Greetings to realness people of love, peace and forgiveness from The Peace Gang. I hope all of you are still sending those power vibes and thoughts out for peace. The madness continues in Irak. I hope realness thoughts and vibes will take over. There is no free press in America either. All of the networks are being fed by the government. I knew that already. Because real media have been barred from coming into California prisons and the press has not put up any fight to change that policy. The prisons don´t allow positive film project to take place, but are quick to display something negative on prisoners.
I´ve finished my book again and have added that Crook street dimension. I´m putting excerpts in this newsletter from my book and I hope you all will see and feel the realness of it. I think I´ve finally got it down properly. If you have any comments about the excerpts or anything else in my newsletters be free to write to me. I´m open to any realness flow and exchange or ideas.
I just found out that a friend and an inspiration from my "Waiting for Godots" days and the Beckett project, Martin Esslin, has passed on, and is now somewhere or in the same place as Samuel Beckett. Martin Esslin, of the U K, wrote the absurd theater and taught drama at Stanford University in USA before he retired back home to England. I´m sure Beckett and Esslin wherever they are still teach, write and appreciate drama. Martin came to one of our "Waiting for Godot" performances at San Quentin. Afterwards we kept in contact. I wrote him about his book. I had also right after the performances been sent to a work prison by San Quentin prison, and was a bit discouraged. I wrote and asked Martin for advice about my poetry, and he encouraged me to send my work out and keep pushing it to the next level. He stated "I think your poetry is most interesting and deserves to get published". Thanks to my Swedish brother Michel Wenzer I have made it to that next level. I had written Martin Esslin to let him know about this next level, and his daughter, Monica Esslin, informed me, that Martin died in February 2002. She told me that Martin had told her a great deal about the work with me and my colleagues, Samuel Beckett and Jan Jonsson back at San Quentin. I was happy to hear that the U K donated Martin´s library to one of the Oxford colleges, and that each year an avantgarde play will be performed in his memory!
I remember Judith Tannanbaum sent me the Esquire of May 1990 issue about Samuel Backett´s death. I wrote a couple of poems, actually I think there were three, for Beckett, and I shared them with Martin Esslin, Barney Rosett, Beckett‚s publisher, and also Jan Jonsson. Martin wrote back. "I have read them with great interest and was very moved by them. It is very sad that Sam Beckett is no longer with us to have read them with egual emotion. I am sure he would have responded with great appreciation". So it is with great honour I now rededicate these poems to Martin Esslin and Samuel Beckett, who both keep magic, realness and drama alive! Thank you Monica Esslin for letting me know what happened.
MUDDY BLUE
Dedicated to Martin Esslin
and Samuel Beckett
"Nobody comes, nobody goes; it´s awful"
The whole sky, the whole world moving
twisting muddy blue.
I played Pozzo a billion years ago
yesterday, San Quentin, and
waited for Godot
saying, "That´s how it is on this bitch of an earth".
Death rode a torrent sea storm
raw meat
Echo´s bones and others
precipitated
whoroscope
Endgame played on life´s last stage
in the pure noise of silence.
Birth flourishes in the sun rain
What eyes, I have no eyes
I can not see
embers and all that fall
and come and go
digging, digging, down, down
around and around
indefatigable Esslin, Beckett and Godot
writing, writing in darkness
with a flickering candle
to bring us light
their canvas, zenith and visions
to bring us empty heavens.
Shrinking man, the earth
is like a rock
everyone performing his own long
monologue
in inescapable cells
habitual person alights
against no time
his stage reduced to the essence.
Hollow bones seeking marrow
high-brows, hoboes and misers,
audiences, actors and prisoners
no longer alone in a visable prison
accepted as human instead of monsters,
the same spotlight on all
the whole of humanity incarerated
evaporated into a long timeless moment.
No tomorrows, yesterdays or todays
no pedantic words, no facade or thinking
no fart or feelings to hide pond
where we look at ourselves
reduced to rubble, navedness
as far as the eyes can´t see
empty stages, vapid man, blank chairs
where we dared to be all that
we are not to be.
Happy days, more pricks than kicks
sky sucks it self out of existence
indefinable, indescribable, indefatigable
forever living words, drama and music,
the mythological twist of Esslin, Beckett and Godot
Copyright© 1990 by Spoon Jackson
CHAIR
Dedicated to Martin Esslin
and Samuel Beckett
Soft chairs of the most elegant
duck feathers and down.
It was an ancient chair light
and heavy in places
it needed to be
made from the choisest pieces
of the cypress tree.
He did not want a new chair
for the old one was comfortable
and plane in the places
it needed to be,
not like a new chair
where one suffers through
illusions of fancy.
He sat in darkness
writing, writing with just
a candle´s flickering light,
always facing north
and the tinted windows
he could not reach to see
out of
even when he stood up.
There was only the cloudless sky.
He sat hard in his chair
and dreamed that he´d never
woken up or dreamed
that he´d dreamed no more.
All day he sat there.
He felt he had no choise
when day followed heavy
on night and night on day.
Copyright© 1990 by Spoon Jackson
HOW DID I SIN?
Dedicated to Martin Esslin
and Samuel Beckett
How did I sin?
I was not born
into sin,
I was born out of love
How did i sin?
I am not Adam
nor the apple he bit.
I´ve never been to Eden
nor made love to Eve.
My eyes have always been
open to see
what is and isn´t
How did i sin?
I was never cast
out of heaven,
nor have I dwelt in hell.
For there has always
been love
even when my actions
may not have shown it.
Perhaps I do not
deserve praise
for being born
but surely I do not
deserve blame.
Copyright© 1990 by Spoon Jackson
DAILY EVENT
We have been on lock down now for three weeks, which means we are confined to the cells twenty four hours a day. But this is a stange lockdown, because there have been no fights or roits and no prison guard has gotten in fight with prisoners. On all the other prisons I´ve been to, the prison officials post a memo as to why you are on lockdown. But here on PVSP they don‚t do that. And just want you to feel harassed and make you feel like you are not a human, and have no rights other than breathing. They have canceled visits for two weekends so far, and are giving no explanation to concerned families and friends when they call to inquire about the situation.
They have painted all the windows so we can not see what they are doing on the yards. The real reason, I think, why we are on lockdown, is that prison officials can collect overtime and so called Haggardous pay, even though again nothing dangerous has happened. They have cut down the already small tastless food rations. They are suppose to run showers every three days but it´s been five or six days since last time now. We are supposed to get one hot meal a day, but there are no hot meals. I remember at Lancaster prison each building had a stearin tray in it to make sure we got hot meals. Showers came regulary too. And that prison did not lock you down on whims and neither did San Quentin.
Granted this is prison, and we are put in prison as punishment, not to be punished. I remember we used to have programs at San Quentin, you know reading books for the blind. They brought kids in for us to try to detour from crime. We raised money for child abuse shelters, among other things. But they don´t allow such things in this prison. If we as human beings in prison have something positive to say and contribute to free society, we ought to be allowed, and even encouraged to do so.
A new friend of mine, Morton, wrote me a letter saying, that unfortunately the American correction system is an industry model of prison system and laws, where sentences sometimes are prolonged for virtually nothing and that this model is being adapted step by step all over the world, pressing hard to get more people in jail for less crime. I wrote back and told him American is set up to promote slavery, genocide of colored people and is an apartied system. Today there are over a million people in prison in America. Anyway I told Morten he must not allow that to happen in Norway, and people of love, peace and forgivness must not allow that globalisation of American prison system that Morten said is to eat its way all over the world. The system does not work and is racially and class based.
I hear now we are on lockdown, so they can search cells and they have made it here to cell block 2 after 14 days. Normally, if nothing happenes, you are not put on lockdown to search cells. They search a few cells then rest every twenty minutes. The next shaft come in and they do no searching. They say we will get off lockdown as soon as they are done searching.
They were down here four or five days ago. We are still on lockdown. I guess they are searching their own pockets for something to be real about. I have started my cell workout routine but I miss running. I had just started a running program, but the push ups, back arms and stomach work will do for now. I have plenty of material to read and write and realness thoughts and letters to ponder.
BIRD STUFF
I found out what was up with the crows that were ran from their nest on the light pole, in the vocation/main kitchen area of the prison. These crows had their nests and had raised their young there for years. The prison officials decided to roll the lights down the tall pole and took down the old pairs nest, and put something up there called screamers, strips of red/ white/ silverish blue aluminium type paper, that make noise in the wind. And they placed all around the cirkle of lights and raised it back up. So that is the reason the crows came to the main yard , with its lights that had no screamers on them to build a new nest. I thought it was new crows, perhaps inmature birds, but it was the old pair schocked about having their home destroyed. They tried to build their nests on each one of the four tall light poles. But the prison officials had it torn down each time. The birds tried to build two nests on different light poles at the same time, but the officials torn down each nest beginning and put up screamer paper.
The crows are full of spring, I see them circling long into the night, somtetimes around this pole and that. Other birds, smaller birds made groups nests inside poles last year. I remember watching. Then the crows were building their nests with metal rods and metal pices they found somewhere, and were dropping the metal on the yard where there are prisoners. I guess the crows picked up metal strips the state is using to build a new prison next to this one. I have seen no metal fall from the nests that the birds have built, only long and thick roots and twigs. I still see the crows flying around, confused as to why the men keep tearing their nests down. It´s weeks into spring now and I hope they don´t loose hope and find some spot away from bullies to build their nests.
I have not been outside for weeks, so I don´t know the latest on crows. I don´t know how the sparrows and black birds are doing. I know they have eggs laid and some have hatched. I know they think I have forgotten them, because I have not fed them in weeks. I look forward to see the new babies chipping and begging, and loving their parents and following them around, learning bird things. Hopefully the madness of the lockdown by prison officials will lift and I can get back to feeding the birds.
Excerpts from my book
"One foot in darkness, One foot in light":
JANUARY RAINS
Dark clouds hover above the mountains
splitting the light above, below and beyond
the horizon.
Last night I left the window open
and sweet rainlets aroused and awakened
me this morning like the soft kisses of a woman.
Rain, sweet rain
when you stop pouring from the sky
the clouds will be pale again
The sun will come out
the fruit and flowers will bloom
somewhere.
Somewhere insects and other flying creatures
will fill the skies
Frogs will groan praises from their ponds
Somewhere meadows and grasslands
will have tiny footprints in them
of rabbits and mice.
The sky so dark with love
rain, sweet rain, pour down on me
and drown this sorrow with a sea.
I. MT. REPRESA
Years ago, this dark abyss was blasted into existence as though a flaming meteroid had crashed without warning, burning all things living. Before all this transpired and transfigured the plush green hills, there was an enchanting valley here and nature still had her divine, but truculent, ways. There were black-tailed deer prancing back and forth through the evergreens, and flocks of wild turkey paraded at dusk and dawn. Bushy tailed squirrels scampered around those same trees and brushes like shooting stars at full night across the sky. There were jack- and cottontail rabbits frolicking about the long-stemmed, wild grasses.
Now the rabbits and all the other creatures once protected by trees from the occasional rain and the cold of night and once fed fed by the sweet grasses have been blasted out of their homes. These homes were replaced by this dark abyss. The cavekeepers here do not beleve in trees and grasses, as thought such plants are evil spirits. So there are none here, no birds singing, no crickets chirping; there is only the clunk of steel kissing steel.
Mt. Represa. What a refreshing name for a hole nested in a once fertile valley!
If you are rich enough to fly over any of Mt. Represa´s prisons, or to come on a guided tour with politicians and prison officials, you can look down on the mountain from above along with the midnight turkey buzzards and creamy white seagulls. From this vantage point, what you see apears like a distant landscape where everything seems pleasant. Come down a bit closer and, from the outside, Mt. Represa still looks clean and well-kept.
Yet inside this masterpieces of revenge, anger, hate and deceit, these masterpieces of despair and savagery, there are no warning shots: you can be shot down even for a fist fight. And when the alarm does go off, you can be shot for not jumping to the ground. I once returned to the cell block and (heard) we were told to take off our shoes. Not thinking, I sat down undo my laces. Two sotguns and two mini-14 rifles were cocked, racked and pointed at me from across the gunrail, which was only ten feet away. I froze and four guards grabbed me and dragged me along the fifth tier and down the metal stairs. My whole life passed before me in one second, looking into the barrels of those guns.
Each cave inside Mt. Represa is shaped like a horse shoe. At its smallest end is a plush cockpit for the cavekeepers, made of brick, metal and thick plastic. Gun slots are cut into the cockpits so that the gunners can shoot standing, squatting or lying down.
The gun rails are embedded and carved into all the roofs and structures over-looking the dinig hall, yard and cave blocks. The shooters look down upon prisoners from thick plastic roofs through barred openings that appear every ten to fifteen feet in every hallway and which are often only five feets above prisoner´s heads. The gun halls run from plush cockpit to cockpit and are above all areas where prisoners eat, walk sit or stand. Modern robotic metal doors lock the inhabitants in modern pale caves with lights. Cells so small you can only take five giant steps in one direction and two giant steps in the other direction, a place where only one person at a time can take that five-by-two-giant-steps walk.
(Folsom State Prison has its Post Office Box in Represa, California. In these pages, Mt. Represa is a prison anywhere. Mt. Represa is San Quentin, Folsom, Soledad, Attica, Angola. The Cavekeepers are the guards)
ONE MOMENT
I had not seen my mom in eight years, and now I will not ever see her again, at least not cloaked in skin that bleeds and flesh that turns to dust.
My family called San Quentin and explained they would pay all the expensives for security, heavy with armed guards, to protect the public from my mourning. The officers could shakle my arms, hands, legs and feet. Hell, they could have blindfolded me, bound me in a large trunk and shipped me to the funeral.
Days went by before I got a voice out to my family letting them know I wanted to attend. By then my family had written me a letter telling me of their offer to the prison, but there were no way I could go to the services. Prison officials told them such trip was out of the question and never really considered.
To ease the ache I went silent, for days dwelling in my own worlds. But I took deep breaths, stuck out my chest and held my head high the way I knew my mom wanted me to be.
During my years in prison I evolved into seeing death as a celebration, a new unseen place of growth, a splendid transformation, an awakening into a higher and better place. I hoped my mom´s Babtist Christian God she loved and befriended all her life would take care of her. I wanted to believe in her God for a moment, not for my sake but for my mom´s, for the sake of love for his mother and a mother for her son.
The day of the funeral I roamed down to the prison´s chapel court yard and through the huge dark metal draw bridge type of doors that lead from the outside world into San Quentin appeared a group of nuns flanked on all sides by media and prison officials. As they all moved towards the chapels I finally got a glimse of what was the heart of the crowd. It was a tiny woman that moved across the court yard like a sun and its planets.
Mother Teresa had come to visit death Row and she stopped at the Catholic chapel with hoards of people around her. Something had pulled me to go inside the church. I stood in an aisle and out of the group that surrounded the little big woman. Mother Teresa took my hand and shook it. She handed me an emblem, a holy cross, just before she was escorted off to visit Death Row.
(Dedicated to my mom and mother Teresa)
Copyright© 2003 by Spoon Jackson
MEMOIR
Tom, our house cat
Tom appeared like the night out of no where, out of stillness. I would just look around and he was there rubbing against a table leg or an old oaktree outside.
Tom was a big mangeled cat of greyish black and brown, and he was more of a wild or Bob cat than a house cat. To my recallection he was always a cat and never a kitten. I suppose he had to have been once, and I was never around to see him small.
Tom left the house for days or weeks and no other cats dared to invade his territory. Territory he had pissed around. His stomping grounds must have been nearly ten acres and that is saying a lot for what supposed to have been a domnestic cat.
He never scurried into the house like most feline whenever they saw a door open. Tom strolled in boldly with his head and tail held high. He did not whine outside the door. I wasn’t his master nor my pet. We lived in an old four bedroom house with a basement and a loft. There must have been mice and rats lurking in the holes and crevices of the wooden floors and walls, yet I never saw any, even when Tom was gone for weeks.
We raised domestic animals, chickens, rabbits, pigs, goats and pigeons. Whenever we slaugthered a hog or skinned a rabbit, blood lingered in the air like smoke in a forest fire. Most cats huddled near or at least at the fringes of a kills meowing and beginning. But not old Tom – he made his own way in life probably catcing lizards, kangaroo rats and prarrie dogs on sand dunes, with his eyes green under a desert moonlight.
There were a lot of dogs within Tom’s territory. I recall Tom whipping a dog five times his size. He rode the hound’s head with both front paws, gnawing the canine’s face, ripping one of his eyes.
I never saw any female feline on his stomping grounds. Yet Tom must have been a good lover, because often at other places I saw minitures of him.
Tom didn’t act like a house cat. No meows, no lap-sitting, no whining at doors. I don’t think he thought much of humans, exept me and my family. Perhaps because our house happened to be one of hes favorite paths across his territory. I don’t remember Tom ever being a kitten; nor do I recollect Tom dieing. He just vanished one day and was not seen again.
Copyright© 2003 by Spoon Jackson
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I am coming up with new ideas for each news letter and my friend Maret came up with a couple of ideas for next news letter.
My joy and love blossom like an untouched forest in your souls. Keep growing and glowing. Keep sharing realness, peace and love and may the light of a billion butterflies flutter in your heart! Keep the realness and flowing beyond borders, beyond walls, beyond hate and racism. Keep the realness and love flowing in the face of death or despite death. Keep walking in your own shoes!
Stay real!
