DAY FOUR OF “THE MAIL RESTRICTION”

MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
Today, I mailed 38 pages of legal research and documents to my lawyer, Bill Sheppard, in Jacksonville, First Amendment cases from the federal courts and U. S. Supreme Court. In May, I sent him eight pages of the same research through Libby, so she could type it and send me copies, too, but that was one of the first four letters stolen by the mail room woman. I can understand why she stole it, trashed it, whatever she did with it besides mailing it, but I can’t excuse it.


Targeting all my mail because I filed complaints against her for targeting my mail, when she read all those high court rulings about the mail rights of prisoners, she must have figured that if she destroyed the research, it would stop the federal civil rights lawsuit. It just slowed us down somewhat, but made my case stronger.

The illegal acts continue. The state law requires them to process our incoming and outgoing mail within 48 hours of receipt, or file a Form DC2-521 explaining why. Tonight, Libby got a letter I mailed on June 28, 2012 ─ eleven days! But the problem is the letter was postmarked July 6th. That means the mail room held my letter eight days before sending it to the post office, six days beyond the legal limit. It only took from Friday to Monday to get to Jacksonville. I can live with that, but not weeks, and even months, or never. So I have to write that up as a formal complaint, and engender more wrath.


The good news is that two of my latest poems were in the letter, and she let them through. All the other poems I sent out the past couple of months were eventually returned with post-it notes stating, “inmates can not[sic] start or conduct business while incarcerated,” refused to be mailed by the mail room. What is with this person and poetry?

Charlie

THE MAIL RESTRICTION DIARY - PART I

SATURDAY, JULY 7, 2012

DAY TWO OF “THE MAIL RESTRICTION”


“DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE?”

Perhaps you will find it as ironic as I did. After I was sentenced to “90 days mail restriction” on Thursday, July 5th, I stopped in the library to pick up a couple of grievance forms to appeal the illegal sentence. (For what good it does ─ DOC motto: “when we’re right, we’re right, and when we’re wrong, we’re right.”)


Turning t walk out, I paused to look more closely at a colorful poster taped to the wall. In large letters it asked, “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?” In small print it noted, “from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ by T.S. Eliot.”

A poem! Or, at least, an excerpt from a famous poem, I recalled. The poster proclaimed that April, 2009, was National Poetry Month, and it listed the Academy of American Poets, at “Poets.org,” the New York Times, and other sponsors of National Poetry Month. Could this beacon be an encouragement for prisoners to write poems?

And I thought, “Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?,” if only for a moment? I answered, “Yes.” Would J. Alfred Prufrock and T. S. Eliot be proud of me, for enduring punishment for the sake of art and the First Amendment? I would like to think so.

SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2012


DAY THREE OF “THE MAIL RESTRICTION”

At least they haven’t cut off my phone privileges yet! (knock on wood). Today is Sunday, and I spent several hours writing down legal case citations on the First Amendment as applied to prisoners, learning several new facts. The main point is that the prison officials are dead wrong for punishing me for writing a poem, and all these petty rules are unconstitutional. Florida is caught in some sort of time warp or wormhole, years behind the rest of America. Are they oblivious to the “Law of the Land,” or just don’t care to do the right thing?
When public officials who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution abuse their authority, lie, and make false statements on official state documents strictly to strike back at a prisoner as a reprisal, they undermine the integrity of their fellow public servants, losing what little respect they might have had from their charges. How can society expect thousands of prisoners to emerge from prison and lead law-abiding lives when their captors have posed as such poor role models? It can’t.
I was discussing that same thing on the phone with a friend when I thought again how impossible it sometimes seems to maintain a clean record when we are constantly subjected to arbitrary and capricious enforcement of petty and illogical rules by hostile, miserable people who bring their personal problems to work with them and vent their frustrations on us. Sadistic roots run deep.
I used the example of Jesus and Paul the Apostle sharing a cell together in prison, and how much trouble they could get into if they were targeted by a typical bad guard:
PAUL: Jesus, I wrote a letter to the Philippians, and the mailroom sent it back.

JESUS: Why?

PAUL: They said it was conducting a business and soliciting donations. They’re gonna write me a D.R. What if they read Corinthians?

JESUS: That’s a bummer, man. Did I tell you what they did to me today?

PAUL: No, what’d they do?

JESUS: This guy on the rec field had a seizure, fell out, and I laid hands on him.

PAUL: Did he have a demon?

JESUS: Nah, it was straight epilepsy, but that sergeant who hates us flipped out, said he was going to write me a “walking D.R.” for unauthorized physical contact. What’s a “walking D.R.,” Paul?

PAUL: Um…I think that means you get to stay out of lockup and walk around until the D.R. hearing next week.

JESUS: Man, how many walking D.R.’s have we gotten this week?

PAUL: I don’t know. We need to count them up. There’s that one where we were praying, speaking in tongues, and that young guard wrote us up for “violation of count procedures,” talking during count.

JESUS: And we both got D.R.’s for not shaving our beards, and not having a shaving pass, or getting haircuts.

PAUL: How do you get a shaving pass?

JESUS: I don’t know. I can’t understand why they wrote me up for turning water into wine in the chowhall at lunch.

PAUL: Let me read the paperwork.

JESUS: Here it is.

PAUL: “Possession of alcoholic beverages.” That’s not good. It was good wine, though. It went well with the soy patty.

JESUS: Yeah, but what about when I took that biscuit out of the chowhall, broke bread on the rec field, and fed the whole compound? The portions on the tray were so small, everyone was hungry.

PAUL: I don’t know. I think it was the six baskets of leftover bread and hot dogs they found. They wrote you up for stealing food out of the kitchen.

JESUS: But I wasn’t stealing! My Father gave it to us!

PAUL: They don’t care, Jesus. What about this one the guard wrote on me? Verbal disrespect!

JESUS: How did that go down, Paul?

PAUL: I told him we were all prisoners of sin, and he got very angry, said he hated prisoners, and I insulted him, he wasn’t a prisoner.

JESUS: Is that all? That doesn’t seem very serious.

PAUL: It wasn’t until he told lies to the sergeant, said I cussed him, calling him dirty names.

JESUS: That’s not very nice. What do you think we should do?

PAUL: (grinning mischievously) When they lock everyone in their cells tonight, how about if we make all the doors pop open, and the fences fall down. That ought to confuse them.

JESUS: Sounds like a plan, Paul, but we should make sure all the guards fall into a deep sleep first. When they wake up, the prison will be empty.

PAUL: But some of these guys are dangerous. Do you want to just set them free?

JESUS: Oh, no! We will heal them all first, make them new men.

PAUL: I like it!

JESUS: And we won’t have to worry about all those D.R.’s.

PAUL: Have you noticed, Jesus, how these prison folks are just like the Romans were two thousand years ago?

JESUS: People never learn, Paul, you know that, until they are washed clean of their sins.

PAUL: So, you wanna go down to the showers and baptize some of the guys?

JESUS: Excellent idea, Paul. We’ll get an early start.

PAUL: I wonder what kind of D.R.’s they’ll write us up for that?

JESUS: It doesn’t matter.



THE END

JUST US

Dateline: August 5, 2012

Editors note: Here is an original from Charlie -
it's a new form for him that he calls "Exercises in Linguistic Gymnastics."

Since he can only see bits and pieces of The Summer Olympics on TV,
this is his way of joining in the spirit.

I think he deserves the gold; what do you think?
We hope it brings a smile to you.


JUST US

Among us the cactus colossus,

Arose the question, can there be justice,

Or as Oedipus remarked on Olympus,

Is it just us?


Brutus and Columbus couldn’t reach a consensus,

So they brought in Cassius, the discus emeritus,

Rubbed his body with eucalyptus, some mucus,

And asked him to read the papyrus opus onus.

The bird he flipped us gave Pegasus tetanus,

But it could have been worse, like syphilis sanctus.

Icarus landed with a hibiscus of surplus humus

Rather humorous, with Venus versus Ursus,

Two out of three falls, refereed by the Walrus.

The habeas corpus took Cyrus the Incubus

A lovely dianthus picked by Narcissus.

Too bad the fungus spread to Tacitus,

When the noise abated

We agreed it was just us.


Charlie

THE VIEW FROM WITHIN

dateline: July 21, 2012


Early morning

I wake to the songs

of birds outside

my small window.


To the east

Blue clouds turn pink,

the sky brightens

with the coming dawn.


From a storm drain

a young cat creeps,

feral, velvet black, white feet,

fixated on the singing bird above.


Florida's true orange,

the sun, bursts forth

above the distant tree line,

a symphony of light.


Clear beams illumine

cropped green fields beyond

And rouse bees from sleep

to tend the clover.


Such pastoral calm

is blemished solely by

the grumbles of gun trucks

Securing the prison within.

Charlie

JULY 4TH

Dateline: July 8, 2012




“Norman, Stop Writing!”



“I stand in a steel-barred, and concrete room, my hands tightly cuffed behind my back, waiting for a hostile and profane officer in a tiny office to receive instructions over the telephone whether or not to lock me up in solitary confinement for writing a poem. Everyone’s a critic! If other poets risked 30 days in lockup every time they wrote a poem, there would be far less poetry written in America. It is the day after July 4th.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, Charlie received 90 days mail restriction for his poem, “How Should I Look?” That means he cannot send a letter to anyone, not even his mother, until October 12, 2012. This is a blatant U. S. Constitution First Amendment violation by the prison officials, since the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners have the constitutional right not only to write, but also to correspond with people in the outside world. Charlie is appealing that illegal sentence.

If you disagree with gagging a prisoner and denying this award-winning writer his chance to express himself, you can help by writing your own letter to the Florida Department of Corrections’ leader expressing your disapproval, referencing Charles Norman, #881834. That address is:

Ken Tucker
Secretary
Florida Department of Corrections
501 South Calhoun Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500


We will keep you posted. Thanks for supporting the First Amendment.



Charlie

THE MEASURE OF SUCCESS

Dateline: 06/04/2012

In the Internet age, with so many people communicating through Facebook and e-mail, traditional letter writing seems to be facing extinction. This is a dreadful problem for people who don’t have access to the Internet, like prisoners.

Most people can’t be bothered to write letters anymore. Call me old-fashioned, but I try to keep hope alive by writing to the diminishing handful of people who still care about me, to encourage them, and, in turn, to be encouraged.

One dear Christian friend in South Dakota has been corresponding with me since we met over 24 years ago, and his letters always brighten my day. His example inspires me to be a better person, through his lifetime dedication to lifting up and helping others, but the twist to the story is his insistence that he is inspired by my example, of enduring the deprivation and hardship of prison, and maintaining my faith in God. Each of us gains strength from the other.

Recently someone said that they don’t know how I can take it, the stresses of subjugation, the incessant shakedowns and harsh treatment imprisonment entails, and particularly the targeting by the corrupt Tampa prosecutor with the personal vendetta against me. The repeated strident false accusations that he fears me, therefore I should never be released, and most recently, his enlisting the help of the DOC in recording my phone calls (in a fruitless hope that I would be caught saying something against him), delivery refusal and censorship of both my incoming and outgoing mail, including the return of books sent from the publisher, and most damaging, denying me access to the legal research sources in the law library, hindering my ability to defend my case in court, all of which would test the patience of Job.

I want to tell you how I do it. I read the Bible, and draw strength from the words and deeds of those who endured and overcame far greater hardships than my meager imprisonment.

Some scoffers ridicule so-called “chain-gang religion” as a facile attempt by desperate people to latch onto something that will get them out of prison. I say let them latch onto the Bible, read it every day — if it changes someone’s life, their evil ways. I pray that corrupt prosecutor will read it and be changed, too.
When Jack Murphy and I were putting together the first “Sonshine Adventure” in September, 1983, at Zephyrhills C. I., we had six weeks to organize a three-day spiritual weekend involving scores of outside church members and Christian volunteers bringing their programs into the prison, something that had never been done. We had several dozen prisoners signed up to help with all the work. One of the things we did was to have short sessions of daily training in being “disciples” and servants. We encouraged the men to spend private time each day reading the Bible, particularly the Psalms and Proverbs.
This morning I started over with the first chapter of Psalm 1: verses 1-4, and the words struck me as being so on-target to my present situation, that I want to share them:
“How blessed is the man who does not
Walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted
by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which
The wind drives away.”

There is much that I could say about these verses, but for the moment let it suffice that I feel strongly that the truth continues thousands of years after the words were written, and lives as an example to many people besides me.

Before I came to prison, I measured success the same as most people do, seeking the American Dream of financial rewards, money, a nice house, car, boat, family, status in the community, but because I “walked in the counsel of the wicked” and “stood in the path of sinners,” I lost virtually everything that I held dear, and very nearly lost my life. When threatened with electrocution, one’s thoughts get focused on what is truly important in life.

Somehow I survived, against all odds, and in some people’s eyes I have thrived in an evil place. Other people resent the fact that I’m still breathing and won’t conveniently die, thus effectively shutting me up. But I truly believe that the Lord has a plan for my life, and I will continue to do my best to fulfill His plan. If that means I must endure false personal attacks by evil people, so be it. My measure of success has changed over time, as I have changed, and I am a better man because of it. I was denied the American Dream, but I will make the best of what I have, day by day.

Perhaps the prison mail room will decide to let some of my correspondence come through today, and I will get a letter from a friend. I will delight in small blessings, and pray that you will, too.

God bless you.

Charlie

SONNET TO A DEAR FRIEND and more

Dateline: 05/22/12


SONNET TO A DEAR FRIEND
Alone amid a thousand men like me,
Beyond restraining fence I spy the geese,
Intent upon their nest they do not see
Or care about a man who knows no peace.
Tormented by the demons of this world,
Pretending that they serve a higher cause,
While hiding from plain sight tails sharp and curled,
Unwilling to reveal dark fangs and claws.


I shout the truth yet no one hears my voice,
Except the few who dare to be my friend,
Who like wild geese decide to make a choice
To stand against all foes until the end.




The precious few remaining through the night
Give hope that sorrows end and wrong made right.


A SONNET FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT CARE


Like Jeremiah waking in the pit,
To find himself mired deeply in man’s dung,
Surrounded by a darkness barely lit
My ladder to the surface lacks a rung.
I cry to passersby above for bread,
May someone suffer pity on my plight,
Instead they dump more refuse on my head,
With no regard or care for what is right.




Those selfsame ones shout with indignation,
O’er matters that they feel a major wrong,
They bow to false gods in supplication,
And offer sacrifices for a song.


Perhaps they’ll toss a bucket to be mean,
By mischief I may drink and yet be clean.


THE MAN INSIDE: A SONNET


You’ve never known me outside these fences,
Who was that young man who drew so much ire
From pointing fingers singing in the choir,
Whose accusations offended senses?
You’ve known me only in captivity,
An artificial world they created,
Where men lie with men and live sedated,
Repressing ev’ry sensitivity.


I am not the man I was or will be,
Neither saint nor evil sinner they claimed,
Who could be such a beast, cruel and untamed,
And cover ev’ry trace so completely?


I am the man you know and nothing more;
I’ll be no different outside that door.

Charlie