Dirty Politics

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

Dirty Politics

 

Can we outlaw political lies?

Can we banish frivolous lawsuits?

Can we uncover phony alibis?

Can we recover pilfered loot?

If we don’t do something soon

We’ll lose hold of our reality

AI will conjure up a tune

Exploiting human fallacies

 

Our politics are out of hand

We don’t know what to believe

We could use a better plan

To deliver the facts we need

 

The truth is but a footnote

The facts are lost in the maze

Lies inform us how to vote

Their algorithms daze

 

It’s a race to the deepest pit

Honest politics be damned

The politics of dirt and grit

Slinging mud across the land

 

If you don’t like what you see

Use your ballot to fight back

Vote against the dirty deeds

Put our democracy on track

 

 

Ilhan Omar (The Persecution)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POLICE STATE

 

Ilhan Omar (The Persecution)

 

It begins with a member of congress

Representative Ilhan Omar

As the ACLU will surely attest

The gestapo has gone too far

 

If they can target her then no one is safe

Their poison goes to the heart

It proceeds directly from the head of state

Vengeance as a work of art

 

It’s clear these people have no shame

Common decency escapes them

They want and need someone to blame

We hope the people forsake them

 

It’s true they came for the Muslims first

Who else is on their enemies list?

The immigrants have felt their curse

And they’ve taken aim at journalists

 

If you dare oppose their insolence

They will haul you into court

They’ll harass you til your money’s spent

They’ll push you to your last resort

 

What they have done is a disgrace

To the office and the nation

There is no chance of saving face

There can be no salvation

 

The Sprawling War

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: IRAN WAR

 

The Sprawling War

 

This is the harm one man can do

Given a position of power

Pushed into war by Netanyahu

We are in the twilight hour

 

Egypt enters the sprawling war

Yemen is the bleeding ground

No one knows what’s next in store

The Israelis are unbound

 

There is no rhyme or reason

To restrain this raging violence

We’ve proclaimed the warring season

Every side must take offense

 

Across the world the madman rages

With America in the fold

It spreads and sprawls in stages

It seems Putin is growing bold

 

And Trump is playing Dangerfield *

He is getting no respect

With all the weapons he could wield

At best he feels neglect

 

It seems the wars will never end

But certainly they must

Peace is coming round the bend

Let’s rebuild a sense of trust

 

* Comedian Rodney Dangerfield  

Equality (France)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: FRANCE

 

Equality (France)

 

France is on fire

It fills my heart with pain

France should reach ever higher

Inequality is her stain

 

She leads in foreign matters

On tariffs and Ukraine

But with fat cats getting fatter

All efforts are in vain

 

A government must look within

Before it looks without

With this shock France must begin

To relearn what she’s about

 

Inequality of wealth

Inequality of education

She has sacrificed her health

She has disgraced the nation

 

It is time to tax the billionaires

The unfettered corporations

Let them finally pay their share

As the price of reparations

 

We look to France to lead

In justice and morality

Instead the people bleed

And suffer these fatalities

 

 

No Kings Today

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

No Kings Today

 

No kings today

No kings tomorrow

We remember the date *

It still lives in sorrow

 

You began your reign

Proclaiming blood and gore

You sounded insane

Any you promised no war

 

You were lying then

Just like you’re lying now

It will come to an end

On the day of the Tao

 

We don’t want your war

We don’t want your inflation

We are keeping score

How you’re screwing the nation

 

You don’t want a congress

As a check on your power

Even friends will confess

You’re alone in your tower

 

You don’t want to be king

You want to be even greater

You want angels to sing

But that will come later

 

We will take down your throne

And your statues of gold

You’ll be all on your own

When we take what you stole

 

* January 20, 2017

 

Blood on their Hands

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

 

Blood on their Hands

 

Trump expressed his disdain

Elon Musk delivered the blow

Severing Starlink from Ukraine

Without letting Zelensky know

 

Missiles landed without warning

Smashing buildings, taking lives

Kiev awakened in the morning

Not knowing how, who or why

 

Musk controls the technology

To turn the tide of war

As he pushes his dark psychology

Give the wealthy ever more

 

What they’re saying by their actions

Is that they like the Russian side

Splitting NATO into factions

Letting people know they lied

 

So now it’s Europe and Ukraine

Against the allied autocrats

The world has gone insane

And NATO smells a rat

 

While they play their morbid games

All of us should understand

To their everlasting shame

The have blood on their hands

 

J'Accuse

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

J’Accuse

 

Are you now or have you been

A good friend to a communist?

Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?

A fascist or a supremacist?

 

If you have be prepared

To step down and be exiled

Tell the truth if you dare

Volunteer to be defiled

 

You dare to tarnish others

When you yourself have betrayed

All your sisters and your brothers

Our proud nation is dismayed

 

You have taken sides in war

For the invader against Ukraine

For the man our friends deplore

You have gone against the grain

 

We will fight you with our votes

We will protest and resist

All our confidence implodes

You’re the friends of communists

 

We suggest self-deportation

But united with your good friends

You have disgraced your nation

It’s time we brought it to an end

 

Nobel

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: TRUMP

 

Nobel

 

He wants the Nobel Prize

For blowing up the Middle East

For promulgating baldfaced lies

And coddling the Russian beast

 

Is the world a better place?

More peaceful or more prosperous?

His reign is a disgrace

His foreign policy is monstrous

 

Still he wants the Nobel Prize

To seal his place in history

The world will long despise

This mystifying mystery

 

How a man of low morality

Low intellect and grace

A man of infinite banality

Rose up to this high place

 

His greatest virtue is greed

He lacks all curiosity

A man who does not read

Whose taste is a monstrosity

 

And yet he has the power

To cause a dozen wars

The bravest men will cower

If he threatens to do much more

 

 

The Fight for Democracy

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

The Fight

 

The fight does not end November 3^rd

In fact it only begins

If you haven’t heard, spread the word

The losing side may win

 

When a man’s in love with power

He will not let it go

He will barricade his tower

And watch it all unfold

 

He will declare election fraud

Just like he has before

He’ll proclaim the word of God

And call his troops to war

 

What happens next we do not know

Will they take it to the streets?

Will we absorb another blow?

Will we yield to defeat?

 

Our republic is in jeopardy

If we do not put them down

They would make us out the enemy

And plant us in the ground

 

A New Leader in Ukraine

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: UKRAINE

 

A New Leader in Ukraine

 

Our president wants a new leader

To handle business in Ukraine

The man who’s never been a reader

Should think twice or refrain

 

While Zelensky stands a thousand tests

Of his mettle and endurance

Trump cries foul and beats his chest

As he offers no assurance

 

He wants Ukraine to pay the price

For the foolish war he started

He wants Zelensky to be nice

All prior acts disregarded

 

It is as clear as it has always been

That Trump is on the other side

Vladimir Putin is his friend

Despite all the times he’s lied

 

We’re trying hard not to see

A cold and harsh reality

Putin helped elect this man

That explains his crude demand

 

A new election in Ukraine?

While the bombs and missiles fly?

Even you must feel the strain

Of sustaining all your lies

 

Dengue Fever

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL WARMING

 

Dengue Fever

 

Like a magic carpet ride

On the waves of global warming

With the rising of the tide

And the deadly insects swarming

 

Here comes the dengue fever

And all those tropical diseases

That make this life much meaner

It grows harder to deceive us

 

We are only now beginning

To understand the grave effects

All this from so much “winning”

In an era of gross neglect

 

Today it is disease

Tomorrow it’s the flood

The reaper will be pleased

With this legacy of blood

 

With the warming comes the spread

Of weather born disasters

We will count the warming dead

And hope it doesn’t come much faster

 

For we are sadly unprepared

For what’s coming down the line

It’s a burden that we all must share

We’re ensnared in the warming bind

 

 

Housing Crisis in Spain

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: SPAIN

 

Housing Crisis in Spain

 

Parliament has failed to pass

Legislation to remedy housing

Affordability to the working class

The people find arousing

 

PM Sanchez did what he could do

He’s called a snap election

Without support to see it through

His party faces mass defection

 

The world economy is under strain

Trade wars with the States

All remedies have been in vain

Too little and too late

 

The people march in protest

Some action must be taken

The government must invest

Or the workers are forsaken

 

This is the problem everywhere

The rich want ever more

Until their leaders start to care

The people’s voice will roar

 

The right to decent shelter

Should belong to everyone

Until then it’s helter skelter

The government is done

 

Student Uprising in France

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: FRANCE

 

Student Uprising in France

 

The right to decent education

For both the rich and the poor

Fundamental to a civil nation

In France must be assured

 

The privileged have the finest schools

In France and everywhere

But in France they follow equal rules

The government must care

 

France must hold the light

To show the way for all

You must know it isn’t right

To hide behind your walls

 

Do not fight them on the streets

Listen and take heed

In the middle you must meet

You must try to meet their needs

 

We remember nineteen sixty-eight

A clarion call to France

Yet still the students wait

Why not give them a chance?

 

They are the future of the nation

Make them proud to take their place

Release them from this subjugation

They are the nation’s face

 

 

Viva Lula and Brazil!

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: BRAZIL

 

Viva Lula and Brazil!

 

Lula da Silva does it again

Brazil is the better for it

Social democracy claims the win

Avoiding the rightwing pit

 

They flirted with autocracy

They were lucky to overcome

They held on to democracy

When Lula da Silva won

 

Now a brighter future calls

And the left must answer square

Tear down the oppressor’s walls

By treating all people fair

 

They wanted exploitation

Of the forests and the land

Now they’re a better nation

Since Lula made his stand

 

Brazil has made her choice

To uphold the people’s rights

To hear each and every voice

For that is worth the fight

 

Viva Lula and Brazil

The revolution has prevailed

This victory is real

Let’s hope they never fail

 

(Sadly, Lula unexpectedly lost the first 

round of elections. The future is in doubt.)