Conscripts and Mercenaries

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Conscripts and Mercenaries

 

When Putin calls you to war

Consider all your choices

Hear the righteous people roar

Listen closely to their voices

If you simply can’t abide

Join the other side

 

If they make you carry arms

Do your duty well

Swear to do no harm

Or spend your time in jail

If you simply can’t abide

Join the other side

 

Fight to free Ukraine

Fight to free your mind

This cursed war for the insane

Has caught you in a bind

If you simply can’t abide

Take your family and hide

Or let your conscience

Be your guide

Join the other side

The Saboteur

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Saboteur

 

The beast of the great white north

Opens a new front in the war on democracy

Sabotaging gas lines in the Black Sea

Supplying Europe with energy

 

Meantime in the Czech Republic

Putin finances the opposition party

Sponsors protests in the streets

In Italy he throws a party for Mussolini

Scoring a victory for fascists and

Putin sympathizers everywhere

Though they pretend to oppose

The war in Ukraine (for now)

 

He believes he can defeat democracy

With corruption and propaganda

The weakest among us que up

To take his blood-for-oil money

To utilize his machine

 

Hold the line in Bohemia

Remember your history

The Velvet Revolution

Remember Dubcek and Havel

Russian tanks on the streets of Prague

Remember the occupation

A broken nation in defeat

 

Hold the line in Milan

Remember your history

How you lost your righteous way

How you followed Mussolini

How it ended in disgrace

 

Hold the line in eastern Ukraine

Remember occupied France

The shame of those who submitted

The honor of those who made a stance

 

The great aggressor is losing ground

His debt is mounting every day

His cause is evil and corrupt

And for his crimes he will pay

 

Voting in a War Zone

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Voting in a War Zone

 

Imagine your home invaded by armed thugs

Miraculously you fight them back

But they hold the living room

With guns drawn they insist on a vote

To decide who will inhabit this space

Vote for them and life goes on

Until they deny you passage through

Your own living room

Vote against them and they open fire

 

This is what Russia did in Crimea

This in what they have done in Luhansk,

Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia

Voting in a war zone is not democracy

It is the opposite of democracy

It is itself a crime against humanity

It makes a mockery of democracy

Just as the Russian Federation does

With its mock elections

 

Voting with a gun to your head is not voting

Voting with a gun to your head is survival

 

Why would a dictator conduct such mockery?

It reveals his weakness and foreshadows

The depravity to come

 

The Return of Italian Fascism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

Fascism with a Pretty Face

 

Mussolini rose to power in Italy

As an elected prime minister in 1922

In three years he became dictator

In 1940 he entered the great war

On the side of the Nazis

Five years later he was captured

And executed by his own people

 

Five decades later

In the tradition of Italian fascism

Italy elects Giorgia “Mussolini” Meloni

Fascism with a pretty face

She represents Italian nationalism

Praises Mussolini

Condemns multiculturalism

Shows sympathy for Nazi collaborators

And repressive morality police

 

Despite past support for Putin

She has promised to support Ukraine

We will see, we will see

Would Mussolini have opposed Hitler

If his election required it?

 

Let’s not pretend it cannot happen

It can and anywhere

Where fear of others supplants patriotism

Where racial purity a silent virtue

Where years of austerity

Poverty and homelessness

Feed our biases and terror

It happens when we forget who we are

And what we stand for

It happens when we care only for

Ourselves and nothing for others

 

Nuclear Threat

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  UKRAINE

Nuclear Threat

 

A poker player does not show his ace

A chess master does not tip his moves

A commander does not reveal his strategy

A leader does not threaten nuclear war

Unless he is desperate and cornered

 

The pariah of the new world order

Has raised the specter of annihilation

Mutually assured mass destruction

He has evolved from a toothless beast

To a madman in a collapsing kingdom

He is no longer the Russian strongman

He is no longer the untouchable leader

His veil of invincibility has shattered

The myth of his mighty military gone

 

He has ruled in an age of his own demise

He has guided his ship into the rocks

He has led the great regression

Away from freedom and democracy

Toward dictatorship and greed

 

His story is already written

His legacy is a toppled statue

The once great commander of the north

Has fallen in disgrace

 

The question now is:

Will the Russian people follow

His path to self-destruction

Or will they rise to the moment?

 

(Note: The people are rising; the question

Now is what will the military do?)

Britannia

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Britannia

 

Beneath the glory of the pageantry

Beneath the sorrow and the mourning

The decline of Britannia presses on

As they christen an age of austerity

With a new conservative prime minister

The Brits will double down on Brexit

While they renew their pledge to NATO

And the war against Russia in Ukraine

Their pledge to war on inflation

Runs contrary to the war on warming

And threatens to crack the alliance

 

The world is once again divided

The free world against the oppressed

The abusers against the abused

The exploiters against the exploited

 

There are nations committed to change

And nations determined to regress

At a time of catastrophic disasters

There are nations that do not care

There are nations that see the world

And those that see only themselves

 

Britannia is at a crossroads

Which way will you go?

Will you hold with the civilized world

Or will you choose to walk alone?

Either way there will be sacrifice

Either way there will be blood

 

The Warnings

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The Warnings

 

We should have known

We had more warnings than we can count

We should have known when Katrina

Filled the Gulf of Mexico before

Leaving the ninth ward a ghost town

We should have known

 

We should have known when torrential

Floods ravaged India and Pakistan

When Hurricane Rita slammed into Cuba,

Texas and Louisiana

When Ivan brought havoc to Venezuela,

The Gulf Coast and the Caribbean

We should have known when Ike

Ran its course from Texas to Iceland

When Sandy buried New Jersey in floodwater

When Harvey made waste from

The Yucatan to Texas

We should have known

 

Tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons

Storms the size of continents

Glaciers falling into the oceans

Polar icecaps melting

Islands swallowed by the sea

 

No one can say we were not warned

No one can say we didn’t see it coming

We saw, we knew and we turned away

 

The Martyrdom of Mahsa Amini

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL JUSTICE

The Martyrdom of Mahsa Amini

 

Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran

By the Iranian morality police

On the charge of not covering her head

To the satisfaction of her oppressors

 

Mahsa Amini died that day

The authorities said she fell ill

Her family said there was no illness

The authorities said it was a heart attack

The family says she was healthy

The authorities say it is unfortunate

Her family says it is a crime against humanity

It is a crime against all women

It is a crime against the women of Iran

And the brave women of Iran agree

 

The people of Iran have taken to the streets

Risking their lives in protest

Five brave souls have fallen

Yet the morality police march on

 

It is not the first time

It will not be the last

But this time as every time

Iran displays its brutality

It becomes weaker

 

Mahsa Amini is a martyr

She did not want to be

May her family take comfort in

Knowing she will win in the end

No matter how long it takes

No matter how many suffer

And her name will outlive them all

 

Putin's Payroll

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Putin’s Payroll

 

“Putin isn’t losing the war in Ukraine;

He’s winning the war!” 

 

Tucker Carlson

 

Remember Glenn Greenwald?

That stalwart defender of free speech

Journalistic freedom

Freedom of thought and expression

A voice against the war in Iraq

A voice against the war in Afghanistan

Who lost his voice on the war in Ukraine

 

Remember Tulsi Gabbard

She ran against the war on terror

Spoke out against American imperialism

Campaigned on a policy of peace

Condemned our invasion of Iraq

But found no fault with Putin’s

Invasion of Ukraine

 

Remember Tucker Carlson

When Fox News was a cheerleader

For all American wars?

Now he gets his talking points

Straight from the Kremlin by way of

One America News and Russia Today

 

Russia is losing the war in Ukraine

On the battlefield and in the forum

Of international discourse

Defending Russia’s imperial policy

After opposing American interventions

Is a classic hypocrite’s creed

And proof positive that the defender

Is on Putin’s Payroll

 

The War on Warming

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The War on Warming

 

As Alaska is battered by typhoon

And Puerto Rico is slammed by hurricane

The harshest storms in history

Blasting wind and pounding rain

The war on warming goes in retreat

Like an old war fought in vain

Floods droughts and heat waves

The Russian war against Ukraine

The certainty of a hard winter

Who is first to break the chain?

 

As Russia cuts off Europe

From the Netherlands to Spain

The change cannot come fast enough

To alleviate the pain

 

Erdogan joins the Chinese

In a walk down authoritarian lane

Even Germany must be tempted

A betrayal that would stain

 

All this because one brutal man

Keeps driving the Cold War train

He cannot accept his dismal error

The invasion of Ukraine

 

Collective Delusion

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Collective Delusion

 

I once believed in childish things

Like waking up with angel’s wings

When I grew up I put them away

In a box of dreams and there they stay

 

I still believe there are aliens in space

Who may have visited the human race

But I don’t believe in wacky theories

And I must admit it makes me weary

When I hear about a guy named Q

Who will tell us all just what to do

To win our country back again

From a dark and evil force of sin

That some folks call democracy

We’re better off with autocracy

One man to rule over all of us

One driver for the nation’s bus

No longer will we have to vote

We’ll all go down in the same boat

God bless collective delusions

An end to all the confusion

One god, one nation, one mind

The very best of humankind

God bless our dearest leader

Our mass delusion feeder

 

I pledge allegiance to the best

To hell with all the rest

God bless the American nation

Immigrants by invitation

Only

 

Losing Our Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Losing our Democracy

 

“Once fully enslaved, no nation…

ever afterward resumes its liberty.”

 

W. Whitman

 

Losing our democracy is easy

Offer two parties dominated by money

Until ordinary people stop voting

Promise change but don’t deliver

Until people give up the right to vote

Tell people this is the one true moment

The most important election of a lifetime

The live-or-die a horrible death election

And then badger them for contributions

Every moment of every day

Until they no longer even listen

No longer even care

Turn off, tune out, turn away

Then offer a false prophet

A grifter and a con man

Who promises to fix it all

If only you give him the power

Run him against an old-school politician

Who says the same old things

Makes the same old promises

And fails to show at the critical time

The false prophet takes hold of power

And bends it to his will

Elections are for fools

Laws are for suckers

Power breeds power

He will never let go

The whole system is rigged

Unless he gets his way

And if he ever does

If we ever allow him back in

Strike up the band for the final rites

American democracy is dead

Long live autocracy

Democracy is dead

 

Losing democracy is easy

Building it back is hard