Despair

These walls were built with hate and I imagine that they will be destroyed with hate. In a sanatorium we live, we struggle, and we die. How do we overcome this?

They call it ELY STATE PRISON, I call it Ely State Zoo. Come watch us and see what we do while we sit in our cages. Listen to our beastly roars and our soul-wrenching howls and our lonesome chirps. We live in cages called cells. We live in hell where despair pervades the atmosphere of our hearts. We live in institutions where the air is stale and the walls are pale. We live in agony.

Listen to the sound of dread as it enters your cell through the ventilation system: "Fuck the system, buck the system": words that still ring in our ears, even though some stopped trying a long time ago. We don't care any more, and when you stop caring, you begin to go numb and your mind deteriorates, crumbles, fades.

We are the wretched, the little people with broken souls, holding on to death, refusing to let go.

This is my profane existence as I sit here and try to explain resistance. When my soul gets cold, the hate unfolds, and onto a path of destruction I go.

Despair fills the air in here, another day, another year. When she thinks of me, she sheds a tear.....

Coyote December 20th 2007

(photo: ESP watchtower, Oct 2009)

Today is a Good Day to Live

Sitting up in these solitary confinement cells, for years on end. I used to always wake up and tell myself that today is a good day to die. But, today is different: it's a good day today. I am pleased with the things I am seeing today. The good spirits and cheer of the convicts around me definitely seems to be resonating with me. Today is a good day to live.

I received a letter in the mail last night and its always good to know there are people out there who actually care about me, about my struggles, and situations and about what’s going on in here. It's definitely a good thing to maintain a solid connection with people on the outside.

Here, where I'm at, the pickle-suits do not pass out the mail until night time, so we have to wait all day and all night, just to see if we get something or not. It’s always uplifting to our spirits to receive a letter from someone or a piece of mail. For some of us, its the only thing we have to look forward to each day in here, so that's one of the things that has me feeling real good about life right now.

I'm also glad to see that other prisoners are on top of their game. There's a guy in the cell a few doors down from me, to my left, who is doing his work-out routing right now. I can hear him counting his sets: "one, two, three: ONE. one, two, three, TWO. one, two, three, THREE". There's another prisoner in the cell a few doors down from me, to my right, who's working on his case-legal work. That's some hard stuff to figure out. It takes a lot of time, study, and practice. It's never easy when you're trying to go up against a system that owns the law, writes the law, and makes the law. But, we all know those people don't play fair. There's always gonna be some kind've dirt on them, so its always possible to beat them at their own game! It’s definitely good to see people on the grind in here, its good to know that they're trying, its good to know that they still have some fight left in them, and its always good to know that they haven't given up.

There are other prisoners all around me, in their cells, who are either exercising, reading, writing, or who are deep into their studies. One of my neighbors, who I often have study sessions with, was talking to me about different styles of study; how someone could really get a good study program down if he was truly serious about his studies. He said there are all kinds of things a prisoner can study if he really wants to learn something and not only learn, but apply it too. I told him I feel him on that. There's a lot of people who read, but don't really take the time to think about what they read. They don't absorb it, they don't try to memorize it, and they don't-try to apply it. They just read to pass the time, which is cool, I guess, because its better to be doing something productive to pass the time than to be on a path of self-destruction, or to even be wasting ticks on a bunch of irrelevant nonsense. He said that he agreed with me and that sometimes he'll spend 2-3 hours reflecting on one sentence. He'll take his etymological dictionary out, he'll break out his encyclopedia and other reference materials and he'll look at the root word to find out where the word originated from, what it means, and when it came into use. Then, he will just sit back and really think about the entire sentence, to see what was underneath the surface. All could say to that was, "WOW." I definitely appreciated his conversation, and that's another thing that has me feeling good about the day today.

So far, there hasn't been any negativity today, nobody yelling or screaming out the side of their doors, calling other prisoner obscene names. Nobody's tripping on the pigs and they aren't going out of their way to mess with any of us today. Even the psych-patients seem to be quiet today. No banging on the desks or kicking on the doors - and they haven't been yelling and screaming at all today, like they often do.

The morale amongst the prisoners on this tier seems to be pretty good. The conversations have been productive and uplifting. I can definitely sense that everybody's feeling pretty good about themselves today. Everybody's joking, laughing and nobody's stressing, nobody seems to feel the need to be a tough guy or prove themselves to the next man. There's a sense of community on the tier today. It's not something you see around here often so its always a good feeling when it shines forth.

Today is a good day to live. I say that from the solitary confines of a prison cell, so I must be saying something! They haven't killed me, they haven't stripped my spirit or my joy for life. My love for freedom still remains strong. They can't stop me from loving life or from feeling human. I'm alive and it feels good to be alive.

El Coyote

E.S.P. 2007

ABC-Nevada Prison Chapter

We Must Keep Resistance in Our Hearts

As we swim through the gloominess and murkiness of the treacherous waters of prison life, we must stay focused, we must stay determined and we must keep resistance in our hearts. Resistance to death, resistance to boredom, resistance to stupidity, resistance to stagnation, resistance to insanity, resistance to ignorance, resistance to inhumanity, resistance to oppression and injustice--because resistance is the truth.

We must really look out for each other, as much as we look out for ourselves, because the way we are living in these graveyards is beyond foul. You gotta keep your head above the water, you gotta keep your mind right and be careful of bitter people. Stay away from miserable, hateful people and be cautious of those who want to forever remain stuck on being stupid. Be careful of those people standing at their doors, talking out the side of their necks, trying extra hard to advertise themselves as real motherfuckers, hard motherfuckers, bad motherfuckers. It’s usually people who go the extra mile to advertise themselves as this and that, who are not only insecure of who they are, but are also untrustworthy and probably under-cover informants, or cell thieves. Don't be like that and don't fall into that trap. Keep resistance and truth in your heart and fakeness can't and won't touch you, or even come near you.

Sitting in a cell, with 4 walls to keep you company on cold, lonely nights, is a perfect time for us to take a deeper look into to ourselves and to take a deeper, more critical look at our lives. Use this time as an opportunity, look at it as a blessing. Don't let others define what real is for you, Take a hard, critical look at things, question everything you hear and everything you see and let yourself find your own conclusions and definitions of what real is; of what truth is.

Try to use this time to take a deeper, harder look at who you are and a deeper look at what you stand for. Are you influenced mostly by your environment? Are you mostly influenced by your comrades and peers? (If so, is this good or bad? Why?), or are you mostly influenced by what beats in your heart and what flows through your veins?

Take a deeper look at what makes you tick and at your reasoning's, judgments, and motives of why you do what you do. Use this time to really get to know yourself, because people who are true to themselves know who and what they are, and they are apt to be resistant towards anything that isn't true. We must be true to ourselves under these circumstances, or we will drown in these dirty, treacherous waters of prison life. Don't be a follower, fuck being a leader--just be true to yourself and to those who are true to you.

Resistance is a truthful way of life. Resistance is absolutely necessary and absolutely mandatory in these graveyards. It’s good to seek truth, its good to be true. Watch out for fakes and snakes--they're everywhere. Watch out for people who are trying to pull you under the rip- tide, just to keep themselves from drowning. Be true to you, keep resistance in your heart.

Coyote ESP 2008

Life is Good

If you love life, you're going to live life. You're going to find a way to prevail, you're going to keep pushing, keep striving. You're going to find a way to survive, to shine, and to make it through each difficult situation.

Those who love life are going to live life, no matter where they' re at in life: jail, prison, a broken home, stuck in a bad relationship, stuck in poverty, the ghetto, on the reservation, in the projects .... Whatever, wherever, you're going to find a way to keep existing, because you love life too much to let yourself fade, break, wither, and die.

I love life, and I'm living my life. I'm here, stuck in this hell hole, but I'm still alive, and I'm going to stay alive because I'm thankful to be alive. I wake up everyday feeling good, because I know I'm a good motherfucker. I wake up everyday feeling thankful cuz I know I'm blessed.

I deal with the struggles of being in prison and I keep moving. I deal with the despair, I deal with the agony, the suffering, the misery, and I keep living. I deal with the depression, I deal with the destruction and I deal with the hate. I keep loving life and I keep living my life. Life is beautiful, I'm thankful to be alive. I live in a graveyard, but I'm not dead, I'm alive and well.

EI Coyote May 2, 2008

Solitary Enslavement

By Coyote

.... We sit in these cells like dead bodies sit in cemeteries. Death fills our lungs, fills our minds, fills our hearts and fills our souls as it lurks and lingers and seeps through the concrete. Our minds go numb and our spirits fade into inactivity. We sit here waiting to waste away, erode, dissolve, and disappear into the cracks of the cement.

Solitary confinement. What an evil concept, what a wicked notion, what a clever way to destroy a man without even laying a finger on him. Solitary confinement -- the murderer of minds, hearts, and souls. The person who designed such an evil conception must've had murder on his mind and hate in his heart.

We die alone in these cold cells, as our hands stretch out to clutch concrete, but fail miserably to hold anything in their grasp other than the death-stenched air. We die alone -- a lonely, miserabIe, suffering death. We die alone….

This was also published here.

The Thoughts of an Exile

While I sit, stand, lay here in this cell, exiled from American society and confined to 4 gruesome walls that were intentionally designed to break me all the way down, my heart beats furiously, yet proudly with resistance and I try to keep my mind open, heart open and eyes open, reaching out for truthful knowledge and for deeper understandings of self, love and life. I read, I study, I write, I contemplate and reflect, I hold discussions, I have conversations and try to engage others.

In these dungeons we are cut off from family, cut off from the world and cut off from a real education, but the people in here who linger, lurk and fester in these graveyards seem to love to learn all they can about their own history, culture, heritage and traditions, even though they're usually considered lower than dirt in the eyes and minds of society, they still carry their pride of who they are and they hang on to that very tightly. I really dig that.

There are definitely some powerful and dangerous minds lurking in some of these cells, people who have taken true means to let the shackles, chains, cuffs and restraints from their minds. I feel blessed to have been able to come in contact with people in this clandestine world who could be so intelligent, artistic and resourceful, even while confined to a cold, hateful, primitive place like this. It's because of these experiences and because of meeting these people that it feels good to be lower than dirt, it fee Is good to be so close to the earth. I appreciate the blessings and the lessons of being an exile.

While I write this, I'm on the second day of a 4-day fast with a native comrade of mine. He told me he was going to go on a fast tor a few days, to set things in order with himself and that he'd holler at me in a few days. I said, "Hey, wait a minute! I´ll do it with you." So, here I am on the second day of this fast, trying to stay strong and focused, no talking, no eating and no masturbating; and trying to keep negative thoughts out of my head. My native comrade Xemo has his reasons for going on his fast, which are mostly spiritual, and I have my reasons and objectives.

First, I wanted to show him solidarity, as he is someone I feel connected to in meaningful ways, so I wanted to encourage him to keep going and to get his mind right, heart right, soul right. Prison isn't the most positive or productive place, and we sit here amongst all this hate, madness, violence, gangsterisrn, materialism and corruption, it's hard not to get caught up in it, it's hard not to think like all those around you, it's hard to rise above it. So, I knew if I were to go on this fast with my native comrade, it would inspire and motivate him to hold strong. Secondly, I felt the need to do this for myself, to back up oft the door, take my mind away from this place and tune in to myself and mostly to challenge myself.

To me, fasting is an act of enduring pain and coming out of it stronger, it's an act of sacrifice. It calls for me to will myself to keep going under desperate situations, to keep fighting, to keep resisting, to keep holding on, to stay focused, to stay disciplined and to stay strong. Of course, there are deeper spiritual meanings attached to it. But 1'11 have to admit that this fast isn't really tor spiritual purposes tor me, other than sacrificing my food, conversation, urges and desires to will myself to endure and overcome anguish, pain and torment, and I'm doing this to prepare myself for tutu re hardships. Those are my reasons tor taking up this fast.

Xemo tells me stories, sings me songs in Crow, sings me songs in Lakota, sings me songs in Shoshone. He sings songs about the eagle, he sings songs about the bear, he sings songs about the determination of the wolf. He taught me how to sing a healing song and he taught me how to sing a unity song. He tells me something good about the coyote, he says a coyote can adapt to any situation, you can take a coyote out ot the Nevada desert and put the coyote in Africa and the coyote will find a way to survive. I will always remember that.

I believe we become stronger through our pain, we become wiser, with a clearer outlook on life, a keener insight, and more compassionate and understanding after overcoming, or enduring struggles and painful situations. I believe we need to be challenged by life, every now and again, and it's through these challenges that we grow (spiritually) and develop (mentally) and transform our thinking into higher states of consciousness.

It's about the mind, body and soul. It's about atonement. It's spiritual, mental and physical, it's not only about being a warrior, but it's about being alive. This is not my first fast, but I've learned a lot from Xemo, 'cuz he was kind enough to take the time to reach out to me and teach me things about his culture, which isn't much different from the Yaquis, Aztecs and Mayas, and I am very appreciative for my friend's time and kindness, and it felt good to hear him sing his songs, he sings from deep in his soul.

My appreciation of these gifts leads me to write this brief report on it and include it in this zine, to give people a small peak into the life and mind of an exile. We prisoners are exiles, because we've been exiled from life, exiled from society, exiled from real, human relationships, exiled from culture and traditions and customs and celebrations, but as long as we choose to keep the things that are most important to us in our hearts, then we are still thriving and surviving.

There's a difference between living and maintaining, people in prison aren't living, we're maintaining and some of us aren't even doing that. Times are hard in prison, this place can make your heart hard like cement and your soul cold like steel. This place breeds hate and anger. A lot of people are influenced by racism and prejudice ways of thinking. Some prisoners read and study their culture and history and use it as a tool to hate, hate and hate. They learn to hate other people and other races, 'cuz they're not like them. They don't understand the true lessons, ways, teachings and understandings of their ancestors. They don't understand that when you take things back to their roots and origins, you see that we all come from the same place, and in 50 many ways, we are all related. People who embrace the true understandings of their ancient cultures aren't haters, but have a trued appreciation and respect for their own culture, as well as others.

I see all this hate around here, and to me it's ignorance. It breaks my heart to see and experience all this madness every day. People who talk out of hate (in my opinion), usually speak with ignorance, people who talk out of love, usually speak with the intelligence of their hearts. If you're someone who claims to love your people 50 much, then they take true strides to do real things for your people, instead of using all that energy to hate on the next man, or the next race, just because he ain't like you.

I sit in my cell and do my fast, Xemo is in his cell, a few cells down from me, doing his fast. We are both locked down, but we are resourceful enough to find ways to communicate with each other and still keep people out of our business. I sit here in solitude, with no one or nothing to fear but myself and let these thoughts pour out of a heart that's been broken a thousand times, but comes back and beats stronger and stronger each time. I feel the pain in my stomach, but I keep going, I don't eat, I don't have the desire to eat, only the desire to keep going, and that's what I'm going to do, I can endure the pain, I'm a warrior, I am ready for whatever challenges that await me ...

From the depths of my restless heart,
Coyote
E.S.P. 2008

This was also published here.

There´s No Love Here

In the depths of these dregs where our souls dwell in darkness as our minds dwindle like dust in the wind, we sit here with sad looks on our faces, waiting for a letter in the mail or a hot meal to be served. Waiting, waiting, waiting, always waiting for something, but it seems like nothing ever comes. Nothing good, anyways.

There's no love here. Not in this artificial world of concrete and steel, surrounded by razor wire, and gun towers, which are enclosed by mountains on all sides. There's no love in these confinements, just a lot of hate, anger. agony, hopelessness, loneliness and despair. The closest thing you'll find to love in here, is pain.

There's no love here, no sunshine, no fresh air. But if you open your eyes long enough to see, you will find that there is plenty of destruction, depression, aggression, torment, suffering, and death. The coldness that permeates the atmosphere seeps through our skin to our bones and chills our soul. We've been discarded by society, separated from our families, left to sit, suffer, rot, and die. They don't care, so we don't care. There's no love here.

Coyote, 2008
Anarchist Black Cross,
Nevada Prison Chapter E.S.P.

This was also published here.

Stagnation

Minds evaporate in these prisons, life becomes redundant after sitting in these cells day in and day out. Doing the same thing over and over again, your brain begins to deteriorate. We are like water in a pond; there´s no flow in our lives, so we slowly become stagnant, and just like stagnant water we build up with all kinds of bacteria and we become poisonous. We need to flow, we need to stay active, we need to stay productive, or else we become stagnant and poisonous; we become dull and senseless and our lives become miserable and pointless.

Stagnation is misery and in these conditions, misery is death. Feed your mind, tune your intellect, read, study, and learn new things. Apply yourself, apply the new knowledge you learn. Grow, develop create and transcend. Rise above the dirty pool of stagnant water, breathe, let your mind flow until it develops into a beautiful mind, a dangerous mind, a brilliant mind, a powerful mind. Let your mind flow.

Coyote, 2008
Ely State Prison

(Sent to NPW directly from the author on October 27th, 2009)

E.S.P.: The Basic Rundown

Ely State Prison is a so-called maximum security prison that was opened in 1989 out in the middle of nowhere, outside of a small miner's town called Ely, Nevada. This prison is surrounded by the mountains of Nevada's Great Basin. There are mountains on all sides of this prison. It is very secluded and a four hour drive to any of the nearest major cities.

There are eight units in this prison (not including the infirmary and the camp that sits outside of the prison) and all but one unit is locked down. When I came here in 1998 for battery on a correctional officer, this prison was still opened up, or less restricted I should say.

Units 1, 2, 3,and 4 are all disciplinary segregation units, also known as "the hole". There are 2 wings on each unit. "A-wing" and "B-wing". There is a control pod in between each wing (In ESP everybody calls the control pod "the bubble"). The officer in the control pod can monitor both wings and communicate with us (or eavesdrop on us) through the intercom.

Unit 3A houses all death row inmates, they get to come out together, in sections, for tier time and group yard (12 men at a time). Unit 3B is "the hole" or disciplinary segregation unit, that houses death row inmates who are doing "hole time" (or "D.S. time"). and death row inmates who are on protective custody status, and it also houses some of the regular inmates (non-death row) who are doing hole time.



All throughout these different disciplinary segregation units there are protective custody inmates, jail house snitches, and psych-patients housed on the same tiers as inmates who come back here from general population to do their hole time. This creates a weird atmosphere and a funny-style environment.

Units 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all considered General Population ("G.P."), but unit 8 is the only unit 8 at is open. Unit 8 inmates get tier time and they all get to come out together on the big yard. Most of those inmates are allowed to have jobs that support and uphold the operations of the prison. They get to work in the kitchen, in the laundry, on yard labor crews, some are allowed jobs as barbers who come to the different units and cut the inmates' hair.

Units 5, 6, and 7 were once General Population units, but now that this prison is slammed down I call it "General Populockdown". We are allowed a few extra "privileges" and accommodations that we can't get in the hole. Like, for example, we can wear our blues (in the hole we are only allowed t-shirts, socks, boxers, and an orange jumpsuit). We can order hobby craft and get items oft the commissary that we can't buy in the hole. In order to get out of the hole and go to General Populockdown, the caseworkers say that we have to find a cellie. You have to have someone to live with. Someone that you will be locked down with in the cell for 23 hours a day. lts crazy. This place is a joke.

In the 10 years l've been here, I've seen this place go from bad to worse. Slowly but surely, they've taken so many things away from us and they're creating an even more hopeless situation for us. Every time things change around here, they always change for the worst.

This is just a basic rundown of what its like here at E.S.P. right now. But there's been widespread rumors that things are about to change in October of this year (2008). The rumors have it that they're going to shut down unit 8 and bring in campers from the outside to work the inmate jobs that keep the prison functioning. If these rumors are true, its gonna be all bad for all of us. No hope, just misery.

Coyote
E.S.P.
August 2008

(This text was also published here)

Buried Alive

This pamphlet-Zine was published around 2007. Republished here.

They've got us confined to these cells, where we are intellectually suffocating, in desperate need of literature, books, love, compassion and support. Being in this graveyard is like walking down an endless, dark tunnel, with no end, no light, no hope in sight, trapped in a box with no visible exit. We have to be soldiers in these circumstances where the means of survival go beyond guerrilla warfare: this is a battlefield for the mind.

Looking at my situation, I see myself confined, locked down in the darkest layers of a dungeon cell, surrounded by animals: human animals. Animals who were once human, but who have been stripped of their sanity, and who have no control over their own mental capacity. These beasts have lost their souls and there's nothing nobody can do about it, and they try to inflict their insanity upon me so that I can be miserable like them. Call it paranoia, but I feel like the administration has intentionally put these sick motherfuckers next to me, above me and around me, just so they can show me what type of 'weirdo' they want me to be; what type of sick monster they want me to become.

But on the contrary, the more I'm subjected to these miserable "mind-torturers", the more love I have for myself, and the more I love myself the more I hate these pigs, 'cuz I see what they're trying to do to me. I strive to be stronger, mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. The harder I strive, whether it be for strength, for unity, for solidarity, or even self-education, it seems, or feels like the more these pigs are trying to knock me to my knees. They try to knock me down and tear me apart, they try to tear my soul apart, my mind, they try to tear me apart from friends, family, comrades and fellow convicts. This is how I feel as these walls seem to close in on me, I feel like these pigs are trying to destroy me, I feel like they're trying to bury me alive in this graveyard.

We sit here and rot in these chambers of torture, designed to murder our wills, break our hearts, devour our spirits and bury us in our own agony, in attempts of transforming us into animals like the weirdoes who are caged in the cells next to us, above us, and all around us.
So many youngsters get locked up in this foul ass system, and it seems like consciousness has died in the hearts and minds and spirits of many of the incarcerated youth. There's no inspiration, no direction, no worthy cause to believe in, no reason for them to come together and settle their disputes, no reason to put their guards down and unite. I don't see it, I don't feel it, except in my own heart. People around here are lost, confused, mislead, and it's a tragedy.

I want to encourage the prisoners at Ely State Prison who read this to start studying the law and find ways to buck the system, beat and cheat the system that's beating and cheating you. Study anything you can study, whatever interests you. I want to encourage prisoners to start taking true strides to pick themselves up, to move forward, to better themselves, and to buck the system that contains you and holds you captive to this ongoing madness. I want to encourage prisoners to start turning their televisions off at least twice a week and spend the day reading, studying and writing. Do something to benefit and strengthen your mind. Do something to benefit and strengthen your position in life. Just 'cuz they've got our bodies held captive, doesn't mean we should let them hold our minds captive. Once we start taking serious strides to improve ourselves and improve our conditions, once we start doing something real with our time, then we can start doing something real with our lives.

Because they're trying to bury us alive in these graveyards, leaving us to sit alone in these suffocating cells until our mind goes crazy, deteriorates, or until we are so messed up that all we can think about is murder, violence and revenge, because that's what this long-term isolation does to us, if we let it.

I'm still alive, in good spirits and my mind is intact, so I must be doing something right. They try to knock me down, but I'm still standing. I have one mind, one heart and they can't strip me of my soul, I'm too strong for that. The more they try to break my will, the stronger I have to be. It's all about resistance, it's all about keeping the mind, body and spirit in good shape. I'm sitting here doing things, elevating and educating myself, engaging others, talking and listening and there are people in here like me, just trying to maintain their existence. We're living it the only way we know how. I live in struggle and I struggle to live, and this all I know! They want to bury me alive, but I'm plotting on ways to take that shovel out of their hands and beat them over the head with it! That's what's happening.

From the depths of this darkness,
Coyote
Ely State Prison, Nevada

For letters of encouragement, please send letters to Coyote:

Coyote Sheff #55671
P.O. Box 1989 Ely,
Nevada 89301-1989