“If you’re not connected emotionally to a story,
then you’re dead.”
—Paul Feig
“Help is what he’s most short on tonight.”
—Raymond Carver,
“Stupid”
Driving to the Iowa Writers Workshop summer program,
I’m listening to the Rattle podcast; Tim Green asks a poet,
“How do you know when a poem is dumb?” or, at least,
that’s what it sounded like to me, so I leaned in, listening,
wanting to know when a poem is stupid, which, honestly,
is a good thing to know, when you have written some-
thing idiotic, and being able to recognize it, so I loved
the question, then realized, from the answer by the guest
that he’d asked, in fact, “How do you know when a poem
is done?” And I know I’m done. Listen, Michigan, I know
you’re one of the top places in the world for gun violence,
but I’m done. I know we’ve had two $%^&ing mass shootings
in the last two days—5 shot on July 4, and 4 shot on July 5—
5 injured in Mount Clemens, at, yup, another block party, a 10-
-year-old girl shot, at 11:11 p.m., the final @#$%ing hour, because
the mass shooters won’t quit, are insane with rage, endlessly,
and I chatted with a waitress today and she’s dedicating her life
to reducing violence, works with domestic violence, but, also,
she’s a waitress, because of the pay, but she’s dedicated, and
I’m exhausted, and we exchange numbers, talking about how
men who want to reduce violence need to partner with women
who want to reduce violence, and I find out about another mass
shooting on July 5 at Madison Church in Grand Rapids, at
a goddamn church, because Michigan is a hydrogen jukebox,
and a deafening silence, and old news, and a good grief, and
a living oxymoron without the oxy-, low oxygen levels in
the brain. And there’s a scene in Apocalypse Now, a movie
I watched for the first time when I was in the military,
staring at the screen, alone, my bunkmate’s piece-of-crap
TV, VHS, in horror, realizing I volunteered for this world
of hell, watching the film pre-Desert Storm, unknown future,
with a scene in the film where I stopped the tape, the only
scene where I rewound, the scene of the actor screaming,
“I’m not going, I’m not going, I’m not going!” because
it was me. And then he gets pulled off the helicopter.
You’re going. You’re going to die. Fate. Except, Michigan,
I’m done. I’m dumb. I’m not going. I’m smart. I’m done
with your dumb mass shootings, Michigan. 40% of Michigan
households own guns. And I’m done with the suicides of
your children, Michigan. I’m done with your husbands
killing your wives, Michigan. I’m done with the story
of a dog accidentally setting off a shotgun and shooting
its owner, the multiple stories of that happening, more and more
knowing gun = dumb, because gun owners’ houses are filled with
suicides and homicides and are Far Side comic strip
madness that they choose. Gun owners, Death awaits you.
Enjoy your guns. I’m done. I’m not going. This is stupid.
The End.
Editor’s note: Ron Riekki covered all seventeen mass shootings in Michigan from July 4, 2025 through July 3, 2026 for The New Verse News.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.