January 25, 2026: “The Saw, The Drill,” Another Shooting, “Laundry Day”

WARNING;  I am going to be writing about yesterday’s shooting in Minneapolis.  

Another day, another shooting.

Some things are impossible to ignore, and I’m not sure that ignorance is bliss in this situation.  To ignore is to be complicit, and I simply can’t pretend that everything is sunshine and chocolates in the United States at the moment.

A little over two weeks ago, Renee Good was murdered on the streets of Minneapolis by a masked ICE agent whose only response after shooting here in the face was to call her a “fucking bitch.” Yesterday (Saturday, January 24, 2026) a group of ICE agents murdered another innocent protestor in Minneapolis.  His name was Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who worked for a Veterans Administration hospital in the city.  Trying to protect a woman, Pretti was pepper-sprayed, forced to the sidewalk, brutally beaten, and then shot multiple times.  (I’ve watched the video of the killing.  The ICE agents fire at least ten shots into Pretti’s prostrate body in the space of about five or seven seconds.)  After they shot him, one ICE agent can be seen clapping while the others turn Pretti’s body to count bullet holes.

I know I said I was going to try to remain positive in my posts, but I just can’t tonight.  I . . . just . . . can’t.

Marie Howe writes about how humans break things . . . 

The Saw, The Drill

by: Marie Howe

There’s always a chain saw somewhere,

the high whine of a drill, somebody building something or

tearing it down—fastening metal to metal.

When did wood give way to iron?

Then to plastic?

Almost everywhere the sound of the human will:

the bluster of engine, the grind of a blade, the wheel:

hammering, construction, repair.

Someone nailed to a cross, someone leashed, lashed.

Someone hung from a scaffold:  listen:  the squeak of the rope

the hammering.

Kill him with his own gun, a woman shouted,

Kill him with his own gun.

What have we made?  What are we making?

And who or what made us that we should make

such things as we do and did?  We grow smaller.  We break things.

Then turn to each other and beg for what no human can give.

This is a difficult poem for me to read tonight.  It’s all about humankind’s inherent need to break things.  We create, we destroy.  The line that sticks with me:  Kill him with his own gun.  I’m tired of ruthless mercenaries patrolling our streets, tear-gassing and detaining legal protestors, and un-aliving mothers and poets and nurses.  Yesterday, after seeing the video of Pretti’s assassination, I said to my wife, “I don’t recognize the country I live in anymore.”  

As I’m typing these words, I’m trying to formulate a message that isn’t all anger and retribution.  I’m failing miserably because I want these federal thugs to be arrested, convicted, and punished.  The Winter Olympics will be starting in Italy very soon, and, if I were an athlete, I’d be ashamed to represent the United States.  (Keep in mind that the fear and righteous anger we all feel right now is the same fear and righteous anger that African and Indigenous Americans have been experiencing for hundreds of years.)

I haven’t lost hope completely, though.  As Ann Frank said, 

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Ann Frank was right.  The cruelty did end, but not before she was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.  Renee Good and Alex Pretti are martyrs for democracy, freedom, kindness, and compassion.  One day, plaques and statues should be erected in their honor.  They should never be forgotten.  

That is Saint Marty’s hope.  

A poem for tonight . . . 

Laundry Day

for Alex Pretti

by: Martin Achatz

I sit with the normal Saturday-morning crew, watch underwear, socks tumble and agitate as if I’m binging some Netflix series.  Martin and Malcolm have loads going, too, built up after a week of marching and teargas in the Twin Cities.  They huddle in a corner, drink hot coffee, compare notes, bruises, scars from the good old days, wonder when the good old days will end.  Alex comes in, fills a washer with towels and sheets, finds a seat, asks no one in particular, Is this a dream?  Martin and Malcolm laugh, offer him a stick of Juicy Fruit.  All three watch the machines cycle and spin, cycle and spin, trying to remove stains that just won’t come out, even after hundreds of years of scrubbing.

January 10, 2026: New Year, Renee Nicole Good, “They Shoot Poets, Don’t They?”

Greetings, disciples!

Welcome to a new year of Saint Marty.  I have not dropped off the face of the earth.  I have been recuperating from a lengthy holiday illness, and, to be honest, overwhelmed by the state of my country and the world in, general.

Now that the year of Sharon Olds is over for the blog, I will be announcing 2026’s featured poet in the next post.  She is a writer whom I’ve admired for years, and I’m sure you’ll fall in love with her, as well.

Speaking of poets, I, of course, have been so sad and angry and outraged by the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.  I never thought I’d live to see the day that a masked, armed federal agent would be able to shoot an innocent citizen in the face and walk away free.  A poet friend of mine sent me a text yesterday:

Jesus, Marty, Renee Good was one of us.  Poet, parent, liberal.  She could have been me or you . . . and some son of a bitch given a license to kill by [47] shot her three fucking times because she was fleeing his violent little children’s game.  I’m really pissed off.

Yes, Renee Good was a poet, mother, and wife.  She loved her family and neighbors.  And, like most poets I know, she was trying to make the world a better, safer, more loving place.  Like my friend, I am truly pissed off.  I’ve been drowning in a whirlpool of emotions these past few days.

And, like most poets I know, when I am overcome by tragedy or anger, I turn to words to try to sort out my emotions.

Her name was Renee Nicole Good, and Saint Marty honors her tonight , , , 

They Shoot Poets, Don’t They?

by: Martin Achatz

for Renee Nicole Good

Stop.  Just stop.

Stop being angry or outraged.

Stop jamming fingers or guns in faces.

Look into those faces instead, white or brown,

into those eyes, blue or brown, see

what you can’t see when whistles

scream in your ears, when tear gas

makes your eyes and noses weep.

See a mother who drives

her six-year-old son to school,

shoves his stuffed T-Rex into 

the glovebox so it’s there to greet

him at the end of the day.  See

a wife who needs to pick up

toilet paper and cheese and ketchup

from Kroger.  See a neighbor

who drops off a pan of lasagna

when the man next door loses

his 55-year-old spouse in the middle

of the night to a heart attack.  And

see a poet who sends words out 

into the universe, watches them dip, 

swirl, circle, away and away, 

pollinating, spreading, wildflowering 

until everyone is honeyed in beauty.