Ludlow. Poem by guy lipmore

It was April twenty,
A day of reckoning and of infamy.
The year was nineteen fourteen,
Unfolding terror and finally a tragic scene.
Workers pursue strike actions,
For better pay and conditions.
Also for union recognition,
Months into their situation.
Mr Rockefeller and Co,
Had tried to stop the ‘defiant’ show.

For the Miners, tents were provided,
To service the company, hundreds resided.
Company ordered their militia to surround,
Families hid in the ‘earth’ from gunfire and real flames around.
Frustration boils, tense situation erupts,
Into a disastrous series of events.
Company bullets fly into tents and overhead,
Women and children are among the dead.
Where they had cowered in their ‘fox-holes, ’
The massacre of thirteen Ludlow souls.

The inevitable repercussions,
Amid recriminations and retributions.
Both sides suffered, possibly two hundred more fatalities,
Over ten days, the situation created more casualties.
Congressional investigations, recommendations,
Committees, new conditions and regulations.
Passed in to law ‘eight hour’ day and ‘child labour’ laws enshrined, ’
These are safe now! But other rights are eroded or undermined.

Yes even now almost an hundred years later,
And those workers fight against Mr. Rockefeller.
Nothing has drastically changed for all workers, on goes their fights,
Against companies and business to ‘maintain’ and further their rights.
Is it strange that the massacre, most never knew about, still do not know?
The sorry story and the lives lost at Ludlow!

23/07/12