The Homeless Problem

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

The Homeless Problem

 

They used to hide the homeless problem

Put em on a bus to the next town

Let em find shelter in the countryside

Banish them and put them down

 

Now there are more homeless than ever

Under bridges and along the tracks

They live in villages of tents

They keep count of them in stacks

 

They used to call them Hoover towns

Before they moved them underground

Now you see them all around

The black the red the yellow and brown

 

Portland is a city that cares

Providing services and shelters

Many cities could not care less

Running roughshod helter skelter

 

The line dividing us from them

is as fine as it could be

Lose a job or have an accident

Turn around and then you’ll see

 

What happened to the homeless

could easily happen to you or me

Woman of the Mountain

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Woman of the Mountain

 

As I traveled the lonesome highways

In the adventuresome days of my youth

I took a journey to the mountain top

Where I caught a glimpse of truth

 

She was standing in a tunnel of light

I was humbled by my bed

I was praying silently for miracles

She just said it is in your head

 

She said you’ve always been a poet

She said you only need a start

She reached out and gave me the seed

That feeds our giving hearts

 

I visit her in the mountain

I see her in the stream

I found her and I lost her

In an early morning dream

 

Oil Slick Beach

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Oil Slick Beach

 

Off the coast of California

They worship the gods of oil still

No matter how many beaches are destroyed

No matter how many birds they kill

 

We thought we outlawed that kind of greed

We thought we were friends of the earth

Now the coastal communities bleed

As we recalculate what oil is worth

 

In a state that takes pride in leading green

Do we care only when it has no costs?

We promised the world a California dream

Do we know how much we have lost?

 

It is time to stop the drilling for oil

Off the coast of the state that cares

It is time to unwind that avaricious coil

In favor of what’s right and fair

 

On the Take

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

On the Take

 

The truth is a painting in bold colors

Yet the heads pretend we just don’t know

Sinema is on the take of drug pushers

Manchin is on the take of coal

 

It’s a tap dance before the cameras

It’s a breaking news Hollywood show

Sinema is on the take of pharma

Manchin is on the take of coal

 

We’ve played this game too many times

Take another bow and say hello

Sinema is on the take of drug companies

Manchin is on the take of coal

 

It is not about the money we spend

But it’s all about the dough

Sinema is on the take of pharma

Manchin is on the take of coal

 

Yemen (The Hopeless War)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Yemen

 

Never was there a war more hopeless

Never was there a nation more forlorn

Never was there a people in greater distress

Never was a society more torn

 

The world decided to make Yemen pay

For all the divisions we have wrought

Supplied with weapons of mass extinction

And ideologies for which we have fought

 

A clash of the titans with deadly forces

Converge on the poorest of nations

Every radical Islam Sunni or Shia

Was delivered a gold invitation

 

Hundreds of thousands have given their lives

A generation of war and terror

A generation of kids will want to know why

Their lives did not deserve better

 

It’s all about the geography

Some kindly old man will explain

Iran Iraq the Saud’s and the West

Lay their claim to this holy terrain

 

Transitions

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Transitions

 

The tree of life is barren now

The air is crisp and cool

Geese have marked a trail down south

Leaving we poor lonely fools

To gander at the mystery

As it unfolds before our eyes

We marvel at transitions

The changing colors of the sky

We understand as we grow old

The future it foretells

We grow we fade we vanish

We know the story well

The time comes for us to shelter

Under roofs and in the ground

Our lives will close and open to

New sights new scents new sounds

We will have no tears of sorrow

No mourning howls at the moon

We will wonder at the chance

To dance a brand-new tune

 

 

Spirits Rise

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Spirits Rise

 

The spirit rises

The soul finds its home

The mystery falls

To the great unknown

 

If dreams are our guides

Then dreams will roam

On wings we will ride

To our spiritual home

 

We hold it in our prayers

We wish it to be true

Our world built in layers

The old becomes the new

 

Our ends are but beginnings

Always subject to revise

Our losses become winnings

As we let our spirits rise

 

Effigy to Robert E. Lee

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

Effigy to Robert E. Lee

 

We bought the whitewashed story

The noble Southerner

The native son who fought

For his people

For his homeland

For his way of life

 

As God is my witness…

 

We bought the whole narrative

Of the proud and brave South

Fighting against all odds

For an old-fashioned righteous cause

The plantation as an industry

Where blacks were merely workers

Where they were given meaningful lives

Grateful to their masters

For food clothing and shelter

And honest labor

 

All hail Robert E. Lee!

 

The finest of his generation

Number one in his class

Defender of the abomination

Of racial bigotry and slavery

 

As God is my witness

He will never be revered again

 

Perpetual Crisis

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Perpetual Crisis

 

In a world of constant crisis

The flowers have no color

The ocean has no scent

The glow of light is duller

The simple joys are spent

 

When darkness haunts the home

We may never see the other

Whose troubles may be worse

We promise you my brothers

Some day we’ll lift the curse

 

But we are lost in all our worries

A new crisis every day

Our health our homes our way of life

We no longer see our way

Through the maze of constant strife

 

We must learn to stand together

Fighting hard for all it’s worth

Where we live and other places

All good people on this earth

Of all religions and all races

 

The Last to Go

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

The Last to Go

 

Daughters before mothers

Sons before fathers

Like warm bathing in icy waters

A disturbance in the natural order

Like night before day

Like a bridge on the border

Like the past before tomorrow

Comfort before anger

Rage before sorrow

The stages of mourning

Turned on their heads

We must mourn the living

And converse with the dead

No one lives forever

The wise ones said

It is a road we all travel

One we travel alone

We can never look back

We can never go home

But oh to the one who is last to go

To him belongs grief

To her belongs woe

There will be no more tears

When we’ve come to the end

There will be no condolences

Our loved ones to send

We will have no more fear

As we round the last bend

We will welcome the chance

To revisit our friends

 

Seven Generations: A Short Story

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IMMIGRATION

Seven Generations: A Short Story

 

The generations flow

Like currents in a great river

Like waves in the sea

Where each wave is endowed

With the power to alter

The course of history

And all that it encompasses

 

It begins with immigration

(this is not a native story)

Religious persecution

Economic opportunity

Importation of slaves

The great potato famine

The Armenian genocide

The siege of the Warsaw ghetto

The Nazi invasion

The Bracero program

Cold War refugees

The purge of Christians

The purge of Muslims

 

It begins with the journey

A journey of hardship

Discrimination and hatred

Violence and disruption

 

It advances through seven stages

Poor paying jobs

Substandard housing

Poverty and rejection

We don’t want your kind

Go back where you came from

 

It endures through persistence

With the help of friends

Understanding neighbors

And welcoming neighborhoods

 

It advances through hard work

Success and acceptance

Community sacrifice and service

 

It advances through legal proceedings

Stubborn insistence on human rights

Fights in the court

Fights in the legislature

 

It advances when the doors

Of opportunity open through

Representation and demand

 

It advances through power

Money and control

 

In seven generations you arrive

At the American dream

And the keepers at the gate wonder:

What took you so long?

 

Mississippi and Peru

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Mississippi and Peru

 

Peru and Mississippi

Mississippi and Peru

If you had to do it all again

What differently would you do?

 

Your answer for the cameras: nothing

Your answer before the mirror: everything

 

Take the virus seriously

Mask distance isolate and ventilate

Invest in mass vaccination

Put your best medical minds in charge

Trust the science

Keep the people well informed

A virus does not care

Who you are or where

Understand from the beginning

The best economic strategy

Is to defeat the virus

Pound the people daily

With the hard and honest truth

Bring the opposition aboard

Remove the politics

Share the credit

Erase the blame

We are all in this together

Together we will overcome

 

Under the Bridge

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Under the Bridge

 

There is a bridge down by the border

Where there is no law no order

There we spend most of our days

Trying to find some other way

 

They don’t want us in the promised land

So here we’re forced to take a stand

They say they’ll send us home again

There’s no way forward we cannot win

 

Maybe they’re right we do not know

We often hang our heads down low

But we can’t afford to lose all hope

We must find another way to cope

 

Under the bridge we help each other

There are children without mothers

We must endure all kinds of weather

Yet still we stay together

 

If there is one thing you should know

This is not a moving picture show

We are not animals or crawling things

We are sentient human beings

 

Q ii Revisited

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Q ii Revisited

 

It feeds on itself

It recycles its own waste

It requires no objective sustenance

It is the zombie of social movements

It died long ago but refused to accept its demise

 

It is the Q

It is the virus of intellectual ideas

It poisons what it touches

And takes root in the core

 

It teases logic but repels facts

It thrives on whispered innuendo

On rumors and reflections

Did you hear what they’re saying?

Everybody knows

Every body knows

 

I hear there’s a vaccine that cures it

That’s what they want you to believe

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid

Don’t breathe the air

Get off the grid

And don’t look back

 

Our enemies are everywhere

Behind the blue rectangles

Beyond the purple horizon

Don’t look don’t look

If you look they’ve got you

Stay strong

Resist

Reject the system

Learn the code

The Q is all

The Q stands tall

The Q will rise

While others fall

 

Are you with us or against us?

Stand up or walk away

Fall in line or stray

There is no other way

 

The Q knows

The Q grows

The Q will not be fooled

 

The Long Journey

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

The Long Journey

 

From Haiti to Chile through Mexico

to the Texas border

Can you imagine a more difficult journey?

Things are so bad in Haiti

Earthquakes hurricanes assassinations

They are willing to pay a series

of unreputable brokers

Leaving behind all property

Leaving behind all belongings

Leaving loved ones and family ties

to be transported over sea

Across land traversing jungles

Across desert and barren wasteland

Through cities of sprawling poverty

Confronting gangs and lowlife criminals

Only to confront the wall

at the Texas border

 

Say what you will

Say we cannot have an open border

Say we must protect our own

Say we must draw the line

But do not deny their courage

or the sincerity of their cause

 

They are human beings caught

in a web of destitution

If we would deny them entry

At least afford them respect

Then you will know what

the promise of America means