"Three Poems"
Submitted by Lita Kurth
Editors Note: The following pieces from Sydney Devera, Raymond Chen, and Bryan Stanley come to us via Lita Kurth, who explains their route in greater detail below.
When a friend of mine, Rahul Athavale (who'd already turned his life around), needed to pay for past misdeeds with a jail sentence, he wanted to write and to help others while in jail at Elmwood in Milpitas, California. He recruited a group (actually several) during his 18 months there and some are still going. His website is TheGratefulFelon.com.
Since I'm a creative writing teacher, I began sending lesson plans and the guys in jail would send their work to me whereupon I'd provide feedback and encouragement and recruit others to do the same. All their work must be handwritten and sent through the mail! So I type and submit their work for publication for them. I'll send them the link so they can let their friends and family know!
- Lita Kurth
***
“Isolated in a Bubble”
by Sydney Devera
with my peers
practicing shelter-in-place
donated mask wrapped around my concerned face
social distancing in a jail where our beds
are just two to three feet apart
public health department's order to stay 6 feet apart
how is that logical in jail
when I could smell the next man's B.O and an occasional fart
The deputies say we are safer in here
I would gladly trade places so you can understand my real fear
trapped in a box that breaks all around me nothing is safe
a phone call home can kill me. I roll the dice when I go to court.
The pandemic changed the world in one day
An unknown death
with no vaccine of course
isolated in a bubble my worst fears come true
an asymptomatic person slips through
this poem ends with me breathing through a tube
***
"Inside the Hot Box"
by Raymond Chen
Unfathomed and uncared for, depressed and still in the thicket
of this unsafe isolation. Living in a jail with 50 other volatile beings
it's hard to avoid confrontation. Trustees and cops who display barbarism
have the right as animalistic oppression. Peace and art are my gift to the dorm
and lay out my own contributions.
Safety procedures which were ignored feel like we are walking to our executions.
Infected inmates were moved into our dorm. The officers hid it in their selfish discretion.
They said they tested us weekly, on the news, but only once in 7 months did we go through proper examination. Only when we execute mass grievances
were we able to get our covid test done. What is their explanation?
Living in this jail facing depression, danger and covid-19, we're walking toward unavoidable annihilation. Saving myself, not being able to help my family in here suffering from four years and longer separation. Day in day out, it's the same oppression, depression and separation. Sometimes I wish I will not wake up to face this desolation.
On the news they lied. They favored incarceration over our safety. They're covering their tracks. Where is true justification? The police force should be giving protection
but they killed framed and broke families. Please God bring forth your revelation.
I cried on the phone with my family. I miss them all so much. I hate this unconditional segregation. Just like Saint Quentin, we're just staying in the impossibility of covid-19 awaiting our fated infection.
***
"Weavers of Fate"
by Bryan Stanley
I look to my left then to my right
4 feet from me I look into the eyes of potential death
they say, “you’re healthy, young man.
The deadly geometric virus won't bother you.”
then a phone call to the grim reaper tells us
that one of our own is deadly ill
as Time keeps by my thought of every possible strand
of Fate, every possible corridor to the red door
is all thought of now. I find myself walking
on the edge of the abyss
I can't breathe. My protection
of woven cloth holds my life for us
I pray that I earn a chance to live
to be happy, a chance to be a dad
and it's a corona of light
like a shooting star through the cosmos
with a chance to collide into my imperfect world
now through the window of my conquerer
I see the universal play of life go on
with a deadly path people have chosen to ignore
so I sit in my cell and pray to my gods
that the weavers of Fate see it wise
that I earn a chance to live
Our third installment of "Living Through Science Fiction: Trues Stories from the COVID-19 Crisis" walks the uneasy line between pleasure and paranoia that has come to define the COVID lockdowns for so many.