Prose


homecoming

    "he broke my head and cracked my heart...
      i felt he left me there to die...
      my only man, my one and only man.." 
                                (wendy v. kino/uph june 2010)

A dream 

so screaming 
as it came alive

drowns the deaf with sound

shadows the blind with light

shakes poison drop by drop

out of the sick children 
and old folk on the sofas

but relaxes, the gift of sleep-

no need to refocus 

or recall itself.

Some blessings
blow in across grasses
opining the open meadows
sleeping by the streams
just across from 
the older cottonwoods
until once again awake
they come to rest
on a lonely 
runaway girl's
now limp shoulder.

Most curses 
slam headlong 
into the pinto
carom into a custom deluxe
knock a wealthy old lady
straight out into the intersection
her heart split 
melon in the moonlight
floating into the 
mind of that man, that time

there cradling his mother 

so brightly striking

this image- a rattler

right between the eyes.

The ones I've known, to no end
the stars in my sky, athletic
poetic scholastic wood skilled
builders riders and fisherman
the coarse in my life, beautific  
in other words, of different form
will follow to that point in
an immediate long distance
where my vortex, and all 
that that implies goes a-drifting
again and away
to something else entirely.
                                                                                                              

My given blessings
My awkward curses
My unwavering dreams
somehow only guaranteeing 
the golden paved road
that became my life
time after time
again. 

Who would-a thunk?
The youngest son of a warrior
having known numerous champions
a mentor to angelic dancers...
Never the first one to dive 
those long ago morns
into the chill of Lake Arrowhead- 
standing today, as a man...


No man in particular
just a man, with a chin,
two ears, and a forehead,
still seeing the top of Styx
in early February 
or Baker ditch in summer 
or girlfriends with their dogs
somewhere ahead on a trail
all sky as wide as any heaven 
just overhead.   


I would bet my favorite 
pair of socks and shoes
that by this time 
in the next moment
it will all take shape again, 
as though a first
and the seasons 
will still be just that
while the clocks move 
at about the same pace
and the ones in the wrong 
move just that much closer
to the things they've had coming.



These are things older than text
not as old as stars 
simpler than pain 
but less honest, 
and more unavoidable 
than shame.


All gifts 
to the evil
to the tormentors
to the sadists
to the boneheads
and peculiarly unclear bastards
whose two pronged hoof tracks
still make my head throb,
are nothing more confounding
than as I have said all along:
    You are writing shit on the wall
    You know it, and I don't think you 
    Will get away with it, 
    Not anymore, for

"All time thus served
to date;
the pain contained 
therein 
have earned their stake:
The worthiness of the better."










(self pjreed 2011-12)


                                             notes:
  -words wendy v. (tucson 2010) 
  -photo becky's kid (nyc 1998)
  -photo self (bayou pierre 2012)
  -photo self (shreveport la 2012)
  -quote from: h. miller "the oranges 
             of hieronymus bosch" (1957)






paoloreed@gmail.com

Prose

            some dog, alright, sings chinese!

                                                 
oh to be a newfie
tucked below the gunwale 
of a solid wood boat
cherry, or teak, no shine, just strength
my master's boy 
shouldering me in the wind, 
my memories of god
still erect in the shadows of 
my time long gone home


      epirus, i am 
    i am molosser
    i am here for you
    as i am alive.


to see, to know as i must, today
that my own kind
(and we would never cut it as dogs)
are too short in terms of love
to see, to care, to basically sense...


how is it that 
i am a survivor
why is it that
i am a survivor
who is it that
i am a survivor

i love ruby fish
i love ed lopez
i love wendy voltaire
i love little modern e
i love josh vassa...
     
   i love not even 
   knowing names
   the births of all 
   of you, my point being: 
   we all count... 
   can you remember this? for me?


we can hate, boy can we, our species....
we can rip the lungs out of a baby

we can smear the blood of grandmother on the wall
we can laugh at ourselves
while a dog dies
we can grow on the basis of our corruption
     
   we live with no 
   knowledge,    
   anymore, no sense 
   of what that means, 
   icarus burning 
   in the light 
   of the sun.


myself, i am worn out on the anger
that these fuckers have led me to
i am tired, i am supposed to be in recovery
i never felt so strongly against
the ways of others as i do today
   
   this, the residual of a place like ash
   this what one can expect, a patient
   if placed there, amongst the filth
   of modern day monsters.
     
not hate, not me, not yet
just anger, and all of you
yes, you rehab therapy girls 
        
      (suzanne, 
     give it a rest already, flirty girl, you are simple
     and just go about paying for your lousy first house)


yes, you rehab therapy men 


    (scott, 
   your missing limb and numerous other old injuries
   paint you as you really are, a clumsy ass, at best 
   no kind of peaceful athlete, nor scholar, and so on)


of course, the librarian bitch 


   (i don't even remember your name, 
    you were out of my loop right away
    you and your phony phony laughter)


all of you need to wake up, man
you are young, you have potential
but little to no excuse (therein my anger with each of you)


   start doing something that matters
  right there, right now, where you are 
  for christ's sake, quit mauling 
  the beauty of our world. 


children, follow nana, for
to be a newfie in a boat
ready open wide awake
to be a newfie in a boat
watching closely all of us
to be a newfie in a boat 
heading to the outer banks 
where a newfie 
never looks back. 

   i was soon warmed by 

   a newfie, always

   drawing closer 
   to yesterdays shore 

                       (self pjreed 2012)


notes
   -pic of steven b., lucy and bryll, nova scotia farm: leah b. 1991 
   -image of ruby fish: c/o rubyfish.net
   -pic of lucy, taos ski valley: self pjreed 1990
   







                        paoloreed@gmail.com

UPDATE Another Patient Escapes: Wherein, new reports submitted by staff to The Arizona State Hospital supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson's  
personal website reveal an out of control and increasingly dangerous environment for staff and patients alike at The Arizona State Hospital.

NEW UPDATE: 4:00 p.m. Okay. I was just informed that this latest escaped patient was apprehended by police within about 24 hours. I hope he is alright.  Maybe, in this case, ASH administrators thought twice about covering the incident up, at least to the extent that they meaningfully communicated with Phoenix police about it, something they graphically refused to do in the case of Jesus Rincon Murietta in May, 2011, leading in time to April Mott's gruesome death in late August, 2011.


But it is of concern to me that decreases in security staff are leading to so much carnage at ASH, for as with any other like issues. the consequences of such matters lands squarely on top of the heads of ASH patients. It is far too taken for granted that mentally ill patients are violent and/or dangerous, but in truth, a high number of ASH patients are as peaceful as I am, and far from suited to defend themselves against the violence of the more dangerous patients. It is safe to assume that if staff are frightened at this time, that any number of mild mannered patients are experiencing excess emotional and psychological trauma- not to mention physical violence- that directly detriments their general well being and most likely throws their respective lives into such disarray that their chances of stabilizing and reacquiring a meaningfully healthy state of mind are that much more shot to hell. 

FRIGHTENED  JULY 12, 2012

I FINALLY HAD TO QUIT. MY REG UNIT WAS GOOD BUT THEY KEPT FLOATING ME OVER TO THE BAD CIVIL UNIT. I AND OTHERS KEPT GETTING ATTACKED IT'S LIKE OPEN SEASON ON TECHS THERE NOW AND THEY DO NOTHING. TOO MUCH FLASHBACKS AND TERROR FOR ME TO STAY. SORRY TO ABANDON YOU -THE FRIENDS THAT I LEFT. THERE ISN'T ENOUGH STAFF AND NO MORE SECURITY GUARDS TO HELP.

LAST WEEK ANOTHER AWOL AND DIDN'T HE TRY TO KILL HIS DAD BEFORE GOING TO ASH?? WHERE ARE THE STAFF AND GUARDS?    (END OF PASSAGE)

That, of course, is the staff report that triggered my initial concern over this latest major clusterfuct in direct relation to the shortcomings of The Arizona State Hospital's current management team. Patients, in the first place, do not "escape" from contemporary mental health facilities nearly so regularly as we have seen in the last two years at ASH (three escapes, to date, one leading to a brutal murder in Phoenix). And in the second place, the staff at ASH are any patients' best recourse in terms of recovery and basic well being as mentally disabled persons, and staff technicians at ASH work more closely with the patients than any other form of staff at ASH. In short, if the staff at ASH are unable to do their jobs because of administrative shortcomings, than there is no way they are going to be able to meaningfully care for the patients in their charge. Bottom line. Herein, and as I have been trying to make clear since I started this blog, yet another ingredient in the applicable recipe for disaster, wherein patient abuse at ASH and directly related staff concerns all blend together and leave the patients right where they have always been: Lost between the cracks of an inefficient, ineffective network of highly inept and fundamentally selfish administrators/clinicians. 
     
IN CLOSING: I am willing to characterize this latest snafu at The Arizona State Hospital as a close call. But "close calls" in Arizona's only long term public mental health facility are not acceptable, for we are talking about people's lives here, and the willingness of ASH clinicians and administrators to carry on with their substandard mental-medical practices is nothing short of a ticking time bomb. Since I became a member of ASH patient community, in January, 2011, I have witnessed one critical snafu after another, leading to deaths in the greater Phoenix community, criminal cover ups of clear clinical malpractice, and absolute complicity in the context of highly illegal drug trafficking within the facility itself. Meanwhile, even as I write, the patient abuse that I initially sought to see addressed based on my own experiences at ASH is ongoing, and with all aspects of the horrifically shortsighted conditions at ASH in mind, it is only a matter of time before the next tragedy befalls someone in some way connected to the basic presence of these highly inept public servants in our midst. It is that simple. This is criminally descriptive of matters that we simply cannot allow for: 
    The doctors and administrators at The Arizona State Hospital are maintaining substandard mental-medical health conditions as a matter of standard practice and they are getting away with it. 


       Please take some time to do your part in supporting and defending the rights of Arizona's most seriously mentally ill patients at The Arizona State Hospital. See my April 30, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article, write or otherwise contact your elected representatives, or directly communicate with me in terms of how we might work together in addressing these issues today. Patient abuse is inhumane. Bottom line. 


paoloreed@gmail.com

Yet Another Dangerous Patient Escapes: Wherein, new reports submitted by staff to Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson personal website reveal an out of control and increasingly dangerous environment for staff and patients alike at The Arizona State Hospital.


UPDATE: 1:00 p.m. Since first hearing earlier today about this latest patient escape from The Arizona State Hospital (in the staff report included below- see the green), it is has been confirmed via one of my contacts that a patient did indeed escape from The Arizona State Hospital on or around the 4th of July, 2012. No other information at this time, but as of yet, phone calls to the Hospital have been met with patent denials. More later as this evolves.
         Another desperately frustrated employee of The Arizona State Hospital has openly voiced legitimate dissent over the atrociously substandard conditions imposed upon staff and patients alike by the ineptitude of ASH' administration, including a thus far undisclosed patient escape, suggesting another criminally suspect cover up of an event that the public has a right to know about.  This following passage was downloaded directly from ASH supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson's personal web page less than one hour ago:

2 FRIGHTENED  JULY 12, 2012

I FINALLY HAD TO QUIT. MY REG UNIT WAS GOOD BUT THEY KEPT FLOATING ME OVER TO THE BAD CIVIL UNIT. I AND OTHERS KEPT GETTING ATTACKED IT'S LIKE OPEN SEASON ON TECHS THERE NOW AND THEY DO NOTHING. TOO MUCH FLASHBACKS AND TERROR FOR ME TO STAY. SORRY TO ABANDON YOU -THE FRIENDS THAT I LEFT. THERE ISN'T ENOUGH STAFF AND NO MORE SECURITY GUARDS TO HELP.

LAST WEEK ANOTHER AWOL AND DIDN'T HE TRY TO KILL HIS DAD BEFORE GOING TO ASH?? WHERE ARE THE STAFF AND GUARDS?    (END OF PASSAGE)

And there it is, yet again, a desperate plea for support from an individual who has experienced first hand the blatant ineptitude of the one's who have been granted the privilege of caring for Arizona's most marginalized at-risk population. As to the reported AWOL in this passage, this is the first I have heard of it (see update above), but I will look into it immediately, for it is critically significant information. "AWOL" refers to escaped patients, of course, such as Jesus Rincon Murietta, who escaped from ASH in May, 2011, and who then, following ASH administration's decision to cover up (DENY!) the escape at that time- despite a direct inquiry as to the incident from a local newspaper- went on to brutally murder an innocent young woman named April Mott. Below is a quick email I just shot off to the AZ Department of Health Services network administrator.... Not that I realistically believe I will hear anything back, but it is a start, of sorts. 

FROM pjreed TO AZ Department of Health Services, Phoenix, AZ
to piowebmaster  July 19, 2012

Hi. Did a patient escape from ASH sometime in the past 2-3 weeks? If so, would you please provide me with basic info (no name, etc. is necessary, so privacy concerns are not of issue) as to the status of the escaped patent at this time, including whether or not they have been apprehended, the nature of their diagnosis, and the potential threats posed at this time to the public. Thank you. (end)

IN CLOSING:  ANY INFORMATION THAT READERS OF MY BLOG CAN PROVIDE CONCERNING THIS POSSIBLE AWOL WILL BY GREATLY APPRECIATED, AS I FULLY EXPECT THAT ASH AND THE ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES WILL DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO KEEP NEWS ABOUT THIS INCIDENT OUT OF THE PUBLIC LIMELIGHT AS MATTER OF PRESERVING THEIR OWN SELFISH INTERESTS. MEANWHILE, PRESUMING THE REPORTED AWOL IS ACCURATE AND THAT THIS PATIENT IS NOW MOVING FREELY ABOUT IN THE GREATER PHOENIX COMMUNITY AS JESUS RINCON MURIETTA DID IN THE SUMMER OF 2011 , THE PUBLIC IS AGAIN AT RISK OF DEADLY HARM DUE TO THE ADMINISTRATORS AT ASH' WILLINGNESS TO DO WHATEVER THEY DEEM FIT IN ORDER TO AVOID ACCOUNTABILITY IN SITUATIONS SUCH AS THIS. IT IS TEXTBOOK DENIAL, THROUGH AND THROUGH, AND 100% CONSISTENT WITH EACH AND EVERY ASPECT OF MY ATTEMPTS TO SEEK MEANINGFUL CONSIDERATION IN TERMS OF PATIENT ABUSE AT ASH, WHEREBY ALL THAT THE ADMINISTRATORS AT ASH AND BEYOND EVER DO IS DEMEAN THE FUNDAMENTAL MERITS OF MY GOOD FAITH REPORTS, REGARDLESS OF THE IMPLICATIONS, RAMIFICATIONS, AND POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES TO THEMSELVES OR ANYBODY ELSE.   

CONTACT ME VIA THE E-MAIL ADDRESS POSTED BELOW, OR BETTER YET: 

               DROP A DIME AT A CIRCLE K AND ANONYMOUSLY CALL NEWS REPORTER  J.J. HENSLEY AT THE AZ REPUBLIC (cell 602-618-9744) (newsroom 602-444-8000) AND SHARE SOME OF THIS VERY TROUBLING INFORMATION WITH HIM. I ASSURE YOU THAT J.J. HENSLEY CAN BE TRUSTED, FOR AS SOME OF YOU KNOW, I RELIED ON HIM IN SEPTEMBER, 2011, WHEN I- AS A PATIENT- LEAKED INFORMATION TO HIM ABOUT ASH's CRIMINAL COVER UP OF THE JESUS MURIETTA ESCAPE IN RELATION TO THE BRUTAL MURDER OF APRIL MOTT...

paoloreed@gmail.com

Only in Arizona: Wherein, the tides continue to erode away the status of Arizona's place in this nations' quilted array of state to state misconduct; and no surprise, either, that the below news story relates to Joel "the mortician" Rudd's boss. 


Horne upbeat on political future despite FBI inquiry, GOP snub

23 comments by Craig Harris - Jul. 18, 2012 11:21 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com

The FBI has investigated whether he broke campaign-finance laws. A former high-ranking employee has accused him of engaging in a cover-up. And his own party snubbed him as a delegate for the coming Republican National Convention. Yet, after months of controversy and bad news, Attorney General Tom Horne is unfazed In fact, he expects to get reelected in two years- if he doesn't run for governor. "I'm perfectly suited for the job: I have been an attorney for 30 years, and law enforcement has been a strong belief of mine...." 
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/06/29/20120629horne-upbeat-political-future-despite-fbi-inquiry-gop-snub.html#ixzz2166OhepT
(END OF ARTICLE)

      What in the hell is this man trying to say, exactly, by stating that "law enforcement has been a strong belief of mine", as though talking about the concept of Tinker Bell or the Legend of Boggy Creek? Yes, Mr. Horne, stargazing wizard of the ages, law enforcement does very likely exist (but thanks to your statements in this case, the likeliness is only that much more firm), and you and your script writers can rest assured that many other Arizona citizens agree with you on that particular aspect of reality.  But to what extent do you support the actual enforcement of law and order when it comes to the misconduct of your own staff? 

       This is a question that I specifically look forward to seeing addressed, and hopefully sooner than later. For as I essentially prepare to take the bulk of my issues in relation to The Arizona State Hospital's (ASH) outlandishly substandard mental-medical health care practices to the next level of adjudicative authority, articles like this continue to pop up in the two most powerful news sources in Arizona, thus reminding me of how perilous the conditions at ASH are in terms of my peers there- staff and patients alike. And as a matter of practicality, I will remind my readers that ASH is not only represented by the Office of the Arizona Attorney General (AZAG), but that the AZAG literally operates a full time office there, out of which Joel "the mortician" Rudd facilitates what I can only characterize- this as per my 13 months of hospitalization at ASH- as a blatant contradiction to Mr. Tom Horne's so called "belief" in law enforcement, as expressed by his statements above. 
         Therein, my basic interest in the article (above), and as my capacity of basic understanding has grown of how and why in the bloody heck a modern American medical facility can get away with graphic patient abuse to the degree that ASH does (this again, as per my experiences there, in correlation with my ongoing advocacy efforts), I am increasingly paying attention to each and every Arizona official who is directly obligated by their positions as public servants to assure that the patients at ASH are provided with nothing short of the best mental-medical health care available today. To date, in my experience, each and every one these folks are profoundly off track in this context, which is fundamentally unacceptable, given that the citizens of Arizona who happen by virtue of mental illness to be required to spend some period of their lives at ASH are among America's most vulnerable adults. As I have tried to make clear, mental illness itself, and its stigmatized status in our culture, has created virtual voicelessness in terms of the vast majority of ASH' patient community; and despite a moderate wealth of state and federal laws designed to ensure that any/all disabled individuals are not subjected to the historically well known abuse and discriminations that we all basically know about (for crying out loud!), the conditions at ASH are literally dangerous, because the ineptitude of the clinical and administrative authorities at ASH seemingly allows them (where in the hell do they find these sorts of people?!!) to ignore the paramount cruciality of such laws and policy.               
       From where I sit now, somewhat on the eastern horizon, but just far enough to be at least temporarily free of the stink of Arizona's very very corrupted administrative powers, seeing these stories emerge on an almost daily basis reminds me of watching the fall of the Soviet Union, or more succinctly, the presence of a disease ridden cow in its immediate surroundings, finding itself further and further out and away from the rest of the herd while the other cows steadily move into the distance, and it- the gruesomely sick bovine- slowly but surely rots into the earth like an alien war ship sinking in the middle of a New Jersey dump. Only in Arizona, I tell you, will you find these sorts of affairs so vividly portrayed, and in places such as the confines of The Arizona State Hospital, the atmosphere falls nothing short of a modern day twilight zone in terms of care giver inhumanity and administrative criminality, conditions that on a day to day basis fall squarely onto the heads of the seriously mentally disabled patients there.


IN CLOSING: Arizona is an increasingly horrifying place (as this recent photo of Governor Jan "People like me!" Brewer quite spookily illustrates). And while I am darn glad to be out of there, I also look forward to my pending return, for things relating to my mental patient advocacy efforts in that state are still evolving. And as far as this blog project is concerned, I have become very comfortably accustomed to issuing ongoing reports with respect for my experiences as a one time patient at The Arizona State Hospital, so I miss the drill, without a doubt. Happily, though, the writing is ongoing and the data continues to roll in, even if I am not in a position today to immediately share it through this journal. All things in good time; and meanwhile, the buffoonery will assuredly continue unabated, only solidifying my anticipation of whatever the hell comes next. 
         
       I really appreciate the presence of all/any of you who have, to date, taken the time and expressed the energy to support my commitment to defending the rights of the patients at The Arizona State Hospital. It is ongoing, of course, and I can only ask that your own activities in this context continue, for the need is still critically acute. Likewise, I will continue to plea in good faith for further support from anyone who has what it takes to stand up against the horrendously substandard mental-medical practices and conditions at ASH. To my knowledge, things there have barely budged over these past five months following my late February, 2012, discharge from that godforsaken facility (although movement of any kind is a good thing when you are talking about the chronic clinical/administrative constipation in places like ASH), and we are far, far from over in this context. So, whoever you are, please see my April 30, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article if you find yourself interested in contributing to this cause, and do whatever you can. Today.  


paoloreed@gmail.com