ARI POTIER and the DEATHLY PALLOR
OR
A FAVOR FOR A FAMILY FRIEND
by Richard Sean Gross
He's not looking well, I says to the Mrs. never seen a man quite that color before. "His family say he's fine," my wife retorts. His heirs have not called a Doctor, I says, they just keep a quiet vigil at his bedside.
"Do you suppose he's mentioned us?" she asks. What, you mean in his will? I says, I doubt it. "Perhaps we should summon the Doctor," she says. That would be a kind gesture for our old friend, "Inheritence or not," we say in one breath.
Life in Color
by Richard Sean Gross
It gives me the blues
that the world is all shades of grey. No certainty. No truth.
Don't know the difference between
alabaster, eggshell, and cream. Magenta, mauve, violet, crimson, all a purple haze to me.
Raised on pink bellies and purple nurples,
I'll bea yellow belly thru my golden years. No silver linings or blue ribbons,
just grey skies and white lies. No red wine and salmon,
just orange drink and olive loaf.
A red hot romance once in a blue moon, not Snow White, more like black ice.
No yellow ribbons round old oak trees,
be damn lucky to ever leave this beige & brown.
Bookendings
by Richard Sean Gross
Recognition will come in time Time enough for everything
Things I'm working on are pretty good Good stuff for people to read over Over time I will finish my works Working out the details of the plot Plotlines that amuse and entertain Entertainment that makes people smile Smiles that translate into awards
Award winning work that makes money Money for me and for charity
Charities meriting recognition
Window to the World
by Richard Sean Gross
I love that oldmirror that hangs on that wall Above the half moon table right there in the hall Right next to the picture of the girl from St. Paul
The three legged table crowded with gear Everyone uses it, I can't keep it clear
"Could someone take their things offof here?"
Gazing on that mirror from inside my den I see all that goes on in the kitchen
"Who's cooking, what's for dinner, and when?"
As the front door opens the mirror fills with light Our streetlight's position does the same at night "Who's that who's arrived now without an invite?"
The door to the water closet squeaks just a bit So I always know who is taking a shit
"Let me know if a candle needs lit."
If anyone decides to climb the stairs
A reflection of shoes my mirror shares
"I knew it was him by the shoes he wears."
The mirror fell one time in a Thanksgiving brawl Abou:t whether to shop downtown or at the mall "If you ladies broke it, I'll notify the law!"
Cleaning that mirror is not a chore A task I both treasure and adore
"I need cigs if you're going to the store!"
From my chair I note all who come and go While seated I judge them -friend or foe
'You'll never guess who's here!' -"I know, I know."
Talking to a Dead Poet
Richard Sean Gross
Hey Poe, did you know that Baltimore named a Football team after your poem?
Cheer up, dead man! People do what they can. Not everyone has the same talents that you possessed.
It would be cool to be possessed by the soul of Edgar Allen Poe. Are you busy on Halloween?
So is that a yeah or nay on the Halloween thing ?
I killed myself partly because stupid people think sport has import.
I shall possess you if you keep annoying me thusly.
You shall be dead someday, friend. We will settle the issue then.
Die, Gross, die.
Movement
Richard Sean Gross
It amazes me, everything is moving Air masses, currents, tectonic plates
Earth spinning a thousand miles an hour
Moon Circles Earth Earth Orbits Sun Sun In Precession
Galaxy spinning on collison course with another Universe expands, time soars, everything moving
but me
Adjusted for Inflation
by Richard Sean Gross
I was very young for very Long
Back then everyone knew me as Sean
Free run and fifteen cent candy Bars
Could not wait to take on the World
Positive I would be President
Life got real nasty Real Fast
Still don't know how I shoulda' handled It
Everything I tried made it Worse
Failure and fifty cent candy Bars
Hated my school hated my Home
Now I'm doing prison for Life
A maddening sameness rules my Life
Such is life behind Bars
Eighty-five cent candy Bars
Now I go by Rich
Polluted
by Richard Sean Gross
I feel the way this sky looks
Dark clouds above me stretching to
An angry red sunset in the west
The pollution makes it this way
It has been my mood all day
Taw Tail
By Richard Sean Gross
that particular peculiar pacific personage
who's wildly wondering when we wherefore will-do whistlestop knot 4 nothin' negotiating numerical nonsense
growing genteel gadfly genomes getting gory glorified decrepid departmental directives don't do diddly dot because belittlemental betterment barbituates brains readily regurgitating rehabilitation rhetoric
intrepid incommunicados interpret ed inside phrenological fratricidal freakazoid's files algorithms arranging allowable exits
otherpoem
including newords
by Richard Sean Gross
In the othertime before words Otherwrought otherburdened men Otherindulged in other wordy backwords For words opened intercourses anew Frontwords brought inwords out and about
Onwords to an acme of illust riou s expressions
Afterwords we will wonder why there weren't more words
Kindless
by: Richard Sean Gross
Is kindness just a bold-faced lie? Something you say to soothe a friend
Who believes in something so much That it would hurt if you didn't
Share the belief?
Sure I believe Second coming, Paper money Parole eligibility
Political correctness
Those pants do not make you look fat
I'm sure it will work out just fine
I agree with your idea, Boss I bet the check is in the mail The lady is not a tramp
What could possibly go wrong?
Tuesday
By Richard Sean Gross
Used to know Tuesday from Sunday
Knew Tuesday by things scheduled
Work to be done, appointments
Now there's nothing there
Looks a lot like Sunday
Matter of fact
Every day does
By Richard Sean Gross
An account of the move from SCI Graterford to SCI Phoenix
in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
For several years leading up to the move, Graterford was awash in rumors and speculation. A hyper-active rumor mill cranked out possible dates and likely circumstances surrounding the move. The staff did nothing to quash bad rumors, even participating in the rumor-mongering. I did too. I remember speculating on what the new prison might be like based on a TV documentary I saw about a new jail in another state. Before the day was out I was hearing rumors which echoed my own speculation. After that, I didn’t believe anything I heard about the new jail, and rightly so, as very little that was predicted has actually materialized.
An atmosphere of uncertainty and impermanence pervaded Graterford. The administration repeatedly set dates for the move from January 2015 on, encouraging all to reduce their property before the “pending move.” Memos told us to ‘voluntarily’ reduce property before it was done for us. The less property we have, the easier it is for staff to search our cells. It was part of an intentional effort to cajole us into reducing our own property years before the actual move. Policy limits us to a footlocker and two boxes (my whole life in a footlocker and two boxes). A television doesn’t have to fit in the boxes but if you prefer books as I do - they must fit. I was forced to part with reference books I wanted to keep including my Bible. Do I take all my books and forgo underwear? Na.
We had a ‘content search’ a few months before the actual move which let me know that this time it was actually going to happen. I was ordered to get rid of a box right there on the spot. A lieutenant said I could send it home. I’m doing life. No guarantee that I’ll ever get out. How could I ship a box to someone and ask them to hold it for ten, twenty years? Maybe forever? I removed some stuff I wanted to keep from a box and then tossed it out onto the tier, demonstrating visible compliance with the searching officer. A guy two doors down argued about property rules and was stuck debating multiple staff members for four hours. After that scare, I got serious about reducing my property. I made tough choices, practiced packing and eventually made it down to the limit, my junk so carefully packed that no air was in the boxes. In the last months at Graterford, books and other property sat on the radiators free for the taking. As I parted with my books by dumping them out there, I saw those left by others, ones I would’ve liked to read. Not enough time to read them and not enough space to take them. I felt like the man in the classic Twilight Zone episode who finally has all the books in the world and time to read them and then breaks his glasses.
They reduced Graterford’s population in the last year of its use, from a high of over 3,800 down to about 2,600. I even had a few months alone in my cell, a rare treat in my 15 years at the Fort. No one knew if they were getting shipped. You would see someone one day and then never again. “I think he got shipped,” someone would tell you weeks later. Villanova University offers a free degree program at Graterford. Many Villanova students were shipped out with the expectation that they would get back to the Villanova program at Phoenix sometime later. I haven’t seen any of them come back even as others are getting promotional transfers to Phoenix for Villanova enrollment. A lot of guys considered troublemakers were shipped, perhaps to prevent trouble at Phoenix. Or maybe the administration simply took the opportunity to dump their undesirables at a time when other prisons had to take them. Prisons sometimes play ‘hot potato’ with human beings.
One day after breakfast they locked us down. I knew this was it, so glad that it would finally be over! The rumors, the worries, the waiting and the confusion. I’ve come to believe that there must be some correctional philosophy about using uncertainty as a tool of control. When they cannot openly, legally harm you; they have only the fear of the unknown to scare you with. It was Friday the 13th of July 2018 when they came for me. Graterford’s staff had largely moved over to the new jail; the moving was done by the CERTs (Corrections Emergency Response Teams). They were efficient and impersonal. The moving of 2,600 men took five days.
They had brought hundreds of blue carts recently, assembled them and had them staged. One for each prisoner and big enough to hold much more than a foot locker and two boxes. On the day at around 11am, a CERT rolled up to my cell door - asked if I was ready. “Yes,” I answered emphatically. It will probably be worse, I expect to hate it, I don’t want to move and yet after eight years of people yakking about the new jail I was more than anxious to get the stupid move over with. I placed my footlocker and two boxes into the cart and pushed it off to B block into the main corridor. I stood in line with my cart for a while, then was relieved of my belongings and taken into the school building for a search process. Metal detector, strip search (everything including my dentures) and a dog search. The woman told me to sit in a chair and then ran this orange dog around me twice. She complained of the dog being lazy which seemed off to me because the dog did sniff me but found no drugs because I had no drugs. After a month at Phoenix I met a guy coming out of the hole after a 30 day ‘investigation’ because his dog barked at him. No drugs were found. That ‘lazy’ orange dog maybe did me a favor.
When I saw the blue cart again it was on T block at Phoenix around 2 in the afternoon. I was pleased to see it so quickly, thankful that they needed it to move others. The cart was half full of my jumbled belongings. They didn’t even try to repack it as tightly as I had it. It took me quite some time to figure out what was there and what was not. Some contraband made it over while things I’m allowed to have did not. Typical of the hit or miss searches that I’ve been through dozens of times since coming to jail. I tell them to “take what you want just don’t hurt me.”
The move itself was marked by the mass vandalism and theft of inmate property; ostensibly by the CERT teams and very clearly intentional. A message was sent to us by the DOC hierarchy. A statement about their attitude toward us and how little they care about our personal items such as family photos. It was not done by a only few bad apples. The extent of it indicates that it was allowed and likely encouraged by supervisors. Much of the vandalism was weird and immature: sausages stuck in peanut butter etc.
Something red was smeared into the crotch of a pair of my briefs. The briefs were then neatly refolded and placed with the other pairs. I didn’t even find it right away. Phoenix’s laundry was not yet operational so they sent our laundry by truck across the state to another jail. One week T block’s laundry was left off the return truck and I got down to the last of my clean underwear. Finding the vandalized pair, I was creeped out and quickly threw them away. Who does stuff like that? I mean, besides junior high school dorks in a locker room. I didn’t complain. I don’t want to talk to them about it. Not sure I want to talk to them at all.
The new prison is cold and sterile; built of concrete, concertina and hate. While other states are closing theirs, PA builds a 400+ million-dollar monstrosity. The design is called ‘proto-typical.’ It is built to quickly isolate one block from another. One quad from the next, the East side from the West. It is not built for the easy movement of people. Cumbersome for both staff and residents, it is less safe for both. Doors are opened remotely and often involve a long wait. Staff and resident get stuck between doors in sally ports where the two doors are opened from different locations. One from within the building, the other from a control room at the front of the prison. The architecture of isolation leaves us standing in the cold talking to a person through an intercom, one who is distant in attitude as well as location.
The prison was designed with four yards. One for each quad. The yards were not ready upon arrival and we did not get out there until October. A year later we are lucky to have yard every other day. They never open all four at once. Usually only two, often one, or none. Why design a prison with four yards and then leave them unused more often than not? Graterford had a yard for seniors which I loved and miss.
They thought this jail could operate with less staff than Graterford and now they find it would need more to run as it is designed. This beast was supposed to pay for itself by needing less staff. Many staff have quit since we arrived. So many that a few of the longtime employees are working a good deal of overtime to keep it going - costing more money than an adequately staffed facility would require. The total cost in dollars and human misery may never be calculated.
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Smart Communications/PA DOC Richard Sean Gross FF9878 SCI Phoenix P.O. Box 33028 St. Petersburg, FL 33733 |