COMMUNITY ZINE
VOLUME 1
Thank you to all the incarcerated people who made
this zine possible by submitting their work, without
them this would not exist.

We hope for a day when it will not need to.

The editor of this zine has made every effort to present the selected works as
they were submitted, minor edits have been made for clarity, but no content

has been significantly altered.
nliama: The damk Mgl oF The
Kue Klux = Klandoined = 4T, Ae

Clinton Troy Riley
New Castle Correctional Facility
New Castle, Indiana
PAJARO EN UNA JAULA

La pintura, Péjaro en una Jaula, por Pablo Picasso, es para mi
como un rompe-cabezas. Todas las piezas estan revueltas, y asi
es lavida.

Cuando yo miro las aves en el cielo, desde el patio de la carcel,
vuelan libres. Es muy triste para mi. A veces, el ser humano tiene
al pajaro en una jaula. Pero ahora, yo me siento en una jaulay
comprendo lo que han de sentir los pajaros en su jaula. La cércel
es una jaula muy grande. Cuando las aves del cielo vuelan libres
yse acercan a la orilla de esta crcel, han de decir: “Mira a esos
seres-humanos en su jaula, jcémo las cosas estan cambiando!

Ahora, ellos estén en la jaula, y nosotros estamos libres”.

Nadie, ni un animal, tendria que vivir en una jaula. Estoy

comprendiendo cémo los animales se sienten muy Triestes por la

necesidad de a libertad. Cuando el ser humano abre la puerta
de sus jaulas para darles su comida, y se descuida por alguna
razén, dejando la puerta abierta, cualquier animal cautiva
aprovecharia esa oportunidad para escapar y ser libre. Ahora

comprendo esa necesidad.

s crey6 las aves para que anduvieran libres por el mundo. En
elcieloy enla tierra, cada criatura debe tener derecho a ser libre,
pero o es asiy por eso, ando triste de o que es mi vida. De

pensar que las aves me pueden ver en mijaula es triste. Quizas
alguna vez ellos fueron prisioneros de alguna jaula también, y es

lo que Pablo Picasso representa en su pintura.

Gerardo Sanchez Amador
Cook County Jail, Chicago

The painting, The Bird Cage, by Pablo Picasso, is like a puzzle for me. All the

pieces are mixed up, and that is how lfe s

When I ook at the bircis in the sky, from the jails patio, they fy freely.Itis sad
for me. Sometimes, human beings keep birds in a cage. But now, | am the one
inthe cage and | understand what such caged birds must feel. The jail is a big
cage. When the birds fl in the sky above and they approach the edge of the
ail, they must say: "Look at those people in the cage, oh how things have

changed! Now they are in cage, and we are the free ones”.

No one, not even an animal, should be kept in a cage. | am understanding
how caged animals must feel sad, needing their freedom. When a person
opens the door to their cages to feed them, and accidentally leaves the door
open fora morment, any caged animal would take that opportunity to escape
and be free.

Now ! understand this need.

God created birds to fly freely through the world. In the sky, and on land, every
creature should have the right to be free, but it ins't like this and that is why |
feel sad about myife. Thinking of the free birds looking down and watching
me is sad. Perhaps once, they were prisoners in some cage too. This is what
Pablo Picasso represents in his painting.

Translation courtesy of La Maestra Michelle
A TYPE OF FREE

Barbed wire and gun towers,
Emotional walls now replaced
By those of concrete and stove

From passing out in dive bars
To passing time behind bars
How far must one faulted man

Fall to the bottom finding freedom
Washed up and dashed upon rocks
He’s now forced to break

Forgotten by everyone, left only
To be haunted by the ghosts
Of all he should have been

But finding himself strangely
Liberated, suddenly free, with
Every glove up into the clouds
With every word written and
Thrown up into the wind.

—Dan Grote
Bob Covelli

Dixon, lllinois
SILENCE MEANS CONSENT

LIBERATION, OR SILENT NEVERENDING
DEGREDATION

It's not alright to ignore a 64 year old man’s serious medical and
psychiatric needs. They call us “inmates” o seriously mentally ill
(SMI) “inmates,” and somehow forget we are human people, or
rationalize away the failure to give s the help and protection we
need as unusually vulnerable patients/prisoners. The “pet-
inmate” porter/workers run the places. They steal, overcharge,
and extort the worst mentally hurt of us while most staff's “pet-
inmates" are the ones who clean, serve food, collect commissary
slips, pass out commissary, pack up the property of those sent to
segregation, and other jobs either the staff should be doing or
pretend they actually do. “Pet-inmates”—the known threat to the

most vulnerable. (I actually v omit at the thought of them!)

As strong as | would like to pretend | am, in spited of feeling
ashamed that | need to ask for help from anyone, all | can think of
after being ignored, lied to, manipulated, hurt, and injured so
often is what is left of my bodly. If you have ever been beaten
badly, deeply and physically hurt, you may understand what |

feel. When you've been physically injured so often, getting
stitches, having complaints ignored and emergency grievances
shunned, you realize you are just an envelope of skin—an easily

penetrated envelop that holds together what' left of your life.
What is worse than soft tissue damage—no muscle tissue left to
lose or damage any worse than it is now—no trauma therapy at
all to ease away some of the hurt from seeing “pet-inmates” do
all the above and then get away with hounding two SMI men into
suicide.

The plaintiff has sat next to a toilet filled with vomit so often, had
his weight go up and down so often, straining his heart and
weakening his body, has fell down so often, injuring his face and
head and back, that he will readily admit his view of reality may
be tainted by anything from frustration and terror to anxiety and a
(dread) bone-deep despair. Many a night plaintiff has sincerely
wondered if he should forgive all the named and unnamed
defendants for letting him wither away: for letting him deal with
the trauma of suicides (while dying slowly) and without trauma
therapy o care of any kind; for letting him die so slowly that they
are blind to their own deliberate indifference—the scornful way
they regularly reject his unending requests, complaints, pleas for
help, emergency grievances, affidavits and notarized letters—
believing their non-actions are “reasonable” (reasonable silences/
ignoring or shrugging off his serious psychiatric and medical
needs) due to their honest failure to see his ever so fragile
humanity, the atrophy and massive loss of muscle tissue among
other injuries, because of the fact they see him as an “inmate,” a
label they've used so often (in training as well as on the job site
itself) that it has dehumanized him and desensitized them. It has
induced an apathy so pervasive that no amount of logic by

plaintiff, no amount of deductive reasoning by anyone labelled
“inmate" can ever hope to penetrate. If the defendants are
deemed not at fault, if the derogatory term “inmate” is solely to
blame, plaintiff prays the court will ban, forbid, and prohibit the
continued use of any such label as “inmate” 5o no one else is
ever hurt or injured and has their obvious hurts and injuries

ignored for so long.

Bob Covelli
Dixon, lllinois

Vs — EXNIBIT F-il

UNTIL

Until you've been arrested
And spent endless days in jail.

And walked a hundred miles
Without ever leaving your cell.

Until you've lost your family
And you're utterly alone.

You try to seek comfort
Realizing it was left at home.

Until you've faced a judge
And entered a guilty plea.

And you've heard the words of judgement
That you won't be going free.

You lie awake at night

Shedding endless-tears
Until you've lost all hope

And every dream you've ever had.

You fight to keep your sanity

And fear that you'll go mad.
Until you've gone through all these things
And lost all human will.

How can you look at me and say you
know just how | feel.

—Anonymous
KISMET

Kill me
Is sometimes what

My memories do

Sol

Receive Face
Review Embrace
Release Erase

into Peace

ACCEPT

and create my fate

I choose my destiny.

—May Meridian
LIBERATION

FROM A MICHIGAN PRISONER

Allow me to be frank if | may, outside of the typical definitions.
We are taught of “Liberation:" bringing you into the perceptions.
of those who have been “Liberated”, and who seek to be:
“Liberated”. To be “Liberated” is to uplift and enhance yourself
and those who suffer your cause! To free the mind and the body,
and to unlock the soul from its chamber of affliction: passed on
down the line by the slaves of then to the slaves of now, who
have beaten, drilled, and broken into submission by the hands of
a system which bleeds the very fabric of social equality dry!

To be able to claim Liberation is to be able to bum down the
gates of oppression, prejudice, disinformation, and systemic
racism, while still holding onto your morals and beliefs, your
dignity and integrity, and stand steady out in your mission to
eradicate racisml Liberation means a freedom that is me being
foreign to a country full of foreigners! Liberation means that we
don't just sit back and wait for the creator to hand us miracles,
but we put forth the effort expecting struggle, expecting strife
and pain,

We drive until we have reached our destination! And, what is a
revolutionary destination? What can be Anarchic good? What is
the dream of an abolitionist? Complete and utter “Liberation”!
For the bible says “Faith without works is dead!” Some of us
“claim’ to have “faith” in a specific cause , yet we do nothing to
strengthen it! Only in the wake of “National unrest” do we
choose to stand up, but if we are to be taken seriously the fight
must not relax, the fist must not unclench and we should not
allow our voices to be silenced! That is “Liberation” to me and

the brothers and sisters of our cause. In solidarity and respect.

Jonathan Summers

Ak.A. “Big Prynce-G”

Founder of the United States S.T.O.PP initiative and
the B.M.G.F. Inc.
Bellamy Creek, Michigan

SR
Wisconsin

A RUTHLESS SYSTEM

Prison takes your freedom away

You don't know what it is like to have to listen and obey
What it like to live in anger and pain

What it is like to realize that you have already gone insane!
In prison you are all alone

Surrounded by Razorwire, chains and robbed by a damn pay
phone

Is being locked in a 5 x 9 cell one of your fears?

Try living there for many years

You think you forgot how to cry

But one day they let you out

And you break down like you are gonna die

Do you know what it is like to be happy but lost at the same
time?

Free, but locked up for lack of the right dime
You wonder how one finds their way in a ruthless system
Many do not as it’s like they dreamed up a nightmare
And imposed it upon the vulnerable

I myself fell for their tricks

Though | am in no way weak.

You see | have sleeves of my own

The tides turn and tyrants see what they are shown

1no longer fear to lose all of my ambition

Because my strength gives me my own rehabilitation
Now they call me a monster wit

this Rem
And a terrorist with these lines.

The ruthless system just can't beat that.

—Victor Brown
AKA Victor Frankenstein
THE BROKEN SYSTEM

I'm treated like an animal held in a cage

If I let loose emotion it must be rage

You act like a predator, | won't be your prey

There's no right in this world be it night or day

Depression is weakness. They'll tear you apart

Best to keep your hands up right from the start

The stars in the sky can't count all my pains

But | tuck them so deep only anger remains

So why place me here if they want me to change?

—Stephen Brown

Columbsia C.I.
Portage, Wisconsin

AUTHOR'S NOTE: When | wrote this | was thinking of the injustices of the
world of incarceration. Not only what the guards do to prisoners, but what
convicts and inmates do to each other: making anger the only safe emotion
because they are looking to prey on the weak. Some use rape, extortion,
bullying, and theft, or a combination of these. Yes, there are gangs and cliques
we utiize to help, protect, and support each other, yet a lot of times it causes
more issues than solutions. Imagine if when there was an issue within the
prison system, all the inmates set these ties aside and all came together. There
is great power in unity. Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding are also
power, 5o utilize them. | want to dedicate this to the true convicts out there

that understand what I'm talking about: keep your heads up and struggle on.
THE DEEP END

It seems to me that
were | ever to be

happy, were | ever

to be sober, safe, serene,
it just wouldn't work,
and work itis, taking

oh so much effort

to just give up, to admit
that you're stuck, mired,
inarut and left to

the role of playing a
first-class fuckup, so
whyis everyone always
trying to fix what was
put on this earth to
show you the ways of
The Broken Man, the
one whose tomorrow is
always a Last Stand,

the one who drowned
himself in a whiskey
glass so you'd be scared
enough to learn to swim,
soyou'd be free of the
terrible weight that
always dragged me down.

—Dan Grote
BENEATH THE SURFACE

Beneath the surface, the concept being purely commercial, is
nothing more than a collusive campaign to keep one in prison
longer and to return a parolee to prison as soon as possible. It's
the underlying basis for somm and the additional parole
stipulations for the so-called sex offender. It is in fact a fabrication

of theories expressive more of the bizarre than of rationality.

As you can see, from this is created a plausible ly sophisticated
structure intended for a type of control over the life of a prisoner
and parolee so unduly restrictive that it almost guarantees failure
of one being able to meet ever-shifting demands interpreted to
exact ambiguity. The enforcement of additional parole
stipulations is predicated upon unconstitutional policy that
facilitates forced submission via threats to extend the sentence of
a targeted prisoner or parolee (a facade for so-called
rehabilitative methods and monitoring) that is simply another
means of economic, class, and sexual exploitation that inevitably
has nothing to do with the parolee successfully re-integrating
back into and becoming a viable part of family and society as a

whole.

In truth, this concept only serves a subversive plot to further
colonize and capitalize off those in the grasps of the irrational and

illintended. The policy created for additional parole stipulations
serves as a conduit to destabilize a parolee in order to provide
the parole officer the leeway to revoke one’s parole for technical
reasons, and this data is attributed to recidivism. In this way,
legislation and privatization unite in unholy matrimony to

perpetuate ideologies and transform them into policy that

s¢ es the unilateral interests shared between the sheets of the
Indiana Department of Corrections, New Castle Correctional
Facility, the Parole Board, and Liberty Behavioral Health (the
providers of Insomm), all of whom depend on each others’
numbers to keep in line with generated contracts for all those
involved that have placed a stake in monetary gain as a result

thereof.

This is how the prison system’s style of human trafficking is
sponsored, justified, and colored as something other than what it
is: facilit

ted by the stigma of public contempt towards those

who are guilty of sex crimes and also towards those who are not.

Nothing just can come from that which does not proceed from
reason. With this in mind, how are those who decide what is
illegal and unconstitutional any different than the prisoners and
parolees they exploit and capitalize off of? Are they not criminals
as well? What of their moral and mental state of being? No sane
person not already inclined to criminality would postulate and
enforce policy and stipulations so restrictive as to ensure the
complete failure of those seeking redemption and progress in

pursuit of happiness and efficiency towards a better life.
1'am not against the sanctioning of programs that actually
contribute to rehabilitative and protective measures that inspire a
prisoner or parolee to take responsibility for the crime committed
while working earnestly towards identifying and eradicating
thoughts and behavior pattems that transgress the laws or

people. Such programs must be founded upon ensuring that the

fights of participants remain inviolate.
I don't claim to be infallible, but | am a firm believer that you can
only commit your self unto being a part of the solutions, rather
that the problems that plague ourselves and our society. Life is a
class—pay attention. What | am to my enemies, | am not. My only
revenge is to attain a power that will outlast and transcend my
enemies’ desires. Happiness through truth is the will and purpose
of God in man, as man is in God. | rise in fire. | am coming out of
the flames. The struggle continues.

—Clinton Troy Riley
Indiana
Darryl Allen
London Correctional Institute
London, Ohio
Darryl Allen
London Correctional Institute
London, Ohio
HAIKU : 3,4,5

While that smile covers your face
| can still see the

Shadows that cloud your eyes

You don't fool me we
Don't know how transparent

Your true feelings are

What are we but light
And fragments of energy
Stuck together here

—May Meridian
POEM WHISPERER

I, a poem whisperer,
coax verse[s] out of a
jumble of letters.
Doing it [s]neakily is-
adding a quote,

a crazed noun with a
lying verb.

—David Richards
FCI Elkton
Lisbon, Ohio

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a “Scrabble Poem, " written using the
tiles from a Scrabble game only once each. (The square letters
are the blanks).
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WRITE TO OUR
CONTRIBUTORS

Several of our talented contributors included their
mailing addresses with their submissions. If you loved
their work, please thank them personally by sending
them a letter or putting some money on their books.

David Richards
65434060
FCI Elkton
PO.Box 10
Lisbon, Ohio 44432

Clinton Troy Riley
111204
New Castle Correctional Facility
1000 Van Nuys Rd.
New Castle, IN 47362
Victor Brown

CC1/529809

P.O. Box 900
Portage, WI 53901

Stephen Brown
468393
P.O. Box 900
Columbia Correctional Institute
2925 Columbia Dr.
Portage, WI 53901

Darryl Allen
455525
London Correctional Institute
1580 State Rte. 56 S.W.
London, OH 43140
Jonathan Summers
459083
Bellamy Creek
1727 W. Bluewater
lonia, M1 48846

Gerardo Sanchez Amador
20190119062
P.O. Box 089002
Div. 9 - 3E - 3208
Chicago, IL 60608

Robert F. Covelli
A08307
2600 N. Brinton Ave.
Dixon, IL 60121
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