The Crimes of Izium

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

The Crimes of Izium

 

It shocks my senses

A quiver up my spine

Yet it comes as no surprise

The inhumane inhuman crimes

The bombing of civilians

Mass burial sites

Torture and deprivation

No goodbyes or final rites

 

It comes as no surprise

Invaders and would-be occupiers

Disregard all human dignity

Moral codes and common decency

 

Place yourselves in Ukrainian shoes

Your victims are within

Your friends and loved ones

Your family and your kin

 

The crimes of Izium cry out in outrage

Cry out loud for blood vengeance

Yet let there be compassion

Even for the depraved

Let there be mercy for the merciless

Let there be sympathy

For those who change their evil ways

 

Lost in Her Soul

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Lost in Her Soul

 

She is not broken, she says

She is lost in her soul

The life she once lived

Scattered like shrapnel

In a free-fire zone

 

She survived the onslaught

She survived the occupation

She will survive the memories of war

But she is lost in her soul

She will be found again

She will be made whole

 

Can the same be said of the invaders?

Whose torment took a toll?

Can the same be said of Putin?

As if he ever had a soul

 

It is said he will not waver

He consults his dictator friends

He wants to prove he is not alone

On this his cause depends

 

China, India and Turkey

Will you answer his desperate pleas?

Will you side with the Russian madman?

Or will you recognize his disease?

 

The time is past for posturing

The time has come to take a stand

Are you for or against Putin’s attempt

To steal by force Ukrainian land?

 

Dead Fish on Lake Merritt

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Dead Fish on Lake Merritt

 

The stench of death on Lake Merritt

Rises from the receding shore

The experts say we can only bear it

Prepare yourselves for more

 

The temperature is rising higher

Month by month, week by week

Warming brings the risk of fire

Sweet relief is what we seek

 

But relief is just not coming soon

The fish continue dying

Send your children to the moon

The temperature will be frying

 

They warn us that the grid will fail

Leaving us at nature’s beckoning

We’d love to take a ship and sail

To escape the earth’s great reckoning

 

Remembering 911

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Remembrance (911)

 

We remember tragedy

Memories of sorrow never go away

Rage yields to anger

Anger eventually fades

Leaving sorrow in its place

A sorrow that abates

 

Twenty-one years later

We remember the towers

As if it were today

The great abiding sorrow remains

But the anger is gone

We are no longer afraid

We have done what we have done

Felt what we have felt

And we have put it in its place

It is a sacred place

A place of mourning

A place of solitude

Above all a place of remembrance

 

September 11 is a promise

A promise to the nation

A promise to the world

A promise to the victims

A promise to the families

That we will never ever forget

 

Ukraine Strikes Back

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Ukraine Strikes Back

 

It is an old story

The mouse against the lion

Vietnam against America

America against the empire

Afghanistan and Iraq

 

Soldiers who believe in their cause

Fight harder longer stronger

Than mercenary thugs and intoxicated killers

 

Ukraine strikes back with the force of thunder

Reclaiming the city of Izium

Overpowering the mighty Russians

An army that wants to go home

Propaganda has its limits

It expires on the battlefield

It retreats when the enemy rises

 

Every soldier knows the truth

Pride in the heart of a soldier

Is worth ten in the heart of fear

 

When will the Russians understand

They have chosen the wrong war

Fighting a nation of true patriots

Well-armed and well-supplied

Is like fighting back the sea

You cannot win this war

You can only extend

The suffering

 

Nine Days in September

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

Nine Days in September

 

When once the temperature began to cool

At least a little at the beginning of school

Now the mercury rises

(a shock that nature supplies us)

to over three digits Fahrenheit

We know this can’t be right

Our bodies drenched in sweat

Every day feels like a debt

that we can never repay

The heat comes and here it stays

Throbbing like a drumbeat

Tomorrow and tomorrow it will repeat

Nine straight days in September

The elders will always remember

The young will shrug and say

It’s the price we have to pay

For what our parents did not do

(we all know how much it’s true)

Remember the warming fight?

Blow out your candle and say

Goodnight

 

The Queen

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  LIFE SONGS

The Queen

 

The Queen is dead

Long live the King

Elizabeth of Windsor

Of thee I sing

 

She was a rare and dignified breed

A certain majesty and grace

She fulfilled a uniquely British need

She maintained a monarch’s pace

And passed down the royal seed

 

It is perhaps time to let it go

The monarchy belongs to the past

All the monarchs must surely know

Their place in history cannot last

But she was precious beyond words

Her reign was long and filled with love

Her subjects cried on the day they heard

Their queen had gone to the place above

 

The Queen is dead

Long live the King

Queen Elizabeth

Of thee I sing

 

Supporting the Blue

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  POEMICS

Supporting the Blue

 

You do not support the blue

If you allow madmen and criminals

To possess weapons of war

Knowing the harm they will do

 

You do not support the blue

If your people attack agents of the FBI

Or turn a blind eye on those who do

Put your foot in another’s shoe

 

You do not support the blue

If you encourage violence on the streets

When it suits your purpose

To push your own political views

 

You do not support the blue

If your support depends on party

On the kind of cap they wear

Or whether they agree with you

 

You do not support the blue

When you become the mindless mob

That attacks the people’s house

And they will not support you

 

American Fascism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Fascism

 

How dare the president declare

MAGA Republicans semi-fascist

MAGA Republicans support a free economy

A free economy is not fascist

Therefore MAGA cannot be fascist

 

Let us be clear:

Fascism is authoritarianism

MAGA Republicans are authoritarian

Fascism is totalitarianism, dictatorship

Despotism and autocracy

It invariably favors the corporate elite

It is intolerant of racial minorities

It embraces nationalism

It wishes to oppress all ideas

And ideologies that are not their own

Fascists are determined to eliminate

Political opponents by all means

 

While scholars may disagree on specifics

They all agree that fascism is opposed

To all variations of democracy

 

By what reasoning are MAGA’s

Not representative of fascism?

Yes, the president misspoke in declaring

MAGA Republicans semi-fascist

The modifier was completely unnecessary

Drought in China

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Drought in China

 

Droughts in China and Arizona

Floods in Texas and India

There is such irony when

Global warming strikes back

At its biggest offenders

 

But let us not forget

A change in climate affects

The innocent as the guilty

 

The powerless people of Pakistan

Do not deserve this climate hell

The voiceless of India and China

Are not responsible for the negligence

And indifference of their governments

 

A tornado does not distinguish

Between polluter and non-polluter

The exploding storms do not choose

To ravage only regressive states

 

In the short run some nations

May face more of the consequences

Of our paralysis and inaction

But in the long run we will all pay

We will all face the horrors

The devastation and destruction

Together

 

The Way it Goes Down

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS (Visions of Armageddon)

The Way it Goes Down

 

With a bang or a whimper

A rumble or a moan

Will it sneak up on us

Like a cat on the prowl

Like Katrina in New Orleans

With a quick and a quiet

With a slam and a roar

Will it bombard us

Like a declaration of war

Like shock and awe

Like a sudden storm

 

When it all goes down

How will it go down?

Will we even know it?

Will we smell it in the air?

Will we taste it in the morning sun?

Will we see it coming

Like a dust storm on the horizon

Like darkness over the sea?

Like a wave of destruction

From a clear and present danger?

Will we know and fight back

Or will we simply know?

When it all comes down

Will it even matter how?

 

The Danube

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES

 

The Danube (River Series)

 

The Danube runs from eastern Germany

Through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia

Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine

There it empties into the Black Sea

Where it has watched human history

From the front row balcony

 

It has seen the wars that humans fight

It has seen the stone, bronze and iron ages

It has traced the rise and fall of the Roman empire

The mongrels and the Ottomans

Atilla the Hun and Alexander the Great

It has watched the crusades of Christians

And the conquests of the moors

 

The grand Danube river suffered through

The age of industry as massive pollution

Filled its waters with chemical waste

 

The Danube is running low now

As Europe’s five-hundred-year drought

Wipes away the river’s vibrant flow

Exposing relics of the second world war

Altering flood plains and threatening crops

Protestors in Bucharest plead for revise

As water supplies are rationed

Hydroelectric power is reduced

And river transport is compromised

 

Those who have depended on the Danube

For hundreds and thousands of years

Are reaching the desperate hours

We cannot go on pretending

Nothing has changed when

Everything has changed

 

The river Danube is running low

Before long it may run dry

Unless we take drastic action now

 

Send Us Your Working Poor

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IMMIGRATION

Send Us Your Working Poor

 

Texas sends migrants to Manhattan

In what they consider a declaration of war

But with a severe shortage of labor

There is a reality we cannot ignore

 

Send us your poor, your huddled masses

We need them at restaurants and bars

We don’t need a war between classes

We don’t need your right to bear arms

But we’ll take Willie Nelson and Austin

We acknowledge that Texas has charms

 

So send us the workers you do not want

We need them to help fight our fires

We don’t need you to take us backwards

But we do need a whole lot of hires

We need nurses and teachers and aides

Send them before ours retire

 

We need them to work in our plants

We need them to work in our schools

All we ask is an honest day’s labor

And we’d like you to honor our rules

We’ll give you a good hearty welcome

Unlike those Texas fools

 

Need to Believe

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Need to Believe

 

“I want to believe.”  X Files

 

The key to understanding America

In the early twenty-first century

Is to realize our need to believe

That everything is fine

The march of progress is unstoppable

Our rights can never be taken

Our freedom is secure

The great warming is just a rumor

American greatness is beyond question

American democracy cannot die

And every generation will be greater

Than the last

 

We so need to believe the mythology

That we are willing to abandon reason

Eager to demonize science

Happy to discard medicine

Ever anxious to believe that a two-bit

Con man is our greatest hope

 

Americans have always been

Creatures of divine faith

Credulous to the ultimate extreme

Yet we have always shaken

The chains of gullibility

At times of historical need

 

Maybe this time is different

Maybe this time we’ll sleepwalk

Through the days of Armageddon

Or maybe we’ll awaken in time

To understand that only we

Can arrest the decree