The Rhine (River Series)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES

The Rhine (River Series)

 

Among the most glorious rivers of Europe

The Rhine courses through six nations

From its birth in the Netherlands

It traces borders dividing Switzerland and

Lichtenstein, between Austria and Germany

It defines much of the French-German border

The magnificent Rhine graces the grand cities of

Cologne, Duesseldorf, Rotterdam and Strasbourg

Combined with the Danube it fed and fueled

The Holy Roman Empire

To know the Rhine is to know much of the

History of Europe

A history of triumph, conquest and tragedy

For civilization follows the path of the great rivers

Wars are drawn to their boundaries

Fates are determined by their bounty

The Rhine is the glory of Europe

And yet may mark its decline

A Killer Kills

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PUTIN

 

A Killer Kills

 

The Wagner boss is dead now

And no one is surprised

When you cross the man in power

You know you have to die

 

A liar lies

A tiller tills

A wise man why’s

A killer kills

 

How many have to die?

In one man’s quest for power?

For none will ask him why

This is the killing hour

 

A painter paints

A miller mills

A fainter faints

A killer kills

 

He shot Prigozhin out of the sky

Like a duck on a frozen pond

Putin wears an expression wry

As he waves his killing wand

 

A sinner sins

Attorneys make wills

A winner wins

A killer kills

 

Babble

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Babble

 

They do not speak my language

They listen with their ears

But my words never quite form

They tell me I’ve lost my voice

They say they know how to find it

But they do not know me

They do not know where I come from

They do not know my language

I try to learn their words and syntax

But they carry a foreign sound

They will always sound strange

A sound less than genuine

For they do not speak my language

And I do not speak theirs

We speak across one another

We listen and nod and take it in

But we know it does not belong

Our hearts and souls reject it

Like the babble of ancient lore

We are of different tribes

We come from different ways

Our words rattle in other voices

Our ways cannot find home

Someday we will find a bridge

Someday we will find connections

That remind us we are one

Until then we can only nod

And pretend we understand

 

Fallen Souls

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Fallen Souls

 

Remember when the end of time

Was an amusing notion?

Remember we pretended that

Love came in a potion?

Little did we know that we

Would live to see revealed

The end of everything we love

The secrets we concealed

 

We are not evil people

We are not fallen souls

We have lost something sacred

We need to make us whole

 

We look back with rueful fondness

On the days that came before

Before the darkness, before the storm,

Before the latest war

We wish we could go back there

Before it all began

To when we were the chosen

The leaders of the band

 

We are not ill-intentioned

We’re not without our charm

We never wanted hurtful things

We did not wish you harm

 

Those days that we remember

Were not the way they seem

The days of simple innocence

They happened in a dream

Where everyone was happy

Where no one went to war

Where everyone we knew

Shopped at the local store

 

We are not evil people

We are not fallen souls

We have lost something sacred

We need to make us whole

Fleeing the Fires

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

 

Fleeing the Fires

 

(for the people of the Canadian Northwest Territories)

 

Fleeing the fires of human neglect

Midnight past the waiting hour

The brave rise, the cowardly reflect

What more can we do but cower?

 

A storm travels a long, lonely night

It screams of boom thunder quaking

A sky of calm darkness filled with light

The planet is gradually awaking

 

The creatures of the forest know

The wolf, the hawk, the silent owl

They search for safety high and low

Grim visage is out on the prowl

 

We fight, we pray, we scream and shout

We call out to the gods of all wonder

Reveal to the innocent a pathway out

Before it takes us all under

 

But the gods can only shake their heads

In deep sympathy and fool sorrow

The vengeful monster has already been fed

No power in heaven can alter tomorrow

 

Deliverance

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Deliverance

 

We don’t need words that tickle the senses

But fall short of coherent message

We don’t need poetry that dances on

Starlight but never touches the core

We don’t need magicians that conjure

Silken roses from puffs of thin air

But never pierce the boundaries of thought

 

We need words that hit hard as fists

That move the passive soul into action

We need poetry that rides the waves of

Passion to a destination of outrage

We need conjurers to transform the silent

Masses of the uninformed and unengaged

Into dedicated armies of change

 

We need artists with a social range

Writers who will open doors of power

Voices that rattle the tallest towers

Leaders who rise to the critical hour

People who deliver times of change

 

Killer Flames

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

Killer Flames

 

The curse of Prometheus is upon us

The light of the heavens

The warmth of the gods

The greatest gift ever bestowed

Become the destroyer of man

 

Once we knew how to control the flames

We employed them to cook our food

To warm our homes

To bring light to darkness

To mold metals into useful form

 

But that which once served humanity

Has now become our enemy

A killer of our people

A destroyer of our abodes

 

We must learn again how to use fire

We must learn how to control it

We must learn how to defend our homes

Our schools and buildings

Our towns and cities

From the devastation of runaway flames

We must work to balance the forces of

nature – wind, rain, fire and ice –

or the forces of nature will work

together to destroy us

 

Visions

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

Visions

 

Visions of ethereal beings

Floating through my mind with care

We cannot bring them down to earth

Reach out and touch them if you dare

 

We are stuck inside an empty room

That has no windows and no doors

We cannot see what fortune looms

But still we’re crying out for more

 

And the ghosts of past keep singing

And the bells inside are ringing

And no one has anything to say

They shrug as I go on my way

Stuck in a room without doors

And the crowd calls out for more

 

I go downtown to find a preacher

Wearing a vest and a tie-dye tee-shirt

I’ll ask and he will have an answer

If not the dance let it be the dancer

 

And the visions dancing through my mind

I lay it down and let it unwind

She says relax, have a drink of wine

Before I know it there’s no more time

No visions when you’re running blind

Just a feeling that we’ll never find

The answers that we left behind

 

And the visions slowly fade away

There’s no one left but we must stay

Goodbye to dreams of yesterday

Relax and watch the spirits play

Power & Obedience

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Power & Obedience

 

“The man of virtuous soul commands not,

nor obeys. Power, like a desolating

pestilence, pollutes whate’er it touches;

and obedience, bane of all genius,

virtue, freedom, truth, makes slaves of men,

and, of the human frame, a mechanized

automation.”  Percy Shelley

 

Thou shall not yield to power

Thou shall not blindly obey

There is no power in heaven or on earth

That commands the heart of virtue

 

Power poisons the soul

Distorts all sense of fairness

Takes a hard and heavy toll

Shatters empathy and care

Destroys the heart of all humanity

Lays a giving cupboard bare

Replaces virtue with mere vanity

Leaving us to blindly stare

 

Obedience without reason

Feeds the worst of humankind

Fosters greed and brutality

Strips the obedient of their pride

Tips the balance of duality

Destroying us from inside

 

Give the power to the wise

Let only virtue rule the day

See through the politician’s lies

Let the righteous light the way

The Good Old Days

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

The Good Old Days

 

In the good old days

We never questioned our parents

We respected our teachers

We obeyed the police

We did as we were told

We said yes, ma’am and no, sir

Please and thank you

We never rocked the boat

 

Then the sixties came and

all hell broke loose

We questioned everything

We demanded honesty and truth

We demanded answers

We saw injustice and fought back

We resisted authority

We broke the rules and made our own

We smoked pot and dropped pills

We refused to blindly follow

 

In the good old days

We were “free white and twenty-one”

Now we are just free

Free to be, free to think and

Free to question what

those good old days

were really like

Paradise in Flames (Maui)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Paradise in Flames

 

Maui is in flames today

A lush green island getaway

A place where the privileged stay

A paradise where the wealthy play

But there are ordinary people too

What will the many homeless do?

When the hurricane winds rose and blew

They fanned the flames, the fires grew

Of course the tourists got out fast

Of course the homeless get out last

Paradise will never be the same and

All of us must share the blame

Money (for Elon Musk)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WEALTH

Money

 

Those who think about money most

Are those who do not have it

(at least, not enough of it)

 

Those who have the most money

(enough to toss it away on toys

and games and playthings)

Never have to think about it at all

Money grows from the ground

They plant their feet upon

Like potatoes and root vegetables

They hire day labor to water and tend

And the famine never comes

 

One day however the famine will come

And the people with all the money

Will learn to count and recount

And tend to their own piece of land

 

When that day comes

Money will lose its meaning

People with grit and character

Will rise to rule the earth

While the people with money

Will fall and fade away

Joshua Trees

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

Joshua Trees

 

Fire rolls across the desert

The Joshua Trees disappear

An ecosystem forever altered

The realization of our fears

 

Fire cannot burn the sand

These trees have stood a thousand years

Scorched and turned to wasteland

The howling wind is all we hear

 

And will we ever learn

The error of our ways

Let the barren deserts burn

As we approach the end of days

 

We have become destroyers

Of all we know and see

Our past will never know

The future that must be