When Democracy Dies

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

 

When Democracy Dies

 

When democracy dies

We begin a slow descent into anarchy

We yield control of all institutions

From civil society to law enforcement

We yield the streets to gangland dominance

And compel our children to choose

Behold Nicaragua Columbia Haiti Mexico

Witness Russia Georgia Ukraine

Beware Hungary Greece Brazil Spain

You cannot play with fire

Without getting burned

You cannot entice autocracy

Without lessons to be learned

 

Democracy does not die in a single blow

Democracy dies steady and slow

From a thousand cuts over time

Placing government in a tangled bind

A perpetual failure to compromise

An absence of the reasonable and wise

A betrayal of corporate corruption

A long slow burn to a final eruption

A deliberate attack on the vote

A dozen leaks sink the boat

 

Take a good look around you

The betrayers slowly surround you

To deliver yet another blow

And watch the doubters grow

 

Democracy is at the stake

Fight back before it is too late

 

American Extravagance

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

American Extravagance

 

We have always embraced our choices

Choices in trucks and cars

Choices in Hollywood stars

Choices in toothpaste

How much can we waste?

Choices in breakfast cereal

Basic grains or ethereal?

Choices in frozen foods

Choices in bread and booze

Choices in soft drinks

Choices in what to think

Choices in political candidates

To show up early or very late

Choices in film and entertainment

To expand our minds or find containment

Choices in fast food cuisine

Choices in washing machines

Choices in soaps and cleansers

Choices in lighting and sensors

Choices in quality and price

Choices in three-minute rice

 

What happens to our sense of self

When we find few choices on the shelf?

When the vast array of products

Shrinks to what we need

Where then will it lead?

 

Will we still be Americans?

Will we still hold our heads high?

Will we still be exceptional?

Will we still have our pride?

 

The chain of production and

Shipping is breaking down

The coils of capitalism

Becoming unwound

 

When we have more jobs than we can fill

Will our confidence turn to doubt?

We’re running fast but standing still

Must we learn how to do without?

 

Is this America? Can we survive?

What will sacrifice to stay alive?

 

Song of Oleg (Deripraska)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD AFFAIRS

Song of Oleg (Deripraska)

 

I sing of Oleg, Putin’s stooge

Pressed by the law he came unglued

To the FBI he sang his song

The Donald was their man all along

 

I’ll sing all day and I’ll sing all night

I’m very rich but not so bright

Vladimir made me do it all

If you doubt my word, give him a call

 

We’re all a part of Putin’s scheme

To own America is Putin’s dream

It was just a dream til he came along

When he began to sing our song

 

Of mother Russia proud and true

There was next to nothing he would not do

He pushed forward and we held him back

Slow it down but stay on track

 

Now give me diplomatic immunity

Let me operate with pure impunity

Keep me safe from Putin’s goons

And I will sing for you a tune

And tell a tale of Putin’s sorrow

His dream of a new Russian tomorrow

 

(regards to e.e. cummings)

Chicago Cops

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Chicago Cops

 

To serve and protect

Is a simple proposition

If a cop cannot protect the people

If a cop claims a right to harm

If a cop refuses to be vaccinated

As a matter of personal freedom

That cop cannot fulfill his promise

That cop has betrayed her basic duty

And can no longer serve

In good conscience

 

In a city blighted by poverty and crime

That so many cops are willing to

Turn their backs on the public good

Is itself a crime against all cops

A disgrace to the uniform

A stain on the badge

 

Cops are not the arbiters of justice

Nor the determiners of policy

They are soldiers in this war

And soldiers must take orders

 

If what is happening in Chicago

Is happening in other cities

It is time to rebuild from

The bottom up

 

Remember Typhoid Mary

Who claimed her rights as well

Such rights would lead us all to hell

 

Looking Back

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Looking Back

 

Ten year ago pot was illegal

In fifty of fifty states

Twenty years ago killer cops

Never made the news

And black lives never mattered

Thirty years ago gay people

And gay love was outlawed

Forty years ago indigenous people

Had no voice in government

And the American genocide

Was not recorded in history

Fifty years ago the government

Spied on people with impunity

And soldiers returning from Vietnam

Received no treatment for wounds

Of the mind spirit or soul

Sixty years ago college athletes

Beat up hipsters and gays for fun

Seventy years ago we stood in line

For crewcuts and puff hairdos

Eighty years ago we fought

The fascist war machine

And won

 

The years roll by

Like a river runs

The waves of change

Sweep over us

In many ways we are so much

Better than once we were

In other ways we have advanced

Only to turn back again

 

The struggle never ends

Yet history still bends

Toward the righteous

Back Page Ramble (Nobody Knows)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Back Page Ramble (Nobody Knows)

 

To be so young and to know so much

Makes me wonder how long we’ve been in touch

I have wasted most of my time so long

Now everything I thought was wrong

For when I was a child I was innocent

I fought to find what the message meant

So I grew up fast and I grew up strong

When others led I went along

I could not find the power

It was not my finest hour

 

If we knew now what we knew then

Would we have the strength to start again?

Nobody knows

 

Now that I am old I know just what to do

But I lack the strength to see it through

So I wait for someone to come for us

To get on board the big yellow bus

To take us where we’ll start again

We know it’ll come we don’t know when

We will stand up like the towers

It will be our finest hour

 

If we knew then what we know now

Would we find a way somehow?

Nobody knows

 

(regards to the immortal Bob Dylan)

Replacement Folly

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  SOCIAL JUSTICE

Replacement Folly

 

Fear is its name

Fear of others

Fear of colors

Fear of change

Fear of losing hold

Fear of another race

Fear of being replaced

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident

That the white Anglo Saxon race

Was born to reign above all others

The supreme sisters and brothers

 

They’re coming to get us

They’re coming to marry our daughters

They’re coming to fill our spaces

They’re coming to replace us

 

Be afraid

Be very afraid

Be afraid of dark skin radicals

Be afraid of brown and black

Be afraid of open borders

Be afraid of a frontal attack

 

We own this nation

We fought for it

We committed genocide for it

We killed the buffalo for it

We claimed the land

We planted the flag

This land belongs to us

 

We are a white Christian nation

All others can clear the way

We conquered the land from sea to sea

You can bet we’re here to stay

 

The Great Reckoning

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

The Great Reckoning

 

Goodbye Christopher Columbus

You were never the man we thought

We bestowed on you a hero’s status

But a hero you were not

 

You enslaved and killed the natives

As if it was your god given right

For centuries the myth prevailed

Now the reckoning is in sight

 

The statues are being dismantled

The street signs are coming down

Soon a walk in the Columbus district

Will be a walk in Geronimo town

 

Do not worry you are not alone

Our history is being rewritten

From the slaughter of the buffalo

To the founding zealots from Britain

 

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