DANIEL

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Daniel Ellsberg, Whistleblower Who Exposed Top-Secret History of the Vietnam War, Dies at 92 —Slate, June 16, 2023. Photo: Dr. Daniel Ellsberg speaks to reporters Dec. 22, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland. PAUL J. RICHARDS/Getty Images via Slate.

I believe that to be a proper critic 
you need to lead a platoon through 
the shit 
 
and sit on every side 
of the table 
read the cables 
from embassies and fire 
bases 
compose a dissertation
on aptly named Decision 
Theory 
 
then join a think tank that took 
its name from something as light 
as Research and Development. 
 
Nor would it hurt to graduate 
from Harvard 
and possess an IQ north 
of the notes a Stradivarius 
hits in the hands of prodigious 
digits that can clean an M1 
beneath a blindfold 
like Jim Brown’s men 
aboard the U.S.S. Tigerfish
in one of those Cold War consensus 
flicks.
 
Daniel had it all 
Ooh Rah 
entering the Corps 
because he was no paper 
lion but under General Lansdale 
read every last word emitted by the Pentagon 
and courted charges under the Espionage Act 
from men who believed the original sin 
of American freedom was journalism.
 
But before people say 
he was just another Eastern
Establishment Jew like Kristol 
Bell Glazer or Chomsky 
bear in mind Harvard had quotas 
 
and Daniel grew up in Detroit 
the same city where Philip Levine 
discovered Garcia Lorca 
who spoke of what was inside 
forgotten little animals 
 
when he lived in Gotham 
 
but that could have been Hanoi 
Hue or the Iron Triangle where Annam 
Chorus Frogs warned peasants by their silence 
 
Daniel defoliated the pretensions 
of National Security 
and for interests of state 
we cannot now forget to say 
 
Requiescat in pace
or better yet 

hold for him a Minyan.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. Recent work appears/will appear in Rattle, Terrain.org, Belt Magazine, and Poetica Review among other places. 

SOMEBODY SHUT OFF THE WATER IN DETROIT

by Steve LaVigne

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.