The Good War

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

The Good War

 

War is never good

Nor can any war ever be considered great

There are wars that are justified

and there are wars that are not

There are wars that are necessary to the

sustenance of human civilization

and there are wars that are fought

for greed and power

 

We have had too many wars for

greed and power

We have had too few wars for freedom,

justice and democracy

We always fly the flag of patriotism

We always claim a righteous cause

Too often it is a lie

 

The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and

Vietnam were lies

The war in Ukraine is not

The people of Afghanistan, Iraq and

Vietnam would not fight for our cause

for it was not their own

The people of Ukraine fight for their

own cause and welcome our assistance

 

Not since World War II has there been

a war so righteous

Not since WW II has there been

a cause so true

 

Ukraine is fighting for freedom, justice

and democracy against a brutal tyrant

War is never good but this war is

just and necessary

 

Israeli Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Israeli Democracy

 

The people of Israel gather

in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square

by the tens of thousands

to protest Netanyahu’s attempt

to overturn Israeli democracy

 

He wishes to strip the judiciary

of its authority over parliament

and the Prime Minister

 

A government without judicial

review is not a democracy

A court without power is not a court

Democracy requires the rule of law

and an independent judiciary

The court is not an accessory

It is the heart of democracy

 

If you do not like your Supreme Court

ask yourself how it came to this

If the fault is in the process

change the process

If the fault is in yourselves

change yourselves

 

A people that does not value

democracy will surely lose it

 

A New Day

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

A New Day

 

I’ve never seen a cloud

That did not dissipate

I’ve never faced a choice

That could not wait

 

Though it may barrel down

Like a shotgun blast

I’ve never seen a storm

That did not pass

 

The clouds that linger now

Will soon float away

The choices that are pressing

May press but will not stay

 

It is the way of life

That darkness comes and goes

Time may come a rumbling

But inevitably it slows

 

Though the winter of our sorrow

Seems it will not hide its face

The sun will rise, the morning glow

We will welcome a new day

 

Ceaseless

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Ceaseless (for Ukraine)

 

Life is nothing if not ceaseless

It attacks like a plague of locusts

It imposes hardship after hardship

It test the limits of our endurance

It waits until we are vulnerable

It pounces like a hungry predator

Pounces when we’re defenseless

Leaves us bleeding and breathless

at the dark end of a forgotten alley

 

Life is often and repeatedly challenging

and yet we often and repeatedly survive

We are nothing if not resilient

Our most basic instinct is to defend

Stand strong and strike back

Exact a price for every blow

For every bead of sweat and drop of blood

 

We will not go down without a fight

We will fight for a thousand years

and still we will not yield

We will survive at all costs

We will prevail

 

Zelensky Goes to Washington

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Zelensky Goes to Washington

 

Like Churchill back in forty-one

Zelensky goes to Washington

To secure our government’s support

To make his stand and hold his court

To shame those who defy him

If you dare to doubt just try him

He fights for all democracies

He curses the autocracies

Putin is his evil foe

If you didn’t, now you know

 

The Kremlin will take notice

Zelensky has our POTUS

Europe stands the rest

Don’t put us to the test

It is time for you to calculate

Ukraine as an independent state

What that means to you *

Depends on what you do

 

* Putin

 

Depravity at Dnipro

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Depravity at Dnipro

 

When you have murdered civilians

by the tens of thousands

what prevents you from killing

thousands more?

 

When your crimes against humanity

are known to all the world

what constraints exist?

 

The devastation in Dnipro

summons memories of Dresden

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The bombing of London

The massacres at Mi Lai, Sand Creek

Washita and Wounded Knee

War crimes and crimes against humanity

that had no military value

Murder for murder’s sake

Terror as a weapon of war

 

There can be no forgiveness

for crimes such as these

They must be entered in the book

of human depravity

Add Dnipro to the list

 

Till (on MLK Day)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CIVIL RIGHTS

Till (on MLK Day)

 

A fine young man of fourteen years

He came down from the Windy City

He walked into a southern town

Where he found a woman pretty

He might have whistled

He might have smiled

The woman was offended

She was of gentile breeding

He was from slaves descended

 

Her husband and his brother

Took the boy away

They beat him down and cut him up

Put a bullet in his brain

They threw his body in the river

Where it drifted several days

When they finally pulled the body out

His bruised and bloated remains

His mother swore they would remember

The young man they had slain

 

The shocking death that shook a mountain

That echoed on the Hill

The boy they beat and shot that day

By the name of Emmett Till

 

Deformity of the Soul

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Deformity of the Soul

 

Remember Richard, Lord of Gloucester

Killer of his nephews in the Tower

Whose deformity of the spine

Was so pronounced that dogs barked

As he approached them

 

Richard was a villain with a pleasing tune

He charmed his victims before the blade

 

It would be wrong to judge a man

By his physical deformity and yet…

Many lives would have been spared

Had Richard been judged by his

 

How much easier it would be if we

could recognize deformities of the soul

as readily as we do those of the body

for though they may not be clear to the eyes

they are exposed to the other senses

 

Those with deformed souls are clammy

to the touch, sour to the taste

There is a faint sound of moaning and

their smell is of rotting corpses

We need only get close enough to

touch, taste and smell them to know

and be forewarned

 

But who among us is brave enough

to venture so close and live?

 

El Paso

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

El Paso

 

The crisis in El Paso unfolds

Like a slow-motion catastrophe

A tsunami rolling over a coastal village

A hurricane in the ninth ward of New Orleans

A line of twisters rocking through tornado alley

A derailed freight train screeching with twisted metal

 

We see it coming

We observe it building to the moment of impact

We watch it unveiled in heart wrenching detail

but we are powerless to stop it

 

The freezing cold is moving down from the arctic

Barreling down like a Russian missile barrage

Honing in on the border of Texas and Mexico

Centering on the city of El Paso where hundreds

if not thousands of Nicaraguan asylum seekers

wait in huddled masses yearning to be free

Soon they will want only warmth and

shelter from the storm

 

We watch and wait from the other side

of our television screens

Pleading with people we do not know to

somehow come to their aid

Is there someone who can help?

Is there someone who can ease their suffering?

Or must we watch as we watched Katrina?

Must we watch as we watched Fukushima?

Must we watch as we watch so many

tragedies unfolding in slow motion from

the other side of the television screen? 

 

El Paso find your heart

El Paso find your empathy

Only you answer the call

Only you can ease the pain

 

The Fed

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: ECONOMY

The Fed

 

Inflation fuels our economic woes

Higher and higher the interest rate goes

The Fed is determined to force a recession

A little more push and we’ll get a depression

 

The greatest economy the world ever knew

We put it all in one man’s hands

The world must wonder what he will do

No orchestra here, it’s a one-man band

 

As long as inflation goes higher and higher

He wants unemployment to rise

Like a man in a flood afraid of a fire

His worry blocks out his wise

 

It is time to replace the man of all fears

With someone who knows and cares*

Someone who sees the threat that is near

And who forces the wealthy to share

 

* Senator Elizabeth Warren

 

Survival of the Friendly

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Survival of the Friendly

 

Darwin claimed survival of the fittest

Ruled the evolutionary track

But survival of the friendly is another road

We can trace millennia back

 

Competition breeds a stronger race

For a fierce and brutal tribe

Cooperation leads a different place

For a strength that grows inside

 

The one way feeds the body

The other way feeds the mind

The first way suits the animal kingdom

The other suits humankind

 

In the days of the primitive man

Our species had to be strong

But in the time of space technology

That approach is often wrong

 

On the scale of planetary health

If our species is to thrive

We must all of us work together

To enhance our chances to survive

 

Bolsonaro in Florida

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Bolsonaro in Florida

 

Bolsonaro bolted

Lula de Silva won the election

Bolsonaro went to Florida

Was he greeted by DeSantis?

Fellow vaccination denier

Fellow virus minimizer

Did they toast the people they fooled?

Did they celebrate the truth they buried?

Did they mourn the people lost?

 

Did he join the Don at Mar-a-Lago?

Did they bring in the new year?

Did they plot the death of democracy?

Did they wonder what went wrong?

 

The new autocrats – Bolsonaro, DeSantis,

Trump – have all gone silent now

Are they huddled together planning

a brave new world?

Have they consulted the eastern star?

Do they dream a new alliance?

Will they rise or will they fall?

 

Go home Bolsonaro!

Go home and take your friends

 

The River Liffey

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  RIVER SERIES

The River Liffey

 

The River Liffey gives life to Dublin

Where Mister Joyce once plied his wares

Where all the men are strong and brave

Where the women are more than fair

 

It rises from the nearby mountains

Tracing the lowlands of Kildare

It cuts straight through the heart of Dublin

Bringing all it has to bear

 

It empties in the Irish Sea

Where the land and sea collide

Where the sailors rough and tumble

Take the ocean as their bride

 

Without the River Liffey

The town of Dublin would not be

And all the treasured Irish poets

Would be without their poetry

 

We the People

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

We the People

 

The question is not how did congress

become so dysfunctional?

The question is how did the people

become so cynical?

 

We the people elected these buffoons

We the people placed in power individuals

determined to grind the wheels of

government to a halt

We the people elevated an angry mob to

the hallowed halls of governance

 

At a time of historical need

With climate crises bearing down like the

last train to Harlem at midnight

With the scourge of war striking at the

heart of Europe

With the soul of democracy hanging

by the thinnest thread

 

The question now becomes:

will we the people wake up in time

to pull these misfits into something

resembling functional order or will

we allow them to drag us down the

rabbit hole to total self-destruction?

 

We the people created this monster

We the people must strike it dead