The Martyrdom of Mahsa Amini

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL JUSTICE

The Martyrdom of Mahsa Amini

 

Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran

By the Iranian morality police

On the charge of not covering her head

To the satisfaction of her oppressors

 

Mahsa Amini died that day

The authorities said she fell ill

Her family said there was no illness

The authorities said it was a heart attack

The family says she was healthy

The authorities say it is unfortunate

Her family says it is a crime against humanity

It is a crime against all women

It is a crime against the women of Iran

And the brave women of Iran agree

 

The people of Iran have taken to the streets

Risking their lives in protest

Five brave souls have fallen

Yet the morality police march on

 

It is not the first time

It will not be the last

But this time as every time

Iran displays its brutality

It becomes weaker

 

Mahsa Amini is a martyr

She did not want to be

May her family take comfort in

Knowing she will win in the end

No matter how long it takes

No matter how many suffer

And her name will outlive them all

 

Putin's Payroll

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Putin’s Payroll

 

“Putin isn’t losing the war in Ukraine;

He’s winning the war!” 

 

Tucker Carlson

 

Remember Glenn Greenwald?

That stalwart defender of free speech

Journalistic freedom

Freedom of thought and expression

A voice against the war in Iraq

A voice against the war in Afghanistan

Who lost his voice on the war in Ukraine

 

Remember Tulsi Gabbard

She ran against the war on terror

Spoke out against American imperialism

Campaigned on a policy of peace

Condemned our invasion of Iraq

But found no fault with Putin’s

Invasion of Ukraine

 

Remember Tucker Carlson

When Fox News was a cheerleader

For all American wars?

Now he gets his talking points

Straight from the Kremlin by way of

One America News and Russia Today

 

Russia is losing the war in Ukraine

On the battlefield and in the forum

Of international discourse

Defending Russia’s imperial policy

After opposing American interventions

Is a classic hypocrite’s creed

And proof positive that the defender

Is on Putin’s Payroll

 

The War on Warming

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

The War on Warming

 

As Alaska is battered by typhoon

And Puerto Rico is slammed by hurricane

The harshest storms in history

Blasting wind and pounding rain

The war on warming goes in retreat

Like an old war fought in vain

Floods droughts and heat waves

The Russian war against Ukraine

The certainty of a hard winter

Who is first to break the chain?

 

As Russia cuts off Europe

From the Netherlands to Spain

The change cannot come fast enough

To alleviate the pain

 

Erdogan joins the Chinese

In a walk down authoritarian lane

Even Germany must be tempted

A betrayal that would stain

 

All this because one brutal man

Keeps driving the Cold War train

He cannot accept his dismal error

The invasion of Ukraine

 

Collective Delusion

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Collective Delusion

 

I once believed in childish things

Like waking up with angel’s wings

When I grew up I put them away

In a box of dreams and there they stay

 

I still believe there are aliens in space

Who may have visited the human race

But I don’t believe in wacky theories

And I must admit it makes me weary

When I hear about a guy named Q

Who will tell us all just what to do

To win our country back again

From a dark and evil force of sin

That some folks call democracy

We’re better off with autocracy

One man to rule over all of us

One driver for the nation’s bus

No longer will we have to vote

We’ll all go down in the same boat

God bless collective delusions

An end to all the confusion

One god, one nation, one mind

The very best of humankind

God bless our dearest leader

Our mass delusion feeder

 

I pledge allegiance to the best

To hell with all the rest

God bless the American nation

Immigrants by invitation

Only

 

Losing Our Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Losing our Democracy

 

“Once fully enslaved, no nation…

ever afterward resumes its liberty.”

 

W. Whitman

 

Losing our democracy is easy

Offer two parties dominated by money

Until ordinary people stop voting

Promise change but don’t deliver

Until people give up the right to vote

Tell people this is the one true moment

The most important election of a lifetime

The live-or-die a horrible death election

And then badger them for contributions

Every moment of every day

Until they no longer even listen

No longer even care

Turn off, tune out, turn away

Then offer a false prophet

A grifter and a con man

Who promises to fix it all

If only you give him the power

Run him against an old-school politician

Who says the same old things

Makes the same old promises

And fails to show at the critical time

The false prophet takes hold of power

And bends it to his will

Elections are for fools

Laws are for suckers

Power breeds power

He will never let go

The whole system is rigged

Unless he gets his way

And if he ever does

If we ever allow him back in

Strike up the band for the final rites

American democracy is dead

Long live autocracy

Democracy is dead

 

Losing democracy is easy

Building it back is hard

 

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