Small Price That, First Day of Classes

Small Price That

He came into the University library
A youngish man in his mid-twenties
With an artificial lower left leg
I wondered where he had fought
Afghanistan, probably Iraq.

George W. Bush, and his dreams of Empire
We'd be welcomed as liberators Cheney said
We were, but then welcomed with land mines
And roadside bombs.
The Decider decided to get the man
Who tried to kill his daddy
Got him too

Safe now in his Dallas suburb
The Decider still no regrets.
It's too bad that
This someone, is one thousands of someones
who lost his lower left leg to get Saddam.
Small price that.

First day of classes

They come
for a different kind of knowing
To sign on, watch a video, or email
An invisible professor.
They want their class schedules and
Online course passwords
They come .
With different needs
Seldom are there questions
That I can answer

Above my empty, aching head,
Knowledge lies filed
And is waiting
Theories of poetry when written poetry
When poetry was formed
Proper prayers to cure the plague
from the 14th Century
The letters of a Union soldier
From an Iowa Regiment
Computer languages
and the proper way for a nurse
to conduct an MRI

Meanwhile the call centers in Bangalore
Have thousands solving all our computer problems
In China thousands of engineers work
60 hours a week for $600 a month
designing future electric cars
as for the new students
they wander in
I sigh,
Against such relentless competion
There is so little
I can give them

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Small Price That, First Day of Classes copyright Sept. 14, 2009 by Jamie Jacks