"All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing "
- Benjamin Franklin
Robert Jackson has written and published two books of poetry, GIFTS and POEMS OF THE MOTHERLAND. A second edition of GIFTS was a compilation of the two previous books. The themes addressed within these poems concern history, culture, family, nature and basic human emotions. Environmental issues are addressed with great concern without involving the almost "psycho" politically correct belief in a major human contribution to negative climate change. Nonetheless, care and concern for the natural world and a healthy environment is one of his themes.
NOTES: Some poems have notes beside them and some have notes at the bottom of the page.
NOTES: Some poems have notes beside them and some have notes at the bottom of the page.
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Opening Night
How do I tell you that we have lied? There is no one who cares to act like you were taught, How do we explain that there is no script? The play just stumbles on, Who'll stride in to save the day? No one, And who's going to say that to children on the verge of their time upon the stage? That all the rules we taught of how to work, and help and count some how just don't apply, That when you take your turn and until you take your final bow there is no goal except the roaring applause of success no theme save greed no plot to speak of and no direction except from your own selfish soul. |
Tuh All Thuh Boys Tuh all thuh boys at Shiloh tuh fergit ud be a shame Though tears is worshed thuh blud away hits blud jist thuh same, For all thuh boys at Guadalcanal I feel just thuh same Though years uv dried the tears away they wunce come down like rain, And all the ones that went to Nam can't forgit um too Nobody gave damn but they died for me and you, Now, we don't put much store in fightin' and some causes are wrong But some things are just worth dyin' for and you can never remember too long. |
An American Epitaph When thy dear soul from earth has flown Your corpse 'neath the churchyard soil Besides some words upon a stone What stories will they tell? Of hearth and home and muddy fields And touchdowns in the rain And dribbling, forcing men to yield While driving the hardwood lane Or will they speak of a scholar's goals Some met, perhaps some not And labor pushed that took its toll And times you missed your shot But through it all, and after all You kept your loved ones free While you watched the darkness fall ". . . stood for Christ and Liberty." |
Rizal I never knew the man of course and the writers don't agree They never do. But if only half of what they say is true Well, I guess he was quite a man Don't you? From the East a light burned so pure They couldn't let the beauty last They never do For they preferred the dark or raging fires to one brave candle glowing They always do. |
Banana Leaves
Waving fringed and ragged like tattered laundry forgotten banners of a world forgotten from tough, unbreakable poles perennial stalks bending upward a mere dozen feet Broad green field flapping in oceanic breezes like an ensign slapping a metal pole Royal, rich, golden-green of the rain forest drooping sadly Wind-split and rattling in the gusts like the cluttered native city everyday old banana leaf: wrapping meat and fish for the fire umbrella for the golden fruit or fanning flies Waving for the land and people flag and wrapper, cover and fan shelter and banner With the fringe of their gloried history The ragged beauty of their storied land that needs no flag of dead plant fiber, security blanket for childish despots, God gave this living one to them. |
Note: This is simply about the signature plant of the tropics & the people of my beloved Philippines and other tropic lands. It's about their culture and their struggles, especially for freedom, the freedom that we Americans are in the process of giving away in our own land. |
Frost
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The Shore
From here above, the surf defines below the line is water's edge and sand sometimes a wall Above we cross the zone others waded when by banca and vinta borne or galleons or men down from steel-gray ships to the blood-dyed surf in the hellish dawn We make our crossing now as others have from Buddah to God or Allah potatoes to rice pine to palm See there the wall behind which the men crouched wet over which dragging their courage they crawled The sea upon which cultures float meets the land a goal here at this sprawling barrier shore this door when rough with men and stones and storms or calm with breezes, soft sand and arms embracing warm. |
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Sangre de Cristo
He wasn't the first to die or go willingly to death and many have since Saint Joan, John Brown, Rizal on the grass at Luneta nor the only to suffer, linger, agonized to death the Holocaust to that can attest and it but a mere whisper in the total history of death The screams of man's victims are still echoing through time But perhaps he was the first to go knowing so the tortures ahead and with a plan perhaps the first to know all along what lay ahead and with such purpose Imagine: tortured for the torturer's sake murdered for all the murderers of all time Could anyone else have? And for that, do any comparisons really matter? |
The reference here is to the night
mentioned in the title of the poem in which Germans who were in general agreement with the Nazis in power proceeded (with clandestine Nazi encouragement) to vandalize homes and businesses of German Jews. The event was characterized in particular by broken window glass on the cobblestone streets, one of the dominate memories of those who were there. From this came the name the Crystal Night. One can only hope that history will not repeat itself here in our fair land; however, there are those in the secular left camp of the liberal movement who have already questioned the waste of buildings being used as churches. One of the greatest horrors to come out of the German Nazi experience is not the abuses of minorities (as bad as that is) but the herd mentality; the mass politically correct group-think; the majority uncritically following the propaganda of the popular, the in vogue views of the day. [Complete notes on Kristallnacht, Nov. 9-10, 1938 (Crystal Night) CLICK HERE ] |
Kristallnacht, Nov. 9-10, 1938
Why sometimes does evil express itself like this in beautiful names and sounds and songs or the treachery of a kiss? So little children's voices once heralded a Reich, an age, dressed in symphonies and glory its soul steeped in rage. The tinkling glass upon the stones announced the long, dark night through which the Jew was herded, shuffling from which he crawled into the light. Through all the mud, dust and snow of frozen camps and hearts he's come, crying, can still cry at least and walks erect, apart. And only a remnant Nazi from place to hiding place creeps pursued around the world as the former slave now sleeps sleeps free, alive tonight and every night and day a living marker for the ones who died and have no graves. Their ashes were scattered across the forgotten Reich. For them and him and hope and struggle all nights are crystal nights. by Robert Jackson copyright © 1991 |
Poetry Note: The best gift a parent can give is a hug, and after that the parenting that so many never receive. Specific references here are to historical phenomenon such as the killing fields of Cambodia and the early World War II grave fields before the ovens were adopted. The latter are described in Herman Wouk's iconic novel's: WINDS OF WAR and WAR & REMEMBRANCE. We actually have a female friend who has been on a recent trip to Cambodia searching for relatives who are alive or records of the deaths of others. This poem, published here for the first time (though written years ago) is dedicated to LOVE146 and the other charitable organizations both Christian and otherwise that work for children. |
A Parent's Embrace (. . . and unsaid thoughts) When I hold you I hold them all because I cannot hold each one I hold you close because of love but also because of love undone for those so young who faced their trials and even death so all alone embracing you with the love their tiny hearts have never known for the children found among the dead multiplied on the frozen ground and tiny bones in a jungle ditch a field of skulls scattered all around and those whose soft hair none caressed whose tears no one kissed away those who died too hard, too young and those who will today those sweet children no one loved and no one ever cared to hold when their short years only proved that life was hard and love was cold whose terror no one ever shared longing at night to be held somehow in a world gone wrong in the pitch of night for all of them I hold you now. |
Steaming, breezy, sweet Visayas Mountains rising bare and dry From wood and nipa slums palms so freely brush the sky, Leather brown- armed fishermen carry cyanide in plastic bags as history rides in two-wheeled carts drawn by spirit-broken nags, And Beauty walks on small, brown feet bearing high, exotic cheeks looking through herself to find the beauty that she seeks, Once she bared her small, brown breasts laced in ashy-black tattoos by the Spaniard craved, yet covered freely left by the bold datus, Beauty raised those tawny glands Culture drew the tawdry lines And on these shores the two wrestle in the sands of time. |
Poetry Note: Islas de los Pintados [The Islands of the Painted People, Spanish name given the Visayas] Although the poem at right is about the clash of cultures in the Visayas of the central Philippine Archipelago, as with many poems, it can have other meaning. It can even relate to our own present troubles as the clash is between man and the cultural mores placed upon him or her, as well as his or her reaction to them. We of course are in a struggle between libertarian freedom and a controlling government. But the poem is also about the negatives of modernity, the downside of development. Thus we struggle a bit with, or more than a bit, with Nature and our use of it. The mountains on the island of Cebu were harvested so much for timber that by the mid 1970s the watertable could not be replenished due to runoff. The table lacked fresh water and began soaking up the sea. More and more businesses in Cebu City began getting salt water from their faucets and had to haul fresh water. For a time, there was fear Cebu would become a "dead island," unable to sustain life. |
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The Warrior
{Companion Painting} "This poem was written in the Vietnam War days as an anti war poem but . . .
not an anti-American or anti-patriotism poem. . . . After all, the brave heroes of Vietnam had their anti war views themselves. It was also an attempt at historical musing in general. It was partly inspired by the same true scene in an article that inspired Medivac Vietnam. The first stanza does not refer to the evolution of man but of his culture, as does the poem. A central theme is the cultural and technical evolution of warfare as the struggle stays pretty much the same for the warrior." "The painting is being reworked as certain parts never satisfied me; I love the overall look. and can't wait to get it done, again."
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The Warrior
Bent apelike and wandering he stalks the fields of grass stone in hand clinched in sweat Laced in leather and bronze and marching over the stony hills of Crete the plains of France Riding god-like on the backs of beasts glinting in the sun British steel in hand Living beside death artfully swinging sword and mace like the scythe of death itself |
Riding across Arab deserts tan and roaring in clouds of dust Wading Asian swamps engulfed in mud green and lugging his life and death Streaking white and silent high bringing new powers to old barrios Living, more or less artfully? beside death among the patriotic gore of war giving up his soul from the splintered bone and stone and steel upon the red-soaked forest floor. |
"The enduring mental image during the inspiration of this poem was that of dead soldiers on a dark forest floor. . . don't know why other than the Southeast Asian jungles. They had been used in an earlier verse, and the snow works better for the culminating scene of angels defending brave warriors in the Ardennes Forest from demons who want to drag them down to Hell. The angel in the center in the snow was inspired by Roberta Flack's beautiful song "Angelitos Negros" in which she implores painters to paint more black angels. So I did. Roberta Flack's "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" is mentioned in: Graduation at Mr. Jefferson's University, Circa 1970
History Soup
I'd like to pour a cauldron full
upon this page for you For I know something of life then and can feel they're yearnings too. But it was not my place in time perhaps my cup is too small Then to know the flavor of war you needn't taste it all. Instead take just enough sipping slowly to be sure like those (who being there) gulped it scalding hot and pure. Those who were there of course have served it up to me long and lonely hours on cold and stormy seas cool or luke warm beer in steamy island shacks bitter, lonely, vigil prayers so that lovers might comeback. or a hard and frigid foxhole in a still, white Belgian wood awaiting German panzers right where grenadiers once stood. [ Notes for History Soup, CLICK HERE ] |
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How it Was Meant to BeMrs. Naadáá Natty Jones
The Double H Ranch, on the Brazos, December, 1900 As I look around and see the junk and pain pollutants of all types of body, heart and soul and mind, As I watch and the Earth turns ways crumble dreams fade I fear for life and safety grope for security Then I close my eyes and see upon a plain by a stream far back in the mists of ages but up close each minute detail focused in the mind a family crowded around a cozy cottage of leather over bent wood against the wind Fire at the door flap meat smoking robes place for the frigid night of the steppes Cooking, cleaning, preparing living as now and real, A man stacks dried manure for the fire A woman of stringy-haired beauty stirs a pot of clay They boy makes arrows chips stone as his father taught A small girl walks past frozen for an instant against the fire And there another tent or two Over there an elderly couple from whom the whole clan sprang The life that was meant to be in the beginning Then off in the haze of the horizon across the chilling steppes dust that grows with he sounds of hooves and yelling and the clank of metal in leather straps And I wonder how it was ever meant to be. |
The editorial cartoon above was published with this poem and an accompanying essay. The poem however, had been previously published on the is website and in Robert Jackson's two poetry books. Literary use by the poet/novelist: The poem is attributed to Mrs. Naadáá Natty Jones in the novel THE MOUNTAINS, THE RIVERS, AND THE PLAINS (a novel with a modern setting) and said to be written by her at the Double H Ranch, on the Brazos River in December of 1900. |
Sensory Sighs God I love the stars at night Peter Pan sky with diamonds a marbled blue above Cebu or Virginia God shinning through the moon back-lighting the clouds And I love brown warm brown rising with breath tapping beneath brown breasts and the smell of garlic and soy not from the chicken from her, Her perfume is soy Or it could be coffee over a fire tobacco or eyes full of parents' pride The sky spreads blue-black and bitter sweet like the soy, the tobacco, the coffee or sweet brown love And how I love the marbled night with stars so faint and yet so bright. |
The poem below concerns itself with stewardship of the earth and its wild places and
does not refer to such unfounded theories as global climate change caused by man.
This Child, Earth
The Earth is a child they cannot see They look at the soil and see the ages They look at the ages and see strength the stability of time They watch the turmoil that is man but the Earth is always there the rocks and caves and mountains But the Earth is a child And even out of the confusion that is man they see direction slowly to go with the slow turn of the Earth the ages But the Earth is a child dependent helpless delicate unknowing The Earth is an old woman and in the dusty, mud-cracked skin they see the ages It's always been there the fields and forests its bloodstream rivers No matter what transpired with man through the ages the soil and rocks, woods and streams have been there and seen |
Look at your feet It seems so normal since you were a child Mother Earth was there with lap to bounce and play on But the Earth is a child to hold in cupped hands to till to groom the long tresses of grain and grass a child to feed and clean and with love possess with sensitive blood flowing through valleys and plains playing with the creatures in its midst like any child They look at the patch of dust and grass at their feet that they played marbles and soldiers in and see the ages and perhaps they're nostalgically sad But the Earth is a child they cannot see neglected, abused by uncaring guardians And they are sad for the wrong reasons. |
* Notes: Immigrants Influence here from many including Walt Whitman and perhaps a bit of Wallace Stevens. The reference is to legal immigration though of course down through our history many a stowaway found there way here before modern jet travel made it very difficult. Shipboard illegals still arrive today. I am a supporter of legal immigration; however, in more recent times we have done a poor job of integrating newcomers into our national, constitutional philosophy. As we try to stop the illegal entry (and we should) you might stop and wonder if any of your own ancestors just might have been a stowaway on a clipper or galleon, or even a fishing boat. Ages back, just after the time of discovery, European fishing fleets would fish off the Grand Banks. Twas kinda funny, the great explorers struggled across the Atlantic while these ordinary fishermen routinely sailed across and back without landing in America. They dropped their nets in the sea a hop skip and a jump from New England shores, how easy to just sail over and ... On Looking at the Blueridge Many of us have moved to or been assigned in one beloved place or another, some more beloved than others. Both places in the poem below are beloved and have good memories, but there is always the homesickness for the old place when recently arrived in the new port o' call. Having lived in each long enough, I always missed the one I was not currently in . . . here the Blue Ridge of Virginia and the volcanic-formed mountains of Cebu in the Philippines The Shore Inspired by years of historical study, the real life experience of often looking out the plane window at the lacy surf followed by the band of sand and occasional seawall is the other spark for this poem. So much comes together, clashes together, at the shore. Depending upon the historical circumstances its a clash of loving embrace or the resistance of a fortress door. What stands out visually at 15,000 feet or so, descending, is the white lacy surf. Heart of Darkness This is my strongest poem as far as imagery and language. Inspired by the horrible evil of the sex slave trade which victimizes women as well as children of both sexes. Is is also sort of a companion poem to a somewhat better poem, A Parent's Embrace [click for Poetry page & scroll down]. Heart of Darkness is about both the horrible crime of sex trafficking and child sex abuse and the source of this evil, the overall brutality that, given the chance, mankind can reach. The title is from Joseph Conrad's short novel of the same name, as is the phrase, "the horror," in the 8th. verse. The Viking reference is to a Viking chief's traditional funeral which was a sex orgy that basically victimized one particular slave girl who was then sacrificed by being burned on the burial ship with the dead warrior. There is the reference also to Aztec sacrificial ceremonies, which are graphically portrayed in Mel Gibson's movie, Apocalypto (with Mayans rather than Aztec, the inferrence being that the Mayas adopted the practice too in later years). We romanticize many cultural and ethnic groups while not mentioning often enough their negative characteristics. I laughed at the indignant comments of those who were attacking this particular movie for negative portrayal of the some ancient American cultures. For me, I can only ask: what's the difference between the mass sacrifices of the Aztecs and the Nazi Holocaust? The same question can be applied to many ancient sacrificial cultures. So, the Aztecs created many intellectual and scientific things. So did the Germans between '36 and '44. In fact, until the rise of technocratic Japan (another historically brutal culture) Germany had been the modern world's benchmark for technology. If I can accept the negatives of the Vikings and other Caucasian barbarians, Native Americans can admit the evil of the Aztec religion. Most ancient societies (irregardless of race) included brutal practices, as they lived in brutal times. The interesting and in many ways accomplished Vikings are such a group from the white race. Despite their positives they were very brutal before they became Christians. Pirates are another example, with the exception that they don't really have any positives except in romance novels and adventure movies. Of course historically there were a few somewhat good apples in that barrel, such as Jean Lafitte. The scene of scavenging World War II graves for valuables is from Herman Wouk's iconic Winds of War and War & Remeberance in which one of the characters, a Jewish slave laborer is forced by the Nazis to search old mass graves (from before the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and elsewhere) to recover valuables for the Nazis. You need to read those two books and see the 36 hour double miniseries produced from them. Whenever possible, support the Somaly Mam Foundation. All My Dreams
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones * Austin, Texas, May 1876 (to her former cavalry officer husband) All my dreams are just of you, all across the days and miles I never thought I could look at you and ever cast a smile Whence came you to my land ? In the night when brave men sleep, only then to rise and die In the glow of the Comanche moon, women lay and cry Whence came this terror nigh ? Families weep for broken homes all along these border lines Native against native and yours against us all In darkness lonely mothers cry Whence came you . . . and why ? In my red desert, on their high plains, and all across this frontier sky Even in your hogans large, peace is just a fleeting sigh None is forever safe out here Least of all you and I *fictional character |
Immigrants* A hundred thousand men heading West with traditions and sisters mothers and grandmothers dream-laden and in groups grandfathers with bushy mustaches and heavy curved pipes women wrapped in cloth so that only eyes and cheeks show with babes and toddlers and strapping young boys and blossoming young girls supple youth hidden also under cloth whites off galleons, those that made it blacks off slavers, those who survived it small brown people counter flowing East those willing, those not And down from steamers after cold wet nights on hard iron decks Jews, Poles, Irishmen to endure those names to work up to respect someday and flowing down gangways from throbbing, buzzing silver birds children of the Holocaust of holocausts children of all ages all of them old slim youths with almond eyes once again from their rag tag fleet bobbing in the China Sea after their hell and ours to silver birds that roar across the sky and then those tortured little islands and lands South just off our shore from in fact a tortured world . . . Heart of Darkness* Out of the heart of darkness into the morning light wretched souls crawl shamelessly tired from their sordid night Unable to stand the beauty unable to stand up straight they return to their glittery caverns to teach for love such hate How can man so gentle create smooth marble surrounding or chorus chants of glory or symphonies resounding and tender words from poets lips solemn notes from quill pen tips Then this this feeding on little children the hope of all mankind such tender young fodder for wretched feeble minds But, hell! they did kill Christ and have butchered their way through time across all Eurasia into Africa's sweltering clime On stone Aztec altars raised pulsating hearts up high over doorways, Viking slave girls who on funeral pyres would die And I can see their twisted tradition wading ditches of Jews scavenging the bones for jewels the horror while we ignored the news Raping and murdering Cambodia unconcerned they were and bold "mankind" so gentle sounding devouring itself for gold and nauseating pleasures darkness of the soul Their gods are the almighty dollar pesos, lust, and power bold and while we sleep so sweet tonight in dark rooms young flesh is sold. Down on the Brazos
Mrs. Naadáá ‘Natty’ Jones* Austin, Texas, December 1877 (the speaker in this poem is Jóhonaá 'Sunny' Jefferson, after she and her husband Aaron find themselves finally safe in Texas.) Down on the banks of the Brazos Wading in the shallows alone Remembering the trials of the traveler And the pain that has brought us both home Walking on the shore of the Brazos Waiting in the canebrake alone Remembering the sorrow and troubles And all the reasons we roamed Wrapped in the arms of the Brazos And the arms of the friends we have known We asked for His care by this river And found we were never alone. Holding your hand by the Brazos Soaked in the flood of your charms Wrapped in your love by these waters And safely in God’s loving arms. *fictional character |