Ballybeg of Donegal

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Donegal

 

If the Irish do anything at all

Better than anyone else on earth

It is to tell a story tall

In words that sing while merely speaking

To sing a song that tells a tale

That draws both laughter and tears

With a fresh pint of ale

 

Did you ever hear the story

Of the O’Donnell family in Ballybeg

County Donegal in northern Ireland?

 

It is the story of every family

A story of heartbreak and consuming sorrow

A story of triumph and compassion

A story of overcoming hardship

A story of tradition and love

 

The troubles split Ireland apart

Sending waves of conflict across the sea

Tearing at friends and families

Piercing the Irish heart

But in the end both blood and country

A culture of literature and song

A generosity of spirit prevails

Old wounds heal and all is well

For the good people of Donegal

 

(upon seeing The Aristocrats

By Brian Friel)

 

Nine More Years

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS 

Nine More Years

 

Nine more years on trumped up charges

Nine more years for being Navalny

In Russia today I would be sentence

To fifteen years for writing poetry

 

The dear leader doesn’t like my verse

He’s not alone but it could be worse

He has not heard me rant

He has not heard me curse

 

I stand with Navalny

I stand with Ukraine

I believe the dear leader

Has gone thoroughly insane

 

He creates more and more martyrs

Every minute of every day

How many more will there be

Before dear leader goes away?

 

Hide under a rock

Hide in a dark deep cave

The people are good and proud

They will not be your slaves

We will stand against you

From now until the grave

 

Putin's Allies (the Devil's Companions)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Putin’s Allies (the Devil’s Companions)

 

Putin launched his war on the west

Long before the invasion of Crimea

Infecting the body politic with the

Promise of nationalist authoritarianism

Poisoning the public discourse

With fear of the immigrant others

Le Pen and Zemmour in France

Matteo Salvini in Italy

Schroder and Weidel of Germany

Thierry Baudet of the Netherlands

Kyriakos Velopoulos of Greece

Santiago Abascal of Spain

Boris Johnson of Britannia

Bolsonaro of Brazil

Trump of the USA

 

They trip over their own tongues

Their own promises and loyalties

Yet the truth is clear

They are soldiers in Putin’s army

A war against democracy

A war against western values

A war against individual rights

And civil liberties

 

Listen to them carefully

For when the sanctions begin to bite

They will show their true colors

They belong to Putin

And they will return to him

At first light

 

The Indoctrinated

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

The Indoctrinated

 

There is blame enough to go around

Those who saw the truth but remained silent

Those who spoke out but quietly

Those who protested but ineffectively

Those who took the easy path

Those who simply went along

Those who sang the party song

 

Those who knew but failed to act

The officers who fired the missiles

The commanders who gave the orders

The pilots who dropped the bombs

The soldiers who pulled the trigger

The officials who stood down

The workers who made the weapons

The journalists who toed the line

Those who pretended all was fine

 

The blame belongs to countless souls

across the years and decades

who saw what Putin was becoming

who knew the danger that he wrought

but feared his brutal retribution

who feared they would be caught

 

But what of those who were believers?

Those who bought the party line

Those who worshiped their dear leader

Those who followed with devotion

Those who never thought to question

Those who thought one man was God

Above the others, above the law

Despite all they plainly saw

 

What of the indoctrinated?

Do they too own a share of blame?

They should have known! you say

They should have seen past the lies

They would have known if they had tried

 

But as the followers of Adolf Hitler claimed:

If he had chosen you

You also would have followed

Where he led *

You also would have fought

You also would have bled

 

Let us not assess blame

Let us judge by what we do and say

Now that we all know the truth

 

* The Man in the Glass Booth

By Robert Shaw

 

Berlin Dispatch

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Berlin Dispatch

 

In Berlin they are walking a fine line

Between security and civil liberties

They are denying gun ownership

Infiltration of police and military forces

Means of recruitment and fundraising

To far right extremists

 

Germany knows the dangers of

Militant nationalist supremacist extremists

Better than any other nation

Germany knows how vulnerable

Democracy can be

 

As it is in Germany so it is in America

Birthplace of McCarthyism

Home of the militia movement

Home of conspiracy theorists

Home of authoritarian sympathizers

Home of the Klan

 

As it is in America so it is in Germany

We must walk a thin line

Between security and civil liberties

We must recognize the dangers

Without sacrificing the heart

Of our democracy

 

We must defend the rights

Of those we otherwise despise

We must defend the rights of those

Who would deny us our rights

Without hesitation

 

For that is what it means to be

A patriot

 

Police State

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Police State

 

If you speak to a microphone in Red Square

You will be detained

If you speak your mind in a public place

You will be arrested

If you oppose the government

You will be detained

If you express sympathy for victims

Of the war in Ukraine

You will be arrested and detained

You will be reeducated

Reprogrammed and restrained

 

There are no dissidents in a police state

There are only unfortunate souls

There are only fools and delinquents

Captured by arrogant trolls

 

The leader is supreme

Without flaw or impediment

The leader is always right

And those who oppose

Must be silenced

 

One Man

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

One Man

 

In the grand scope of history

Rarely does one individual

Embody all that is wrong with

The whole of humanity

 

With cold steely eyes he watches

the killing of pregnant mothers

innocent children and babies

still in their mother’s arms

 

Without any provocation

His only motive self-aggrandizement

He destroys a nation for failing

To bow down before his grandeur

 

He is the least and worst of humanity

He is the barren wasteland of souls

He is the heartless beast of beings

He is the endless dark of night

 

Sherman's March

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Sherman’s March

 

Sherman’s march of destruction

through the heart of the Old South

still lives in land of Dixie

a hundred and fifty years later

A legacy of infamy though his cause

was as righteous as a river runs

 

Sherman destroyed the South

to end a war of hellfire and to rip

the roots of slavery from the earth

 

Putin’s destruction of Ukraine

is not to liberate but to enslave

It wears no cloth of righteousness

It bears the mark of Cain

One brother murdering another

not for want of virtue

but for want of power

 

Putin will be remembered

as long as mothers love their babes

as long as humans cherish freedom

as far as anybody knows

as long as sunflowers still grow

 

Hunter and Prey

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Hunter and Prey (Human Traffickers)

 

The lowest of the low

The worst of the debased

A maze of endless sorrow

Scum of the human race

 

They prey on girls and women

The refugees of war

Desperate and destitute

Forsaken and forlorn

 

They wear a mask of empathy

They offer a helping hand

They’ll take you somewhere safe

They keep hidden their evil plan

 

They look the same as anyone

You know them by their smell

They leave a stench behind them

On a journey straight to hell

 

(Report: Traffickers exploit refugees.)

 

Mercenary Killers in Ukraine

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Mercenary Killers

 

What do you do when

Your own soldiers hesitate

To kill and terrorize their brethren

From just across the border?

 

You hire mercenary killers

Killers without conscience

Killers who have lost their humanity

Killers who count their kills

And cash their paychecks

 

The lowest form of human

(if you can even call them that)

They see strength in war crimes

They see strength in brutality

They do not hesitate to burn homes

With women and children in them

They will torture on demand

They will raze the earth and laugh

At mass destruction

 

They serve at Putin’s pleasure

They admire his brutal power

They desire his stolen treasure

They are of the same mold

Water of the same well

They belong together

They will meet again in hell

 

Impunity

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Impunity

 

The Great Dictator has asserted

his absolute and unquestionable right

to brutalize, terrorize and kill

the brave people of Ukraine

with the impunity of a god

 

He is not a god

He is just a man

A deeply flawed and brutal man

He owns no special privilege

He possesses no special rights

He is what he has earned

Over decades of brutality

He was a killer before Ukraine

He is a killer now

He was a monster before

He is a monster now

 

What the dictator knows

Or thinks he knows

Is that the cameras will one day vanish

The tears of a weary world will dry

The thirst for Russian oil will grow

And our passions will unfold

 

The Great Dictator believes that

Time will absolve his crimes

It will fall to all of us

Citizens of the world

To make sure

It does not

 

The Nuclear Option

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (Ukraine)

 

The Nuclear Option

 

Putin raises the nuclear threat

Hide your heads and place your bets

When the nuclear option is on the table

We have to believe he’s willing and able

 

Is he a madman who’s lost his senses?

Or is this but one in a line of defenses?

Either way we are in grave danger

What was strange has become much stranger

 

The situation is out of control

He is digging a deeper hole

With each day he erases all doubt

We’d be better off without

The madman as head of state

Who keeps tempting a nuclear fate

 

It is time past time for Putin to go

We grow tired of this grotesque show

If he continues to threaten us all

It is time for the madman to fall

 

Barbarians at the Gates

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

 

Barbarians at the Gates

 

Once they were reluctant warriors

Now they are willingly debased

Soldiers of the dark

Barbarians at the gates  

 

Gone is the empathy that once

Held their arms in check

Gone is the humanity that once

Spared the elderly and infirm

Gone is the sense of brotherhood

The commonalities of culture

The pride of proximity

Of friends and families shared

 

What remains is something less

Than human and humane

What remains is barbarity

Cruelty and horror

 

Return to your country

Lay down your arms

And face the great dictator

Or stay in Ukraine

To fight for humanity

To become something human

To embrace the humane

Join the army of Ukraine

 

 

(NOTE: Reports of atrocities increase.)

Erasure

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Erasure

 

Putin wants to erase Ukraine

To erase a nation

Its culture and language

Its history and people

The dictator wants us to forget

The Ukrainian people ever existed

 

What the dictator wants

His soldiers try to deliver

They erase whole buildings with bombs

They erase mothers and children

They erase media towers and schools

They erase Ukrainian families

They erase towns and villages

But they cannot erase emotions

They cannot erase loyalties

They cannot erase that which exists

Within the heart, the mind and soul

 

Can you erase freedom?

Can you erase a dream?

 

Ukraine has existed for millennia

It has been conquered and liberated

Ripped apart and invaded

But it has always been

As it always will be

It can never be erased

 

Navalny Speaks Out

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Navalny Speaks Out

 

Already on trial for speaking out

Against the great dictator

Alexi Navalny speaks out again

Against the barbaric attack

To deny Ukraine its sovereignty

 

Let there be no doubt

The dictator is a war criminal

A thug and a brutal tyrant

Already he has detained thousands

Of his people for protesting

The madness in Ukraine

 

Navalny is their leader

Navalny is their voice

Putin is the single reason

The people have no choice

 

He has sacrificed his freedom

He very nearly gave his life

When Navalny speaks the people listen

Listen to him now

 

We must all do our part

To stop this illegal war

We must speak out

We must march in the streets

We must boycott and call for boycott

We must plead with our leaders

 

We must be prepared to sacrifice

For there will always be a price

There is always a price

 

But as the cost of oil rises

And with it the cost of all goods

Remember the sacrifice of Navalny

Remember the sacrifice of Zelensky

Remember the sacrifice of Ukraine

 

Zelensky II

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS (UKRAINE)

Zelensky II

 

He hunkers down below

As the war rages above

His face is pale with worry

For the people that he loves

 

He risks his life by staying

Yet he will not be dissuaded

Not a soul alive would blame him

But his resolve has never faded

 

The good people of Ukraine

Their hearts are filled with pride

Their leader is both good and strong

And the world is on their side

 

The soldiers of the invaders

Know that they are in the wrong

They will be painted as monsters

They will be vilified in song

 

This is a moment of truth

It is not a tragic play

If you come upon Zelensky

Turn around and walk away