Mendacity

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The Mendacity of Menendez

 

There is no place in a democracy

For those who put their own enrichment

Ahead of the public good

There is no process of adjudication

That can explain away the facts

That will exonerate your character

You received a small fortune in cash

Gold, mortgages and no one knows

To represent the interests of Egypt

To represent an anti-democratic autocrat

 

A party that opposes insurrection

A party that decries mendacity

A party that condemns corruption

Cannot endure for a solemn moment

The self-serving greed you have displayed

A party that claims the moral high ground

Can have no tolerance for moral depravity

 

You have had your time in power

You have bathed in the light of fame

You may fight for vindication in court

But leave public service behind

If you do not resign, the party should expel you

If you do not resign, the good citizens of

New Jersey should recall you

For the good of the nation: Step down!

 

Stealing Children

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

Stealing Children

 

The mother of all crimes

Against humanity and decency

The brazen theft of children

Stolen from their mothers’ arms

By the hundreds of thousands

To serve an enemy nation

To be reprogrammed as warriors

To be wiped of their culture

To be cleansed of their memories

To be stripped of their affections

To form an army of orphans

To fight against their homeland

 

Some crimes cannot be forgiven

Patricide, matricide, genocide

And this: Stealing children to fight

Against their own

 

Ode to Israel

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

A Resistance of Principle (Ode to Israel)

 

You are wrong

You in the Knesset are wrong

You in the tower of high office

You are the enemies of democracy

You are the enemies of peace

You are losing the support of the soldiers

You have lost the support of the young

You will lose the support of the people

You have exceeded your authority

You have defied the rule of law

You are losing the respect of the world

Stop what you are doing

Reverse course

Cease and desist

The people join hands and rise against you

It is not too late to back down

Have the courage to admit you are wrong

When you face overwhelming opposition

Day after day night after night

You must turn around and look at yourself

You must rethink all that you have done

In the battle of principles you are wrong

Therefore you cannot win

The judgement of history will be harsh

 

Crossroads India

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WORLD DEMOCRACY

Crossroads India

 

India is at a crossroad

Torn between mass poverty and

economic opportunity

Institutionalized discrimination

Undermining rights of labor

Violations of human rights

Tempting shameful alliances

Its very democracy uncertain

 

India faces a distinct choice

Follow the path of the western world

Economic freedom and democracy

Equal rights for all

A path to fair trade policy

A vibrant free press

Or follow the road of China

Labor exploitation

Oppression of minorities

Egregious human rights

Suppression of dissent

 

The world’s largest democracy

Must turn its back on evil ways

And march proudly into a future

Of liberty and enlightenment

Civil War

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Civil War

 

Back in the days of racial unrest

When the cities burned with rage

When the FBI hunted panthers for sport

When the suburbs became gated communities

When fear gripped the psyche of America

When the children of peace went off

on their own

A friend whose skin was darker than mine

Looked into my eyes and said:

If the race war came I’d shoot you

That’s when I knew we had a problem

 

To those who say it could never happen

Take a good look around

People buying weapons like candy for Halloween

People so divided we look like postwar Berlin

People living in media bubbles and

Leaders feeding the mob

What I don’t see now and did not see before

the insurrection is the passion and the rage

 

So I look into your eyes and ask you:

Is that what you want?

Blood on the streets?

An era of violence and unrest?

Americans against Americans?

Civil war?

 

The hope of the nation and the world

is that the vast, vast majority of us

say no

Buried in Mud

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Buried in Mud (Libya)

 

To those who say

government doesn’t matter

Look to Libya

Where a monster storm combined

with government dysfunction

to bury ten thousand people

in a matter of hours

 

Years of civil war

An absence of civil society

A crumbling infrastructure

Chaos and disorder

The Libyan strongman is gone

Leaving a void in his wake

This is his lasting legacy

This is Libya’s cruel fate

Death and destruction

A dysfunctional state

 

We cry for the Libyan people

We mourn for their dead

We will lend our aid

To see their children are fed

What more we can do

We do not know

For a failed nation whose

Needs only grow

Even (Endless War)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WAR

Even (Endless War)

 

There’s a thought we learn as kids

At the heart of every war

You take one of mine

I take one of yours

 

As long as we’re even

There’s nothing to fight for

You take one of ours

We take one of yours

 

Like marbles in a circle

Or pieces on a chess board

You take one of mine

I take one of yours

 

Somewhere down the line

According to the lore

The game shifted:

You take one of mine

We’ll take two of yours

 

And so the game progressed

With better weapons and more

You take one of ours

We’ll take ten of yours

 

But something happens to the heart

When you open up that door

If you take one of mine

We’ll fight an endless war

 

And there is no way to stop it

The want of vengeance always grows

Until everyone is suffering

Where it ends nobody knows

 

Glorifying Killers

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GENOCIDE

 

Glorifying Killers

 

When you glorify a killer

You guarantee the killing will go on

When you turn your back on genocide

The ghosts of genocide remain

Waiting for a chance to rise from the dead

When you rewrite history with lies

History will rise to write the future

Bosnia / Darfur / Rwanda / Cambodia

Each time we are horrified

Each time we swear: Never again!

Yet we return to bear witness

Again and again

 

We return with our promises

We return with our tears

We return with our rage

We return with our fears

 

Yet we allow the glorification of killers

We allow the falsification of history

The promise of never again

Begins with the truth

No matter how painful

No matter how hard to bear

The children must learn the truth

My Lai / Sand Creek / Wounded Knee

The truth

The unvarnished truth

Twenty-Two Years

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

Twenty-two Years (IXXI)

 

Twenty-two years

We remember clearly

What happened that day

Where we were

What we were doing

How it was first relayed

A plane flew into the World Trade Center

I once lived just down the avenue

Took the elevator to the top

Top of the world, ma!

Top of the world!

There was a transparent walkway

Connecting the two towers

Like the walkway over Grand Canyon

A sight so inspired you could

Hear the heartbeat of God

 

It was a mystery at first

A horribly tragic mystery

How could anyone fly into the tower?

Then it happened again

A plane hit the second tower

That’s when we knew

This tragedy – unlike so many others –

Would alter the fabric of our world

 

Twenty-two years later

We bear witness to what happened

That dreadful imprinted day

And all the horrors that followed

The mistakes that we made

 

Twenty-two years later

We know the Saudis were responsible

Not Iraq, not Iran, not Afghanistan

But the Saudis were our allies

Our oil buddies

Someone else had to take the blame

 

Twenty-two years later

We live with the consequences of

Decisions made that day

For those who do and those who do not

We bow our heads and pray

 

(For all the heroes of that fateful day

and all the days that followed.)

Colossal Errors

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUE HISTORY

Colossal Errors

 

It was a mistake to allow the electoral

college to survive beyond the year 2000

 

It was a mistake to waste decades pretending

manmade climate change was not real

 

It was a mistake not to prosecute LBJ

for the Gulf of Tonkin mythology

 

It was a mistake for Gerald Ford to pardon

Richard Nixon quid pro quo for his

crimes against democracy

 

It was a mistake to sacrifice American workers

to the gods of cheap labor in China, India and

other third world nations

 

It was a mistake to imprison millions of

poor Americans in the name of

the war on drugs

 

It was a mistake to attack Afghanistan and

Iraq for the crimes of a Saudi terrorist sect

 

It was a mistake not to outlaw designer

districting and disenfranchisement

long, long ago

 

It was a mistake to rip the heart out

of Voting Rights and Civil Rights

 

Our proud nation has neglected so many

essential institutions of democracy for

so very long it would take a miracle to

save it now without unspeakable hardship

The Angry Earth

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

 

The Angry Earth

 

The earth is not angry

The earth does not yearn for vengeance

The earth does not bathe in sorrow

The earth does not rejoice

The earth is indifferent to the plight of man

The earth observes with abandon

 

As the hurricanes grow and strike terror

As a monster quake buries Morocco

As behemoth storms roll across the land

As tsunamis spring from ocean depths

As floods turn deserts into mud

As glaciers fall into swollen seas

As people are ravaged by disease

The earth does not raise its brow

The earth does not cry out in pain

 

The earth is not angry

The earth is indifferent to our fate

If humanity wishes to find blame

She should look to her own reflection

 

Ineligible

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP

Ineligible

 

It is insufficient that he openly

sympathized with white supremacists

 

It is insufficient that he neglected a

global pandemic

 

It is insufficient that he stood with

the international enemies of democracy

 

It is insufficient that he pressured a

foreign leader to serve his political cause

 

It is insufficient that he served a foreign

adversary in degrading our allies

 

It is insufficient that his only legislative

accomplishment was a tax break for the

corporate elite

 

It is insufficient that he profited

from holding high office

 

But when he called for, organized and

incited insurrection he became ineligible

for the presidency