On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. The shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the Vietnam War era.
Below is a poem by Jim Kelly
Tin Soldiers and Nixon's Coming.........
Wild Wild West
My son wants a lava lamp
for his birthday
He was born on May 4th
I got my first lava lamp
when I was in the sixth grade
May 4th was a memorable day that year too
Four students were shot and killed at Kent State
I can remember my teacher
telling us how she was at a gas station
in Akron, Ohio
and the car next to her had some kids filling up with gas
they said they were heading for Kent
she could see rifles in their backseat
The day after the shootings
my brother was walking
across the his college campus
early in the morning
carrying a briefcase
Two plain clothed cops ambushed him
knocked him down
and confiscated
the briefcase
His almost completed term paper was never seen again
Back home at the dinner table
my dad said Kent
looked like the wild, wild west
He also said
He wished he hadn’t gotten up that morning
My son
just got a new puppy
his dog had just died
He named it Cowboy
-James Kelly 2003
http://youtube.com/watch?v=X6Vy4Tq-5a8click above to watch "ohio"....so intense!
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