Extraordinary measures would be needed
It was clear, when the Colorado Coal
Strikers lasted through 1913 bitter, unheated
The Baldwin-Phelps whelps well-armed in Ludlow

Knew the air hung low over low-slung guns
greasy gifts a' Gatling and Rockafall-
A' merrily breakin' striker's backs, among
Mother Jones, locked in some cell-ar

Then they expelled her, meanwhile defeat is
listed in deaths, the miner's toll succeeded in
attracting National Guardsmen to Ludlow
where Breakers broke Trinidad strikes with a rope
By rote, the miners cheered the Fed's protection
but Rockafella bought an election
again, and two thousand grand Army fellas
Fell in around Greeks, Italians, and Serbians

who cheered to delusion in1914;
their tents like so much Lakota and Sioux
The sound musta been thunder, pounding more
than say, Kent State, a round for each year between
The Order came through, they knew what to do
13 down, and more mourning left in store

The powder smelled new, the morning's red dew
clung to miner's kin in pits dug below
the tent-line, life below the line of fire for
protection, then the Order came through once more!

(and to lure Lou Tikas to discuss a truce, an auspice witness to comitatus
abuse)

And the dew was wet on G. I. boots between
obscenely torching those sobbing tents
doomed to repeat, at best we'll forget
Twenty-four souls of April, 1914
 
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