The bullets that splattered the President’s
brain matter on the butler’s tray of an open
Lincoln Continental, scattered also America’s
Brainiacs, who scurried into the War Machine,
or into exile from the Cowed Academy,
willful hostage of the Complex Military –
So that, by the time the kids were killed
at Kent State and Jackson State, Higher Ed
had begun to funnel fodder to Leviathan –
or, Consumerism: the selling of things in
place of the manufacture of things, since
Capital disdains labor as it prizes churn.
Because captive people work cheaper than
Americans do, dry greenbacks frolic offshore.
Unless we take up the study of war-no-more,
we’ll drown in a riptide of more, more, more.
Dave Read
Here, I read the poem in a clip that includes a painting by my cousin Michael Crawford (1945-2016), who made a series of paintings called Dallas. “As Seen on TV” was attached by me.