Memphis 1968

A Poem in Commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and in Criticism of Racial and Economic Inequality.

I’ve been posting this annually on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday/Martin Luther King Day since I wrote it several years ago.

*

MEMPHIS 1968

Too late

for Echol Cole and Robert Walker,

crushed by the compacting plate

when wet wires shorted,

pronounced dead the same day

Elvis became a father, a story

that led the local news. Smashed

like ants as they hid

…