RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RESISTANCE
Defiance
When they come for you with shackles
Do not go quietly
Defy!
When they come for your neighbor
Do not stand by
Defy!
When they come for your reporters
Stand up for them
Defy!
When they come for your representative
Demand to know why
When they fire all the rangers
Refuse to comply
When they take away your rights
Raise the rebel cry
When they take away your vote
Get angry
Defy!
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS
Medicine Man *
Cod liver oil for measles
Prayers in place of vaccines
The medicine man will cure you
He’s the greatest you’ve ever seen
Kids are dying in Texas
They’re dying in Arkansas too
They’ll be dying all over the country
Before this man is through
He believes in the methods of science
Unless they aren’t in his book
He’ll insist on absolute silence
While he gives it another look
He recommends echinacea
For all ailments without a clear cause
All remedies from parts of Asia
Where they eat wild animals raw
He’s the medicine man American style
With a cure for every disease
If it’s not in his miracles file
He will charge you a modest fee
* Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RESISTANCE
Fight Back
Never give up the fight
When the fight is in the making
Keep your enemy in sight
Take what’s for the taking
They will try to break your spirit
They’ll push you til you bend
They think you’ll come to fear it
They hope you won’t defend
Show them what you stand for
You’re the ones who will not quit
Keep knocking on that grand door
Until the victory light is lit
You may not always win
But you will always stand up proud
When you give the wheel a spin
Say it clear and say it loud:
We’ll fight against all odds
We’ll fight for all it’s worth
We’ll fight against the gods
And the beasts who rule the earth
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS
The Brute Society
LBJ gave us the Great Society
(with the exception of Vietnam)
Now we’re filled with great anxiety
(we’ll do the best we can)
It’s the heartless Brute Society
They’re the ones who do not care
An endless wave of improprieties
We are captured in their lair
They don’t care about our elders
They don’t care about our poor
They’ll defund the homeless shelters
They’re all heartless to the core
They will cut and slash for others
While they all enrich themselves
No more aide for single mothers
Tell them all to go to hell
It’s the age of cold brutality
They’re all laughing to the bank
If you don’t like this reality
You will have to thank yourselves
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: FAIR TRADE
Fair Trade (and Tariffs)
Tariffs are a means to an end
A way to level the field
Not a bludgeon to punish our friends
Or a weapon for power to wield
If the goal is to reach fair trade
Our tariffs would balance cheap labor
We would honor the deals that we’ve made
But we’d punish the modern-day slavers
For the nations whose standards are higher
For working conditions and wages
Beware all sellers and buyers
Understand why they fly into rages
We’re betraying our closest friends
While the Russians are being spared
We’ll all pay for it in the end
A punishment we’ll all share
I strongly support fair trade
But this has the mark of the beast
Our hopes for prosperity fade
While the rich are preparing a feast
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA
Hamas Must End
Our hearts go out to Gaza
But Hamas is not your friend
Our tears flow like lava
This day Hamas must end
That they have let you down
Is clear beyond all doubt
Your voices have been drowned
Hamas must be pushed out
The destruction of your cities
The annihilation of your land
It fills our hearts with pity
The state of Israel be damned
And yet it must be known
That Hamas is much to blame
The animosity has grown
As your leaders have no shame
Hamas and Netanyahu
This message we must send
We’ve known since we first saw you
Both of you must end
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
Streets of Protest
The streets of protest are alive
We march to show we care
For democracy we strive
Our cause is everywhere
On the streets of Palestine
For those who disagree
Who refuse to toe the line
Who will not bend the knee
For the people of Ukraine
Whose freedom is at stake
For those who are restrained
For the laws they did not break
For those who lost their jobs
And those who are in need
For the large, angry mobs
Who are tired of greed
For the ones who live in fear
Of the troubled times ahead
For the moms who shed a tear
At the cost of gas and bread
We’re on the streets again
For those who have no voice
This time we will win
We demand a better choice
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
Dear Mexico
Dear citizens of Mexico
We owe you an apology
Please take it in and let it go
A cold and cruel psychology
He doesn’t want your land
He only wants your oil
There’s too much rock and sand
To take a profit from you soil
He wants you to bow down
To his majesty supreme
All promises unwound
He saw it in a dream
If you want to win his favor
Just play a little ball
He’ll be the great enslaver
You’ll help him build his wall
When Mexico is good again
He’ll tear the great wall down
Then we will be the best of friends
The master to his hound
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP DAZE
Surrounded by Sycophants
You surround yourself with sycophants
And wonder how it went wrong
No one who dares to say you can’t
They all sing the same old song
Don’t you wish you had your father
To tell you what to do?
No sycophants will bother
To set it straight but it’s true
Every day you tell yourself
You are doing what is right
And every day they bathe you
In the glory of false light
But deep within the truth reveals
A frightened little man
Who thinks his very word can heal
But he fails to understand
When you’re surrounded by sycophants
You will never hear the truth
You may think you’re Honest Abe
But you’re really John Wilkes Booth
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS
Dear Citizens (An Apology)
Dear citizens of Ukraine
We’re sorry about our president
All out efforts were in vain
To change the message that he sent
He doesn’t care about your nation
We tell you this in confidence
He only wants your resources
What he said is what he meant
Dear citizens of Canada
We’re so sorry about our leader
He’s a man who has no principles
He’s a winter without a heater
When he threatens to annex you
He does not speak for us
We’ll do our best to stop him
In him we do not trust
Dear citizens of Greenland
We’re sorry about his threats
We should have known beforehand
We’re forever in your debt
We know that land is your land
There is no tete-a-tete
If you like the Danish brand
The map has long been set
Dear citizens of the free world
All around this twirling sphere
He has no love for freedom
It is power he holds dear
We are sorry for his ignorance
He would like to reign in fear
We’ll stand with the resistance
When the tipping point draws near
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS
The Secret State
You put him in power
To get rid of the fat
The useless abusers
Not the harmless bureaucrats
They said they would rid you
Of the secret, deep state
The unelected elites
That control the nation’s fate
Now look who’s in charge
Every minute and hour
They’ve taken up residence
In the executive tower
They make the decisions
They pull all the strings
They sound the alarms
Just to see if they ring
We had no deep state
But now that we do
They’ll tear down democracy
The joke is on you
Social Security?
Medicare and Medicaid?
Just wait til you see
The plans that they’ve laid
Environmental protection?
Who cares about that?
Get rid of it all
They’ll just call it fat
Educating the poor?
The ones who can’t pay
Throw it out with the trash
And call it a day
Freedom of speech?
The right to exist?
They’ll answer to that
With a hammer and fist
Is this what you wanted?
Nobody cares
In the politics of war
Everything’s fair
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS
Stand your Ground
There are times to compromise
There are times to stand your ground
When all you hear are lies
To honor you are bound
Your principles should never bend
Or bow to greater force
While broken fences we should mend
Remember: stay the course
A compromise will never do
When it wounds your very soul
To yourself you must be true
You’ll find no other role
So suffer through the consequence
If that is what’s required
For that is what the wise one meant
Do not put out the fire
For we are what we stand for
Be it bad or be it good
We’ll open up or bar the door
According to what we should
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA
Killing Children in Gaza
Omar will never grow old
Omar will never go to school
He will never find a girl
He will never be married
He will never have a job
He will never have a child
He will never cross a border
Not even his own
Omar was a child in Gaza
That was his only crime
To live as a child in Gaza
Is to die without warning
A missile drops from the sky
Falls where Omar lay sleeping
Omar was not a soldier
He was not a foreign terrorist
He was not a criminal
He was not a threat to Israel
He was not a hateful being
He was a child
He was a child who is no more.
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
Erdogan’s Betrayal
As if to prove his power
As if to prove his infallibility
As if to test the limits of his lawlessness
Erdogan ordered the detention
Of his rival before the next election
The mayor of Istanbul
An enemy of state
The mayor of Istanbul is not
An enemy of state
He is an enemy of Erdogan
He is an enemy of the dictator
He is a friend to democracy
He is a victim of oppression
He is a candidate for change
His name is Ekram Imamoglu
He is the reason for massive protest
In open defiance of Erdogan’s law
You can take away their rights
You can take away their freedom
But you cannot take their voices
You can beat them down
You can push them back
But they will rise again
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA
No Peace in Gaza
The war in Gaza continues
There’s no peace in the Middle East
Not as long as he reigns in Israel
The genocidal beast
He will not cease destruction
He will level it to the earth
He will do all that he can and more
To prevent a nation’s birth
The hostages are no longer
He has tossed their lives away
Animosity is growing stronger
All of Palestine is in flames
Hope is a rare and dying species
In the land of the Middle East
The warlords rule with missiles now
The peacemakers are deceased
There is no peace in Gaza
For as long as the goal remains
Annihilation of land and people
Their intentions are very plain
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING
Hammer and Fist
Fire and hail seems very odd
The hammer and the fist
If there’s such a thing as the curse of God
It would look a lot like this
A trail of mass destruction
From the west to the open plains
Here’s an obvious deduction:
The gods have gone insane
The planet earth is striking back
At those who would destroy her
The wind and rain are on attack
Your laughter just annoys her
We warned you we would pay the price
For a failure to transition
You would not take our sage advice
Now you’ll face an inquisition
It’s far too late to make amends
But we could mitigate the harm
The cost of playing let’s pretend
The earth’s not growing warm
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PROTEST
The Silence
They have silenced the voice of America
The voice of freedom and human rights
They have silenced the voice of Americans
As if we’ve given up the fight
The fight for progress and democracy
Against oppression and autocracy
The right to decency and civility
Without regard to one’s ability
They have silence dissenting voices
With a threat of retribution
They would eliminate our choices
Intimidation is their solution
They have silenced former presidents
The free media and the press
Mass oppression is in residence
The right to march the streets in protest
We will not give up the fight
We will retain our defiance
We’ll demand our civil rights
We will never yield to silence
RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: MASS DEPORTATION
Venezuelan Refugees
Sending refugees to prison in El Salvador
A level of depravity rarely seen
Even in the lowest dream
Like jailing people for being poor
What else would we do?
Are there any limitations?
Have we become a heartless nation?
We have lost our moral grounding
It is pitiful and yet it’s true
Our cruelty is astounding
Some would say it’s nothing new
They are fleeing from oppression
As we encouraged them to do
We would teach them all a lesson
But we failed to see it through
Now we tell them you’re not welcome here
You’re not welcome anywhere
We condemn you to a life of fear
Though we know it is not fair
This is not the old America
The one you knew and loved
This is the hateful nation
The hawk without the dove
(Trump administration ships Venezuelan
refugees to prison in El Salvador.)
