In 55 Bukowski wrote of severed *****
while Rosa Parks decided not
to sit in the back.
Not a hacksaw but a rusty tin can.
Can you imagine?

Here's a true story, mind you
I was negative thirty three years young
then when Emmett Till was killed.
"In God We Trust"

Fifty four years later
Iranian protesters shot,
the King of Pop drops dead.
If they knew it then,
Elvis would have had to do more
than just shake his hips

While Eisenhower played pocket pool
in line at McDonald's,
true stories fluttered from feather pens
turning page into prose page.