Some more excerpts from my correspondence with “Conway”, a prisoner at a supermax facility in central California who’s serving 25-to-life under the state’s three-strikes law for receiving stolen goods. For Christmas, I sent him some books he’d requested (Kipling, Thoreau, Blake), and he responded in January with this poem that was inspired by Plate 3 from William Blake’s The Book of Thel:

Bring Me Clouds

The clouds were dancing, playing
disappearing games in the sky
as they softly windswept flew
out of the corner of my eye
I had no recollection of their worth
when they quietly faded away
I wonder do they have a voice
if so, what do they say?
A lonesome tuft of pillowy white
against that bright blue field
floated a vale of powder across the sun
and turned into a shield
This shadow calm and quick did pass
in only but a moment’s time
when the sun peeked back his head
across his golden climb
Twas then I recognoticed [sic]
their silent voices dancing in my brain
though they were absent from my ears
sweet tears are singing inside the rain
hovering flittering without care
Till pregnant there, a storm does bring
a shower on the newborn spring
Those clouds make birds-n-flowers sing
so, you see it’s all by choice
all this is part of the clouds voice…

********

Conway sent me some more poems last month:

Lasher

This inhumane endeavor
inside the ashes of an expired world
dread realm of desired breath
The indignence of exile sucks
what’s right from our hungry sight
swallowing the souls last gasp
into the abyss drawing night
causing the wickedness in the world
to mix, blend and stir together
creating a forever decomposing maze,
cracked walls, sidewalks and
heavy unscribed tombstones
sucking at the soles every step
resenting every place ever known
bringing glory to the keeper
without rules except action
violent ruthless distraction
ruling without conscience.
I would rather be me
with empty cup
Than the whip lasher dead
from the shoulders up…

********

Ruin

   You can see the polished trails, and spots
where human feet, hands have longingly lingered, or
heads have rubbed, tossing-n-turning in exhaustion.
   That rough concrete smoothed and shiny, reflects
those souls lost in this bitter maze.
   Wandering, forever herded like cattle prodded
along in chains, jingling like slave bangles.
   As this wretched machine clinks and clanks, devouring
with steel doors chomping down bite after vicious bite.
   From the inside consummated, slowly
we view our digestion, realizing this concrete and steel
nightmare’s no deal.
   Dead are they, who observe this torment
unmoved from a far away place, with unspoken breath.
   What really is Death, if not dull
like the gray ashes dust, lifted and blown about
nakedly exposed inside a Sun’Ray dancing, for
only a moment away specs performing, reflected
with a stars bright sparkle.
   Those spectacles were once a wall, or being
about this tall, escorted chained, down to that
loathsome execution hall.
   Truly now, they live and play gay in a way,
face the day uninhibited.
   Unlike this steel door, or cold cracked
concrete floor, sucking hard on the lonesome footsteps
of a condemned creation’s last march to ruin…

Here are some more excerpts from my recent correspondence with “Conway”, a prisoner at a supermax facility in central California who’s serving 25-to-life under the state’s three-strikes law for receiving stolen goods.

Dec. 7, 2006

This young black man down the tier. He’s been ostracized by his folk, has been asking me for help in his songs he’s been writing, and a story — it’s very ghetto murder rampage story gangsters in the hood and what not but his songs have some serious merit — he sang two of them to me in the cages, I’m not the one to judge but I see the talent in his words, so I gave him my opinion and offered a direction. He said it helped him take it into another direction he hadn’t realized.

Isn’t it funny how talking with another creative person can give you a new perspective on your own creativity?

The odd thing is in here we are totally segregated and then separated by cages (dog kennels) but I get a chance to converse with characters I would never even speak to on the mainline or in society, it is such a severe microcosm of the world and we’re all out there in our boxers + shirts and state issued tennis shoes, no pretentious clothes or jewelry just personality, and everyone is in search of conversation respectfully. Oh there are the few that are forever hateful, or just broken husks of humanity, but the cops don’t allow them out too often to disrupt the congeniality of the cages if that sounds absurd, it probably would to the outside observer, but I’m starting to enjoy freezin in my boxers in the rain and meeting all these crooks 🙂

The cold thing is I’m not sure if they are aware of the monsters they are creating in these dungeons. It’s hard to watch a man you’ve conversed with and related with, all of a sudden break down, and it reminds me of a scenario, of a scene I saw on TV.

These guys were trying to let this leopard out of a cage it was in the back of a truck they apparently took it on this journey to set it loose after capture. They pulled a string from inside the cab of the truck and it opened the cage the cat leapt out and jumped into the cab with the driver and attacked him. At first you think how ungrateful this belligerent cat is trying to maul his savior. And then you got to realize that cat has probably sat behind those steel bars, or mesh seething, wishing it could lash out at this miserable person who kept it trapped, and when the time comes for its freedom its only thought is revenge, before it even thinks to run, get away from this place.

It’s kind of like that with these guys, they keep them locked in cages, constantly pestering, belittling, making these madmen, and their parole date comes they open the gate and say Go! but they are still behind the fence, so the only ones to lash out at are the unexpecting, unprepared sheep wending their way home after a day’s work in the office, factory or whatever job they use to survive. “The vicious circle” and then the cops point and say See! You need me! Perpetual perpetrators….

Any rage I told you about the “poop stain” [guy] they sprayed him out of his cell with pepper spray after he threw his feces/urine concoction on cops then gave him a tune up in the rotunda, and disappeared. Now they got a guy who kicks his door or did kick his door till he got the “tension cage”. He’s quiet now (somewhat) — he keeps trying to talk to us in the cages they took his shoes so he’s barefoot on the cold concrete. I know he’s suffering but man he tortured us for weeks & weeks before they extracted him I still despise him for putting me throughthat but he tries to catch my eye and it seems he’s pleading with his eyes for someone anyone to talk to him. I know I’m probably out of line to ignore him but we all have decided he’s on the shine for a while — I know I’m probably going to have to be the one to break it down and give him some conversation but not yet, I guess I’m not as compassionate as I’d like to be….

OK now as for you sending books yes please it would be greatly appreciated they allow me to receive 5 books per month….The guy I traded the drawing for Anna Karenina got it from amazon.com — oh you won’t believe this but I just traded that book for Inferno by Dante Alegheri very good book. That guy I traded just ordered The Count of Monte Christo and Cyrano de Bergerac”. I can’t wait to read those when he’s done 🙂  The only thing is we have to tear the books only 50 pages at a time go under the door so we can fish them to each other with lines we spin out of boxer waist band threat so the books even though the binding is ruined then are cherished (if that makes sense at all).

Conway enclosed some poems in this letter, from which I’ve selected the ones below:

Shadow

Artificial lights create shadows
   as the sun’s jealous presence beckons
lingering with dark fingers
   into the cracks of Hell.

Fire flickers and peeks for intruders
   leading even blindness to warmth
see everything must feed
   death be the need for life.

Flame needs fuel, “destruction”
   another tool of life’s construction
cast about on the silhouettes
   of our passing desire to breathe.

Whether we acknowledge complicity
   our signature still lingers
regardless acceptance
   the dying is buying all.
(No matter how big or small.)

So this flickering flame burns brightly
   as the moon turns tightly
around earth’s wrist, giving a twist
   on the sun’s revolution.

How long till tension becomes too tight
   and space reverses in flight
taking back terrific energy spent
   while we all went about our way.

Tomorrow or today it must happen
   we all become the shadow
darkness wins from the sins of living
   how long will your shadow last?


      ********

Kicker

The sonic boom reverberating
in the dayroom echoed in my head
as he kicked the door.

Oh how I wanted to take off his foot
stop his complaining
one day it’s this, the next it’s that
constantly wanting more.

We all were filled with rage
as he stormed about his cage
making a scene, it was his usual routine
until the day they finally got sore.

They came for him that day
filled his cell with pepper spray
good riddance for that I thought,
I smiled as he choked and coughed
wishing him gone
I despised him to the very core.

They dragged him out limp
chained behind his back
trailing the triangle
held by a dozen green suited goons
the ones we all abhor.

They pushed him into the cage
in the dayroom on center stage
and hung the chain from the top
He was begging for them to stop
but it was too late now
This time he’d learn his lesson
His arms were lifted chained
behind his back as he complained
The sight was sorry to be sure.

He couldn’t sit he couldn’t stand
His position was bent over
it was called the tension cage
He cried within moments, I laughed
you see he wasn’t kicking anymore.

After the first hour there
I then became aware
he was sobbing, but repressed
trying to hold it in I guessed
I started to identify
with the plight he had in store.

They left him there till morning
after breakfast and I felt dread
he wasn’t even fed
or, curled up on his concrete bed
Just sagging on the chain crimp
in the dayroom sobbing softly limp
it was pitiful and mean
The worst treatment I’d ever seen
just because he kicked the stupid steel door.

Finally they came in
unchained him from the bars within
as his arms came down he cried
They walked him back to his cell bent over and tied
as he sobbed for he couldn’t stand
but they pulled his purple hand and arms
backward to be uncuffed
and stuffed them through the trayslot in the door.

We all watched and listened
till we all felt a little sickened
what a nasty trick to pull
they hurt that sorry fool
more than I could ever want
it was such a wretched stunt
I wake at night sometimes
and wonder how it could be
what if they did that to me
could I take the pain
or would they break my brain
and then one day it happened
as I looked out my window
out the back of my prison cell
I thought oh they can all go to hell
I ran as hard as I could
But before I reached my destination
I stuck out my foot in desperation
I kicked the door…

Last month I introduced the readers of this site to “Conway,” a prisoner at a supermax facility in central California who’s serving 25-to-life under the state’s three-strikes law for receiving stolen goods. Conway (a pseudonym) is a skilled writer and artist, and an avid reader, despite the difficulty of finding either writing paper or decent books in jail. One would hope that the authorities would be more supportive of an inmate trying to better himself, but unfortunately he often finds them putting up obstacles to his education instead.  Some excerpts from his letters:

Oct. 15, 2006

I just received your letter and the poems. They were all very good. I so much appreciate you sharing them with me. They have nothing at all for reading around here 🙁   so pretty much gotta hear everyone’s war dogs when we go outside to exercise in the cages (kennels).

They don’t allow us to have contact with each other (physical) so we get chained up and escorted to these 10′ x 18′ cages all lined up. So, whomever you’re next to is who you talk with – wow! there are some very strange cats around here….

Possessed

   Barbed wire invades
the edge of this nakedness,
inside my concrete jungle.
   Towers loom the perimeter
flexed giant fists waiting,
to crush the lost wretch.
   Chain link webs surround
hypnotic formless foggy
death traps.
   Strange fears chill
of peering silhouettes
outside-in from hollow giants.
   As vents whistle and moan
terrorizing the hardest of soul
till possession is complete…

Nov. 8, 2006

I started a book (reading) “Anna Karenina” – never read any tolstoy before – he seems to be extremely longwinded; I traded a drawing for the book so got to read it all now 🙂

Haven’t wrote in my story for two weeks now, ran out of lined paper so will have to wait for my sister in Washington to send me some….

Anna Karenina – I’m reading it in the mornings 5:30 a.m. till 7:30 a.m. when the lights come on and everyone is still quiet – they slide our trays through the slot at 7:30 or so and it’s nonstop interference till the lights go out around 10 p.m. They extended my time in the hole another 6 months – some new regulation that if you’ve been sent to the hole 3 times within your sentence then you are assessed an indeterminate SHU (segregated housing unit) so I must remain disciplinary free for six months before I get back out to the main line – whatever! only thing I miss is radio and contact visits….

Rusted Actor

Hulk of skeleton rusting
   vines-n-bramble entertwined
through around over and under
   your aged girth.

Such a monster were you
   with the old man riding
completing your power trip
   the earth was no match.

Now the old man
   has passed, and ages gone
since you’ve been gassed
   with care and love.

Contempt though you had
   for all in your way, shredding
a path with steel spikes
   low gutteral growls, belching
your black breath with fury
   whenever challenged.

O’ the wizards of alchemy
   created such a monster
when they snatched your specter
   from out ore smelting
that demonic frame of bolted gears.

But you’re not so tough
   now that my father shows you
no more concern, even flowers
   mock with indignance unmoved.

I could wake you!
   Maybe someday I will conspire
with your mechanical madness
   just to show those wild interlopers
wrapping your rusted torso.

But for now you shall sleep
   while those bushes and vines creep
through your iron bones
   building your disdain.

I know my father
   would feel your pain but he’s gone
he’s passed you onto me
   so you see only I remember
your destructive glory.

I put you in this story
   old beast I care for you
in the least
   but dare not wake you up
for now.

You remind me too much
   of the love I lost
when my father was tossed
   off your back, you
then crushed him with your track.

Wretched machine!
   you were that dread actor
horrid old tractor, so
   may you rust in Hell…

Since last fall, I’ve been corresponding with an incarcerated writer at a supermax prison in central California who discovered our Winning Writers website. “Conway” (he’s asked that I not use his real name) is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for receiving stolen property, under California’s three-strikes law that imposes life sentences for a nonviolent crime if the defendant has two or more prior felony convictions. The Supreme Court (wrongly, in my view) ruled in the 2003 case Lockyer v. Andrade that such mandatory sentences do not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

From what I can tell from Conway’s rap sheet, his priors were burglary and grand theft auto. Without access to his case history, it’s not for me to judge whether he ought to be at liberty. Nonetheless, as I read his letters, I was struck by his descriptions of unnecessarily brutal prison conditions and his drive to better himself through literature and art, despite the constant interference of guards confiscating his books and writing supplies.

I’ll be posting his poems and excerpts from his letters on this blog from time to time. I’m not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of everything he writes. Read them for yourself and see what rings true. My goal is simply to provoke further inquiry about how we ignore the humanity of the incarcerated.

Cell Widow
by “Conway”

Black spiders build traps on my window,
Their intricate veins with morning dew glow,
gray butterfly caught in deadly net,
a victim devoured by my bloodthirsty pet;

On lines creeping it approaches and overtakes,
the gift of life so simply forsakes,
captured before destiny can finish its flight,
dread spider consumes with sweet delight;

Bonded to be drained drop by drop alone,
abandoned heart bled dry to the bone,
as I watched the tiny wings crumble away,
I felt life’s loss, as I do every day…

***

Hole

steel teeth, cell doors
concrete tongue tasting
my soul wasting
inside locked corridors
concrete wasting
my soul tongue tasting
cell teeth, steel doors
locked inside corridors
wasting my soul
out of control…

***

Life Seeks Relief

This wise old owl must not
be so wise I fear,
for it has chosen to build
a nest in the most absurd
of spots precarious,
the tall menacing tower
where gunners seek targets
human, on barbed perimeter.
A lair of predators on hunt
perpetual, a death stalk
from above, in chain link
spiderweb’ belligerent
boundary of nettle surrounds;
“The no man’s land”
Yet unperturbed/unbiased
this odd creature, then bizarre
occurs to me, as I stare
out my cell window, I realize
how safe the chosen roost,
for the gun towers that menace
my mind, are no threat to
this nocturnal interloper:
Those large eyes stare back
accusingly, every time
I check to assure myself,
unwise owl is safely rested,
realizing it is I who is
unwisely nested…