Greetings from the Graveyard - Introduction to Part One

"Greetings from the Graveyard" is a 3-part zine I want to use as a tool to raise awareness about the oppressive struggles that prisoners here in Nevada's maximum security prison (Ely State Prison) have to endure. Hopefully in so doing, it will also shed light on the struggles of prisoners all over America. I want to use this 3-part zine, not only to raise awareness, but also to gain support from sincere, dedicated people and activists on the outs.

It is important that people on both sides of the razor-wire understand the struggles, atrocities, injustices, and oppression that people in prison face. In all honesty, this is a crooked, corrupt, and inhumane system where we are being warehoused. There is no rehabilitation in these prisons, no programs, no health care, no love, no support. This entire American Judicial System is foul and corrupt. It is designed to oppress the poor and people of color. It’s just a cruel, merciless system where racism, violence, and sadism take place everyday.

I wanted to break this zine down to 3 sections, to shed light on 3 different aspects of the prison struggle. This first section is made up entirely of my latest writings. I write these pieces to give people a clear understanding of how barbaric and primitive this system on the inside is, and how most prisoners assume violent mentalities and predatory ways just to endure. Violence is glorified, respected, honored, and bragged about in this psychopathic environment. There's really no healthy, productive way for us to be reformed while living in this sadistic, oppressive environment.

I try to shine the spotlight on this type of violent predatory mentality in a couple of these essays, such as "Central PopuLockdown", and "Madness". I wrote those not as an imprisoned radical intellectual, but from the perspective of a convict who once took up the means of violence as a survival mechanism. I want people to see all different sides and different types of mentalities that we take up as the everyday "norm" in these dungeons.

Also, some of these writings were written as "Release Therapy" for me. These were instances where I was using the paper and pen as an avenue to release my frustrations, anger, and stress. This can be seen in essays like "Writings on the Wall", and "Dear Mr. Correctional Officer", just to name a couple.

I want people to understand that it’s hard for us to rise above this madness and to overcome these violent, predatory mentalities. It’s hard, but its necessary if we are to hold on to a sense of what's left of our humanity. It’s necessary for our communities, society and humanity. We truly and sincerely need outside support. We need people to get involved in our lives and in our struggles. We need people to give us genuine love and support. These warm rays of life are what keep us sane in here; keep us going in here; and keep us alive and human in here.

We need people to send us letters, accept our phone calls, come visit us, and most importantly, send us books so that we can use this time to educate/ re-educate ourselves and liberate our minds. It is through books, literature, education, and study that we become conscious. Consciousness is a saviour. It's what enables us to rise above this madness and change our ways of thinking from violent, criminalistic, predatory and unproductive thoughts to a more healthy, honest, wise, productive, and truthful outlook on life. With this outlook and a conscious level of thinking, we begin to understand on a more clear, truthful and active level. Conscious people don't do stupid things. Conscious people have a true appreciation and respect for life and humanity. This is why I'm always passing out zines and literature and giving books away to other prisoners in here. This is why I'm always writing zines and literature of my own: to raise consciousness in the hearts and minds of my fellow prisoners.

So, I sincerely want for this first zine to help people on the outs to understand what we are going through in these graveyards called prisons. I need people to understand why we need help from the outs and what kind of help we need. Love can conquer hate. Love can help and love can heal. And that's what we need: love, healing, and support.

I want this zine to inspire people to start getting involved in our lives and our struggles in real and meaningful ways. Help us help ourselves, because we cannot expect the people who imprison us to help us. If you are an activist, get involved in a real struggle. If you are not an activist, now is your chance to become one. We need sincere, dedicated, compassionate people to get involved in our plight.

As always, my writings are for people on both sides of the walls.

In solidarity and with respect, Coyote

ABC- Nevada Prison Chapter

Note from my Comrade Marcus

To become aware of these atrocities, one must first become introduced to the 3 W's: World, War, and Warehouses. Once one becomes familiarized with these three, you'll then find that we are all prisoners with like struggles. Therefore, we are all subjected to the same institution and its forced mentalities of insane thinking. The relevance of this institution is it needs for us to become reliant upon its mechanisms. Like a clock ticking away and we're the sprockets turning its gears. It needs us to keep in tune to its tock. For without us, it cannot function. The clock takes extreme measures against all resistance.

These prison warehouses, for some, is the beginning of its extreme measures; and for others, it is the end. Those on the outs are subjected to wars and fighting for the continuous reign of capitalism. And some are just plainly confined to the world and its oppression, living as puppets till death, finding that in the end, it costs way too much to die. Lives pay dearly for war bullets, while the institution hails on and on. The warehouses destroy human nature with no compassion towards our wellbeing. And the institution hails on and on, biting its own tail for nourishment. And we come straight from its ass as its substance.

Apply Yourself

They say you learn something new everyday, but do you really? I see people losing their minds everyday and sometimes it seems like the people who keep us here want our minds to stay stagnant while we are in here, but it's really not up to them, it's up to us. It's up to each and every one of us to take true strides to educate and elevate ourselves. It's up to each and every one of us in here to take true strides to liberate our minds, liberate our souls through books, through knowledge, through the connections we make with others. It's up to each and every one of us to get our minds right and our game tight. For those who choose to stay stuck on stupid while they sit here and dwell here, that's up to them. If that's what they choose to do, then that's on them. It's sad to see, and it's hard to be around people like that, but what can you do?

Man, I've been through so much, up here in E.S.P. for 10 years and I've been through it all. All the ups and downs, all the riots, conflicts and struggles, I've got the mail room officers hating on me, fucking with my mail and trying to make my life a living hell because of the zines that I create, zines like this one right here ("Greetings from the Graveyard"). I've got the officers appealing to the assistant warden trying to get me thrown on H.R.P. status (High Risk Prisoner) for my latest "assault" on an officer and for everything else I've been through in the past 10 years.

I try to do good, but when they see me trying to do good they try to make it harder for me; when they see I'm doing good they always try to find some petty offense to write me up for. So it's hard to maintain, after all the shit I've been through, and go through.

There's been many times when I wanted to do right and was making an effort to do good and then something would go wrong and I'd slip up and just like that I'd be back in the hole for another assault. It's easy for my family and friends to tell me, "just do good, just ignore them, just don't feed into it," but they could never understand the struggles that I go through in here. When you're living amongst all this foulness and misery sometimes it's hard to maintain your focus. It's hard to care about things when you're living in a world where no body cares. It's hard to care when nobody around you cares about you and when some of these people don't even care about themselves. It's a struggle to do right when everything's going wrong. And it's even harder to get your people to understand it when you call them and tell them, Man, I just slipped up again."

We sit here locked down in these cells, letting our minds go numb as every man is pent up within the limits of his own frustration and rage. I always speak on the importance of resistance, and I always speak on the importance of making real connections with people on the outs. I feel that when you try to elevate and educate yourself while living amongst all this stagnation and deterioration, you are engaging in a true act of resistance. Resistance isn't always about clashing with the authorities, or physically fighting the system, because under these circumstances you're only burying yourself deeper in a hole every time you get violent. I've been violent the whole time I've been incarcerated and sometimes it was necessary for me to be violent, but even though it's kept my head glued on to my shoulders it has prolonged my sentence.

So, when you take true strides to educate and elevate yourself while living under these dreary and gloomy circumstances, I'd say you are participating in a healthier act of resistance, because by doing this you're resisting intellectual death and you're also resisting spiritual famine. You are becoming conscious while dwelling in a contemptuous, disdainful, ugly nebula of ignorance and hatred. You are taking true strides to rise above it all.

It is important for us to try to make meaningful connections with people on the outs too, because nobody in here cares about you one way or the other. There's no love here. The love here is earned, not a given. Love shouldn't be earned, that's not true love. That's prison love. It's not the good kind of love. Prison love is artificial, it comes and it goes and then has to be earned all over again, it isn't given freely, there is no compassion in the type of love you'll find in prison. But we can get that from people on the outs, they can help us, they can heal us, they can show us love, friendship and compassion. That's they type of love we need, that's the type of love that's going to help us endure and grow and develop and blossom and those are the type of people who are going to get us through this and beyond this miserable, lonely existence of prison life. We need love from the people on the outs, 'cuz that's true love, not like this artificial, condensed stuff you get in here. We need real love and real support.

Maybe the people who keep us here 'want to keep our minds stagnant, maybe they just don't care one way or the other. But the fact of the matter is we, ourselves have to take true and healthy strides to rise above the madness and stagnation that we live and suffer through every day. I feel that having our minds stagnant while in prison is not only an injustice to ourselves, but an injustice to society (after we get out of prison) and an injustice to humanity. It definitely makes you question the role of prisons in America and it makes you question the intentions of those who are intent on locking us up and building more prisons. It is c1ear that they don't care about us. It is c1ear that we have to take it upon ourselves to rise above this madness.

I sit here in this cell trying to cultivate my mind and trying to encourage others to do the same. We use this time to get our minds right and our game tight, trying to rise above all of this mental and spiritual oppression. We try to make the best out of a bad situation, taking the good with the bad, making sure we get back on our feet after each time we stumble and fall, still striving to move forward, towards the imaginary light at the end of the imaginary tunnel, because it's all about perseverance and survival. And yes, you can learn something new everyday if you have the desire to do so. Just because they want us to stay stagnant in here, doesn't mean we have to. Staying sharp and staving strong is what we should aim to do. Don't lose your mind, use your mind! Apply yourself.


Just in here trying to stay on the sharp side!

Coyote

Ely State Prison, Ely, Nevada

October 27th, 2008

"Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall, escape

Walk out like somebody born into color.

Do it now"

- Rumi, 800 years ago

Please write to me and send me letters of solidarity and encouragement:

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

Madness

As I sit here in this cell or whatever it is, I find myself wishing that they would come and get me and take me to prison. I say that, because all of this weirdness around here and all of the foulness I see, I don't know where I'm at anymore.

Lately, I haven't been talking on the tier anymore. I know that there are at least 20 protective custody inmates locked down on this tier right now, sitting in the hole with me. What I don't know is how many of them are informing for the pigs or how many of them are sitting back and listening to everything we say. So, lately, I've chosen to stay quiet and alone. It would be nice if there were a couple conscious prisoners close to me, there would be plenty to discuss. But, they've got me stranded and strained up right now and I don't have nothing to prove, therefore, I have nothing to say.

The prisoners are so friendly with the police around here, it scares me.

The foulness disgusts me, disturbs me, makes me sick. I hate this place. this place used to be my stomping grounds. I've sent many pigs away, either bleeding or covered with feces, and yes, they had it coming! I've done deeds that could be bragged about for years in this setting, this place. But I know if I had a reason to lash out and do something to these pigs right now, the prisoners around here would look at me like I'm crazy. they wouldn't understand the concept of standing up to the man, no, not on this tier.

I sit up in this cell and I read, I study, I write, I keep myself busy and I apply my knowledge as often as I can. fuck this place, these people, fuck what they think, fuck what they do, I gotta shake it off and continue to be who I am. I can't explaln how much this place fills me with disgust. It has become sickening to be here. I need to get out of here, I need to cleanse my soul, or get high, or something, cuz it is becoming very very difficult to deal with this madness.

If there's someone out there who's reading this, someone who cares, pick up a pen and write to one of the prisoners who has placed an article in this zine. Show us some love, give us some encouragement, send us some books, help us rise above this madness. We need your support. we need to have real contact, communication, and truthful relationships-meaningful connections with people on the outside. We've been cut of from love, society, life, community, family, and friends, and been confined to a corner of coldness and darkness. We need your support. We need your compassion.

From the depths of these dregs, Coyote

Ely state prison, Nevada 2008

If you would like to write me, I can be contacted at this address:

Coyote Sheff #55671,

P.O. Box 1989

Ely, NV 89301-1989

That´s What Happens

Your heart turns into stone, your soul turns into ice, and your mind turns into jelly. That's what happens when you sit and sit and sit in one of these cells, that's what happens when love leaves you, its what happens when you stop trying. It’s a constant cycle of torture. Lt’s a constant battle, a never-ending struggle. One day you feel good, the next day you feel bad. You go through so much conflict and turmoil with yourself, it nearly kills you. You can feel a deep sense of mental anguish and a deep sense of spiritual torment. It hurts so bad, it tears you up into little pieces, it scars you, and it destroys you inside.

You're filled with hate, rage, and vengeance.

You want to kick the pig’s head in, the same way they kick on your door. You become suspicious of others, and paranoid. You begin to think they're talking about you, you think they're out to get you, out to rob, steal, or cheat you. You're losing your fucken mind.

That's what happens when you sit and fester and marinate in one of these cells for hours at a time, days at a time, months at a time, years at a time. That's what happens when your heart stops finding a real reason to beat, that's what happens when you quit resisting. Your heart breaks a thousand times, you lose your cool. You lose your mind, your soul freezes and you die inside, you fucken die.

My name is Coyote and my heart still beats with love and resistance. But there's been times when it would skip a beat or two, or three ...

January 22, 2008

The Case of the Caseworkers

The caseworkers here at Ely State Prison have become so good at lying that it scares me. They're always out to give us the classic run around, just to see us running in circles like dogs chasing their tails. I've trained myself not to believe anything they say and never get my hopes up. I am able to live with the understanding that there isn't very much I have coming from them. I know these people don't care about me, they don't care about my problems in life or what the hell I'm going through. They're not going to help me, they're not here for that. These lying caseworkers are so full of shit, they can keep on walking past my cell to the next one. I'm cool right here. Fuck 'em.

EI Coyote 2008

The Spirit of Resistance

Those who live in fear of authority, live in slavery. Mental slavery, psychological slavery, and even physical slavery. Those who live in fear of authority are in a prison all of their own. A prison of their own making.

I am a prisoner to concrete and steel, but I am not imprisoned by fear. I do not conduct myself with those who are in fear of authority. We who live in prison are sure to not allow the walls to chip away at our existence; but with our spirit and attitude of resistance we chip away the walls and barriers that presume to behold us.

The thoughts that seep to the strengthened center of our well-being were created from the sheer will to survive under drastic circumstances. We are refined by hardships when befriended by darkness and we come out strengthened in the center and sharp around the edges, ready to cut through our bonds with a diligent ease.

It is will power that guides us through these sloppy situations. It is the spirit of resistance that keeps us alive and well. We are not imprisoned by our fears, we are determined to perservere.

EI Coyote

ABC - Nevada Prison Chapter June 7th, 2008