoax

An environmentalist joke

By now we all know it’s real

Does not matter how you feel

Say a prayer and make a deal

Wonder why we were so blind

Everything reveals in time

 

The myth of racial justice

A gaping wealth divide

Barren trees and fruitless skies

A long and twisted ride

Preachers spreading fantasies

Leaders telling lies

You have your facts

And I have mine

The truth comes out in time

The Lotus

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR

The Lotus

 

The beauty of the lotus flower

Lifts our spirits in the darkest hour

Calms our frayed and fragile nerves

Makes the burden of our mind less

 

In times of tragedy and death

We seek levity and jest

To lift us from our jaded view

That bears no joy or kindness

 

We turn back to the lotus

As it finds a way to float us

On the deep deep pool of sorrow

To which time and trouble bind us

 

There is beauty in the world as yet

And if we ever should forget

Just take another look around

The lotus will remind us

 

Climate Chaos

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Chaos

 

A clash of titans over the Rockies

A scourge from the western fires

A blast of cold from the northeast

Predictions are most dire

 

Wildfires in the arctic circle

Thunderstorms and drought

Hurricanes in the Atlantic

Typhoons leave no doubt  

 

The story of climate change unfolds

The pages of disaster turn

Written on the walls of prophecy

Lessons never learned

Recorded on the streets of protest

While our towns and forests burned

 

The deniers become the naysayers

Do nothing let it burn

It’s far too late to change the course

So let the pages turn

 

It almost makes sense

Until you tell it to a child

Who wonders if you’ve lost your mind

While the fires yet burn wild

 

The Magic Pill

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  2020 ELECTION

The Magic Pill                                                                                   

 

Nixon offered a secret plan

To end the carnage in Vietnam

 

Bush swore our taxes would be cut

He promised us no matter what

 

Politicians tell you what you want to hear

They play to your bias hatred and fear

  

So now the president has a magic pill

Just take it with water and sit real still

 

When the election is over if it goes his way

He’ll swear what he said he did not say

 

The lesson is clear if you have any sense

What a politician says is not what he meant

 

Prayers for India

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Prayers for India

 

Prayers for India

Prayers for Delhi

The predator has found

A most fertile hunting ground

Poverty squalor overcrowding

It is not religion

It is not faith

It is not the will of god

It is science and mathematics

It is numbers and space

Too many people

Too few hospitals

Too little care

A draconian lockdown

Punished the poor

Without relief

Without preparation

To fight an airborne enemy

That has no politics

That has no pride or prejudice

And the people of India suffer

And perish as they do

In Rio de Janeiro and the barrios

Wherever poverty overcrowding

and superstition prevail

Bollywood is closed

The curtain has lowered

The beautiful people

In their colorful costumes

Sing and dance no more

 

Oppression

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Oppression                                                                                                     

 

Oppression is not a flash of lightning

The heavy hammer of abuse

It is not the swift slice of a sharp blade

Or the sting of pounding blow

 

Oppression is a dull throbbing ache

Always present never fading

Always building like waves of heat

 

Oppression never reaches its crescendo

With the end of day or the fall of night

 

Oppression is a constant haunting

Like the shadow of a thousand miseries

In a hospice or a funeral home

 

It is a pall that never lifts

A pain that has no remedy

A ghost in living flesh

 

To live with oppression

Is to be imprisoned without bars

In agony without relief

In perpetual apprehension

Of the days and nights ahead

 

Oppression in its purest sense

Is to be oppressor and oppressed

In an endless cycle of horror

Return to Kind

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Return to Kind

 

Somewhere on the blue highways

Of my mind

I remember hearing this fertile valley

Was once a barren desert

 

All things return to kind

What once was will be again

The dam will give way

The river will run its course

The forest will reclaim the cities

The irrigated desert will return to sand

And we poor humans will return

Kicking and screaming like banshees

On a moonlit night

To our more natural lives

 

Our towers will topple

Civilizations decline

Earth will reclaim her majesty

In the richness of time

 

Bravado

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

Bravado

 

We are all subject to the laws of physics

We cannot opt out

We cannot object on moral grounds

The sun will rise

The moon will follow

Young folks reach for the sky

Old folks like fallen fruit must die

Don’t ask why

Don’t ask why

 

You can curse the stars for shining

You can purge what rests within

You can dwell in sorrow’s garden

You can argue with the wind

 

A single truth survives the ages

Upon this you can depend

The greatest lesson in this life

Comes at its very end

 

It’s the moment when you realize

A mere flash before the fall

Your courage in the face of death

Wasn’t bravery at all