China and India Abstained

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Abstention

 

On the question of aggression

The annexations in Ukraine

The world stood up with dignity

China and India abstained

 

Comes a time to take a stand

A time to go against the grain

A time to stop and take measure

A time to get on board the train

But when the votes were counted

On the matter of Ukraine

A handful stood with Putin

China and India abstained

 

In the history of our race

There will come a time and place

When the world must stand together

To aid catastrophes of weather

Helping one will help us all

To rise when would fall

Some will answer without pause

Some will disobey the laws

Some will rise to the occasion

Some will protest the invasion

Some will say it’s all in vain

Some will vote and some abstain

In the hour of great need

Some will cry and some will bleed

Some fall silent, some complain

China and India abstained

 

MAGA

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

MAGA

 

Madmen and grifters arise!

Politicians in disguise

The mother of all gargantuan asses

It cuts across all classes

Muse of ghoulish antebellum gardeners

Saddle up and hop on pardners

Morons and goose-steppers act

White is right and that’s a fact

Meddling awful greasy antagonists

All eyes drawn to our protagonist

Moping in agreement, groaning ascent

The mood is up, the mind is bent

As modern ancients gain anxiety

A scourge upon our whole society

Milling arachnids give us answers

It spreads like a malignant cancer

Maudlin associates in Greater Antilles

The very thought gives me the willies

Make it all go away

We don’t need them today

 

Freedom in Chains

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Freedom in Chains

 

If your sense of freedom

Requires putting others in chains

Your freedom is a prison

Like lightning in the rain

 

Freedom is a right

For yourself and not others

When your actions infringe

On your sisters and brothers

You have crossed a line

That should never be crossed

When your rights restrain mine

Every one of us has lost

 

Freedom for one

Must bring freedom for all

If it fails that simple test

Do not answer the call

 

Iranian Oppression

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Iranian Oppression

 

If you must kill your own people

To maintain hold on power

Your authority is illegitimate

Your power is brutality

and will not hold

 

Even in a religious dictatorship

All power proceeds from the people

When you lose their support

Your days are numbered

 

When the day of reckoning arrives

You will fall with the first wind

And you will pay the price

Of your relentless cruelty

 

It is written in the stars

In the mountains and the sea

The payback is proportionate

To the depth of the disease

 

Circles

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Circles

 

And so it begins…

The return to the moon

The conquest of space

The division of the world

The invasion of independent states

The rise of dictatorship

The decline of democracy

The reckless exploitation of resources

 

How soon we forget…

All the lessons once learned

All the promises to posterity

All the speeches and memorials

All the funerals and tears

The book burning and propaganda

The fictionalization of history

The embrace of popular mythology

 

Was it only a dream?

Gone with the mist of morning?

Vanished with the stars of Hollywood?

A story once told by old men and

Cryptic women about how things were

In a time before time?

 

Wash, rinse, repeat

All things old are new again

 

Nika Sings

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Nika Sings

 

She was only seventeen

A world yet to explore

Killed by Iranian agents

Who wanted to even the score

 

The price to pay for protest

In Iran can be severe

To the agents she was a threat

To her family she was dear

 

Nika Shakarami sang

In her shy but courageous way

So they decided to silence her

Yet her voice is heard today

 

When will these leaders learn

You cannot lead by brute force

Instead of creating martyrs

You should plot a different course

 

War and Peace

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

War and Peace

 

A soldier’s duty is survival

When he marches off to war

She is not to ask questions

What are we fighting for?

 

A soldier is but a pawn

She does what she is told

He is not to follow instincts

She is never to be bold

 

When a soldier becomes a hero

It is often to save face

The commander gave an order

The wrong time or place

 

All soldiers are courageous

Just to do what they must do

Just to be where they must be

Is an act of courage too

 

It is better to be raised in peace

Than to be praised in war

 

Conscripts and Mercenaries

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Conscripts and Mercenaries

 

When Putin calls you to war

Consider all your choices

Hear the righteous people roar

Listen closely to their voices

If you simply can’t abide

Join the other side

 

If they make you carry arms

Do your duty well

Swear to do no harm

Or spend your time in jail

If you simply can’t abide

Join the other side

 

Fight to free Ukraine

Fight to free your mind

This cursed war for the insane

Has caught you in a bind

If you simply can’t abide

Take your family and hide

Or let your conscience

Be your guide

Join the other side

The Saboteur

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Saboteur

 

The beast of the great white north

Opens a new front in the war on democracy

Sabotaging gas lines in the Black Sea

Supplying Europe with energy

 

Meantime in the Czech Republic

Putin finances the opposition party

Sponsors protests in the streets

In Italy he throws a party for Mussolini

Scoring a victory for fascists and

Putin sympathizers everywhere

Though they pretend to oppose

The war in Ukraine (for now)

 

He believes he can defeat democracy

With corruption and propaganda

The weakest among us que up

To take his blood-for-oil money

To utilize his machine

 

Hold the line in Bohemia

Remember your history

The Velvet Revolution

Remember Dubcek and Havel

Russian tanks on the streets of Prague

Remember the occupation

A broken nation in defeat

 

Hold the line in Milan

Remember your history

How you lost your righteous way

How you followed Mussolini

How it ended in disgrace

 

Hold the line in eastern Ukraine

Remember occupied France

The shame of those who submitted

The honor of those who made a stance

 

The great aggressor is losing ground

His debt is mounting every day

His cause is evil and corrupt

And for his crimes he will pay

 

Voting in a War Zone

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Voting in a War Zone

 

Imagine your home invaded by armed thugs

Miraculously you fight them back

But they hold the living room

With guns drawn they insist on a vote

To decide who will inhabit this space

Vote for them and life goes on

Until they deny you passage through

Your own living room

Vote against them and they open fire

 

This is what Russia did in Crimea

This in what they have done in Luhansk,

Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia

Voting in a war zone is not democracy

It is the opposite of democracy

It is itself a crime against humanity

It makes a mockery of democracy

Just as the Russian Federation does

With its mock elections

 

Voting with a gun to your head is not voting

Voting with a gun to your head is survival

 

Why would a dictator conduct such mockery?

It reveals his weakness and foreshadows

The depravity to come

 

The Return of Italian Fascism

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

Fascism with a Pretty Face

 

Mussolini rose to power in Italy

As an elected prime minister in 1922

In three years he became dictator

In 1940 he entered the great war

On the side of the Nazis

Five years later he was captured

And executed by his own people

 

Five decades later

In the tradition of Italian fascism

Italy elects Giorgia “Mussolini” Meloni

Fascism with a pretty face

She represents Italian nationalism

Praises Mussolini

Condemns multiculturalism

Shows sympathy for Nazi collaborators

And repressive morality police

 

Despite past support for Putin

She has promised to support Ukraine

We will see, we will see

Would Mussolini have opposed Hitler

If his election required it?

 

Let’s not pretend it cannot happen

It can and anywhere

Where fear of others supplants patriotism

Where racial purity a silent virtue

Where years of austerity

Poverty and homelessness

Feed our biases and terror

It happens when we forget who we are

And what we stand for

It happens when we care only for

Ourselves and nothing for others

 

Nuclear Threat

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  UKRAINE

Nuclear Threat

 

A poker player does not show his ace

A chess master does not tip his moves

A commander does not reveal his strategy

A leader does not threaten nuclear war

Unless he is desperate and cornered

 

The pariah of the new world order

Has raised the specter of annihilation

Mutually assured mass destruction

He has evolved from a toothless beast

To a madman in a collapsing kingdom

He is no longer the Russian strongman

He is no longer the untouchable leader

His veil of invincibility has shattered

The myth of his mighty military gone

 

He has ruled in an age of his own demise

He has guided his ship into the rocks

He has led the great regression

Away from freedom and democracy

Toward dictatorship and greed

 

His story is already written

His legacy is a toppled statue

The once great commander of the north

Has fallen in disgrace

 

The question now is:

Will the Russian people follow

His path to self-destruction

Or will they rise to the moment?

 

(Note: The people are rising; the question

Now is what will the military do?)

Britannia

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Britannia

 

Beneath the glory of the pageantry

Beneath the sorrow and the mourning

The decline of Britannia presses on

As they christen an age of austerity

With a new conservative prime minister

The Brits will double down on Brexit

While they renew their pledge to NATO

And the war against Russia in Ukraine

Their pledge to war on inflation

Runs contrary to the war on warming

And threatens to crack the alliance

 

The world is once again divided

The free world against the oppressed

The abusers against the abused

The exploiters against the exploited

 

There are nations committed to change

And nations determined to regress

At a time of catastrophic disasters

There are nations that do not care

There are nations that see the world

And those that see only themselves

 

Britannia is at a crossroads

Which way will you go?

Will you hold with the civilized world

Or will you choose to walk alone?

Either way there will be sacrifice

Either way there will be blood

 

The Warnings

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The Warnings

 

We should have known

We had more warnings than we can count

We should have known when Katrina

Filled the Gulf of Mexico before

Leaving the ninth ward a ghost town

We should have known

 

We should have known when torrential

Floods ravaged India and Pakistan

When Hurricane Rita slammed into Cuba,

Texas and Louisiana

When Ivan brought havoc to Venezuela,

The Gulf Coast and the Caribbean

We should have known when Ike

Ran its course from Texas to Iceland

When Sandy buried New Jersey in floodwater

When Harvey made waste from

The Yucatan to Texas

We should have known

 

Tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons

Storms the size of continents

Glaciers falling into the oceans

Polar icecaps melting

Islands swallowed by the sea

 

No one can say we were not warned

No one can say we didn’t see it coming

We saw, we knew and we turned away