Poetry by Survivors
The Demon of Sickness
k. Paul Faust, 1966-67*
(*) Created in "X-Wing" segregation (the Hole): CTF-Central located in Soledad, California
I am the Blacksheep - I am.
The dreaded bad-seed.
I am a poet; a warrior; and,
its been said, "Akin to a weed."
I am the nature that fails to conform - I am.
I am "tranquillity"...
Then, - I am the storm.
Tested by trial, tempered by fear;
imprisoned, beaten & battered, and turned away;
but, galvanized by those tough & dear.
I know about love; I know of hate; I've seen a lot of
the small; and, I've known some great; moreover,
I've known folks early; but most of all...
I've only known those late.
Now, here I sit after all these years - my epitaph translates:
"Quenched in the Fire of Life's burning Hell;
no an iota less fierce, or bowed, nor bent.
Just a servant, who served his God well..."
The Demon of Sickness
Today my heart is filled with great fear.
For the day of my death grows ever so near.
The demon of sickness has cursed me to death.
My dreadful fate draws closer with my every breath.
I’ve overcome many a sickness in my youthful past,
But now I’ve been cursed with one that will forever last.
For this demon I bear such hate
For these is no escape from his chronic fate.
Listen boy, the demon said,
As he placed his hand upon my head.
Only when you are dead will my job be done,
But it’s no good to fight, for I’ve already won.
I tell you now, fear this demon, he is so real.
He’s an evil demon on a mission to kill,
Searching for victims all about the Earth,
Having no mercy, killing some even before birth.
Where this demon comes from
I’m not real sure.
But this I know, he has no C-U-R-E.
And one day my soul will be put to rest upon a bed of roses.
The demon will then move on,
But only after my body decomposes.
So I have given to the Lord in heaven above
My faith, my soul, and all my love,
And my heart goes out to all whom this demon invades,
For the demon of sickness and death is better known as AIDS.
It Ain’t no Joke!
The Raping of KeViN
One night dark and confused
A man came up to me
And made me take down my jail-issued
Orange ugly jumpsuit
And I was ugly and dirty
And he
Shane was tall and confident and mean
And he looked at me
And his eyes were
True Blue True Blue
Lying True Blue
Steely cold and Lying Eyes
And he grabbed me and came in me
And I felt the hot sperm
Hit my guts
And I wanted to puke
And then they moved me
After I punched him in the face
Over a fucking pencil
That didn’t matter anyways
And there I sat
Waiting to die
In the coldest cell
Of the hottest Florida jail
And before the Easter ended
God came and He Came in Me
And I felt His Love
And I wanted to Live.
September
29, 2003
Abyss
"My world is a cold and isolated abyss,
Filled with chaos and thoughts of a life
I'm sure to miss-
Yet, for some unknown reason I feel
Compelled to reach out,
For what or to whom leaves very little doubt -
I have always been of mind and with heart,
Thus it's my soul which remains in the dark-
Should you extend your thoughts I shall hold tight,
For all that rest beneath the surface must
Eventually come into the light-"
Juan Merced
Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, 2002
(I'm neither a survivor nor family member, I sent my poem because I was/am
interested in your program)
Cat
and Mouse
Loneliness stalks me like the cat its mouse
Immersed in books, i see the pages turned by paws
The whiskers brush the earphones from my head
The narrow-slitted pupils follow typing fingers.
Escaped to sex, it meets me there
And licks me raspy, purring nice
And tearing strips of pain from opened heart.
--Stephen Donaldson, in prison, 1982
Branded
Was it but seven years ago, so distant now to me
As i look out thru window barred at city scenery?
The images now seem to be, tho i know they are real,
So distant and intangible, as things i cannot feel,
Like famous grainy photographs of spacemen on the Moon
Or like the Playboy bunnies i have pinned up in my room.
Just so appears the memory of bygone innocense,
When like a stallion i was free and roamed about the map,
No master knew nor fear of men, no danger did i sense.
How could i then have come to ken or even to suspect
That in the zoo of Cell Block Two there'd lie in wait a trap?
No thing of steel but just as real, what i did not expect,
The dreadful snare in which my daring psyche thus was caught.
What might have been in years since then if i had better fought?
If i had been a fighter then, would they have reached their goal?
Would not the searing iron have burned its mark upon my soul?
In nites of terror all my hopes for liberty were sunk
When force of rape first manhood took and branded me a PUNK.
The rope was slipped
around my neck, the bridle is secure;
And tho the chain is sometimes long, and freedom doth allure,
I'm at my masters' beck and call, however much i learn;
I am in thrall to power strong; to Punkdom i return.
--Stephen Donaldson, in jail, 1980
The Seventh Rapist
You're different
From the others, i can tell right away.
How strange:
Soft delicate kiss on the back of my neck
As upon me your conquering body you lay,
Meeting my terror and fear
With a tentatie tongue on the lobe of my ear.
What kind of a rapist is this,
Who commences his rape with a kiss?
You're different:
You don't start with the pain of a savage attack
But with feelings of warmth from your chest on my back.
From the heat of your thighs on my sensitive ass;
And your cock not inside but on top of my crack
As you wait for my desolate sobbing to pass.
You're different.
Now soothing you whisper, with head next to mine:
"I'll take it real slow, we got plenty o' time.
It may hurt you at first, no denying the facts,
But things will go better if you can relax."
As you nibble my ear, sending chills down my spine,
How I wonder that rapist so gently attacks!
Are you different?
You wait til i'm quiet,
Then enter real slow,
Holding me down with your arms as you go;
OH!!!
A sharp stab of pain as i struggle in vain to escape from your battering-ram.
Then you soothe me once more
As i'm pierced to the core
And impaled on the flesh of a man.
You're different;
You cover me,
Motionless bodies we lay,
Until i relax
As the pain ebbs away;
Whispering comforting words in my ear,
Telling me how i have nothing to fear;
Waiting for this one to slowly adjust
To being a slave for your masculine lust.
When i am calm
It's your warmth that I feel
As you cover my body from shoulder to heel,
Protectively keeping the next one at bay.
I compare your concern
With their merciless thrust
And i suddenly want you to stay!
You're different --
So you're filling me now with your masculine power,
The seventh to rape me in less than an hour.
The difference is this:
You don't treat me like dirt;
Your body makes love where the others make hurt.
So i don't mind your vigorous fucking so much,
But mentally dwell
On the feel of your touch,
On your maleness inside me,
On being possessed,
On the feelings that girls have, and all of the rest.
--When finally your passion ascends to the height
And you lunge and you kiss me and squeeze me real tight
And you shudder and groan and you fill me with cream,
I know i've been caught
In your sexual dream.
You are different!
You whisper: "I want you to be
My own punk!
I'll keep those jocks off you,
Don't worry no more;
You'll be in my cell, babe,
And sleep in my bunk,
And if anyone hurts you, I'll even the score."
Relaxing beneath you,
Flesh still in my hole,
I consider your offer,
Ponder my role.
It's clear now: the difference is really your goal:
The six took my body,
You're taking my soul.
--Stephen Donaldson, in prison, July 12, 1981
Donny's Song
Dedicated to
Bette Midler
He sang a punk's song
a wail for the world to hear
about unspeakable barbarism
in the world's most comfortable nation
Over and over and
over and over he told his story
mostly to ears that refused to hear
Of what happened to him and
hundreds of thousands of other men, women and children
Some innocent
Some quilty
Some guilty of disqusting, henious crimes
But nome--no==not one sentenced to be tortured
He sang of the waste
of human lives and ummmm taxes
He sang of emotional wrecks, now expensive wards of the state
And horrible monsters created behind bars this way
Rape victims turned rapists like himself and even far worse
Though he throughly
knew how throughly crazy-making is rape
And counciled many other rapists to
Stop torturing others as well as themselves.
His own intellect and emotions were far too separated
The pain of his
birth never ceased
Was even made far, far worse
When his own country betrayed him
In a jail in his nation's capital
Arrested on the
White House lawn
For praying for peace in Vietnam
Navy vet turned Quaker pacifist, young and white he was confined
In a cell with hundreds of young blacks
G. Gordon Liddy
knows all about
what happened to Donny that day
He even chronicled it in Will
He may even have caused Donny's torture, he admits
Liddy, the former FBI agent
Turned district attorney
Turned Nixon plumber and superpatriot
Turned media star and arms salesman knows
Senior Captain
Clinton Cobb
Of DC Jail Shift #2 also knows
He'd the one who turned the key on Donny
That 23rd of August 1973
Don Collins and I
know
We were there
We felt Donny's screams
We heard his pain and will always
The media knows
For decades, centuries even
And has wept oceans of crocodile tears
While busy busy busy selling print and air time
Hollywood too knows
Bette Midler among many many many others
With their clever one-liners in cop shows
About menticide often grossly described
Donny the Punk, as
he called himself
Spent his last years
Making a superhuman effort to stop prison rape
And died of AIDS July 18,1996 just shy of 50
I charge the state
(read: all of us) with his murder
Weapons were gross stupidity and incomprehensible greed
Motive: many especially
To keep the criminal justice industry humming and expanding
And this in a
country that has placed men on the moon
And brought them back alive decades ago
Yet to date hasn't even scratched the surface
In understanding the human mind
So here is my song
for my comrade turned martyr
Here are my tears for courageous brother
Here is my eulogy for my selfless friend
Here is my farewell to you, Donny the Great
Tom Cahill
Fort Bragg, California
July 18, 1996
Tom Cahill is the president of the Board of Directors of SPR.