Lockdown, continued

Still no end in sight, although they have allowed blacks to talk among themselves once this week on the big yard. Still no work, no yard, no visits, and no time out of the cell. The fourth month and winter is almost gone.

But I love the rain and in the crack in the window I can see it, and the rains commune with my heart and spirit. I even saw a goose grazing in the wet muddy grass this morning. It is the kind of rain I like most when it is not cold or windy. One can sit out in the rain with a friend and feel wet and warm. At night take a rain shower in the forest or streams.

Stay Real Realness people

Spoon

LWOP No alternative to death penalty

Some of you people against the death penalty offer life without possibility of parole as the alternative. An activist friend of mine told me, "I am sick about the death penalty people offering LWOP as the alternative." Yes, that is sick, sad, hateful and absurd.

Don‘t get me wrong. I am for abolishing the death penalty. Both death penalties, because LWOP is perhaps worse than a death sentence and both are obsolete.

I am not knocking my brothers and sisters on death row. I am with you and know your pain. But the folks pushing for universal LWOP sentences are crazy and that concept is beyond the absurd. If you only knew. You don‘t comprehend the sorrow and absurdity of your statements about giving LWOP. You offer one poison for another and think you have done a good deed. It is like instead of being bitten by a western diamondback rattlesnake, we let you be bitten by an eastern diamondback rattlesnake.

I am tired of death penalty opposed folks who aren‘t themselves serving a death sentence or a life without possibility of parole sentence spouting off on offering one as an alternative to the other. Personally, I wish I had gotten a death sentence. It is a known fact that then I would have gotten top-notch lawyers and most likely would have been out of prison by now. 35 years later, sitting here with life without parole is not living. It‘s death, as surely as the sea is full of life.

First published in SJRA Advocate.

Reprinted with permission of Barbara Brooks, SJRA Advocate monthly prison newsletter.

There is also an article by Judith Tannenbaum in the same issue of SJRA Advocate on the same subject: "The death penalty and the other death penalty, An open letter to supporters of SAFE California Act"

Lockdown, no winter

Now this lockdown on black prisoners has taken the entire winter. They say things will loosen up this month. I haven't noticed the change. They say it isn't a lockdown just a modified program. Which in reality is a fancy way of saying lockdown. Because all blacks are locked down and not allowed to program like the other non black prisoners. It is amazing how California is probably the only state in the union that still base their lockdowns on color of skin instead of the behaviour of the prisoners. Some prisoners have not been in trouble in years and decades, and yet they are on lockdown.

Bird Stuff

I had a blessing today, I was able to see a pair of geese just outside through the tiny unpainted space in the window. Out of the hundreds of cells, they stopped across from this one. Our souls said hello. A few weeks ago they started to capture the geese and took them out of the prison. Some must know their way back.

Now you fly, Eulogy for Barney Rosset

Yes, Barney Rosset you were definitely the crusader of realness and the first amendment. A publisher and an embracer of sharing what is real and needs to be said in a society that often spins the truth away to nothing. It was and is an honour that you have always supported and believe in me and my work and stayed in contact with me since “Waiting for Godot” in 1988. You never let hating or hypocrisy to get in your way of sharing realness from Samuel Beckett, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Allen Ginsberg to Malcolm X. You even fit me into your Evergreen Review. Now you fly and have moved on, but you are not gone. Thanks for your realness it keeps me inspired. At night we fly!

Spoon has dedicated his poem At Night I Fly to Barney Rosset

Still foreigner in USA, Lockdown continues

My black beautiful skin is getting lighter, because for over three months I've been in this cell on lockdown. No yard, no visits, no bird songs, no fresh air, no telephone and no store. Today is visiting day, I hear names; Williams, Ortiz, Yang and others going out to visit family and friends.

I see others not of my hue coming back from the yard, getting showers and phone calls. I have not heard a loved one's voice in months.

My skin has missed the sweet beams of the moon, grandfather moon. Now it misses grandfather sun. Skin needs the sun as surely as plants do to glow and grow. I heard weeks ago, that “At Night I Fly” won the Guldbagge Award, the Swedish Oscar, and they even mentioned my name in the presentation. I am sure others involved in Arts in Corrections celebrated the award. But, I will not celebrate until can feel the sun rays, play my flute and sit and toast with my Swedish family and friends in real time.

Stay real Realness people, continue the struggle.

Occupy hate with love,

Struggle and truth anywhere you can

Spoon

Lockdown continues

No change in sight for black prisoners on C-yard while all the other colors of prisoners are allowed to program. I have not been outside in three months now, so I have not played my native flute, because it's not natural to play them inside concrete and steel, although, my heart and spirit longs to send a flow up into the four winds. I miss taking a deep breath of fresh air. Air pumped into the cell is recycled and cannot be clean or good for the heart and spirit. I can see nasty particles in the air.

Bird Stuff

I went down to medical shackled down like a slave this morning, but my heart smiled...read new posts on the Bird Blog

Racist Lockdown, update

Still all blacks on lockdown only and it seems that it was the plan from the start, because the prison knew when they brought that particular gang on the C-yard, overloading one side of the yard with a Mexican gang from another locked down prison that they would attack the blacks when they had an advantage. That day came last December when most of the black prisoners were confined to cells and the others were at work. So they let out that Mexican gang to attack the few blacks on the yard. The majority of blacks were not on the yard and the ones that were only defended themselves. So why is the entire black prison population on lockdown going on three months now and not allowed the same programs, visits, yard, work as white, brown and Asian prisoners. Is that not Jim Crow or punishing the victims?

This is definitely a sad sign of society. No lawyers or groups stepping up to stop the racism inside prisons or out in America. I'll keep up the struggle and hope realness will prevail! One love, one planet!

Peace

Spoon

Sunset, First Love

It was autumn, but still warm and musty with a hint of cotton candy and oranges coming from the orange show. From the cell in the main county jail, I can see outside of a barred magazine sized window, at the end of the hall and see the city streets.

I have just started this life sentence, and it's Saturday, and we are allowed an hour non-contact visits, on the phone, behind the glass, with our loved ones. Dorothy is my girl and I read in a book of names that “Dorothy” means a gift from God. We met many, many summers ago, which seems like many lifetimes ago. 

I was playing basketball in the projects, across from our housing track. I saw Dorothy, out of the corner of my eye, towards dusk. She strolled up the pavement out of a desert sunset. She had on a white flowered top, cut off jeans, and pearl sandals, and she walked up with her cousin Dottie. Dorothy was a city girl, who had come to visit in the heart of the high desert.

I do not know, if she saw me looking her way, but she and Dottie came and sat on the little brick wall beside the basketball court. I don't know how it happened and it was not a conscious plan. I shot the basketball and I missed. I jumped for the rebound and saved the ball from going out of bounds, tapping it back to a teammate. The momentum carried me to the brick wall, where I ended up sitting next to Dorothy. We both smiled and looked long into eachother's eyes as if we had found a new constellation of stars.

Dorothy was a city girl with oval face and long dark slightly curly hair that touched her shoulders. She had smooth light caramel skin, full lips like daffodils, and black bumble bee eyes. She had a very thin waist which highlighted her robust athletic body, even her toes and feet fit the shape of her temple. I don't know who spoke first, but I think I said hi, as I ended up beside her looking into a smile and eyes that made me think of desert sunsets in summer and orange sherbet icecream.

Dorothy's cousin Dottie introduced us. We hit it off like long lost lovers, where every move, every word, every gesture and every breath were like they meant to be there like the seasons, like the sun and moon, like wild flowers in spring.

We left the basketball game and her cousin and walked into the sunset. I heard distant voices say, aren't you going to finish the game. 

We strolled to my house where I introduced Dorothy to my family and asked her did she want to go for a ride. I drove her back to her cousin’s house where we sat in the car and talked the rest of the day. She told me all about the city she was from and how to get there from the desert. We kissed and hugged. We were already in love.

When Dorothy went back to the city, she left me directions and that weekend I drove my brother's car one hundred and forty miles to see her, and each weekend after that I made the same trip. Dorothy's family, her mom and two brothers instantly accepted me too, like my family did her. Her little brother Kirk caught us making out one day on the couch in the living room and asked when are you two getting married. Everyone thought we would spend our lives together. Dorothy had planned to attend college and I the Marines. But, life plotted different paths for us both.

Dorothy has come to visit me each Saturday since I've been in jail, and have written me letters every day. I call her when I can. Sometimes her mom, or a brother jumps on the phone and says hello and reminds me how much they love and believe in me. Dorothy is smart and can be whatever she wants.

Still looking out of the barred window and it's raining and so is my heart. I miss the rain how it trickles down the face into the lips. The way it feels like little fingers on my forehead.

I can see Dorothy coming around the corner, umbrella above her head. She is coming to visit. She said she would wait forever for me to come home from this life sentence.

The visit is over and tomorrow early morning I'll be bused away from here to the other side of the state, it might as well be the other side of the moon.

I can see Dorothy walking back up the street past the palm trees, to the next city bus stop. She turned the corner. Good bye Dorothy!

Wake up call – Lockdown

Does it take the loss of human lives like hundreds of prisoners being burnt up in a Honduras prison for the human rights organisations to wake up? Does it take another Rwanda that took over a million lives? Does it take prisoners being shot dead in masses or one having a plunger stuck up his anus by wayward cops?

It is amazing how flagrant discrimination continues on C-yard at New Folsom against black prisoners and no human rights groups have stepped up. Black prisoners are being denied programs that whites, browns and others are allowed based not on anything black prisoners have done. This is Black History Month, where are the black historians? Where are Amnesty International, ACLU, NAACP, FBI or Federal government to stop this unequal treatment of prisoners based on color of skin.

Back in December 2011 they said there was a race riot, so if that is true, why only black people are locked down? All other races have normal prison programs, and that is all I ask for of this inhumane prison system, equal treatment of prisoners and of people in general.

On the day of the incident most blacks were already confined to cells or at work. There was but a handful of black prisoners on the yard that day. So why are all blacks locked down?

Someone needs to step up and speak up and look into this Jim Crow treatment. Black folks in prison are still being hung from trees.

Happy Birthday

A shout out to Peace G's everywhere and to all my realness people of love and forgiveness. Please send your realness vibes and thoughts in to me. Happy Birthday February 21, a special shout out to my brilliant acting buddy, happy birthday and continuation day to you! I am with you and thinking of you. You are a blessing to Mother Earth and everyone and all Peace G's. Your smile bring light to us all. Stay real forever glowing and growing. One love, One world. 
From the African Swede Spoon.

Peaceful waters

Looking out of the thin thick plastic window where the rain has washed away the paint the prison put on the window so that we can't see outside. Thanks to Mother Earth and her tear drops of happiness and sadness. I can see two geese lying under some high thick piping, just chillin' and enjoying the morning. I wonder do they know how they free my spirit this moment? They free me to soar away from this Jim Crow lockdown. They passed out a memo and the prison is determined to get rid of all the geese this year. They are my peaceful waters inside.

My Reality

As a teaching artist, as a human being, I would be lying if I did not say I would love to travel the world, to depart to unknown places to infuse my work and to share my art. There are a host of warm hearts in Sweden and France I would treasure meeting. 

But I am an artist confined physically by concrete, steel and electric wires for 35 years. Sometimes teaching artists must stay put by choice or circumstance, yet their hearts, minds and spirits must still travel. Somewhere I read you don’t have to travel the world to know the hearts of man. These days I am not even able to travel past the bars of my own cell.

An officer told me today that a pair of geese came up to the art room fence, honking for me this morning, as loud as fog horns – their voices echoing throughout the corridor. But I will not be there today, at least not physically, because we are on lock-down for I do not know how long. 

There was a riot yesterday(*), on the big yard, between some black and brown prisoners. I will not be allowed out of the cage to run my classes... Read the whole essay at Alt/Space


(* the riot referred to is the one in November 2011)

Lockdown update

New Folsom C-facility still have black prisoners on total lockdown during Black History month. This is a Jim Crow lockdown. No other race here is on lockdown, although prison official boast of a race riot that happened last year. The prison officials, like after slavery was abolished in the south, have made an evil unjustified way of locking only black prisoners down and say it was because of a race riot. When in reality the majority of blacks on C-yard were in their cells or at work. The few that were on the yard were victims of a hate crime that the administration knew would happen. They are able to distinguish one group or gang from another inside the white or brown races but supposedly are dumbfounded when it comes to black prisoners. This side of C-facility did not even have programs that day of the incident.

So it's over two months now that only black prisoners are denied basic prisoners programs that other races have. The prison don't seem to care or have any plans to fix the problem. Please send your blessings realness people. I send mine to you!

At Night I Fly - Thank you

Congratulations to my Swedish brother Michel and all the folks involved in creating the realness documentary on Arts In Corrections! The film just won the The Guldbagge Award, the “Swedish Oscar” for best documentary. I am honored to be a part of it and to have the film named after my poem “At Night I Fly”.

Thank you for showing our realness around the world, while USA is stuck on hating and non forgiving. Thank you for beleivng in me Sweden! Stay real!

At Night I Fly 

I go where the wind hides
When it's not blowing.

I watch the clouds gobble
Up the moon.
I see my thoughts, my feelings,
My love crash
Like seas on ships.

I stand on top of swords and spears.
Iwalk up on endless staircases and mountains
On the tips of giant nails
Drinking spirits out of huge goblets.

My heart pounds against no chest.
I know not what to tell it
Crowded in solitudes.
Too many souls alone to be
One body.

The moon's a defaced minted silver dollar.
It sleeps alone in its own universe.
No longer a star.

Today I died.
I died yesterday and tomorrow.
At night I fly.

© Spoon Jackson

Buy Spoon's poetry book Longer Ago at lulu.com

Nothing Human

We big banged our love into the world.

He belongs to a community of darkness,

where robbers, liars, cheats, assaulters,

war mongers, politicians, bomb makers, business men,

preachers, pimps and stock market chasers,

way layers of hearts and souls,

dream killers of the spirit.

He belongs to the same community you belong to

where you shade your one foot in darkness.

A community of realness

where all the people walk

in their own shoes

and come together in love

peace and sharing regardless of sex, color,

gay, straight or criminal.

Seeing all peole as one people

A blessing to Mother Earth

My community believes

in freedom, hope

and forgiveness.

I belong to a community

of readers,

of scolars, a community

of healers

activists, artists and thinkers,

dreamers and lovers.

A community of the broken hearted

a community of humans

a community of knowers

that nothing human is alien to anyone.

© Spoon Jackson

Lockdown 2012 - Medical

Lockdown, Jim Crow lockdown continues, at New Folsom where only black prisoners are on total lockdown.Still no end in sight. Now the prison medical has taken me off diabetic treatment in the mornings. I don't know why, they just stopped handcuffing me and taking me out of the cell for treatment.

I have not seen any doctor to have my treatment altered. But, the Federal government have left the California state Medical prison system, so treatment of prisoners health has begun to revert backwards.

No matter, I drink a lot of water and eat sparingly. I'll keep reading and writing glowing and growing. Blessings to all realness people. Peace and one love! We are love!

(written on February 1st)

From a letter

"...Yes, still on lockdown and no end in sight so far.  We don't get anything other than the garbage food they serve. So glad I had some package and store food. Eventually they will give packages and food back, probably after three months. No phonecalls or visits until lockdown is lifted. 

Sometimes I don't say anything in my letters about negative things going on that direectly affects me because I don't want to give it energy or more energy with my friends and family knowing about it. It was time to speak about the cell situation because I was getting out of it. I often need the public and people to know what's going on so that the administration cannot set me up with lies. People can call in and check on me and make sure I'm okay. 

I'm going to write something soon about the cell situation in general, how they force people into cells together that don't get along and if you don't go inside the cell the administration officials and wardens make your life miserable and sometimes they try to set you up in a bad cellie situation on purpose. One prisoner got killed in the cell recently on this yard. Don't know any details but they were black and on lockdown. More people should have cells to themselves, but the state and the courts don't care even when people in cells kill eachother. 

I'm doing fine and enjoy creating those little essays. It seems like more folks are becoming aware of my writing..."

Eternal Spring

He doesn't smile anymore

because when he does

not long before sadness

comes like a flash flood

in the desert

and takes it away

Every time, everything he is,

every time he is happy

some one's head gets chopped

off or a goose or pigeon

gets kicked around

He doesn't smile anymore

until he gets a kiss

that awakens eternal spring

and summer

© Copywright 2012 Spoon Jackson

Peace G

At Night I Fly

AT NIGHT I FLY won the prestigeous Swedish Guldbagge film festival award for Best documentary of the year!!
Winners in English at The Yellow Affair
and the thank you speech in Swedish.

The last letter writer

Can you imagine a world without artists? No composers, no painters, no actors, no writers, no sculptors, no singers, no musicians, no film-makers, no dancers, and no poets. What is a world without hand-held, heart-written, letters? An unnatural, barren landscape, a touch of lips instead of a kiss.

People in prisons might be the last letter writers in the world, like the Dead Poets Society or a lost ancient language. Some folks in the free world have never received a letter, not a sad or happy letter, not a real love letter that touches hearts and souls. Some people have grown up without ever having written a letter or even knowing how to address an envelope because the art and the soul of letter creating has become truncated, abbreviated, and high-tech. But you cannot replace the stars the sun or moon with a pen-light, flash-light, or spot-light.
Emails and tech-mails and whatever mails in space will vanish over the years, but the written word stands strong like a mountain. Letter writers create words in their own unique, beautiful and ugly way — the hand, heart, and body language on paper. The connection that each letter writer creates will be lost like Atlantis or the Fountain of Youth. Letter writing, like a delicious dance gifted from the goddesses, may then be considered only a dark art, practiced by just a few people.

The magic of a pen or pencil melting into paper, embraced in your hands, shows the  tension and the depths of your spirit, shows how excited or relaxed you are. Letters are the footprints of your soul, like no other‘s. They are the body, heart, and spirit language, showing the truth of a happy or wounded soul. Words huddled together on paper, molding letters in one‘s own way, in any language, is an art form that has been passed on from cavedwelling days. An art form as old as poetry and story-telling.

Letter writing is vanishing like the polar bears and their melting homes. Prisoners may be the last letter writing communities in the world. I‘ll start The Last Letter Writers Club. The last letter writers united in the struggle to keep letters alive. So, write someone and be part of the last letter writers! We are running out of people to write.

There is something freeing about creating letters, something that nourishes and replenishes even the most stubborn, hardened, and often the most unworthy hearts and spirits. Letter writing offers unity of the mind, body, and soul, and sometimes gives the shadow side of ourselves a way out of the darkness, a way to share that dark energy in a harmless and creative way. So, write a letter and be part of the community in the struggle of the Letter Writers United.

First published at The Advocate, www.sjra1.com
Reprinted with permission of Barbara Brooks, SJRA Advocate monthly prison newsletter 

Lockdown, still

About the lockdown that followed after the riot at New Folsom prison in the beginning of December 2011.

The riot happened on C-yard over a month ago, and still no word on when any Black prisoners will be out of lockdown. The blacks, the few blacks that were out on the yard, were the victims of a hate crime. Most of the blacks that day were confined to cells or at work. Still blacks are the only race on total lockdown. The officials said it was a race riot. So why are blacks the only ones on lockdown? Why, since the few blacks on the yard were victims, why are they on lockdown, while no other race is? This is a racist Jim Crow lockdown, since the blacks have attacked no one.

Moving past hostile classes

In 1988, after I performed Pozzo in Waiting for Godot before international audiences at San Quentin State Prison, my confidence and belief in myself as a poet, artist and human being rose and flowed with inspiration like a thawing creek in spring.  I wanted to share openly and freely whatever gifts I have as an artist and, hopefully, inspire others to share their gifts. 
I became a teacher’s aide.  I ran small writing, reading and acting groups in the 1990’s at Donovan State Prison and at California Men’s Colony Prison.  I remember going into hostile classrooms to recite poetry and Shakespeare and to read my published work.  A lot of the cats in the classrooms did not know what to make of me.  I could see who in the hell do he think he is in some faces.  When I introduced myself and told the class how long I had been in prison, some of their masks fell down. Some students.....read the full essay at tajaltspace.com

Art Room: Guest Poet

A poet came inside from Sacramento Poetry Center to do a reading and run a workshop. Whenever I have a guest artist, I step back and assist them, and listen to his or her presentation. I give them the floor to impart whatever realness and insights they can conjure up and share.

This guest poet usually speaks to children in elementary school so his way of relating to children carried over some into his presentation to my class. Some cats thought he was being condescending my co-workers, a teaching artist also thought the guest artist was talking down to the group. I freferred not to jugde for that moment. But when the the guest read a nursery rhyme type poem and recited it in a goofy unhip way, I asked him to recite some of his own work.

He had assumed we had no knowledge of any classical poets. He brought up Robert Frost in a way as he was introducing us to him. When in fact I use Robert Frost's work in my class as a lesson.

This guest kept reading other poets work and I kept prodding him to read his own text, so that he could connect to the group and break away from his regular elementary school presentation. A presentation that was blinding him from seeing how deep our group was. It was his first time inside prison. Towards the end of his class he finally got it, after I had a student or two read some of their work. He read one of his poems and connected a little.