ASSANGED

by Lisa Seidenberg

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has signed an order to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (above) to the United States, where he faces espionage charges, in a decision his organization said marked a "dark day for press freedom." —CNN, June 17, 2022

For publishing classified documents

Of military strikes on innocents

Hits on civilians and wartime blunders

In Iraq and Afghanistan, in shocking numbers

It was not a surprise they took him down

Debating if he is journalist

Assange was a one man wanted list

Sheltered for years in the Embassy of Equador

Until they booted him out the door

His mental state, on view, alarming

But, even so, could still be quite charming

Befriended Pamela Lee, a Hollywood alum

Then fathered two babies and married their mum

While passing the hours awaiting a decision

By London magistrates on his extradition

Why does one choose a life so perilous

When most of us risk so much less?

Or did Julian not know what fate would hold

For one who opted to be so bold

To defy the FBI 

And the CIA

To imagine they would look the other way?

In a more principled world - but not today.

Present day martyrs like Assange and Navalny

Join those in history who took a stand

And paid a high price with stern reprimand

For the crime of speaking truth to power 

And not run away—or cower

I would not do so but let us pause to admire

Those who step out of line and into the fire.

Lisa Seidenberg is a writer and filmmaker residing in Connecticut. Twitter: @Leeside33

KINESIS

by Andrés Castro

For Julian Assange

Under a falling red sun, 

     in the stench of decomposing

leaves and muddy 

dark earth,

     He turns over a stone. See!

     Circling white centipede—

Dancing black spider—

     Tangle of worms

 scrambling.

 

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in the Directory of Poets and Writers. His work appears in the recently released anthology We are Antifa: Expressions Against Fascism, Racism and Police Violence in The United States and Beyond and he keeps a personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation. 

LEAK (OUT)

by Alejandro Escudé

Couldn’t he have moved to Ecuador? Surrounded by parrots and monkeys,
and colonial era churches? Instead, bearded, he was ushered

into a police van in London, and I pictured Sherlock Holmes standing off to one side,
a grin on his pointy face, pipe in hand, uttering something cheeky.

How else to process this 9/11 man? This walking man-virus
who somehow snatched the biggest governments on Earth
like a father might snatch his little son by the ear, dragging them to their perspective rooms.

White-haired wizard now, Assange protested his apprehension,
London traffic like a street scene in Thomas the Train;

because this time is…and was…a cave full of glittering fossils, mandibles of early hominids, skulls or skull fragments, roaring time signatures,
blue birds oozing from fissures in the once-dark ceilings.

Ecuadorians said Assange's residence was no longer tenable. A tree, alabaster white,
growing in his room, the roots digging deep, reaching for the planetary pole,
emailed enigmas, evil conspiracies,

a G-Man in Dealey Plaza, bullets screaming past, halting
mid-air, like satellites approaching the black hole of history,

and there, Assange, naked, albino, crucified on a hill outside the city’s firewalls.
I want to ask him what was the ultimate secret
he was searching for? I want to stroll over the glassy Thames
with him, like a heavenly correspondent
interviewing an implacable terrorist, the devil made flesh, a fiberoptic alien,

and just listen to the diatribe of his breathing,
and feast on what he sought, and probe as to what he’d embezzled
from the pressing otherness of our voiceless governments.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

HACKING ENTERTAINMENT

by Catherine Rauchenberger Conley

‘Game of Thrones’ cast gets no scripts after HBO hack: In recent seasons, actors got their parts through verified email. Then, a few months ago, HBO was hacked and various show files were stolen. The culprits demanded a ransom of several million dollars to prevent episodes from being leaked online. According to [Nikolaj] Coster-Waldau [who plays Jaime Lannister] security for this final “Game of Thrones” season is the tightest yet. Actors in each scene are equipped with earpieces and are fed their dialogue to deliver, line by line. “We’re not even going to get the script,” he said. —Page Six, October 13, 2017

Sometimes,
you let the cat out of the bag.
Other times,
you close the barn door after
the horses have escaped.
In neither event,
Is the past recoverable.

So too with hacking—
It is only discovered,
after the deed is done,
and Everyone knows,
and investigations are launched,
and fingers are pointed,
and security is weakened,
and homelands are sacrificed.

No matter the findings,
the consequences have
run their course,
and whatever the sanctions,
the punishment will never
bring us back to the halcyon days
of happy ignorance and anticipation.

And the hackers become both
Pariah and Hero depending on which
side of the aisle you stand
and how the latest revelations
painted your actions or those
of your idols and enemies.

Except for the latest breach, denounced
By All and which will be prosecuted to
The. Fullest. Extent. Of. The. Law.
Because who cares about what
Edward Snowden might release when
Jon Snow plot spoilers are at risk,
And even Julian Assange knew better
Than to reveal the secrets of Queen Cersei—
For the public is only truly appalled if
Anyone should have prior knowledge
Of what Tyrion, Daenerys, or Jaime,
Might have in store for you next season.

Catherine Rauchenberger Conley is a poet, writer, crafter and high school English teacher. She lives in Queens, New York with her husband and cat. The former supports her writing interests; the latter steals her pens. More of her writing can be found in Tuck Magazine or on her blog. Twitter @CatherineConl18 Instagram @alycatcreations1