Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Thursday, September 04, 2025

MASS SHOOTINGS #3

SAGINAW (AND CHICAGO),  AUGUST 16, 2025

by Ron Riekki




“A woman giving birth to a child has pain

because her time has come;

but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish

because of her joy that a child is born into the world”

—John 16:21


“until they have no meaning anymore and then slowly she says

‘Pain’…………………….”

Daniel Borzutzky, “Painblank”



          i


For three days in a row—

August 30, 31, and September 1—

there were mass shootings

every day

in Chicago.

Four mass shootings

in three days

all in Chicago.

No other mass shootings anywhere in the U.S.

for those three days.

Only in Chicago

three days

straight.

Not much about it on the news.  If at all.

But news on “Southern California battling heat and dangerous rip currents”

and “Powerball Jackpot soaring to $1.1 billion”

and “new safety standard to prevent flying beach umbrellas.”

In those same three days,

there were 33 individual shootings altogether

with 8 people killed

and 50 people with gunshot wounds.

58 people shot in 3 days

in Chicago.

Holiday weekend.

Holiday.

Holy

day.

. . .

And some of the ages

from the Gun Violence Archive

and police reports:

25-year-old female, “left temple, while riding in car”

18-year-old shot “in the leg.”

21-year-old male shot in the “hip.”

& “grandson was shot on the front porch.”

17-year-old female shot in the “arm.”

17-year-old male shot by “rifle.”

15-year-old male shot in the “head.”

22-year-old male shot in the “buttocks.”

And the repetition of the words “pronounced dead.”

I think of the pronunciation of the word ‘dead.’

I think of the aphasia that comes with extreme trauma.

I think of the grief of grief.

I think how the NRA has won: they have created Hell.

It is what they wanted.

It is what they want.

It’s what they have.

And “Age-restricted adult content”

where the history of violence is inaccessible,

because history is pornographic

with its violence

and “The content might not be appropriate for people under 18 years old”

and it discusses the killing of someone under 18 years old.

Irony.

And a gun owner says to me,

“We need guns to protect us from the guns.”

The cycle.

Psycho.

Cycle.

The loop.

In Chicago, I go to The Loop.

Noose.

The news

full of stories

yet absent of stories,

so many of the stories

absent

due to the repetition

where we ignore the repetition og

killed by AR-15.

Killed by assault weapons.

Killed at parties.

By assault weapons.

At parties.

Labor

Day

weekend.

 

 

            ii

 

August 16, there was a mass shooting in Chicago

and a mass shooting in Detroit.

Later, I went to both.

They echoed.

They echo.

In Chicago.

. . .

I worry about the I.

Should I exist in this poem?

The ‘privilege’ of covering mass shootings.

My ignoring the warning of “be careful”

when where I am going is where no one can ‘be careful.’

I arrive.

I try to take myself out of the poem.

I fail.

I go to Chicago first.

. . .

Later, I see two Chicago police.

Turns out they’re not Chicago police.

They’re security.

They look like police,

act like police.

They’re not police.

“Louie Louie” plays on a box that booms.

We’re where it seems all of the lines in Chicago meet.

One of the security’s marked with K-9 Unit on his vest.

I ask if I can talk to him.

He prefers if I don’t.

Says I can talk to ‘him.’

‘Him’ is another security.

I talk to him.

I ask why there was so little police presence back in the day,

twenty or so years ago,

when I lived in Chicago.

He says, “Got more dangerous.”

He says, “They’d be hangin’ out on the train”

“doing robberies”

“assaults”

so they “took on security”

and here they are,

police presence,

except not police.

He says it “lessened assaults,”

their presence,

but it’s “not stopping them.”

I ask about all the mass shootings in Chicago.

At this, he walks away.

At the words “mass shootings,” he walks away;

the conversation is over.

He walks away, but says,

“I don’t know why people do what they do”

and then he’s gone.

. . .

Later,

they stop the train.

A worry there might be a bomb

or something

on it,

a bag that’s unattended

that was reported

and so police start boarding,

actual police,

many police,

and they point to the bag

where no one sits

and a woman apologizes,

says it’s hers.

She sits on the other side of the train,

far away from the bag,

on her phone,

lost in conversation.

They give her her bag.

The train starts up again.

. . .

Where the mass shooting happened,

it’s busy.

It’s daylight.

Another cop tells me not to go there at night.

I don’t go at night.

It’s day.

There’s a bus stop nearby.

An empty field too.

Overgrown grass.

A fence that looks haunted.

Fence that looks like it survived a fist fight.

Leaning tower of fence.

Ineffective fence.

And a haunted-looking house across the street

with its bottom part painted all black

and the fence

also black

with speckles of spray painted white

and Chicago is loud:

brakes, sirens, horns, speeding cars, endlessly loud.

Someone walks by with a Bulls shirt.

The cars are busy.

The people are busy.

Jessica, age 32, talks to me.

She looks much younger than 32.

I ask if she knows about the mass shooting

that happened just days ago

where we’re standing.

She doesn’t.

But she lives nearby,

in the Ukrainian Village.

She’s black.

She talks about someone “killed for his chain”

And how he assumed “they wouldn’t do it to” him.

Do what?

Rob him.

Kill him.

For his chain.

Jessica tells me she’s “pro Second Amendment,”

says she “could have a gun” on her

now.

I ask if she does.

She says she’s “legally able” to.

I ask if that means she’s carrying a gun on her.

She avoids the question.

She talks about how she’s “educated,”

that she’s studying through University of Phoenix online,

and interested in “home ownership.”

She says there is “advantage” to “white men.”

She says she’s “perceived” as a “white woman” when she talks on the phone

so she is “treated differently”

on the phone.

She says people can tell she’s not from Chicago.

I ask how to stop mass shootings.

She says one word: “resources.”

She says that shootings happen because

“respect is something that people trust as more important than money,

more valuable than their own lives.”

She says that “gun culture” is seen as

“cool.”

She says, “the problem is the system.”

She talks about renting

and how you end up owning nothing.

She talks with me a long time.

I don’t realize it’s because she’s waiting for the bus.

The bus comes.

And the conversation is over instantly

with the bus.

There’s a chicken shack across the street.

It’s busy.

Every mass shooting,

it seems like it’s near a place of business

that’s busy,

making money.

$.

I stand there.

It’s loud.

 

 

            iii

 

I go to Saginaw.

300 miles away.

I get there.

It feels the same in a lot of ways.

I’ve been to three sites of Michigan mass shootings in the last three months.

They’re all in urban areas—Saginaw and Detroit—

but feels incredibly rural.

Incredibly isolated,

even in the middle of major city.

And all of the mass shootings,

they have this combination

of a field,

a field

overgrown

empty

abandoned

but nearby

a liquor store—

with beer signs all over it

and large lettering of

BEER * WINE * LIQUOR

LOTTO * GROCERY * EBT

The stores busy.

The customers, all black.

Inside, a worker behind what appears to be long bulletproof glass

and he looks Middle Eastern,

wearing a thick chain

and I ask if he’ll talk about the mass shooting

and he says, “No.”

“No.”

Again, he says, “No.”

He points outside.

I go outside.

I ask a customer if he’ll talk about the mass shooting.

He stands there, staring at me, sizing me up.

I tell him I don’t want names.

I just want to know how we stop violence in black communities.

4 men and 1 woman were shot here.

When I first drove up, instantly, all I saw, coming out of the store:

five children.

Popsicles.

Or empty handed.

Kids.

The customer tells me, “We’ve got something going on here”;

he gets into a car with two others

and leaves.

I walk up to another car—two women in their 60s.

I ask them if it would be OK to talk about how we lessen violence in black communities.

“In communities,” one of the women says,

“Not black communities.  In all communities.”

She gets out, goes inside.  That is all she’ll ever say to me.

The other woman says, “We need them to patrol all day.”

I ask if she wants more police presence.

“Yes.”

She asks me if I’ve seen any police here.

I haven’t.

In Chicago, it felt police were everywhere.

It felt like police were in vehicles

walking patrols

on bikes.

In Chicago, it felt like police were in the grocery stores

and on the train

and in the mirrors

and on your skull.

In Chicago, it felt like Chicago was owned by the constant sound of sirens.

That Chicago is, at its heart, a siren.

Here, Saginaw, I didn’t see any police

from the moment I drove in

to the moment I left,

driving by an elementary school

that wasn’t far from the mass shooting.

I ask her if there’s anything else other than more patrols.

She points to the field nearby,

how overgrown it is.

She’s upset with this,

feels the City doesn’t care about the city.

“Unkempt” is the word she uses.

She talks of beautification.

I tell her the news is reporting that witnesses aren’t collaborating.

She frowns at this,

says she won’t speak to that.

She goes inside the store.

I walk across the street.

A community center.

Empty.

An abandoned building next to it.

Empty.

A chain hangs in front of it,

the weakest attempt at fence imaginable.

It looks like you can just walk in through the abandoned windows.

The word ‘haunted’ keeps coming to me.

Haunted

haunted

haunted haunted.

Telephone lines.

Telephone wires.

A haunted FOR SALE sign.

The haunted sounds of haunted traffic.

Hip-hop in the far distance, with the slow delivery of the MC.

I drive away, craning to look at the elementary school.

The last signs I see:

WARNING    SECURITY CAMERAS IN USE

and

WE NEED YOU        BUCKLE UP



Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.