April 4, 1968
by Alan Catlin
News bulletin
interrupts
Top 40
Countdown
on WPTR
"Martin Luther
King shot dead
in Memphis.
He was 39.
President Johnson
declares National
Day of Mourning
Now back to
the Countdown
with the next song up,
The Beatles
All You Need
Is Love."
Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, Thou Shalt Not Kill, an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.
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