Saturday, November 05, 2022

Political Violence

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS


Political Violence

 

When you have no principles

When winning is the only thing

When honor is a character flaw

When fairness is for losers

Violence is a step away

Riots on the street

Fire on the skyline

Assassins on a dare

When people die will you care?

 

When leaders call for action

From an armed and angry mob

When the other side is demonized

Charged with treachery and fraud

When guns are peddled freely

When your cause belongs to God

When your enemy lies bleeding

And people stop to stare

When the blood flows will you care?

 

Hide your head in shame

Hate baiters one and all

When there’s no one else to blame

Line em up against the wall

When the bloodshed comes to you

When your loved ones start to fall

Will you have a thought to share?

When people die will you care?

 

Thursday, November 03, 2022

A Victory of Light

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS


A Victory of Light (Diwali)

 

The war between light and darkness

Is a never-ending toil

A victory of light in India

Springs forth on British soil

 

Yet victory may be short-lived

If he makes copper out of gold

As the darkness lies in waiting

The cry Austerity! grows old

 

The son of India is proud

Though his time may not be long

He’s secured his place in history

For that alone he may stand strong

 

Let there be light! the leader cries

Hold the darkness in its place

Though the people may not profit

His ascension we embrace

 

(Rishi Sunak is named British PM)

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

Viva Lula!

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY


Viva Lula!

 

Bolsonaro goes down to defeat

With but a whimper in protest

The Brazilian buffoon is done

The great destroyer of the Amazon

Enemy of the earth

Adversary of democracy

Gone the way of Donald and Boris

A horrible footnote in history

The errors that humans make

In anger and in desperation

 

Hope rises from the ashes

The wrongful conviction of a leader

A man of the people

A protector of the Amazon

Defender of democracy

Lula returns to his rightful place

President of a proud nation

 

Viva Lula!

Viva Brazil!

 

Monday, October 31, 2022

The Dream

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS


The Dream

 

Everyone has a job

A job that suits their interest and ability

A job that fulfills a social need

while enhancing personal worth

 

No one is without food, shelter and

drinkable water

 

No one earns less than a living wage

One that provides for self and family

 

Everyone is able to pursue their dream

Whether art or journalism, social work,

architecture or athletic endeavor

though they may stumble and fall

though they may fail in the eyes of others

Let them succeed in trying

 

Everyone receives the help they need

Be it counseling or medical care

Be it mentoring or sympathy

Be it financial or physical assistance

 

Everyone has a choice to be in the

company of like-minded others

or alone in comfort without judgement

 

Everyone is free to become who they

want to be so long as it does not infringe

on the wants and needs of others

 

Everyone has a right to free and fair

adjudication of differences

 

Everyone has a right to live and die

as they please within the limits of possibility

 

They tell me it is impossible

That humans will always want more

than their fellows

That humans demand power and money

beyond all want and need

That we will never abandon greed

But I say there is nothing we can dream

that we cannot bring to being

 

(for John Lennon: Imagine)

 

Sunday, October 30, 2022

A Human Stampede (Seoul)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS


A Human Stampede

 

A stampede of cattle or bison

We can almost understand

Such animals act in concert

One following another

In panic and horror

 

A stampede of humans

Should never happen

 

A mindless mass moving as one

Spurred by a moment of terror

The terror creeps inside the mind

Replacing faculties of critical thought

Supplanting common sense

Generating a wave of motion

Without direction or guidance

Only an instinct to escape

By any means at all costs

 

In Seoul the human stampede

Cost over a hundred fifty lives

Leaving behind a trail of tears

An absence in so many families

A void in so many communities

For generations to come

 

The tragedy reminds us what happens

When the mind becomes the masses

When fear and terror rules the mob

When the one surrenders to the many

 

We are many on a small fragile planet

We must learn to live together

Without sacrificing ourselves

Without losing our individual souls

 

We mourn for the people of Seoul

Their sorrow is our sorrow

Our tears are joined to theirs

Today we are all Koreans

One planet, one destiny

Many parts, one whole

 

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Enemies of the Earth

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE


Enemies of the Earth

 

Destroyers of the rain forest

From the Amazon to the Artic

Vampires of life on earth

Pirates of exploitation

 

It begins with logging

Clear cutting vast swaths of forest

Trees older than any nation

Wiped from the planet

To make way for corporate agriculture

Which in turn gives way to drilling for oil

Mining for precious metals

Injecting the earth with chemicals

Until the once fertile soil

Becomes a toxic wasteland

Unfit for human or animal habitation

Now comes urban development

Concrete towns and cities

That choke the good earth

Where the forest used to be

 

A crime against nature

A crime against the planet

And all life forms it sustains

 

Bolsonaro, British Petroleum

ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical…

Enemies of the earth

A legacy of destruction

 

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Epic Killers

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD HISTORY


The Epic Killers (The Killing Spirit)

 

The epic killers of history

Enjoy a modest reputation

By comparison to what they did

It merits investigation

 

Mao was an epic killer

Known for his little red book

Many thousands lost their lives

Though Chinese history will not look

 

Stalin was an epic killer

Who purged political enemies

Execution was his trademark

He killed men as if they were fleas

 

Custer and Crook were epic killers

Sand Creek and Washita River

They massacred women and children

With a coldness that makes you shiver

 

But the most epic killers in history

Are those yet to come

For the killing spirit is alive and well

And the scale will leave us numb

 

(see Wasichu: The Killing Spirit

By Jack Random)

 

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

The Flood in Nigeria

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING


The Flood

 

Nigeria faces an epic flood

Ethiopia confronts biblical starvation

While the world discusses climate change

Much of Africa pleads for salvation

 

The flood in Nigeria reminds us

That those who pay the greatest price

Of global warming are often those

Who gained the thinnest slice

 

The famine in Ethiopia informs us

That the effects of industrialization

Do not spare the relatively innocent

But impact equally all nations

 

Islands sink in the deep blue sea

Crops fail and rivers run dry

We pray to our gods but cannot wonder

The clear and obvious reasons why

 

Monday, October 24, 2022

A Fragile Republic

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY


A Fragile Republic

 

The experiment that began centuries ago

With a declaration of independence

That survived a multitude of assaults

That survived the Alien and Sedition Acts

That endured the institution of slavery

That triumphed in a bloody civil war

That outlasted Jim Crow reconstruction

That overcame a Great Depression

That suffered through attempted genocide

That pushed through women’s suffrage

That demanded essential reforms

A constant moving forward toward

The better angels of our being

Now totters on the razor’s edge

of popular autocracy

 

The question now to every one of us

is whether we will be the generation

That allowed our democracy to slip away

on the promise of a charlatan?

 

Sunday, October 23, 2022

Stealing Children

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE


Stealing Children

 

The depravity of the great dictator

Drives to a new low

Stealing children in Ukraine

Sending them to Russian homes

Feeding them with Russian lies

To grow up with hatred in their hearts

To fight against their own

 

Have you not enough orphans in Russia?

To train with endless brainwashing?

With needs that suit your purposes

To become loyal soldiers

To arm with Russian weapons

To send into brutal wars

 

To steal the children of another land

To fight your dirty wars

Sets a new bar for immorality

That will reverberate through the ages

Drawing the tears of mothers

For generations to come

 

Saturday, October 22, 2022

We Got Lucky

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CORONAVIRUS SERIES


We Got Lucky

 

We pushed hospitals to the breaking point

Exposed the weakness of our senior care

Watched the president create events

of mass infection, insult the medical profession,

contract Covid, survive through extreme

measures and intense care, only to pronounce

himself superman, the great and invincible,

and advise us not to be afraid…

 

Only a million Americans died

 

We got lucky

We got lucky that the covid roulette shuffle

settled on a variation that is virulent but

not particularly lethal

 

We got lucky

We got lucky that medical science kept up

with the process of transmutation

 

We got lucky when we elected a new

president who took the virus seriously

 

We’re still lucky

Because the virus is not done

Because masses of people still

have not be vaccinated

Because even more people have

not been boosted and reboosted

Because winter is coming

and the virus is waiting

 

We got lucky that Covid 19 is not

the Black Plague or the Spanish Flu

 

We got lucky this time

Next time (there will be a next time)

With so many people in denial

With so many people believing

they can wish away a plague

With so many people having learned

the wrong lessons

Next time we may not be lucky

 

After all

Only a million Americans died

 

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Rats

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY


Rats                                                                                                                

 

Rats in the rafters

Rats in the walls

Rats are roaming congressional halls

Rats in the war room

Rats in the stalls

Rats awaiting the president’s call

 

The Magats claimed it was all corrupt

The stench oozing from drains and ducts

They were right with such sick irony

As they enacted blatant tyranny

 

Rats in the White House

Rats on hold

Rats in service to the president’s fold

Rats in the office

Rats in the field

Rats that would strike an iceman cold

 

They tried to kill democracy

This time they came up short

Next time they will make sure

The rats will guard the fort

 

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Zaporizhzhia Catastrophe

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE


Zaporizhzhia Catastrophe

 

By order of the commander

In the safety of the Kremlin

They took possession of Zaporizhzhia

In the early stages of the invasion

And crippled the facility

With their own deadly missiles

Disarming critical safety systems

Risking nuclear catastrophe

 

What is this calculation

That the winds blow only

In the direction of his enemies

That it will ravage the west

And spare the east

That it will punish the world

Into submission?

 

The depth of depravity necessary

To cause with malice aforesight

A catastrophe of epic proportion

A cloud of nuclear radiation

Across Europe and much of Asia

A cloud of death and destruction

That would alter the course of history

And tarnish the human soul