I’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE

by Jerry Krajnak

David Shapiro, Who Gained Fame in Poetry and Protest, Dies at 77: A renowned member of the New York School of poets, he also found accidental notoriety when he was photographed during the 1968 uprising at Columbia University... Mr. Shapiro was just weeks from graduating when another student photographed him when the office of the university’s president, Grayson Kirk, in Low Library was occupied. Shown seated in a high-backed chair behind the administrator’s paper-strewn desk, Mr. Shapiro captured the spirit of a moment, casually smoking one of Mr. Kirk’s cigars while wearing sunglasses and a defiant smirk. —The New York Times, May 10, 2024

They locked us out of Schofield Hall,
police demanded we disperse,
warned us we disturbed the peace,
endangered safety, led us away;
 
meanwhile, eight thousand miles away,
bamboo huts were being torched,
buffaloes and chickens shot,
farmers’ daughters raped,
 
and military chiefs kept score
with their bloody body counts
repeated nightly on channel 13
before the local weather.
 
I slowly rock on a cabin porch,
a snoring dog at my feet,
listen as a mockingbird calls
from far across the pond.
 
Another responds, so near to us
that we both flinch, get up
and enter the cabin, turn on the news,
hear about Gaza, Ukraine.
 
We watch as New York tents get smashed,
see ziptied children led away.
I join them, rise with my gray hair
in solidarity.

Author’s Note: I was in college in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 1968. The events were not as dramatic for us as they were for Columbia students either then or now, but they are all true. Also, I thank the spirit of Sylvia Plath for help with the penultimate line.

Jerry Krajnak is a Vietnam veteran who later survived forty years in public school classrooms. A Pushcart nominee, his recent work appears in The New Verse News, Autumn Sky Poetry, One Art, Star 82 Review, Rat's Ass Review, and other journals.

TEACHER, END OF WEEK ONE

by Jerry Krajnak

Early autumn Friday afternoon.
Erasing idle pencil marks on a desk
where a child’s elbow earlier rested, her face
gazing up through the newly polished glass to watch
the geese head south, a sight, of course, that was missed
by a teacher who always stands as he applies
the disinfectant spray to dirty desks.
 
Our funds are tight, administration says.
We let our custodians go the day we fired
all counselors and librarians. So, banish the dirt
from all those desks. Like we’ve done with books.
 
The teacher pauses, moves to the window, looks out,
sees caterpillars chew on poplar leaves.
He thinks about his student loan, regrets
the loss of youthful glee about this job.
Another row of desks. One hundred seventy-five
more days. He turns back to the window, notes
that outside the chewing continues. He watches, smiles.
They soon will find a sheltered spot to wait,

then rise as something new when the weather warms.

Jerry Krajnak gardens, writes poetry, and worries in his North Carolina retirement cabin. Recent poems appear in Star 82 Review, Rat's Ass Review, The New Verse News, Autumn Sky Poetry, and other journals.

FINAL EXAM WEEK AT NC STATE

by Jerry Krajnak

Last week, students at North Carolina State University concluding their first week of finals learned of terrible news: two apparent student suicides. “This is heartbreaking,” Chancellor Randy Woodson wrote in a community message Thursday. “And I know there’s little I can say to console the deep hurt or heal the immense grief felt by the family and friends of these young people and others we’ve lost this year. What I can say is that I, along with so many caring members of our community, share in this grief.” Such messages have become familiar on the Raleigh campus this year, where 14 students have died, half of them the result of suicide. —NC Newsline, May 1, 2023. Graphic by Chiara Zarmati for The New York Times.

Two more students killed themselves this week.
That’s seven on campus this year. We watched the news,
wondered if some fool would wander off Hillsborough Street
with an AK-47, start shooting one day.
But the perp we should have feared was here on campus
all along, hiding among the beautyberries,
under dawn redwoods. Academic demands
and social pressures lay in wait to spring
on those he'd already chosen. Our seven this year.
Our two this week. We wonder who is next.
 
Our Pack depleted, we mourn as we lug our stuff
to our Moms’ waiting mini-vans.  As a mower roars
or as we pause before springing off a board
this summer, we will think about the need they all felt
to escape the crushing pressures that shattered their lives.
We’ll memorize 988. Return in August, 
greet friends, view them with new eyes, listen 
to them more closely. Hope they will do the same.

Jerry Krajnak gardens, writes poetry, and worries in his North Carolina cabin. Recent poems appear in Autumn Sky Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, The New Verse News, The Examined Life, Star 82 Review, and other journals.

AN OLD MAN WORRIES ON FACETIME

by Jerry Krajnak

A ten-year-old who looks like a Renaissance cherub

proudly shows me his AK-47

(1,400 tiny Lego pieces)

as we Facetime, tells me he likes it

even more than this Glock he made last week.

I try to change the subject. School. Friends.

Boring, all boring. He shifts to a Roblox game

where the goal is to kill these scurrying little people

as quickly as you can. The more you kill,

the more play money you’re paid and can buy

better guns, become more efficient at killing

little people, earn even more money

and win the game and buy more guns for next time.

 

 

Jerry Krajnak gardens, writes poetry, and worries in his North Carolina cabin where he enjoys Facetiming with distant grandchildren. Usually. Recent poems appear in Autumn Sky Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, The New Verse News, The Examined Life, Star 82 Review, and other journals.

SEA-TAC AT EASTER

by Jerry Krajnak

Fifty years ago, a boy returned

on a drizzly Easter Monday and found no one

to curse or kiss him. Holiday decorations

peeled from the walls as he lugged his duffel bag

to the gate of the final red-eye homeward flight.

On that eastbound plane no one asked

what he had done to earn that colorful ribbon

on his lapel or the metal pin on his hat.

Not wanting to hear about Vietnam, they looked

away from him as the plane sped on in the dark.

Only clinking ice cubes and the cry of a baby

welcomed him home on that dark United flight.

 

What kind of welcome will they receive next year,

all those young Russian soldiers, as they return

from afar? Uneasy and gone so long from home,

will they be thanked for their service to the state,

hear shouts of baby killer hurled, or worse,

arrive ignored by tired mothers and brothers

all sick of deprivation and numbed by broadcast

body counts that cannot be confirmed?

Will sisters and fathers and friends all cover their ears,

unwilling to hear what these young men would tell

about the distant place where they were sent

to do what leaders told them they must do?

Jerry Krajnak is a retired Vietnam veteran who lives in the North Carolina mountains. Recent poems appear in Plants and Poetry, Novus, Rat's Ass Review, Sublunary Review, and in the Flee to Spring anthology.