Noel Sambrana

Greetings, I am writing in representation of those who are being held in the buildings of California's biggest money machine. Better known as prison. I must contend, I sure don't see any of that money my confinement is generating, especially not in reforming me with education.

Here behind the wall being low income people it is very rough and tumble. A majority of the convicts really do try to seek something better in their lives. The system though does not allow them to because the many cut backs in funding for prisoner reform and education has made rehabilitation obsolete. The majority gets back out into society on the same level they entered prison, only a bit more angry.

I see people come and go and come again. I have come to realize these last six years that 99 out of 100 men I come across are generally from a low income background, living in low income neighborhoods. Now they're caught up in a vicious cycle, with no end in sight. And the judge at sentencing had the audacity to call this the Department of "Corrections". I see no correction here only oppression and demoralization. This is my fourth term and I'm serving 22 years 8 months to life. I received all that time to be "corrected" and pay back my debt to society. And yet, they do not offer any "correction" courses so I can learn to better myself. They will though provide a senseless novel to read. They do not offer any job training skills so that convicts can pick up a trade and return to society as an asset, but they will give me a deck of cards to keep me busy.

It's pretty amazing when I hear of a convict that got out and made something of himself. So amazing, in fact, that in six years I still have not heard of it. What I do hear of is the constant battle with the establishment. Many who are released from behind these walls end up back in because they were in the wrong area and it does not matter if they're clean and working now. They still lose their freedom just because they were walking through a known drug area. What I also hear is men and women being released only to end up on street corners or dead. People come behind the wall everyday and go nowhere. Some sell their soul for protection, others sell their bodies just to survive. After months or years, it just creates a madness in these individuals. I've had three neighbors hang themselves, only one lived. I've heard the cries of rape and bitter hatred. I've seen people stabbed, shot and pummeled to the ground. There are nights where I myself have layed awake with tear filled eyes, remeniscing about my family and the child I left behind. I wonder if I will live to see another day. I see, it is vital that people find education before it is too late. Otherwise, you end up like me; without a job, without a family and without a name, only a number. Just because we are homeless, doesn't mean we are hopeless and just because we are convicts doesn't mean we can't create a more positive future for ourselves. The key is education and without it we go nowhere.

Noel Sambrana, #K-53140
P.O. Box 3476 C.S.P. SHU 4A2R-37
Corcoran, CA 93212-8310

Anthony Cozart

Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here.

What I Learned at Folsom State

How does one keep his sanity?
In a world totally insane
Why should one have humanity ?
When the world is so inhumane

Once upon a time we forgot
What we did not know, we knew
The victims of a fiendish plot
And the evil things that men do

Men dwell in darkness til they die
With numbers instead of their names
Unaware, they were sold a lie
That smothered their collective flames

They must endure a masquerade
In order to keep hope alive
Imagined friendships often fade
As better deceptions arrive

Living our days enclosed in tombs
Eats away at ones' self-respect
Each d a y, as the madness resumes
Self-esteem suffers ill effects

Old vultures have no tears to wipe
Hyenas, no laughter to hide
Old men bite fruit thats not yet ripe
But cry if its rotten inside

Ravenous wolves seek to devour
Innocence like newly killed meat
Then leave uneaten parts to sour
And stink with the smell of defeat

All these things I see everyday
Behind these walls of steel and stone
Yet, I refuse to give my soul away
To be buried like a dog's bone

Am I all that you think that I am ?
A villian on the late night news?
No, my soul will never be damned
Because of the image you choose

Prison is about loss . It is about loss of freedom, loss of control, loss of family and friends, of any and all conditions of life. Prison is about punishment, loss of freedom is the punishment. But, that is and of itself is no longer enough. Now prisons are slave camps and warhouses for human consumption.

Big Business has moved in to combine with the California Department of Corrections and has set in place work forces nick named P.I.A (Prison Industry Authority). This has become a thriving business where the inmate is forced to work for pennies, in often unsafe conditions while the prison system grows and prospers. Politicians have come up with fancy names like; "war on crime", "war on drugs", "three strikes your out", "the crisis of public order". At the same time words like; high infant mortality, horrible housing, lack of food, poor education, lack of jobs are forgotten. Our court system is rushing those who are unable to retain private legal representation through the "proper channels" on into the prision system and into big business' hands and calling it procedure.

We must pull together as a people because it affects out communities. It affects us all.

Anthony Cozart, #C-01398
P.O. Box 3466 C.S.P./3B 04 143
Corcoan, CA 93212

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MOTHER

YOU are the First
beginnings Of the first love I've ever known...
kindness, warmth, trust,
All this you have shown...
YOU are
the perfect rainbow
across the sky of every human being,
YOU are the flower view
my soul keep seeing...

Your nourishment gave me the power
to continue on
with strong motion, you are
  the raw essence
   of truth
  and devotion...
your wisdom is the treasure,
your giving has no measure,
much higher and precious than any other...
you are the one
you are my mother.

Bernard Patrick
2/23/99

BEING POOR AIN'T NO STATE OF MIND

When the winds be blowin'
so very hard
and the cold is assaulting
one's bones, when
the very bottom of one's belly
cries out to a world
the just don't hear,
to a world that just don't
really know the
serious push
of the
pains that
hunger their
way
above and beyond
the heart...
When one's only dream
is to be warm and realized...
just to be realized.
When one has allowed
the neat commodities
of pride
to become vaporized
In the fluttering wings of hope...
When one has engaged
in the vast theater
of other people's stare
and disregard.
When one must become an
actor or actress for the small
but wanting
facet
of a meal.
Being poor is the tragic song
that has no
particular music, it's
a song and a journey
that has no apparent end...
...It is the cracked reflection
in a cultural mirror
that often breaks
into little
jagged
elements called terrible...
Being Poor
is like the shadow
squeezing in
between two tan
buildings...
Being Poor is deplorable... it is
the profane exterior
of hurt
encrusted
and shackled
along the narrow lines of reality.

Bernard Patrick, 1999
GSP EF307420
100 GA, HWY, 147
Reidsville, GA
30499

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