Today is May 8, 2007 / 10:09am! Last night I was moved to the pod and section designated for those with execution dates. The label is “Death Watch.” This title is spoken with an air of taboo. It’s like a foul curse that sours the mouth.
I have never shared this feeling. It’s my position that all 504 cells on this building are “Death Watch.” I’ve also come to see how persons wait to get an execution date before they start to get serious about life, their plight or spiritual journey. This is an abomination. Ever since my death sentence was handed down I’ve had an execution date and I’ve moved in that reality.
These cages are all the same – except 2. Due to acts of resistance (like Michael Johnson’s suicide and the spirit of DRIVE weaving in and out of prisoners’ bones) cameras have been installed in 2 cages. From what I understand a few days before your date you’re moved into one of these cages for 24-hour observation. In your last days anything and everything you do is watched. If you cover your door to use the toilet an officer will buzz in to the speaker and tell you to remove it. If you refuse you will be approached by staff and possibly even repressed by having your property taken. That is the down side to that coin.
But the up side (if you look with passionate eyes) is they recognize that resistance is in the air. Signs of progress are usually accompanied by repression – but these are necessary steps in overcoming and obtaining.
I have began to share my deepest personal thoughts with you all: the dreams, visions, interpretations. They continue.
When I received the execution order I immediately snapped to the fact it was one day before my comrade’s date (Hasan Shakur) a year ago. Another sign was our dates being in Black August – a monthly celebration for a long history of resistance in Amerika (google Black August to learn more about it). And then to explode the point I was placed in 8 cell. What’s the significance? I refer you to Hasan’s poem “A LOUD WHISPER”:
“LIVE AND DIRECT FROM DEATH WATCH!!!
yall, i’m speaking to you
eight cell ain’t hell.”
To further this cruel and awing irony my co-defendant, Mauriceo Brown, was housed in this cage before Hasan, therefore this definitely will be a chain to break.
Life is so mysterious – ugly yet beautiful all at the same time.
This morning I woke up to Hasan’s breathe on my face. The following prose – “8 cage” is my response.
Before I was moved here I received several messages from brothers of mine. There was no goodbyes, no sorrows (we surrendered those puppet strings long ago) – it was only 2 things: Fight! and Believe! Belief was the theme and they beat that word into my psyche. The truth to this need (to believe and be resolute on it) was the only thing relevant. Even a Brother that I had fell out with some years ago wrote me and said (regarding his message) –
“I extend this as a true thought that envelopes a sincere prayer that you will awaken the Power that is within and is able to manifest what doubters and small minds call impossible. There is no greater deceit than that simple word – impossible. All things are possible. You possess the Drive, just don’t doubt. You can verbally affirm anything – but if you don’t Believe it in your heart then your affirmation is a waste.”
And so the mind (which is many times clouded) begins to reach. Thus I asked myself – what do I believe?
There’s no doubt that I believe I have a great purpose and perhaps my test is to clear my own cloudy mind and make my visions real.
I’d like to give a metaphor on something I do believe – I don’t believe a pile of feces can ever become a pile of chocolate. Excuse the image. But – if we take that feces and burn it into fuel to make the engine run then that’s a different story.
The point? We have to take hold of what we really can change and do it within those means and without cease. So again I say – I have NO faith in this System, but I believe in Us!
My first act of belief will be carried out today! I will immediately mail out that execution order. Those papers will have no reality in this cage. Nothing will be in my circumference but Love, Life and Liberation. And even as I write this my spirit lifts and I smile! I’m ready for the fight and victory of my life.
So today, May 8th, in 8 cage, I declare proverbs 8, verse 8: “All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.”
Victory Is Mine!
8 cage
my brother has called me to him…
decided we needed to hold war counsel
one more time.
i came in
back straight.
face stern,
eyes locked,
a mission at hand!
i smelled his sweat in the concrete
stained like
revolutionary cologne –
guerrilla phunk –
drops soaked in from
nights of
plots, plans, perseverance.
tracks faded in the brown floor,
footprints lost in polunsky sand dunes.
i paid homage to the cage
then denounced its existence
all in the same breath.
life and death
are in the power of the tongue and
i speak the cycle
to my cipher
building a circle of power at my feet.
i must be
builder and destroyer at all times –
Ifa and Ogun.
May 7, 2007
his heat hugged me,
wrapped me like a cloak.
i became a Peul child /
nomad
lost in
paradoxes and putrid propaganda
BUT
spirits whispered –
“you a paragon.”
i’m paranoid that the walls may bleed /
souls may jump out at me.
i’m taunted by
failed dreams.
I searched the cell
seeing if he left any –
on the walls,
under the toilet,
in the crevices.
i looked on the door and saw an 8-ball drawn –
8 representing:
Universal Direction /
sideways it’s Infinity.
nuff said!
i threw the RBG flag
top shelf.
snap crisp salute!
full People’s Army regalia/boots shining.
we don’t “at ease”
in the killing machine,
we breathe insurgent rockets.
the teXas holocaust excretes Atomic bombs,
i’m Tet offensive.
i feel the humidity
of our legends
biting my skin –
hairs pricked up
like a panther in the cliffs;
a constant reminder that
i was called here
to win,
not to lose.
my belief is the tool
for liberation.
there will never be a
“final” statement
bcoz as long as
love and struggle is in the air
there
will
be
no
death!
