As we leave behind 2017 and head into 2018, here are some thoughts of gratitude to carry in to the New Year -
from Steve Champion, San Quentin death row

by Craig A. Ross - © 2003
San Quentin death row

A Toast :  “Curse of the Gang God”
 
I am the Gang God.
Pledge your allegiance to me, I will give thee
a gang you can call your own,
a hood you can claim as home
and wars you can desert-storm.
I’ll give you an identity and rep for the streets;
but first, forsake everything you know, including your beliefs,
but heed this warning my price is steep.
 
I am the Gang God.
Suckle my poison let it corrupt your soul,
become my obedient servant bound to my code.
Come, let me engulf you in my darkness
and blind you from the truth ;
turn you loose in a city of madness where you’re despised for what you do.
Go forth, do my bidding, let my destruction reign supreme,
and when anyone asks why you do what you do,
tell ‘em ‘cause you don’t give a fuck about a thing.
 
I am the Gang God
I’ll satisfy your psychopathic thirst,
to do dirt, to do hurt, and what’s worst, here’s my curse ;
I demand blood, chaos and crime, and everything I give you I’ll
take back because I always change my mind.
 
I am the Gang God
I’m gonna make sure you get betrayed by someone close,
To demolish all your trust, faith, and hope.
I will have you believing in nothing but the seven deadly sins,
and while you’re thinking you are the architect of your life,
I’m the demonic force within.
 
I am the Gang God
Let’s get something straight,
The only thing I want from you is your violence and hate.
You’re nothing but a pawn to me.
While you talking about keeping it real, I’m plotting with your enemies.
Fool, you think loyalty is the answer but it’s the riddle to this game.
Do or die is not a paradise but a hell that follows your fame.
You wanted in, now you having doubts, so-call love ones took the
stand against and struck your ass out.
 
I am the Gang God
Only one of us can rise. The other must fall.
You’re my sacrificial lamb so I’ll let you rot behind the walls.
Yeah, I’m gonna be the first to greet you when you get paroled;
here’s a blunt, here’s a gat, you know how it goes.
You won’t dare reject me because we’re of one mind,
and after all you been through you’ll still throw up my sign.
But I’ll turn my back on you faster than you did Christ.
You seen me do it once, you’ll know I’ll do it twice.
I love watching you suffer, seeing your family brought to tears.
Your meaning of staying down means you got to always live in fear.
 
I am the Gang God
The antithesis to life because I crave death.
The only future I promise is no peace - no rest.
I don’t give a fuck about prayers, save them for a priest;
you want out, you got to answer to the beast.
Redemption is not sold, redemption is earned, and it’s not about
the mistakes you made but the lessons you’ve learned.
But I shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s too much like right,
so if you thinking about changing the path you’re on,
you know you got to fight.
 
I am the Gang God
I’ll do anything to keep you in my vicious tomb;
kill your love ones, turn homeboy against homeboy
causing unforgivable wounds.
I’ll take your youth, and spit on your story;
an OG banger still searching for glory.
And when all is said and done, and judgement comes,
put the barrel to your temple and let regret be the gun.

Craig A. Ross ©
San Quentin death row

The dream hovers
Where even the senses can't touch it;
Separating itself from the mind,
It dances upon the moonlit surface,
Like art unfathomable in its reach.
Rising like the morning mist,
Free.
Only to disappear somewhere in the vastness.
Dancing to the mystic mind
Reaching beyond the walls.

A poem written whilst in solitary confinement, San Quentin Adjustment Centre.
Steve Champion (Adisa Kamara)

"We (Adisa Kamara & Ajani Kamara) remember our brother Stanley Tookie Williams (Ajamu Kamara), executed December 13th 2005.  We will never forget our brother.
Ajamu, your spirit continues to inspire us, to drive us, and continues to push us forward. We love you.
Your brothers, Adisa and Ajani Kamara" 

"We are our brother's keeper"

"If redemption wasn't made for people with our experiences, then for whom?" Stanley Tookie Williams, former Cripps gang member 1953 - 2005

A hundred times I tried to write this. But the words would not come. Poems froze in my head long before they reached the paper, and prose solidified in my throat like burning lava at the ocean’s edge. My soul was torn, and it took me a moment to catch my wind.

I write this from the very place comrade George saw blood in his eyes. The very hell where Tookie and I spent years, side by side, fighting, struggling and educating ourselves. The place where we found our philosopher’s stone and went from blue rage to black redemption—and never looked back.

I sat here, in this place—San Quentin’s Adjustment Center—on December 13th, 2005. I sat in the dark imagining war-birds filling the sky and me chanting an African battle hymn and speaking in Swahili to my brother.

But the words would not come.

I heard the helicopters flying over the prison, as the churning of their blades cut through the night air. I saw the look of apprehension on the guard’s face as he peered into my cell to gauge my emotions. But, my eyes were empty. I concentrated intensely on pushing my mind forward…forward…forward, over the walls and amongst the sea of people who stood vigil outside of the gates. Their hope, their resolve, their love, made visible and given texture by the sheer force of their gathering. With all my might I summoned whatever telepathy, E.S.P., and psychic power I possessed. I wanted to tell each and every one of them—thank you…thank you.

But the words would not come.

At 12:36am I felt something seep out of me. Something that existed above the conscious level where Tookie and I could communicate on. I felt the weight of my brother’s huge arm around my shoulder the way I always felt it whenever we walked countless miles around the yard. I saw his handsome face and remembered when his beard was jet black—remembered how he never cursed—not once. Remembered the moment we became writers, him saying, “This changes everything”. And it did: Author. Poet. Artist. Historian. Wordsmith. Mathematician. Philosopher. Mentor. Nobel nominee. He was right. Everything changed.

Together, Tookie, Adisa, and I learned the real meaning of being warriors—of being men. We were always under siege, always targets. Resistance became our dream-catcher amid this waking nightmare, and the distance we have traveled cannot be calculated in years because some epics exist outside of time, thus timeless they become. And we have always understood that struggle does not cease with breath or shatters with loss, but gains strength as the message is transformed into the living fire within each heart that struggles for change.

I did not grieve for my brother, nor did I say goodbye. For I am he and he is me, and our brotherhood was never temporal, so, the words would not come.

1. Craig A. Ross
   Ajani Kamara

There are certain comforts we include in our life to make it enjoyable.  I do not criticise anyone for that.  Material things might bring some comforts, but when those material things disappear, or are not present - what you truly value must come from within.  I recognised this early on in my prison experience, that no matter where I was housed or what I didn't have, my value stems from what I build inside of me. And no amount of incarceration or oppression is going to take that away from me.

If you draw  water from a well and do nothing to replenish what you withdraw, the well eventually will become empty.  It is the same with inner strength. If you don't build up reserves and perform rituals to expel the toxins that latch onto the subconscious and reinforce the essence of who you are on a daily basis, you will easily fall prey to the litany of vices that destroy the soul.  I refuse to let that happen.  I exercise regularly and meditate every day. I try to eat healthily, I read literature that illuminates, enlightens and transforms my mind.  I check in on myself and take inventory of myself to make sure I'm okay.

We are social beings and need social interaction and stimuli to reinforce our communal spirit.  Prison has a way of isolating you and decapitating human connections to the social world.  The reality is, any person who serves a long period of time incarcerated will lose social bonds and relationships he  once knew.  People change and sometimes changes they make exclude you from their life.  People will grow older and some will pass  away.  Sometimes people retreat into their own world and as time goes on you become a fading memory. Recognising this, I fight to renew my connection to the outside world.  My writing has facilitated this prospect.

Writing is like breathing for me. It allows me to explore the inner region of my soul and discover new things about myself.  Writing, like reading, allows me to travel without moving.  Im able to escape the circumscribe mantle of my confinement and connect to the social world Ive been separated from.  Every day I wake up with a central purpose that motivates me to keep moving forward.

Anytime you create or produce something like a poem or writing, naturally, you want it to do well.  the fact is, I can't control or determine the outcome of my work.  My job as a writer is to create the best writing I can and let the rest take care of itself. I hope for the best, but I can't be attached to the outcome.

Steve Champion (Adisa Kamara)