"we are not alone(!)"
i had a learned friend in college
who would say in an ominous whisper
"we are not alone(!)"
while glancing furtively
at professors
mailmen
anyone else
who did not fit
into the world as he found it
curiously
he was not alone
in this opinion
and occasionally would discover
a professor
a mailman
someone else
who had also learned that
"we are not alone(!)"
i lost touch with him
after graduation -
no forwarding address -
and have not seen
or heard from him in years
but then
come to think of it
no one else
has either
Jean Paul Jenack has held a variety of jobs, including school teacher, college professor, TV writer/director, choreographer, street juggler,
circus performer and freelance writer. For the past 15 years he has worked as Executive Director of the National Circus Project, a non-profit
arts organization based in New York. His poetry and other writings have appeared in over 100 books, magazines and journals, and he has received
numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts for his work as an artist-in-schools.
In 1990, he received a congressional commendation for "helping to further the cause of international understanding" through his work
(U.S. Congressional Record, 5/23/90). He has poetry currently appearing or forthcoming in print in Alpha Beat Soup, The Best Poems
of 1998, blood & feathers, Cicada, Common Threads, Frogpond, Haiku Headlines, Malevolence, Modern Haiku, Piedmont Literary Review, Point
Judith Light, Portraits of Life, Reflections and The Wicked, and online in Anthology, Brew-Net, The Bridge, Calliope, Haiku Light, Pogonip, and Word Salad.
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