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

 

Perpetual Crisis

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Perpetual Crisis

 

In a world of constant crisis

The flowers have no color

The ocean has no scent

The glow of light is duller

The simple joys are spent

 

When darkness haunts the home

We may never see the other

Whose troubles may be worse

We promise you my brothers

Some day we’ll lift the curse

 

But we are lost in all our worries

A new crisis every day

Our health our homes our way of life

We no longer see our way

Through the maze of constant strife

 

We must learn to stand together

Fighting hard for all it’s worth

Where we live and other places

All good people on this earth

Of all religions and all races

 

The Last to Go

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

The Last to Go

 

Daughters before mothers

Sons before fathers

Like warm bathing in icy waters

A disturbance in the natural order

Like night before day

Like a bridge on the border

Like the past before tomorrow

Comfort before anger

Rage before sorrow

The stages of mourning

Turned on their heads

We must mourn the living

And converse with the dead

No one lives forever

The wise ones said

It is a road we all travel

One we travel alone

We can never look back

We can never go home

But oh to the one who is last to go

To him belongs grief

To her belongs woe

There will be no more tears

When we’ve come to the end

There will be no condolences

Our loved ones to send

We will have no more fear

As we round the last bend

We will welcome the chance

To revisit our friends

 

Seven Generations: A Short Story

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IMMIGRATION

Seven Generations: A Short Story

 

The generations flow

Like currents in a great river

Like waves in the sea

Where each wave is endowed

With the power to alter

The course of history

And all that it encompasses

 

It begins with immigration

(this is not a native story)

Religious persecution

Economic opportunity

Importation of slaves

The great potato famine

The Armenian genocide

The siege of the Warsaw ghetto

The Nazi invasion

The Bracero program

Cold War refugees

The purge of Christians

The purge of Muslims

 

It begins with the journey

A journey of hardship

Discrimination and hatred

Violence and disruption

 

It advances through seven stages

Poor paying jobs

Substandard housing

Poverty and rejection

We don’t want your kind

Go back where you came from

 

It endures through persistence

With the help of friends

Understanding neighbors

And welcoming neighborhoods

 

It advances through hard work

Success and acceptance

Community sacrifice and service

 

It advances through legal proceedings

Stubborn insistence on human rights

Fights in the court

Fights in the legislature

 

It advances when the doors

Of opportunity open through

Representation and demand

 

It advances through power

Money and control

 

In seven generations you arrive

At the American dream

And the keepers at the gate wonder:

What took you so long?

 

Mississippi and Peru

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES

 

Mississippi and Peru

 

Peru and Mississippi

Mississippi and Peru

If you had to do it all again

What differently would you do?

 

Your answer for the cameras: nothing

Your answer before the mirror: everything

 

Take the virus seriously

Mask distance isolate and ventilate

Invest in mass vaccination

Put your best medical minds in charge

Trust the science

Keep the people well informed

A virus does not care

Who you are or where

Understand from the beginning

The best economic strategy

Is to defeat the virus

Pound the people daily

With the hard and honest truth

Bring the opposition aboard

Remove the politics

Share the credit

Erase the blame

We are all in this together

Together we will overcome

 

Under the Bridge

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Under the Bridge

 

There is a bridge down by the border

Where there is no law no order

There we spend most of our days

Trying to find some other way

 

They don’t want us in the promised land

So here we’re forced to take a stand

They say they’ll send us home again

There’s no way forward we cannot win

 

Maybe they’re right we do not know

We often hang our heads down low

But we can’t afford to lose all hope

We must find another way to cope

 

Under the bridge we help each other

There are children without mothers

We must endure all kinds of weather

Yet still we stay together

 

If there is one thing you should know

This is not a moving picture show

We are not animals or crawling things

We are sentient human beings