There was a big riot on the yard today between black and white prisoners. Warders shot tear gas and block guns. The sounds of fists and block guns hitting flesh, dirt and concrete could be heard from long distances.
The riot was over something stupid that could have been avoided and resolved without making things black and white, or racial, thereby getting all of the whites and blacks involved. The conflict started with two people. If the two people saw no way out of the stupor, the battle should have been one-on-one.
I know the old ways are gone, and not even practiced by law enforcement, prisoners, warders, and other government agencies. No one fights one-on-one anymore. They want to fill the boat with many holes at one time instead of just one that can be plugged. Fighting and violence of any kind, anywhere, is really stupid, especially when it can be avoided. It is easier to knock someone’s head off than to not knock someone’s head. It takes more courage, too.
We have been on lockdown for over 25 days. Word is we might come off next week, but that’s what they said last week and the week before. Amazing how warders lose a concept of time when we are on lockdown and overtime work is available.
There have been no visits or store for blacks and whites for nearly four weeks. Supplies are low or gone. I have only canned goods left. This level III Pleasant Valley Prison is not supposed to be on long lockdowns.
The riot happened the day after Martin Luther King’s Day. I remember when I was at CMC-East and I was a teachers’ aide. We used to read Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the GED class, and other ABE classes. But here educational participation by prisoners in classes is not allowed.
Over 25 days have passed and white and black prisoners have talked and made a peace accord. The new warden supposedly said on a tour here once before that before he would consider being warden here the tiny fish pond I spoke of before would have to be taken out. The pond is gone. I hope the new warden sees fish ponds in all his dreams and visions from now on. The warden comes from a prison that staged gladiator type fights in small concrete yards hidden from view, staff making wagers on the fights.
The new warden is into longer lockdowns, and this is his first major lockdown on this, A, Yard. So perhaps he is trying to make a point.
A white guy I know, we just traded crackers for tuna. We talked out of the crack of the doors before we made the deal.
I am busy drawing, writing letters, studying song writing and trying to read my way into writing some poems. I am reading more than anything else. Reading books: Immortal Poems, Bum Rush the Page, Def Poetry Jam, Night Works by Marvin Bell, and A Samuel Beckett Reader. So my mind, soul and spirit are being stretched in many splendid directions, like playdough, which is real and what my heart needs right now. One’s heart “should” – I don’t like using that word “should” – so one’s heart hopefully keeps getting deeper and bigger throughout life.
I read and read until my eyes said STOP, and my mind and soul said BREAK. I closed my eyes and pondered and wondered between things, read, and dreamed. In my dreams, my brain or imagination, I go deep and strive to go deeper and deeper in whatever I do.
Coming to prison at a young age with not much like experiences except for the warm desert memories of living between these purple and red clay mountains surrounding Crooks Street that I thought were the whole world. Memories blessed by nature and youth.
When I think I have nothing to write about or ponder, sometimes I think of a book introduced to me by Judith called Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. The book often led me to some jack rabbits, pigeon, or wildflower story. Some hidden experience, thought or dream.
Reading is a way to get away from any kind of prison anywhere on this planet. It frees the mind and soul.
Desert Poet Fund
My friend and fellow Peace G member, Krister, from Sweden, tried to send money to the account, but he found the fees to put money into the fund charged by American and Swedish banks were more than the money he wanted to contribute to the Desert Poet Fund. There is a bank fee leveled on both sides of the sea. I had no idea there are fees to send money to someone’s account. We hopefully can fix the problem soon.
Writing Class
Because of the lockdown, there have been no classes. But I heard from the PEN Poetry Awards out of New York that my poem “No Moon” placed in the top four, winning an award.
A professor who is a friend of mine and Judith’s is teaching a Prison Literature class in a college in North Carolina and she read some of my work to her class and I am honored that a couple of her students chose my work as a semester long project, which is again a great privilege and honor. Because I get to learn something, too. Like when Judith ran our poetry group at San Quentin, we all learned from each other and are all students and teachers in writing and in life in general. It pleases me that students see the realness in my work.
Once the lockdown is over, our writing group will meet on a new day. No writing class today, so I’ll try to recall meeting from back in the day in Judith’s group.
Like the time she wonderfully tricked me into writing a poem – actually dictating a poem, my first poem I think. Judith had me speak about the desert where I am from. She wrote down exactly what I said and we ended up with the poem “In the Heart of the High Desert.” That happened at one of the individual meetings Judith had with each group member.
I have been longing to use that teaching technique, too. I’ll try to do a back in the days at San Quentin poetry class segment in my newsletters. If my memory will serve me proper. I am sure anything I might leave out or mis-recall, Judith will let me know.
Bird Stuff
It is still in calendar weeks, weeks away from spring. Yet spring often comes long before March and sometimes I can smell or even taste her in the air. Spring comes long before March, especially for the birds, the sparrows, cow birds, black birds, and a myriad of other creatures. Spring’s beginning depends on Mother Earth, on nature, or universal rhythms.
I have watched the birds for years, nesting and hugging long before the calendar says it is cool.
I am sure the birds are missing my little tribute of food – it is closing in on a month. The cats I am sure are missing me out the kitchen door window looking at them – sometimes teasing them and giving them food now and then. There are not that many cats here, especially compared to the birds and there are many cat feeders, even some warders feed the cats.
By now I am sure the birds know about lockdowns, too – having free spirits – and that they consider me a fellow being who flies south or some other unseen place from time to time.
Closing Thoughts
May your dreams be as varied as stars and your love – our love, peace and realness – be as big as skies and travel beyond borders. It is cool to read, cool to write poetry or prose. It is cool to love and be love – to be yourself – to walk in your own shoes. We can do anything! Stay real and peace and realness be with you!
From Peace G.
Keep glowing,
Spoon
