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| Image source: US Uncut |
Thousands of Detroit residents are facing a reality rarely seen around the Great Lakes: Life without water. But a Canadian group is leading the charge against a controversial plan to stop water service on delinquent accounts. The bankrupt city is shutting off water at a rate of 3,000 residents per week. It also recently increased water rates by nine per cent. Nearly half of the 329,000 accounts are in arrears and the average cost of a Detroit water bill is double the national average. Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, flagged Detroit's plan to deal with delinquent accounts to the United Nations earlier this year. The UN calls the plan to shut off water a clear violation of human rights. "I've seen this in the poorest countries in the world," Barlow said. "This is what we call failed states, but to see this in North America, it's a disgrace." --CBC News, July 3, 2014
City of Philip Levine’s brother
waiting in the unemployment line
all who can are leaving now
Somebody blew up America
Amiri said
it’s just happening in slow motion
I want to say in history it was religion
than the state and now corporations
oligopoly trickling down but that just wouldn’t be
poetic
Somebody shut off the water in Detroit
and there’s no recourse now
It’s not the man / It’s not the machine no
more
Somebody blew up America in slow motion
run duck and cover
like the good ol days
when all we had
to fear
not fear not ruskies
just the good old days
when the bomb started ticking
and now the best jobs in Detroit are
scavenging old buildings for copper
wiring to sell to salvage to sell
to chinese dealers the last best
investors in America’s infrastructure
Somebody turned off the water in Detroit
and not just to the 40,000 abandoned homes
and feral packs
of dogs running the streets
all those good ol pooches let loose
and alone
by those who could fleeing/fled/gone from
the rotting
Somebody turned off the water in
DE - TRoiT mo town blues
Blazing Blurry Bleary cry
foreshadowing they call it
when I want to say morning in america
But they knew it was really sunset
you know (that whole shtick) darkest before
the you know the rest
Can’t we all just agree water is
a basic communal good
Somebody call the U.N.
Somebody’s blowing up America in
slow motion
and hey it’s happening to everyone now
not just the browns the blacks and the reds
Author’s note: The works referenced in the poem are: "What Work Is" by Philip Levine, "Somebody blew up America" by Amiri Baraka, and "Vice Scrap or Die - Metal thieves are tearing Cleveland apart piece by piece."
Steve LaVigne runs a local poetry group in Champaign Illinois. We meet weekly to discuss, create and share poetry in order to build community through the power and practice of poetry.