I sit — my existence? — a cage.
When I look out — a grey brick
wall is my view.
My life now is one of waiting.
Always waiting — eventually one
becomes good at that.
I wait for everything — toilet paper,
food, the always hoped-for but seldom
realized letter — always waiting.
Greetings and welcome to the Roost. This is my first “official” posting after the setup of the site. To be honest I am not real sure what blogging is or how to go about it really. I have a real concern about my being repetitive as my world is so limited here. Let me begin with how a day usually passes for me.
I arise at about four AM. I throw some water on my face and then clean my floor. (This place is so filthy so every day is a must.) My cage is only 7×10 so this does not take too long. Then, at around four-thirty, a guard brings me a small brown lunch-sized paper bag. This is my breakfast and lunch. (No lunch on Saturday and Sunday, just breakfast) and it is to last me until about five or so in the afternoon. (Today it consisted of a half-pint of 2% milk, a plastic sandwich bag with half a bowl of cold cereal, another sandwich bag with some peanut butter that had been mixed with…something… yet another bag of some sort of highly processed sandwich meat (two slices), and six slices of bread. (Two sandwiches and six slices of bread!) After making sure everything that is supposed to be in the bag is (which is not always the case) I throw that on my table and begin my workout. I won’t bore you with the details but this takes about an hour and a half to two hours. (There is never darkness in my cage. There is always a light on. The guards claim they must be able to see us.) If it is not a shower day, I bathe in my small metal sink. (Speaking of showers… I get twelve a month by law.) If it is a shower day then I just clean up a bit and wait for someone to put me in the shower.
I never leave my cage unchained. Always, I am chained like an animal. Even to walk about thirty feet to the shower. The shower is a six-by-six-foot cage with a shower head in it. I am allowed to take a towel, a washcloth, and soap. The shower has a button on a timer. It is supposed to be fifteen minutes. The timer in the shower I use is set to about four minutes. Once it goes off, it takes it takes fifteen to twenty minutes, to come back on. After your shower, you stand in the small cage until a guard comes to chain you up and take you back to your cage. It usually takes about an hour.
Once back in my cage, I wash my laundry in my sink. This is not allowed and one can get into trouble for it. I don’t care because sending my laundry in for them to do it is unacceptable. It comes back smelling bad and has more dirt (other people’s dirt!) in it than when I sent it in. Anyone that has sense, (and can buy soap), washes their own laundry.
After this, I may read (I read voraciously, anything I can get my hands on. Books are scarce, however, I can only get one per week from the library. I can read a book in a day if I do not pace myself. I am currently re-reading some poetry by Charles Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du Mal translated by George Dillon and Edna St. Vincent Millay. As am I, he too was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s work. I more “digest’ Baudelaire’s work than read it. I will read again and again his poems until they are almost a part of me.
I also will usually listen to my little radio at some point during the day as well. This is my only source of news as I do not have a television set. (It stopped working about… eight or nine months ago.) I also enjoy music. Several types. Classical, jazz, old rock and roll, metal…most types of music I find enjoyable on some level.
After my laundry is dry, I may try to use up some time by cleaning my whole cage (ceiling, walls, floor) or I may try meditation. (That can be difficult as the day wears on… a lot of noise in here) Morning is usually best for meditation.
If I am lucky I can fill my time until five or six in the afternoon in the afternoon/evening when my “dinner tray” comes. Today that should be some sort of ground meat product mixed heavily soy and formed into a hamburger-sized plop, instant mashed potatoes mixed with way too much water to save money. (I call it potato soup), some sort of beans (brown or white), and two inch square of very dry cake just to bump up the calories. (Perhaps that is what the extra two slices of bread in the paper sack are for? The soy-meat plop?)
Then after I eat and write some (compose prose or poetry, answer a letter if I am lucky enough to have gotten one) or I may listen to more news and music until I go to bed at about nine PM. Then I get up at four and do it all again. There are small variations here and there but my existence is one of living in a cage, and waiting…always waiting.
Well, that is a typical day in my oubliette, so I suppose I have nothing else to rave on about for now.
Cotton candy, kittens, green grass, trees
to climb and balls to kick– a girl–
just your age moved in only two doors
down the street… such are a
child’s dreams, rhapsodic and
innocent…sunshine and laughter.
I dream, the dreams of the conditioned.
No kittens and candy– a girl? Yes,
but she wears a death mask. Or is it
her face? Drawn and gaunt, a
phantasm of my fevered imagination–
or could she be real? Just waiting,
needle in her hand– smiling…
She is beautiful in her macabre, for it is
she that will bring me my release–
release from the torture that is my world.
Beauty in the ugliness of death…sweet,
sweet death.
I cannot help but love her for it– long for
her– is she my savior? or my damnation?
Truly, whatever awaits can be no worse
than where I am. Despair and suffering
are my daily fare here.
But still I cling to this mortal coil,
almost content in my oubliette. It
might be better if I could forget what
it was to be human once– to have a
companion other than my spectre of
death… waiting– always there– is
she my lover? my friend? my
release?
Or is she my
nightmare? silently laughing in the
dark…
(A tribute to one of my favorite poets, Edgar Allan Poe)
Cryptic writings — in my mind.
Will I see — or stay blind.
A daemon beckons — wants my soul.
Lips like honey — eyes black as coal.
Robed in filth — smelling dead.
Her seductive darkness — fills my head.
She twists and tempts — with violent delight.
Will she collect me — this vicious night?
She reaches out — arms dripping gore.
I belong to her — yes.. evermore.
My song is written on the sacrificial
altar-stone in crimson. Cries of atonement
and the waking of repentance are its
iniquitous melody.
I am an abomination, a malignance born
of liars and those of weak character. I
permeate a world made by traitors and
oathbreakers.
It is I to whom you will turn when desperation
wins out over reason and your
sanity has fled. You will imagine me as
savior and I will laugh.
I am the progeny of hatred and ignorance,
my putrid arms will enfold you and pull
you into desolate realms draped in endless
night and you will succumb to the perverse
rituals of fools.
I am woe– one kiss from my scabrous
lips and poison will burn through your veins
like hard shards of broken glass.. you will
know torment by my hand.
Your debt–written in blood upon the
skin of your own children– a debt
that will steal from them their very
innocence– will come due.
I have murdered in your name. You are
devoid of honor and you now belong
to me. I will break your mind– I will
torture your soul– I will take from
you everything as is my right…
I AM THE EXECUTIONER!
Muninn’s Roost is the personal website of Tod Smith. Tod has been an inmate on death row in Arizona for the past nineteen years. (Read more about that here.) He plans to use this site as a way of reaching out beyond his 8×10 cell to share his poetry and prose, as well as other thoughts, with the world.
Tod does not have access to the internet, so I take his handwritten posts, proofread for spelling and formatting, type them, and post them here. I am also responsible for maintaining the site and its social media presence, as well as passing along to Tod any questions or comments from readers that I receive on his behalf.
Assume all posts were written entirely by Tod unless otherwise indicated.
Please note that content posted here may not be suitable for all readers. Discretion is advised.
–Anna
Muninn's Roost 