Oh America,
you never got over your youth –

All those slap-happy penny dreadful
tales of Billy the Kid & Wild Bill H.

went to your head and stayed there
like lead poisoning.  You talkin’ to me?

You must be talkin to me cause they
ain’t nobody else – Draw!  And two

Lone Star College students shoot it out
in the O.K. Cafeteria letting some air into

each other and plugging a janitor who
got in de way.

Oh America,
what teenage boyhood fantasies

roll round in yo’ empty head.  Bang Bang
yer dead. Yer one dead injun and I’m

the rootin-tootin cowboy on this block
with my cap gun and my Glock.

from   Eavesdropping in Plato’s Café

Featured Print:  Kent State 1970  by  Linda Lyke
Linda Lyke, a faculty member in the School of Art at Kent State in 1970, created the above print in response to the horror of the Kent State shootings.