from Allenwood

(from The Broken Rifle, February/March 2000)
by Sachio Ko-Yin

A Day in Prison

Some Broken Rifle readers have asked to hear about a typical day. One reader wanted to know because he's thinking about civil disobedience himself. I hope the article is helpful. It's true, I have a lot of fun here, but please know, I never mean to justify the prison system. My brothers and I have fun here because we have fun everywhere. But the prison-industrial complex is not a cause for joy.

February 1, 2000
I'm dreaming I'm in Taiwan again with my aunts. I want to talk with them about Confucius, but they only know Cantonese! I hear the rattling keys of an Allenwood guard, so I try to tell them a cop is coming. They don't understand, and the guard is gone. Suddenly, my father appears! It's so wonderful to see him since his death of a few years ago, but first I ask him what my aunts are saying to me. "They're telling you poetry from the ancient, very old book of songs." "What does the poem mean?" I ask. "Listen carefully," he says, "It's very important. It says..."

The dream shatters to a grumpy voice from the loudspeaker: "Six a.m. food service workers, report to food service." I look up and see I have five minutes to dress before breakfast, (I'm dressed!) - and then sleepily stand on line at the door of "A" unit, waiting for our unit to be called to the mess hall. On the side of the line I see my friend Raymond, who greets me, and we stand in our morning introspection. The loudspeakers boom "Breakfast. Breakfast," and we're off to the races!

Down the icy sidewalk, down the hill to the mess hall. Garcia is in the lead, but he's now neck and neck with Gypsy Nick, and both are challenged by China White. Now China White's in the lead, but... up from behind, so small as not to be seen, so quiet as to be unexpected - come the anarchists, the poets, the physicists - Yes! Frank Baird curves around from behind, Raymond pops in front from the shadows, and Sachi comes out from under their feet, and Martinez drops in front as if from the sky; we cheer, we howl, and as fast as our little feet can carry us, we run, and the loudspeakers boom with a call of victory, "NO RUNNING ON THE COMPOUND!"

Waiting on line for the food, and out of breath, I sing my little song that Raymond hates so much - (to the tune of "What A Friend We Have In Jesus"):

See all the sleepy happy felons
Stumbling 'round at breakfast time,
Snitches tellin'
C.O.'s yellin'
Prison poets making rhyme...

Over breakfast, Raymond and I tell and analyze our dreams, and talk about Zen, and then it's off to chores before work. We mail our letters, go to pick up our laundry bags, clean our cubes, perhaps call our families, and so the day begins.

I wander around the unit, sweeping cigarettes out of the snow and shoveling the drift from the sidewalks. As with every other place I've worked, I work and compose my poems, storing up to 10 lines at a time, then pulling my pen and paper out, I scribble them down, and work-compose again.

While my real occupation here is as a poet, I have a day job as a convict. The pay is pennies, but I have real socialized medicine (imagine, a painless dentist with no bill). I'm actually quite respected in my field, both as a man of letters and a sweeper. Before I came here, the name of the outside orderly was Walter. He was legendary for being the hardest worker in the unit. But during this last summer he was said to be surpassed by Sachi. Which was a little funny since I wasn't sure if I wanted to work here at all.

There is a long tradition of Plowshares activists refusing to work, but I decided I wanted to experiment and express my prison time with organizing instead of civil disobedience. Perhaps I've gone too far. I get one of the highest marks in the unit for hard work and self-direction, and I meticulously avoid getting shots (incident reports). A few people have said, "Gee, for an anarchist, you sure obey a lot of rules." What can I say for myself? I can do more work for nonviolence in here by keeping a clean nose. But also, I add a daydream to my answer. Some day this prison could be made into a collective. Perhaps our families can join us here, and we can politely ask the government to leave. Of course, the architecture would have to be changed, all the artists would have to add some color to the cinderblock walls, but it could be done.

At 4 p.m., the compound is closed, signaled by an announcement and a flashing light. We stand in our cubicles and wait for two C.O.'s to make their rounds and counts. Every now and then, someone is asleep in their bed, and the C.O.'s pound and kick the bed or cabinet until they wake up. Sometimes the sleepers get incident reports. I know - this happened to me twice! (fortunately with no shots). We've now devised an elaborate system of waking each other up, and it seems to work.

We then line up for our unit to be called to dinner, and the race is on again!

Of course there is so much more to tell, but this gives a flavor of life at Allenwood.

May I live more mindfully,
May I have compassion for my captors,
May I become one with the criminal class
And together with them become free of all crime.
May we manifest an ideal of no prisons,
May we manifest the beauty of peace.

Sachio Ko-Yin (Oliver Sachio Coe) and codefendant Daniel Sicken are serving sentences in federal prisons in Pennsylvania for disarming a Minuteman III nuclear missile silo in Colorado on August 6, 1998.