Remembering the Nixon Era

A Work in Progress 
39

So Donal typed this poem up and sent it by U.S. Post

to the Editors of the Workshop Press in faraway U.K.

and soon became a published poet

It was 1970 and he was living in a country 

where four students were killed at Kent State

shot by the National Guard

for protesting the Vietnam War

America, USA

your buttons splay 

rising like antlers of gazelle

your coat dark

like shadow land of jungle

your buttons epitomize furtive deer

your club   impact of a summer without rain

a sidewalk canopy

of a boarded-up store

offers you shade

a shadow 

moving over the rim of sight

distorts your mirage

one hawkish eye

its lid stitched back

watches...

vulnerable to an irritant fly

Oh America

the surgeons removed your tear ducts

you are unable to cry

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025