The ³SHU²: Special Housing Unit

"there was an old woman,

she lived in a shoe"

what did she do?

9/11 no prisoner may speak to you

you may not speak to any prisoner

9/12 overheard voices

there are terrorists here

who are the terrorists?

silence, everyone behind her door listens

9/14 a legal call

small relief: itís political ñ Washington ñ

not something i did

9/17 no more calls

no visits

no mail

until futher notice

incommunicado

i hang from a winding string

winding in this cocoon

i breathe deep

the air isnít good here

(from outisde the walls Susan yells

you are not alone)

i breathe deeper

Sunday i get a radio: KPFA lifeline

Sikhs dead, detainees disappeared

political prisoners buried deeper

incommunicado

i remember another September 11: Chile í73

more than 3,000 dead

tortured assassinated disappeared

a CIA-supported coup

(the WTC bombers not-yet-born)

many people there still mourn

let us mourn all the dead

and the soon-to-die

i worry about the prisoners

isolation sucks at the spirit

i am furious; inferred association

held hostage in place of men

with u.s. weapons and CIA training

an infernal joke

the puppet masters laugh

i laugh to stay sane

before i explode in ironyís flame

we are hostages

to the blood-thirsty oil men

ready to splatter deserts

with daisy-cutters

their collateral damage

dead mothers and children

dead mother earth

dead daisies

(hasnít this happened before?

u.s. clavalry and smallpox blankets

special forces and blanket bombing)

(Susan is back

she taps on the wall: you are not alone)

i walk around the edges

how many walk on edges

what edges do the Palestinians walk?

cold radiates whitewashed

walls press against my edges

suspend animation

no butterflies to break out

no silken thread to weave sweet dreams

panic rises in my throat

thick white choking cold

so cold

i swing hope on a thread

a transparent sliver it crashes

against the cinderblocks

i drop

frozen chrysalis

cold into a coffin box

-- from, "Incommunicado: Dispataches from a political prisoner."

Dream Fragments

I don't remember my dreams

fragments swirl and disappear

I'm mired in nightmares

the national security state

keeps files on the imagination

dreams go underground

seek subteranean paths

water beneath iron-streaked stone

-- Marilyn Buck

Marilyn Buck is a political prisoner who has served over 20 years of an 80-year sentence at the Federal prison in Dublin, CA. She was convicted of helping Assata Shakur escape from prison in 1979, and other actions protesting U.S. government policy. Recipient of three PEN prison writing prizes, her poems are in numerous collections, her chapbook, Rescue the Word, and on her CD, Wild Poppies (see: www.freedomarchives.org/wildpoppies).