Loss

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Loss

 

Life is a long road

Populated by loss and suffering

So much loss so often that

We must sometimes wonder

If life is more punishment than joy

More pain than pleasure

 

We lose in love long before we gain

We lose in contests before winning

We lose the jobs we wanted

We lose the dreams we dreamed

We lose the money we gambled

We lose friendships and promises

 

But of all our losses

Death is the loss most supreme

We lose our dear beloved pets

We lose our grandparents

We lose our elders

We lose fathers and mothers

We lose siblings and friends

 

So much loss so often

We wonder if the price is not

Too great to bear

 

But then our eyes settle

On a picture of perfection

So dear and so inspired

We realized that all this loss

Is surpassed by something

So much greater

 

The balance of nature

The cycle of rebirth

The love of a mother and child

The longing for perfect beauty

The song of mourning doves

A setting sun on the Pacific

The vision of a masterpiece

 

There is no loss so great

That it can serve to counter

The beauty and the wonder

Of this sacred life on earth

 

Independence Day Reflection

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Independence Day Reflection

 

Last night we celebrated Independence Day

With fireworks food and libations

Knowing that the birth of the nation

Was deeply flawed in so many ways

 

Blacks browns Asians and natives have

Little reason to celebrate liberation

From one nation when another

Holds them hostage

 

A slave cares little who he calls master

 

Women were exempt from independence

Though they aided their husbands’ struggle

As if they were fully invested

They had no rights under British rule

They had no rights in the new world

 

And yet we celebrate the birth of the republic

Modern democracy with all its flaws

With gerrymandering and disenfranchisement

With its new and improved Jim Crow laws

 

We celebrate the ideals

We celebrate the principles

We celebrate the vision and the hope

For what our white forefathers gave us

Remains the brightest light on earth

 

We inherited a dream of freedom

With equal rights and justice for all

If falls to us to remember that dream

And to fulfill its promise

 

Puerto Rican Pride

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Puerto Rican Pride

 

Puerto Rico is a land of riches

A people with great pride

An island nation without status

A commonwealth but not a state

In limbo between conflicting interests

Like a dog without a home

 

Where were we when they needed us?

Tossing rolls of paper at the peasants

Playing games with politics

Turning away in crisis

Calling names and pointing blame

 

If Puerto Rico was a state

The balance of power would turn

The people would never be neglected

If Puerto Rico was a nation

at least it would be free to choose

its own president and representatives

Define its own place in the world

 

But Puerto Rican independence

will never be allowed

There are too many interests opposed

Puerto Rico will not be a state

One party will block the path

 

Puerto Rico will remain

in permanent perpetual limbo

until the ruling powers care more

about the people than the politics

The Town that Used to Be

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The Town that Used to Be

 

There is a place in British Columbia

That used to be a town

It sparked and burned to the ground

Now it is a charred remain

Scattered like flakes of ash

Homes and businesses gone

Vanished like yesterday’s trash

Forgotten like ghosts of history

A page forever lost

Gone like distant memories

A shadow of the past

 

As Canadians they were not fools

They knew the warming was real

They lived close to the land

They felt its pulsing heartbeat

They bathed in its waters

They watched its changing skies

They knew the warming had arrived

But they did not think

They never imagined

They never ever dreamed

That they would be among

The first in line

To suffer the consequences

 Of human indifference

 

Democracy Betrayed (Hong Kong IV)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Democracy Betrayed (Hong Kong IV)

 

Hong Kong yesterday

The promise of democracy under

The thumb of authoritarian government

 

Hong Kong today

Democracy betrayed

 

The people of Hong Kong

Have long looked to the west

For guidance and support

They look to us now in despair

 

We who have stood with despots

For economic gain

We who have fought alongside dictators

For strategic advantage

We fall all but silent now in the quest

For independence

In the struggle for democracy

In the fight for basic freedoms

 

How shall we respond to Hong Kong’s

Desperate cry for assistance?

The cry of democracy dying

Shall we turn our backs?

Shall we walk away?

Shall we serve notice to all the world

That America no longer cares?

That America is about the money

Freedom?  Democracy?

You’re on your own

We send our condolences

 

Bone Crush (Global Warming)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Bone Crush (Global Warming)

 

Bone crushing heat sweeps

Across the Great Northwest

From Seattle to Portland

From Portland to Boise Idaho

Temperatures borrowed from Navajo land

From Phoenix to Tuba City

From Tombstone to Albuquerque

In the peak of summer

 

May every member of congress

Every governor and senator

Who swore global warming was a hoax

A joke a figment of liberal imagination

Be sentenced now to a week

In an unairconditioned apartment

In Seattle Tacoma Portland or Spokane

If they survive the ordeal

Let the next words that emerge

From their mouths be an apology

For they what they knew but

Pretended not to know

 

Let them now know the curse

Of global warming

All the remaining days

Of their lives

 

Manifest (Destiny)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: HISTORY

Manifest

 

Humanity has a gift

for rationalizing behavior that exceeds

the boundaries of morality

Ripping open the earth for coal

Destroying the land for timber

Slaughtering the buffalo to kill a culture

Spreading smallpox to claim a land

Internment of the Japanese

Relocation of the Cherokee

Annihilation of the Jews

War for oil on foreign lands

 

We did it all for God

We did it all for destiny

We did it all to appease the gods

We did what we had to do

We were chosen

We will choose

 

Nothing is manifest

Nothing is written

To believe that it is

is to justify the evil deeds

that men do

 

Primitive Nation

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Primitive

 

One third of our population

Does not trust science or medicine

To save us from the ravages

Of a runaway disease

 

One third of our people

Would rather stand with Neo Nazis

Than stand behind our government

 

One third of our fellow citizens

Believe the ruling elite

Are deranged pedophiles

Trafficking children

 

How have we come so far?

Survived so long?

With so many of our own

Arrested in the primitive

Stages of development?

 

In so many ways we are

An ignorant nation

A savage nation

An infant nation

Determined to secure

Our own demise

 

Return of the Heat Wave

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

Return of the Heat Wave

 

A year ago in August

A record wave of heat beat down on us

Like a raving army of mad savages

Bent on complete submission

 

The wave returns in June

Thundering fire smoke and brimstone

The guardians of hell surround us

Wrap their burning arms around us

And hold us in captivity

 

We are not beaten

But we are weakened

The push the pull the constant call

Of all we have endured

Waves of madness and oppression

Waves of sickness and disease

Waves of bigotry and murder

Waves of tragedy and heartbreak

 

Now another punishing blow

A record wave of heat in June

We dare not look ahead

At what the future holds

We live the moment and press on

We live each day to reach the night

And breathe again

 

Exceptionalism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Exceptionalism

 

We know beyond reason

It cannot happen here

We’re the best in the world

We’ve nothing to fear

 

The finest physicians

That money can buy

Our great politicians

Tell the best lies

 

It only happens there

Where they piss in the road

And they don’t seem to care

Like frogs and toads

 

Maybe they’re human

We don’t really know

But we go very fast

And they go really slow

 

But it can happen here

Best heed the warning

If we pretend that it can’t

It’ll be here by morning

 

Time

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Time

 

Time is a freight train

It bears down on you like rolling thunder

Like a buffalo stampede on the open plains

It beats you down and tramples you

Under waves of pounding hooves

A most horrible refrain

 

Time is the eye of a raging storm

It comforts you with a sense of calm

Before it yields to nature’s wrath

Ripping limb from branch

Uprooting tree from earth

Shattering our chosen path

 

Time is a river flowing

From a gentle easy rolling stream

To roaring rapids of impending doom

Spawning life to whole ecosystems

Taking death into her sweet embrace

While a deepest darkness looms

 

Time is a whisper in the darkest forest

Time is the silence of the deepest sea

Time bends folds sits still and rolls

Time is the ultimate mystery

 

Epic (for Bob Dylan)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Epic (for Bob Dylan)

 

Now this is a story about

A man named Jed

Lived out in the holler

Barely kept his family fed

He went out to dig a hole

God only knows the reason why

Out came a stream of oil

Lord it painted all the sky

So the bankers came a calling

With a word for Mister Jed

Sign here you’ll be a millionaire

Before you go to bed

 

So Jed took that paper

And he did not think about it

That man seemed nice and friendly

He had no reason to doubt it

So Jed took a silver pen

And affixed his given name

He signed away his future

His fortune and his fame

 

They took his home and his land

Dumped him in some random alley

Jed became a homeless man

In the Shenandoah valley

 

Jed never knew what happened

He just never understood

He’d always been an honest man

He did the best he could

 

Now Jed becomes a symbol of

Displacement of the masses

Or maybe he personifies

Separation of the classes

 

He always thought it kind of strange

And maybe a little funny

What happens when the bankers come

To offer up a lot of money

 

(after Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream)

 

A Man without a Soul

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POETRY OF POLITICS

A Man without a Soul

 

A man who does not fear

The solemn judgment of history

The honest voice of retribution

The ill will of an entire nation

The widespread outrage of the world

The lost affection of friends and family

Is a man profoundly alone

 

A man who does not fear

The righteous wrath of his people

The mounting rage of the oppressed

The abandonment of moral grounding

A universal sense of shame

A desperate yearning for change

Is a man who should never be

Entrusted with power

 

For the man who has no fear

Is a man without a soul

 

A Dictator's Fear

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

 

A Dictator’s Fear

 

When everyone who speaks

Loudly and out of turn

Must fear for her freedom

Fear for her family

Fear for his life

The question must be asked:

What does the dictator fear?

The answers are many and clear:

An honest election

Freedom of speech

The right to gather in protest

A well-spoken opponent

A glimpse of true democracy

A mere taste of freedom

An independent new media

A voice of the people

The right to organize

A people’s rebellion

A balance of powers

An uncensored truth

 

In the fullness of time

A dictator’s greatest fear

As his end draws near

Is the inevitable end itself

For a dictator never surrenders

Power without blood

 

Finishing Point

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Finishing Point

 

On the seventh day the lord did rest

And decided it was best

One must make an end to the greatest ventures

One must yield to a final decree

For though life may reach eternity

We are but mortal entities

Whose journeys seek our destinies

 

We mark it on a map

We trace a course in hopeful dreams

We make all preparations

And embark in great faith

We encounter walls and barriers

We face a thousand unknown factors

Disasters strike from all directions

We find ourselves enchanted

And lose our selves in love

We make another plan

Mark a new direction

And learn to make amends

 

At the finishing point

Where all lives must end

Our destiny is never quite

What we intended it to be

Yet it is all we could ever want

All we could ever desire

All we could ever dream

We have reached an end

 

Dance

Sing

Rejoice

 

To Hear from Within

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

To Hear from Within

 

The heart is the drumbeat

The rhythm of life

Waves of an eternal ocean

Pounding a driving beat

The force of unending time

A song of soul survival

The poetry of living

The wonder of being alive

 

To hear from within

To feel one’s internal rhythm

To sense one’s pulse without touch

Is a sensation rarely felt

Only the artist can appreciate

The depth of such sensation

Only the poet can imagine

Such a foreign phenomenon

To feel beyond the senses

To exist beyond the self

To hear from within