RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS
Lukashenko of Belarus
Never was a man so proud
Of a legacy of hate
He is oblivious to the fact
That infamy is his fate
Not even Putin is so bold
As to flaunt his cold mendacity
If he wasn’t such a monster
His story would elicit pity
That Lukashenko is an ogre
Is plain for all to behold
He spoils the very air he breathes
His power he has sold
It is time for every dictator
To dissolve into the sunset
Let him walk upon the waters
Just to see if he gets wet
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS
Innocent Dead
On this day of remembrance
We are called to mourn
The loss of so many lives
Office workers
First responders
The ones who fell
The ones who survived
We remember them all
With a sense of dread
We remember the innocent dead
We recall the horror unleashed that day
We remember the fire brigade
The heroic actions of New York’s best
The unconscionable price they paid
We recall the chaos the sirens scream
Unfolding as if in a dream
On this day of mourning
We hang our heads
We remember the innocent dead
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR
Eleven September
The eleventh of September
A day we’ll always remember
A day of infamy
Like a symphony of horror
The day Americans united
In fear and trepidation
The day we became overtly
A vengeful warrior nation
It was early morn in California
When the first plane hit the tower
We knew somehow it was intended
A play for global power
Our president cried out Revenge!
They named the enemy bin Laden
How they knew that name so quickly
Is a mystery we’ve forgotten
We went to war in Afghanistan
Though they offered him a trial
We could not hear appeals to reason
It would have to wait a while
We moved on to Iraq
Before the dust had cleared
Iraq became the nightmare
So many of us feared
Two decades have gone by now
Since the towers fell that day
We remember it with horror
As the day we lost our way
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS
The Day John Lennon Died
On the day John Lennon was shot down
Outside the Dakota Hotel
On Central Park West
In the heart of Manhattan
Like a common criminal
Or a rapper on the wrong side of town
A song was written in Liverpool
Three singers harmonized in Nashville
The final chapter wrote itself
In the life of a troubadour on the run
Outside of Boulder Colorado
A dancer found her groove
A native movement was born
On the third and fourth mesa
In the Great Navaho Reservation
In Arizona and New Mexico
Where a circle of shamans
Smoked a pipe of peace
And a child took his first breath
In a corner drugstore on Bleeker Street
Life goes on the wise man says
Life goes on
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE
Sequoias
The magnificent Sequoias of California
Are now an endangered species
A twenty-year drought drained the lifeblood
And the fires reduced them to kindling
Cry not for these majestic creatures
Though they have stood for a million years
Cry for those who will never behold
In all their glory and towering strength
The pounding pulse of their eternal grace
Cry for all humankind
Entrusted with their care
Cry for the forest and all the life
Dependent on the Sequoia cover
Cry for the father of all beings
Cry for the earthly mother
We are witnessing the final days
Of one of nature’s greatest miracles
And we know as a mother knows her child
It is only the beginning
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES
Denial and Rage
When someone you love gets covid
You do not want to accept it
It cannot be
You took all the precautions
You did all the right things
You considered others
You watched your step
You vaccinated
You wore the mask
You dined outside
You did not attend large gatherings
You faltered once or twice
Is that all it took?
One simple misstep
One walk on the wrong side
Of the street
Some random conspiracy theorist
Some antivax zealot
Some fool without a mask
Invades your breathing space
And you contract the disease
You become the victim
You become a carrier
Of denial and rage
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES
Inequity
He does not deserve this indignity
He does not deserve this disgrace
When a man of honor is victimized
The house of equity is out of place
We may look back on this day
And despise those who did not care
Enough to compromise their freedom
Bringing our right to life to bear
Are they so blind to the consequence
Of giving the virus room to grow
Of refusing to listen to science
Of being proud not to know
You’ve taken too many mothers and fathers
You’ve taken too many sons and daughters
The great pandemic should be over
But you believed in four-leaf clovers
Go away and take your family
Go away and take your friends
Thanks to you the plague lives on
Thanks to you there is no end
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE
Fire & Floods
Rain floods the east coast
From Philly to Manhattan
Get out of the way if you’re able
Find shelter if you can
Fires rage in California
Pristine Lake Tahoe in the path
Testing our perseverance
Challenging nature’s wrath
Punishing heat pounds New Orleans
In the wake of a hurricane
The people survive without power
Though their will to live wanes
The days of reckoning are upon us
It arrives in seven waves
Fire wind rain and pestilence
All combine to induce rage
We can walk in place no longer
It is time to raise the roof
No longer can we be passive
We can no longer be aloof
If this is the final hour
If these are the final days
Let it be said I was impassioned
Let it be said my part I played
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES
The Ganges
The Ganges is a sacred river
To millions of Hindu followers
The embodiment of a goddess
They bathe in its sacred waters
They bury their dead in the Ganges
They dispose their sewage and waste
After centuries of endless pollution
The Ganges is a hopeless case
It was meant to purify humans
So the Hindu legends tell
But humans poisoned the Ganges
Turning heaven into earthly hell
Let us pray it is not too late
To turn the Ganges around
To cleanse the sacred waters
And reclaim a hallowed ground
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AFGHAN WAR
Military Madness
Three presidents elected on a promise
To leave behind the mess in Afghanistan
The military managed to ignore two
The third took a hard stand:
Get out of Afghanistan!
So now they take turns in a public lament:
We betrayed our allies and friends
Said what we said meant what we meant
America fights to the bitter end!
Look what happened in Vietnam!
Look what happened in Iraq!
It’s as if you don’t even give a damn!
To which our president proclaimed:
Exactly! Now bow your heads in shame!
You lied to Afghans when you said forever
We lied to our own when we said never
Again would we send soldiers to war
When we don’t really know what it’s for
We got our revenge we slaughtered AQ
After that we didn’t know what to do
You had three terms to get it done
Now you act like you’re oh so stunned
You didn’t even give it a try
So now it’s on you when people die
And still we don’t know why
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE
Ida
Memories of Katrina haunt me
As if it happened yesterday
I want to scream at the TV screen:
Get out! You’re in the way!
Ida is category two and churning
From Havana to New Orleans
The roads are all jammed
The people are under warning
The fires of Hades burning
Will Ida hit like Katrina did?
Will the authorities be unprepared?
Will the lower ninth be flooded?
Will our sense of outrage be shared?
We have entered an age of tragedy
It often feels like the end of days
The chain of horrors relentless
Seems our legs are made of clay
New Orleans Survives
Ida hit the Gulf Coast hard
Like a bombardment of missiles
Like at twenty-foot wave
Like the breath of an angry god
Full of wrath wind and rain
The power died before nightfall
Leaving those who stayed behind
Hiding seeking shelter inside
They would baton down the hatches
They would fight back the storm
They would protect their belongings
They would protect their homes
They would do what they could
But the storm kept rolling
Churning like a beast
Spreading mass destruction
Like the Saint’s final feast
The people of New Orleans
Know they’re lucky to be alive
They have fought through the years
Self-assured they would survive
It’s not a war zone like Kabul
It’s not the end of a long drive
It’s a place where a culture
And its music still thrives
So help them through this crisis
As they suffer and we cry
We will do what it takes
To help New Orleans survive
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES
The Congo
You can hear the drums of the Congo
As if they were moving near
Charging western imagination
Filling our hearts with fear
Tarzan was lost in the jungle
That was fed by the Congo River
Where animals were wild and fierce
Making civilized people shiver
Alas the Congo was mostly myth
Invented by western writers
Reality is far more subtle
Than strange uncivilized fighters
The Congo feeds an abundant life
Its wildness is its glory
Without it so much life would cease
To shorten the planet’s story
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES
The Nile
The longest river on the planet
It shaped the lives of ancient Egypt
Gave birth to modern agriculture
Challenged our sense of entitlement
Cleopatra floated her royal barge
Down the waters of the River Nile
Mark Anthony and Julius Caesar
Made history for Shakespeare’s file
The granddaddy of African rivers
It feeds eleven modern nations
From Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean
It enabled an advanced civilization
Oh how we revere the River Nile
For its storied and mythical past
The river runs with an eternal force
Forever and always will it last
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES
The Yangtze
The longest river in Asia
Among the longest on the planet earth
As the birthplace of their civilization
The Chinese value its worth
The Yangtze gives and the Yangtze takes
Its yellow waters are a blessing
It is known for frequent flooding
Yet the people have learned its lessons
Some call it the river of sorrow
For it has claimed a great many lives
Yet the people give their humble thanks
For with the river all wildlife thrives
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AFGHAN WAR
Mercenaries
Independent contractors
They don’t like to be called mercenaries
They don’t like to be called hired guns
Killers for pay
Have gun will travel
They answer to no one
They have no code of honor
They are torturers and war criminals
They are as old as war itself
So while we extend our forces
To evacuate diplomats allies and soldiers
Shed no tears for the mercenaries
Spill no blood for their safety
Let them find their own way home
One wonders what war would look like
If there were no hired guns
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AFGHAN WAR
Woe Afghanistan
The Taliban is an ancient sect
Sharia law is primitive and cruel
We will oppose this way of life
We will oppose the Taliban rule
But we can no longer fight a war
That we could never win
Great armies fell on these grounds
And they will fall again
The Afghans must themselves prevail
For they have always known
While they oppose oppression
This oppressor is their own
Others cannot fight this war
As we have proven over the years
We gave our blood and treasure
We shared Afghani tears
But war cannot go on forever
When it depends on foreign might
We have reached our solemn limits
No longer will we fight
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AFGHAN WAR
Afghan Blame
Do not play the blame game
In Afghanistan at this late date
The sun has long set
The writing on the wall
Has faded to dust
This tragedy was decades in the making
Three presidents have tried and failed
To withdraw from the endless war
If you need to blame someone
Cast your vision back to the beginning
When an inept leader
Demanded a war of vengeance
And lost interest when the mission
Lost its clarity
And the glory lost its luster
If you need blame
Look to our military leaders
Who year after year reported progress
When there was no progress
Who all but promised victory
When victory was a tortured mirage
Who refused to plan an evacuation
Despite many years of notice
If you need blame
Look to our intelligence agencies
Who have established a record
Of incompetence unrivaled
In modern history
If you need blame
Look to the chorus line of cheerleaders
And talking heads who demanded war
And now question the consequences
If you still need blame
Blame the hypocrites and warmongers
Blame the pimps of patriotism
Blame the foreign policy experts
Blame American exceptionalism
Blame the history of empires
Blame yourself
For not speaking out
Until now
