"Breakfast in Ukraine (Child's Play)"
By Gavin Kayner
Children wake breathing dust
And the pungent odor
Of well-oiled machines
They hear the angry snarling
Of half-ton trucks
Hard boots pounding on
Wet pavement
The sporadic gunfire
Popping like firecrackers
While playing with make-shift toys
A woman’s scream is cut
From her belly
And thrown up against the shattered buildings
The walls shake and crack apart
The blood of Christ crawls down
Out of the cracks like molten lava
The faithful rip out their eyes
In dismay
And blind in the cratered streets
They search for deliverance
The children’s toast and jam is ready
Shells whistle shrilly like unruly boys
Rip into train stations/schools/hospitals
flinging flak like serrated knives
eviscerating flesh
Bodies blooming red roses
Shredded concrete impaled with rebar
Their anonymous tombstones
Prayers embittered with acrid smoke
Rise as wounded butterflies
Only to be caught in the net of despair
There is no milk this morning
Still, call the children to their meager breakfast
While bulldozers bury their neighbors
Who stink of decay
And a father groveling on his knees
Weeps for his wife
Which is of little consequence
To the monsters intent on butchery
Call down the gods from their hoary heavens
Call out to a catastrophic world
Dealing like a one-armed man
Call out to the madmen who
Scrap their boots of such tender flesh
With a terrifying causal disregard
While children gather at windows
Jam on their faces
And assassinate their enemies
With tiny, tender
Finger guns.
Gavin Kayner spent four years in the navy from 1967-1971 where he was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, CA. His plays, prose, and poetry have won numerous awards and appeared in a variety of publications. His work has been recognized and/or produced by Long Beach Playhouse, Beowulf Alley Theater Company, University of California at Irvine, Ashland New Play Festival, Back Alley Theater, and Theater Forum LA.
What’s happening at VetRep…
Catch our interview this week with Corban Lundborg on the Savage Wonder Podcast here.
Tickets are going fast for the Parlor this season, reserve your seats for Woody Allen’s Central Park West here before they sell out! For the month of June we will be opening Central Park West with the winner of our inaugural 10-minute play competition, Fifteen Dead Souls, by Leilani Squire.
We are currently offering multiple dates for our online and in-person Playwriting for Veterans classes, and our Acting for Beginners class is now being offered weekly every Saturday from 10am-12pm. Scholarships for qualifying veterans, as well as multi-class passes are available. Registration details can be found here.