PURPLE PROSE
WRITINGS AND POETRY by
ANNA STANDING DEER
Our Men
And I can't help thinking about
how we are without Crazy Horse
and Malcolm
and the implications of their
not being others to see that
we remain on target
and are not annihilated.
And when I do think of Crazy Horse
and Malcolm
I think of them as being
represented in the prisons
and I wonder when they'll come
home where they are so sorely
needed
And I ask only that they
do not disappoint us
with false promises
of being there for us
after we have bandaged their wounds. And if they cannot be
the warriors that they
envisioned themselves as being
behind bars
then not to let that be a cause of
shame
It will suffice for you to come
home and teach the children.
Anna
Written for Standing Deer
He was unique
He was a character
enthralled with the wealth of life
And then he was imprisonedAnd there his mind snapped
And prisoners scurried East and West and North and South
for they feared the snapping of their own minds.
And then his heart broke
and they said "foolish, foolish man. Don't you know to cut off the Outside from in here. Take
but don't you dare give. Do as we do and so he did.
And then his soul departed
and they said, "Alas, you have arrived. Isn't this bliss? The way it was meant to be."
For years, he fumbled and mumbled and stumbled within the confines of the Walls in this new state of "arrival."
Until one day
he succummed and became very, very ordinary, never questioning why he tossed in his sleep.
His sister came to see him
His brother came to see him
Each said onto the other, "where is the life?" but no one asked it of him.
They walked away attributing it to incarceration although both of them had once been Inside.
And then one day, many years down the line, a Monarch butterfly flew across the prison ballfield.
He tried hard to pretend that he could not see it and even closed his eyes
in an attempt to abort the unexpected, sudden stirring within his breast.
But alas Monarchs have their way,especially lady Monarchs and so she landed on the back of his hand
in such a familiar manner and he was at a loss.
He said, "Beautiful butterfly, fly away. I take. I do not give and I may do you harm.'
The lady butterfly said, "No, I go nowhere without you. I am your life behind the Walls and I come to keep you company and quiet your nights."
"I have come to re-awaken your soul, your heart, and to snap your mind for it was not in a bad place at all. It was missing me. The men scurried solely because you were about to re-create me within the Walls and I am life. Have I been so long out of your existence that you've forgotten my name? It is Truth and here by your side I will remain. Sleep now and do not toss for I am here to protect you."
Anna
Written for Standing Deer at Okla. State Prison/ Published in Concepts
And if we had only not believed you were Gods with your blond hair, we might still have the land
And if only we could have forseen you rounding up all our male children in 1994
to put behind bars, we might have staged more mutinies and made our way back home.
And if we had only known that you would continue to despise our Appalacian descendents, then we would never have allowed you to separate us from those who tilled the land beside us.
And if Juan had known that behind the barbed wire he would be meeting Carlos, Francisco, and Angel with no Boesky, then Juan would have taken his stand in the Mexican mountains instead of on the streets of the barrio.
If only we had known we would all be in this together,with half our sisters Inside and the rest mourning their loss, as if we were in Vietnam never to return, then perhaps we would have taken our people
to the barricades together long,long ago and set this country on a just course.
Published in Concepts - A Joseph Harp Okla. Prison Publication-Anna-
Iraqi War
They thought they went they saw they conquered but all they did was slaughter
I tie yellow ribbons on the streets of Baghdad They hang there to never come down
-anna-
Published in Concepts also alongside Standing Deer's poetry in Oklahoma.
Click on jewel for table of contents
Return to The Prison Gulag: Writings By and About Prison Inmates
