A MURDER MOST FOUL

by Christina Pacosz




Jimmy they're digging up the earth again
to find you,  a Valentine's Day baby
from the Hoosier state.
An old farm of disturbed earth. Not even a barn remains.
I am crying at the news.  Startled by my tears.  So much went down with you.
July 30, 1975.  Nixon, for chrissakes, pardoned you.  You did your time.
Your  children mourn you still.  Your daughter, the retired Missouri judge,
says she is grateful to the FBI for trying to find you.
A bone fragment, a bit of hair. Something.  You were a man others turned to.
You understood the word solidarity as something in your bones. Your blood. They could kill you
but not that.   The Oakland County sheriff calls your disappearance an open wound for Detroit.
You made the Teamsters the biggest union ever and used your clout until they took you out.
You.  Hoffa.  Your son still runs the union.
This isn't pop history but a midden heap, a litany of woes you tried to fix
so what if you wanted to get yours?


Born and raised in Detroit by working-class Polish-American parents, Christina Pacosz’  poetry/writing has appeared in literary magazines and online journals for almost  half a century. A poet-in-the-schools and a North Carolina Visiting Artist, she has published several books of poetry, including Greatest Hits, 1975-2001, Pudding House, 2002, a by-invitation-only series.  Her chapbook, Notes from the Red Zone, originally published by Seal Press in 1983, was selected as the inaugural winner of the ReBound Series by Seven Kitchens Press in 2009.

THE WIRETAPPERS BALL

by Deborah Gang

An FBI internet surveillance unit will collaborate with the coming NSA data center in Utah to decipher and monitor email between private citizens. Homeland Security recently began to monitor social media using version 2.1.3 key words & search terms.*

Some are obvious. Do not use assassination, 

Taliban, bomb, bomb squad, bomb threat.

Al Qaeda (all spellings). But electric? Blackout. 

Metro. Power. Smart? Is it worth the risk to say

failure? Dock. Airport. Airplane and its derivatives. 

Cancelled. Delays. Flood. Snow. Blizzard.

Why, these are some of your necessary words--

everyone’s necessary words. If you suffer blizzards

you need to talk about them and if you don’t, you

need to gloat. Wildfire. Ice. Stranded. Stuck.

Temblor. All suspect. Use sleet at your own risk 

along with plague. Plume. Enriched. Collapse. 

They have marked the best words as hazardous. 

Including hazardous. Breach. Mudslide. Grid. San Diego!

Say goodbye to relief and closure. And cyber terror.

Cyber terror is not to be used.         Warning

is on the list. 



*Sources: 

• "The Department of Homeland Security Is Searching Your Facebook and Twitter for These Words" by Joel Johnson, Animal New York, February 27, 2012.
• "The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)" by James Bamford Wired, March 15, 2012.
• "Avoid these words to prevent Homeland Security from spying on your social networks"
  --Technology News Blog by Tecca, Today in Tech, Yahoo! News, May 29, 2012.
• "U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens" by Julia Angwin, The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2012.

Originally from Washington D.C., Deborah Gang moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan to attend graduate school and remained there, both for her work as a psychotherapist and the proximity to Lake Michigan. Her research has been published in Education and Treatment of Children and her prose and poems in Literary Mama, Encore, The Michigan Poet and J Journal (CUNY).