Crack in East LA

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN HISTORY

Crack in East LA

 

Remember back in the nineties

When the CIA delivered crack cocaine

To the gangs in East LA

Transforming the crips and the bloods

Into well-armed citizens militias

The CIA used the money to finance

The Contras of Nicaragua

A force against democracy

The CIA doesn’t push drugs anymore

But the gangs don’t need drug money

To buy weapons of mass destruction

It’s easy to buy guns

Any kind of guns

From sawed-off shots to M-16s

If you’ve got the money

They’ve got the guns

The forces of law’n’order don’t need

To start wars in the hood

To kill off the poor people

The people of color

The people who don’t vote

The people who don’t matter

Give ‘em the guns and they’ll

Do it themselves

Shoot ‘em up bang bang

Another black or brown dead

Why not give ‘m an education

Instead?

 

Remembering Ronald Reagan

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Remembering Ronnie

 

I remember Ronald Reagan

The man Republicans used to love

Now that we’ve experienced Dubya

and the Don we know he’s not

as bad as we once thought

 

He was bad but not that bad

He never started a war on one nation (Iraq)

for the crimes of another (Afghanistan)

He never drove the economy over a cliff

He never called for open insurrection

He only sold arms to an enemy (Iran)

He only punished poor people

He only turned his back on gays (AIDS)

 

Some of it was not his fault

He was largely absent in his second term

His dementia was clear enough

His Alzheimer’s was diagnosed later

 

Reagan was elected to his second term

at the age of seventy-three

Americans may soon face a choice of

two elderly men to lead the country

One would be 77 at his inauguration

The other would be eighty-one

 

Give all that America and the world faces

Global climate change

Russian military aggression

A Chinese-Russian alliance

Challenges to democracy

A world in constant crisis

Do we really want to trust the next

four years and the future of the planet

to a man who may not remember

who Ronald Reagan was?

 

Untold Casualties of War

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WAR

 

Untold Casualties of War

Two tours in Iraq

Two tours too many

The carnage he witnessed

The carnage he inflicted

Tore a hole in his heart

Large enough for his soul to slip through

Large enough to bury the man he was

 

His friends and family said he was okay

They said they thought he was okay

But he was not okay

He was never okay

They should have known

They did know

They didn’t want to know

The young man they gave to war

Came back filled with flames

Teeming with rage and ready to implode

 

One day for some reason nobody knows

The building rage inside exploded

His victims didn’t know

They never saw it coming

A sudden burst of gunfire

A flash of blood and darkness

A rumbling chaos and silence

 

He was his last victim

An untold casualty of war

India

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

India

 

They count their numbers in billions

They count their poor by the block

There are far too many to ride

The great majority must walk

 

The world’s most populous republic

The caste system keeps them in place

To keep up with their growing needs

They are constantly in a race

 

They have marketed cheap labor

They’ve developed a technology force

While others have fallen behind

India has stayed the course

 

Trapped between west and east

Kashmir and Pakistan to the west

To their north the Chinese beast

They must always pass the next test

 

They are giants in economy

Arts and culture are on the rise

And when it comes to population

India wins the prize

 

Vladimir Kara-Murza

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RUSSIAN OPPRESSION

Vladimir Kara-Murza *

 

To the defenders of Russian actions

To the apologists for Putin’s aggression

To those who curse the western reaction

As they point to our past oppression

 

If you resided in the Kremlin today

You would be facing a charge of treason

There’d be nothing you could do or say

There would be no point to your reason

 

If you but dared to criticize the leader

Or spoke out against the nation

You’d be labeled a trouble breeder

A spreader of “false information”

 

You would spend your life behind bars

Never again to breathe free air

No longer to gaze at the stars

Would you finally begin to care?

 

To you who disseminate Russian lies

We know who butters your bread

Respect for the truth defies

All the falsehoods that you spread

 

And there is no just compensation

For the evil that you have served

You have lost all hope of salvation

May you get what you richly deserve

 

* Russian journalist and critic sentenced

to 25 years in prison.

 

Khartoum

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

Khartoum

 

A nation in perpetual war

Where power is determined by arms

A failure of the democratic form

Government by spells and charms

 

A legacy of hatred and genocide

Crimes against all humanity

Religious and cultural divides

Warlords of infinite vanity

Justice can never preside

When hatred breeds insanity

 

World powers are brought to bear

In a land so rich with treasures

Trapped in a treacherous lair

War as a pastime of leisure

 

Will this bloodshed go on forever?

Or will it finally come to an end?

Will the roots of war be severed?

Or will Sudan into hell descend?

 

Cultural Courage

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

 

Cultural Courage

 

Children have the courage of conviction

Unfiltered truth can only make them strong

Facts will serve as sound-of-mind nutrition

Sorting out the righteous from the wrong

 

History cannot survive as fiction

America’s a place where all belong

The stories of betrayal and sedition

Will not remain well hidden for too long

 

So let the truth be rendered loud and clear

Slavery and genocide were real

Confront it without compromise or fear

Let our wounds at last begin to heal

 

When finally our reckoning begins

America will light a shining flame

When we freely tell the story of our sins

The promise will be more than just a name

 

Ft. Lauderdale Flood

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Fort Lauderdale Flood

 

Spring break in Fort Lauderdale

Shortened by a thousand-year downpour

That’s what they’re saying on the news

A thousand-year downpour

Like a sign of the apocalypse

I say how do they know?

Were they here a thousand years ago?

How’s about the weather Martha?

Bet your daddy didn’t warn you about this

They say its Goble Climb It Changed

They climbed up and couldn’t get down

Two feet of water on Main Street

A water slide through the middle of town

Can you believe it?

The Oldsmobile will never be the same

We ought to sell that damn thing

While it’s still worth the parking fee

Buy a rowboat for chrisakes

One darn thing after another

Helluva thing for chrisakes

Who’s idea was it to move down here?

Mine? Shows you what I know

The whole darn state can go to hell

And no one would even notice

 

Before the Flood

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Before the Flood

 

Remember Notre Dame before the fire

Remember New Orleans before the flood

Remember how things used to be

Before a series of calamities

Took away our muse

Swept away our sense of glory

Stole the very heart of magic

Absconded with our soul

 

We know nothing stays the same

Even memories must change

Yet we remember with our hearts

We see through our emotions

We remember how we felt when

We first set eyes upon the Mona Lisa

We remember our exhilaration upon seeing

The Grand Canyon or Stone Henge

We remember the strange sensation that

Ran through our spines when we observed

The burial site of Geronimo

Or the ghost dancers of Wounded Knee

We remember the awe that knock on our

Doors when we entered the chamber

Where Mozart once played

 

We will never forget how it was

Before the flood

Even if it wasn’t

 

The Western Alliance

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

 

The Western Alliance (for Macron)

 

The strength of the western alliance

Had endured a multitude of tests

It has survived a president’s defiance

To affirm the unity of the west

 

Along comes Macron and Xi

With an awkward shake of the hand

A man too eager to please

Devalues the democracy brand

 

Does Macron speak for his nation

Or does he only speak for himself?

Does he work for the world’s salvation

Or is NATO now on the shelf?

 

We know that you are afraid

Of the Russian Chinese threat

But the price of Chinese trade

May not exceed the morality debt

 

Tyranny in Tennessee

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Tyranny in Tennessee

 

There is no tyrant in Tennessee

You cannot silence a dissident voice

There is in name democracy

You must honor the people’s choice

 

You value guns above free speech

You pick and choose your Bill of Rights

You mandate what your schools will teach

You favor those whose skin is white

 

This is not the Tennessee I know

The bulwark of equality

Were you only putting on a show?

The essence of hypocrisy

 

There’s time enough to change your act

Open your eyes and see the light

Admit you’re wrong and take it back

Reverse your course and make it right

 

(Note: Tennessee legislature expels

Members for sympathy with protesters.)

 

Stealing Children

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Stealing Children

 

What sort of depravity is this?

Stealing thousands of children

From their homes and families

For cultural re-education

In an enemy nation

 

What sort of inhuman mind can

Conceive of such depravity?

 

We can only assume they wish to

Recruit soldiers to serve in their

Invasion forces when their own

Citizens refuse and the mercenaries

Exceed their resources

 

The beast of the east wants Ukrainian

Children to fight Ukrainian soldiers

Their own parents and relatives

Their own friends and neighbors

For the pride of Mother Russia

 

It will not work

It cannot work

The world will not stand by as

The most depraved monster

Of the twenty-first century slips

Below the threshold of fundamental

Humanity

 

Loss

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Loss

 

The loss of one that never was

Has the power to take us under

Remember the love that guides us

The grace, the beauty and wonder

 

We rage at how this happens

To those who are good and true

But there are no answers coming

There is little we can do

 

The loss of something dear to us

Must serve to bond our hearts

For everyone must suffer thus

Before we can depart

 

Please know that love surrounds you

Every moment of every day

We feel the loss as you do

Though it is difficult to say

 

This too will pass in time

The mark we wear on sorrow’s face

Will slowly lose its bind

And joy will take its place