Strategic confidence

Forty years ago today Attica rose up

Since then 600 million children starved to death

Pelican Bay Comrades we’ve had enough

A Revolution sparked by refusing pig lunch

Cover this one up, oppressor

We’ve had enough.

Supermax solitary chokeholding Attica’s sons

Gray-faced and pale captives dying alone

Bricks and steel sucking the life out of everyone

Clench-fisted against imperialism we die as one.

Bring in your army and mow us down

Manufacture a cover-up you plutocrat clowns

Each one of our body bags more heavy

And sacred

Than a billion of your fascist small towns

Red flags draped over true soldiers’ coffins

Reminiscent of those buried beneath Kremlin Gates

Red dawns rising like earth under stampeding buffalo

Another empire crushed poetically-

Like the Greek Goddess of fates.

Forty years today Attica rose up

And for the first time ever  today

One captive voice echoed the world over

As one

One Lung

We’ve had enough

9/14/2011

9/26/2011: PBSP hunger strike commences

My idol

It’s mid-December. You wake up curled tightly in a ball. On your left side in the fetal position. Both hands tucked tightly between your knees. Someone’s banging on your door. You open your eyes. You’re naked. Laying on cold cement.

“Get on your knees. Go to the back of your cell and kneel down. Interlock your fingers and place your hands on your head. That’s a direct order.” A voice screams at you. 

It’s breakfast. In order  for you to receive Your Rotten Bologni you must comply. You attempt to comply. To uncurl yourself from your fetal position. You can’t. Your neck is jacked to the left, stuck in a muscle cramp. You cry out. Spittle runs in a gluey string from your mouth. Down your cheek. Into your hair on the cement. “Ahhh.”

“Pussy. Lay there like the dog you are. Bet you’re hungry. What is it, a week since you ate? Good. I hope you die. You bastard…” The voice laughs. Closes the cuffport. Locks the window-flap. Walks off.

A tear runs down your cheek. Into your spittle. Into your hair. You still can’t move. For the past two weeks, twice a day, officers and medical technicians have shot you up with Thorazine and Haldol. You beg them to please don’t. You don’t want it. Please. No.

The door opens. Several officers and a nurse enter your cell. They are talking about the TV-show “Survivor.” A foot nudges your side.  The needle enters your buttocks. Empties. They stand around talking about “Survivor,” looking at you.  One guard kicks you. Laughs. They depart now talking about “American Idol.”

The drug slowly starts to take effect. You unfurl. One leg stretches toward the ceiling. The moaning starts. From deep in the pit of your stomach long, peeling, unearthly animal moans. You can’t stop. Your leg won’t go down. It cramps into a “Charlie horse.” Sweat breaks out on your face. Another day. Solitary Supermax.

At about noon the guards find you with your face in the toilet drinking dirty water. You see, you are unable to stand and reach the sink. Though; the water is shut off even if you could reach the faucet. It took you all morning just to drag yourself over to the toilet. If you don’t drink, you’ll die. 

“Get on your knees. Go to the back of your cell and kneel down…” Laughing. Shutting. Walking away.

You have about four hours to drag yourself to the back of your cell and attempt to kneel. Rotten Bologni sounds damn good right about now. As you crawl, slither, cramp and moan your way, you wonder:

“How will I be able to even chew. My jaw is cramped open and won’t shut.”

“The last captive to use this toilet had Hepatitis. Damn!”

”I hope Keri Underwood wins American Idol. She’s one of the finest. ..”

In strength (the beat goes on) and struggle,

B.

I am Bradley Manning!

Brandon sent us this kite to make a collage (see in the side bar) with his photo of the Utah DOC in support of pcf Bradley Manning.

One Day

One of these days we will rise above this place
Even if we have to crawl there
Even with these ink stains on our face.

One of these days these pills will be taken away
These pains and depressions
Cured in a single strenuous exercise session.

One of these days these walls will return to dust
Mankind will live under a mellow maybe
Instead of this boot-clicking must.

A “sinners” psychosis replaced
With a beginner's
Misunderstanding

Those elbows and eye-gouging rat races replaced
With a homegrown tomato
Picked and eaten with family

One of these days all these chains and handcuffs
Melted into hand shovels, hoes or rakes

One of these days we will die
Our tears and skin will disappear

One of these days I willl forget missing you
I'll forget you're not here

One of these days
One day
One day
One day we will learn
One day
...
------------------------------------------
5-18-2011

Ten-Hut!

One of us is 54 and talks to jehovah. Literally. He has scurvy and crawls around his cell on his hands because his legs have atrophied.

One of us is 74 and was a part of a famous prison riot back in the day. Attica. He hasn't had a haircut or a shave for ten years. And this man tells me never once was he given a book. A whole decade. Sometimes we hear him moaning and falling and throwing stuff around his cell. He says he gets mad because his body cramps up. And he has to lay there. Cramped.

One of us is deaf. We hear him singing. It's not pleasing. Officers choose no to feed this man his vegetarian meals occasionally because they like to watch him fight the S.W.A.T. Team.

One of us is legally retarded and on several psychotropic medications. He has been cut down from nooses over a dozen times in the past five years. Again literally. This man, or boy, needs to be “talked to” all day by one of us or he becomes depressed. We take turns babysitting.

One of us is a confidential informer with a speech impediment. He's secured his early release by snitching on people with 'brew' and tattoo needles. All day long one can hear him pacing his cell barefoot. Pat pat pat. Thump thump thump. Sometimes he yells. Sometimes he cries. Pat thump thump.

One of us just tattood a swastica on his left cheek with a single pin and brown ink. The other cheek has two lightning bolts that signify the nazi SS. This man's an ex-marine and he stutters. He's working on “white power” above his eye brows. Better hurry though.
The snitch has stopped pacing.

One of us is here for killing his four year old daughter. He swears he didn't do it. His ex-wife did. Yet she doesn't write him... soon this man will be a solid aryan brother. Like the stutterer. It's funny. They both are ex-marines.

One of us used to be 370 lbs. He sniffs anti-depressants (wellbutrin) all day to keep the weight off. Though he says the skin still hangs. Sniff. Sniff.

One of us was born with half a brain. And the other half was injured i na motorcycle accident. The snitch and the swastica guy spend all day belittling him. And taking his towels and pictures and envelopes. sometimes he pulls his sprinkler in his cell when they talk him into doing it.

One of us has small strokes occasionally and can't speak for hours. When he tries to talk, it's nonsense. Words backwards. He says, when able, his back and knees hurt. Soon, he'll be crawling.

Most of us believe we are “sinners” and deserve all this. Most of us just can't wait until the medical people bring pills. It's when they when they wake up and go to sleep. A sort of poison alarm clock. Most of us get out and come right back. And the really sick part? Most of us think we are cool. God Bless Amerikka.

In strength (sniff sniff tap tap) and struggle,
B.
 5-18-2011

Alone Strong

I sit doing ten years for a gram of dope

Witnessing Johannes Mehserle get probation for murder.

I sit watching men starve to death

Witnessing guards who can´t even alight a flight of stairs,

Because they´re too fucking fat.

I sit in a country that told me to stay in school

And educate yourself.

In a cell where they won´t give me a book.

I was told in my youth to just say no

To drugs.

And now that I refuse their psychotropics,

They refuse me parole.

They told me to Love Thy Neighbor,

Like you Love Yourself.

And now I watch my countrymen shoot Mexicans,

Swimming the border.

I sit in the Land of the Free,

Rattling my chains

Waiting

I see the hypocrisy and the bitter twisted lies

Do you?

I sit alone

7.4 million strong

Knowing nothing more than to carry on

Nothing more than my country´s wrong

Knowing nothing – nothing´s at all wrong

To you

… 

(Feb.´11)

Gone fishing

It´s not me who stinks – it´s this place.

Not me who´s crying – it´s my face.

I sleep here but I don´t live here

Even though I don´t ever leave – I don´t stay here.

I watched one of my friends be buried February second

My Mama´s cousin died – and I delivered her a Valentine´s present

I held the hand of my Baby nephew Gage

As we caught fish in the North Creek river

By hand.

We picked “picture rocks” out of the gritty fish smelling sand.

My father paroles any time soon.

Our tent and fishing poles are just waiting

You wanna come – there´s room

I visited my brother Jesse in the Beaver County Jail

Him and I still can´t get along – oh well

But when I left I still miss him

I´ll still hug him the next time I see him.

My baby sister has got two babies

Gavin´s three months and I swear he´s crazy

He spits and kicks and giggles too much

He ruined my work shirt and poked in my lunch.

Everyone thinks of me as gone – not returning.

My captors think I´ve lost it – afraid to serve me

My fellows are mad without their medication

Trying to prove themselves in every situation

Games and fronts and insecure rantings

Solitary supermax – but in reality I´m camping

Firewood, campfire smoke – my family laughing

Woodchucks, pheasants - my family still laughing

(you see?)

(February 2011)