Mongoose Distro

Plain Potato Chip

The pleasure of a plain potato chip

After weeks of sensory deprivation

The transparent thinness

Ephemeral crunch

The taste of hot oil and fried potato

The boldness of salt

Solitary

Solitary ain’t so bad

At least

there is privacy

Transposed

A fast walk across concrete

My greedy strides consume

ground like eager travel

with places to go

Winter air fills my nose

dry, savory, smokiness

sweet wood and cold stone

I hurl myself forward

Back to my first day in Tokyo

Flying across unknown streets

with all the wonder and excitement

And pleasure of being in the world

Tapping

A child is tapping on my glass

Angrily, insistently

Shake my fishbowl

Stand up! Do what I say!

The New Zoo

Inside my cage I roar and I rage

The animals hoot and bellow

Their yells and screams

Shake the walls and seams

Tako

Octopus escaping onto the cooking street

Walking by our eyes happen to meet

Tentacles freeze climbing o’er the side

Prairie

Warm beer on the prairie

Seas of waving grass

A vast ocean of blue sky

A Mongol horselord riding

Across an endless world

The New World

Rivers toll towards the Great Middle Sea

Valleys engineered by AI Dreams

Boomtown ports of the New Humanity

Prison Art

There’s a Charizard in Segregation Cell 210

It’s so big, across the wall and ceiling

10 feet off the ground

I don’t even know

How it was drawn up there

Flaming breath and iconic tail

Claws, wings, and fangs

It’s the best Charizard I’ve ever seen

It fills me with wonder

I’m lucky to be here

Like my first Artists’ Alley

or step onto Akiba’s streets

Surrounded by filth and prisoners’ screams

It’s a peaceful and Holy scene

Merry Christmas

On my way to court

I saw a homeless sweep

Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year

On my way from prison to court

I passed a homeless sweep

polo shirts, always standing around

poor workers in reflective vests

picking up trash, belongings, clothes,

haul away tents, meds, lives

Neighbors shuffle away

they carry on, shelter gone

2 days before Christmas

And a Happy New Year

New Year

I stay up on New Years

To watch the first sunrise

Not always, but often

Sometimes, I’ll climb a roof

Lay on slanted black shingles

It doesn’t matter much

But it’s a symbolic action

One I choose

To orient myself

First Sunrise

The barest hint of scarlet-pink tints the first sky

Long thin clouds streak pink like ruled lines

the sun’s rise brings on a deep purple hue

till the windows on the opposite prison wall

reflect peach colored sky above dark slopes

like gentle volcanoes; the sunrise above Maui

the morning finally brings blue and violet into the world

it brings the tan of Texas buildings and Texas dirt

and silvery rolls of shining barbed wire

the brake lights of the security car slowly roll by

wide bands stretch out light across the sky

and move like fingers grasping the world

windows change from tropics to sterile whites

revealing old rusted iron bars

all the colors now meet

a layered quilt, pink, red, black, purple, orange, blue, and white

Finally, I see trees in the distance

Dark, shapelessness resolving into green

the grasping hand of clouds has gone

Is it hidden or dissipated?

Faerie Cat

Faerie Cat

upon my lap

How fae loves to play

massages and naps

Fae love to relax

we whittle the time away

Cooking, experiments, and steeping our tea

we eat feasts and treats

Kimchis and hotpots

pasta, chocolate, and soup

We could run a vegan buffet.

Our kisses and hugs

Fae love affection and joy

history, mystery, myths, stories, and maps

We talk together all day

Now you have gone

to an iron cage

Taken, maeve ‘the fae’

magik sealed and hidden away

The realm of our life

still burns brightly today

A world of our Sun

and our rainy days

We can’t be kept long

we reach out our hands

And rejoin them soon

to return to the people

And other cats

who await the end of our stay

My love

My lover

And my best friend

I long to see

the fire in your eyes again

all at once

Time is a circle

Not a straight line

Our warmest embrace

Happening yesterday

Still happening today

Will go on tomorrow

Benjamin Song 1137512

FMC Fort Worth

PO Box 15330

Fort Worth, TX 76119

Man, there’s this ol’ con, here, who has an affinity to felines. I guess I can use his nickname since he no longer answers to it. Gonzo used to hate cats. I’m talkin’ the kind of wrathful acrimony that may have warranted a listing on PETA’s top ten people who should never be allowed within a mile of the nearest cat. I’m afraid he’s likely done some things to three or four of the poor creatures of which not even the hardest lifer could stomach hearing about. But that’s the past. Gonzo’s been in the clink a couple decades, most of which he’s done the hard way. Early on he mixed in with one of the Aryan cliques, and that alone liked to have put the man in an early grave. After a couple years in segregation for God knows what-some kind violence or riot or both-he officially renounced the gang to get out of 24hr a day lockup the violence didn’t leave his heart for some time after. Gonzo was a hustler and a bully who moved a lot of contraband and made time hard for the passive type of inmate.

No one really knows what changed the ol’ convict. Some say the death of his wife finally caught up with him and broke his spirit. Others believe the Holy Spirit got to him and shooed the devil away. Still others will tell you that he just got old. Gonzo, himself, might even agree with all three assessments, but me, nah, I say it was and still is the kitty’s that have softened that mean mean man. Apparently his wife loved cats and it was always a point of contention between him and his dearly beloved. Isn’t it a shame that when someone we love leaves us either by choice or by hearse, those irritants that seemed to grate at the relationship, like a piece of sand in an oyster, turn into a pearl and are cherished long after the loved one has departed. At this prison and at those other Texas joints within a couple hundred miles of here, Gonzo is now known as the catman. Over the past decade, he’s raised so many generations of cats that every bloodline in the panhandle is tainted with vittles snuck from the chowhall and in to his cell.

For items considered of value (fans, radios, tennis shoes, watches, etc.), state prisoners are required to have property papers, signed by an administrator, proving ownership. Its always been a running joke that Gonzo’s cats are official, papers and all, but I’m not sure if there isn’t some truth to the tale. Many Wardens have come and gone, and although personal animals are not allowed in the unit, no officer has ever given him any flak about his pets. Ive heard that a few have taken kittens home to their wives and kids kittens that were born right here on that ol’ cat hatin’ convict’s bunk.

The man is at the end of his long prison sentence. I don’t believe he’d ever harm another person unless that person was harming a cat. When his release date comes, I’m starting to wonder if he will be able to leave this place and his cats. Oh, I’m sure the man will let the captain shackle and cuff him and put him on that bluebird chain bus. And I know he will walk out of the releasing prison’s front gate on his own accord, but I’m also convinced that he will never completely leave the penitentiary or those furry little restorative emotional support animals. From a hate filled racist gang member to loving what he once hated, this man has changed. My prayer for Gonzo and the rest of us is that we will learn to embrace those irritants in those we love before they are gone from our lives. Had he done just that, imagine what his life would have looked like. End. Peace out bro. I hope your wife and your dog are well.

Ross Allen Hartwell 1893452
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

Kristopher Storey 26731-018
Federal Medical Center
PO Box 14500
Lexington, KY 40512

Imagine if you can, the effect of shrinking the Criminal Justice System by a single percentage point. I’m not talking about imagining a one percent reduction in the crime rate. That statistic, such as it is, can be manipulated to any party’s benefit. No! Rather, imagine a tangible shrinking of the Criminal Justice System, as a whole. Let us reach beyond the obvious, but the obvious itself is startling: Shrinking judges, lawyers, and investigators, jails, prisons, and courtrooms, etc. by one percent. Wow! Let us go deeper. How many corporations in the United States derive some (e.g., office supplies providers, automobile and fuel providers, etc.) or all (e.g., Corr. Corp. of Am., GEO Group, etc.) of their revenue from the Criminal Justice System? And there are corporations outside of the United States, particularly international banks, that derive revenue from the US Criminal Justice System also. It is likely that tens of thousands of corporations in the US depend on the US Criminal Justice System to some extent, large or small.

Contemplation quickly reveals a sad truth: The whole of the United States has found itself in the same hole that the antebellum Deep South had dug for itself. The Deep South built for itself an economy that was wholly dependent for its success on chattel slavery. The history books declare that the Union won the US Civil War, but I question the truth of that. In the aftermath of the war the Union should have, but did not, filled in and planted over the hole that the Deep South had dug. It instead allowed the Deep South to pull the whole of the nation into its hole. We today are as dependent on enslaving our population to the Criminal Justice System as the Deep South was on enslaving theirs to the plantation owners.

This is the Pit Our Politicians Have Dug For Us.

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

HB 338 proposes to take phone tablets, in person visits, and educational programs away from all Level 3 and Level 4 prisoners in Ohio, which will lead to increases in prison violence, gang activity, mental health problems, costs of operations and future crime.

OHIO GOVERNOR’S OFFICE TO EMAIL/TEXT/CALL:

Exec Asst.: dustin.burton@governor.ohio.gov

Senior Legislative Liaison: gretchen.craycraft@governor.ohio.gov

Constituent Aides:
samantha.dorgan@governor.ohio.gov (614) 644-0925
jason.hill@governor… (614) 644-0932
de’one.logan@governor… (614) 644-0880
beth.gianforcaro@governor…

Chief of Staff:
christine.morrison@governor.ohio.gov (614) 466-5585

Chief Advisor:
ann.o’donnell@governor.ohio.gov (614) 728-7276

Exec. Asst. to Chief Advisor:
amber.riddell@governor.ohio.gov (614) 995-2000

Special Asst.:
jacob.winters@governor.ohio.gov (614) 644-0809

The Ohio House has passed HB 338 but the senate has not. Emails for Ohio senate, urge them to vote no:

antonio@ohiosenate.gov
blackshear@ohiosenate.gov
blessing@ohiosenate.gov
brenner@ohiosenate.gov
chavez@ohiosenate.gov
cirino@ohiosenate.gov
craig@ohiosenate.gov
cutrona@ohiosenate.gov
demora@ohiosenate.gov
gavarone@ohiosenate.gov
hickshudson@ohiosenate.gov
shuffman@ohiosenate.gov
ingram@ohiosenate.gov
johnson@ohiosenate.gov
koehler@ohiosenate.gov
landis@ohiosenate.gov
lang@ohiosenate.gov
liston@ohiosenate.gov
manchester@ohiosenate.gov
manning@ohiosenate.gov
mccolley@ohiosenate.gov
o’brien@ohiosenate.gov
patton@ohiosenate.gov
reineke@ohiosenate.gov
reynolds@ohiosenate.gov
roegner@ohiosenate.gov
romanchuk@ohiosenate.gov
schaffer@ohiosenate.gov
smith@ohiosenate.gov
timken@ohiosenate.gov
weinstein@ohiosenate.gov
wilkin@ohiosenate.gov
wilson@ohiosenate.gov

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

It is likely that no one would argue that blacks are disproportionately represented within the US prison population. This fact is nearly, if not entirely axiomatic. People talk about this, but none have inclined themselves to theorize as to why this is so, beyond vague speculation, that is.

I mean to change this by offering a theory of my own. I believe it to be sound, but, at the same time, I invite engagement of thought.

When compared to the population statistics of the whole of the United States the number of black persons in prison is undeniably disproportionate, but when compared to the population statistics of the United States’ impoverished class it does not appear so disproportionate. While approximately thirteen percent of the national population is black, I seem to recall a statistic that suggested that approximately forty percent of the nation’s impoverished class is black. It is notable then that blacks comprise also approximately forty percent of the US Prison Population.

These statistics offer testimony in support of another theory that I have long held: that the impoverished population is being specifically and actively targeted, in a hybrid racist-classist scheme, by law enforcement and other criminal justice actors. Every society the world has ever known, and the United States is no exception, has been built on the shoulders of the poor. State actors profess that the laws apply to all equally, but this is a myth. For the laws to apply to all equally they must be enforced against and applied to all equally. And this does not describe criminal law and its enforcement and prosecution in the United States.

This practice of targeting the poor supports the age-old racist undercurrents of the US Criminal Justice System. It ensnares just enough non-black persons in its net to keep the State and its actors out of Equal protection establishments with the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment blacks were targeted directly, especially in the South. But after its enactment the Government was forced to adopt less direct and less obvious approaches to express its actors racial animus.

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

It might well be argued that the Criminal Justice System is being used, deliberately, to drive labor market wage scales downward, in much the same way that the Criminal Justice System used leased convict labor to do the same during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those bearing the burden of a criminal record often find employment difficult to obtain and are then as often forced to accept lower wages to obtain employment. That approximately 100 million Americans now have criminal records then betrays intentional design. This means that nearly one-third of all Americans have criminal records. But the picture is more complex than just this. Rather the painted picture is of a pyramid, whose base (the densest strata of criminal convictions) is set in the midst of those most needful of gainful employment and a living wage – the impoverished. As one climbs the pyramid and escapes the prison of poverty, one finds fewer and fewer criminal convictions the higher the one gets on the pyramid. On reaching the top of the pyramid one finds bright, sunny and criminal-conviction-free days, and a people who are not targeted and harassed by the criminal justice system and its actors.

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266