Prose. RE: Abusive Staff At The Arizona State Hospital

Aggression Aldo
Oh, to be the aggressive male technician
who smiles warmly at the audience
as he pins my friend Edmond face first to the floor.
He might have once thought about it, 
fantasized about how to acquire 
the chance to physically subdue unruly adults
in a setting where doing so is both safe,
for the most part, as well as sanctioned.
One must really get off on it, if they'd go so far
as to seek work in a rat hole like ASH
in order to get that chance.

Is this, too, an illusion?
Is it a frustrated male ego sort of thing?
Insecurity? Self doubt? 
Or is it simple sadomasochism, 
a state of paraphilia, 
or stiffly suppressed libidinal energy? 

Is Aldo's libidinal energy effectively boxed in
when he is with his wife?

Do men like him reel from the conflict created
through a fusion of destructive energy and libidinal energy?
     Does he, first: Wish to have Edmond as an equal?
     Does he, second: Consider himself either superior or inferior to Edmond?
     Or is he, third: Swayed by aggression and submission in such a way
                             that he wishes for Edmond's destruction and preservation
                             simultaneously? 

Warmly, the smiling hot blooded pig with the face of Adonis 
pins his lover to a floor, 
his semen spreading like hot melting wax between his thighs,
soaking a small patch in the crotch of his designer jeans. 
His dream has come to fruition, he is truly master 
of a ball peen hammer universe,
if only for a few seconds a week, at most- 
     but it is far worth it, worth the boredom and low pay
     and the pasty white latino complexion,
     for he is a master, his slaves are the patients
     and nobody outside of his peers on the job
     need to know a thing about it. 

This may be the only place for him to survive his own need
     to inflict
     to inflict
     to inflict.

                                      (PJ Reed © 01.11.12)

RERUN: As to Margery Ault, and Kara Burke  longtime senior staff in ADHS' Office of Grievances and Appeals. 

DATE LINE MAY, 2012:Clarification Of My Request For Rigorous Investigation Of Substandard Conditions Throughout The Whole Of The Arizona State Hospital And Its Parent Agency In The State, AZ Department of Health Services/Behavioral Health Services

       As described in my very recent May 29, 2012, article (see "Arizona Administrative Code"), I formally submitted my request for investigation of critically substandard conditions at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH), and throughout its parent agency, the Arizona Department of Health Services/Behavioral Health Services, on February 09, 2011 (shown here- see full size in original article).


       The issue of reported substandard conditions, and my directly related allegations concerning the danger, illegality, and inhumanity of these conditions, is something that I am willing to suspect may fairly well worry the ones in power at the Hospital  and at ADHS, particularly if I am able to prevail in seeing that my claims to this effect are meaningfully investigated and addressed in full accordance with the law, because the implications of these matters as I have presented them suggests that any number of high ranking staff at ASH and in the Department may soon be held accountable for this very extensive wrongdoing at the administrative level.              
       But I also cannot take anything for granted. I have no reason to believe that my ongoing advocacy on behalf of myself and my peers at The Arizona State Hospital is having much effect. I long ago learned the hard way that none of the people running ASH, or in the offices of Behavioral Health Services, are willing to follow their own rules, much less to abide by the standards of common law and policy. It is their tendency to rely on malfeasant interpretations of statutes that, in my experience, none of them are even able to comprehensively understand; this is the best reason I can come up with, at least, in terms of trying to understand the ongoing and seemingly unending flow of graphic ineptitude that I am still encountering today. But it is unconscionable in every sense for people with this much responsibility over the care and well being of Arizona's mentally disabled clients to be so glaringly incapable of maintaining their duties. Maybe that's what frightens these devils, the increasingly distinct possibility that they will be found out, and recognized, therein,  for who and what they are.
       That said, feel free to look (below) at a copy of the first response that I got from the ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals, after having submitted my initial, February 09, 2012, request for an investigation of substandard conditions. The circular and seemingly nonsensical language of this letter is entirely consistent with the unlawful manipulation of clearly stated law and policy that these so called professionals always try to get away with in situations like this. But try as they might, they simply aren't bright enough to pull it off (not on my watch, anyway). And the fact is, a client-patient such as I can submit all of the well drafted reports of staff misconduct in the world, but each and every time, these people will come back with some variation of this letter. They very clearly do this in order to deny any possibility of these sorts of reports being formally acknowledged, and as with most business entities, it's a simple guess that liability issues are their primary concern. (Not that that is a sound justification, mind you.)
        In any case, the March 27, 2012, letter shown below was sent to me by Kara Burke, of ADHS Office of Grievance and Appeals, close to eight (8) weeks after I had submitted my good faith request for an investigation of substandard conditions at ASH, but it is clear that she has no interest in entertaining the possibility of any such investigation, as per the language of the document itself:
     

       As soon as I received the above letter, I recognized that I  needed to further clarify both my original intent, as well as my determination, in terms of hammering down my express request for a meaningful  investigation of  substandard conditions at ASH, and beyond. Ergo, as a matter of wanting to make that as clear as I could, I sent Kara Burke my own form of a rejection letter on April 11, 2012 (see below). As much as anything else, I did all I could in this letter to stress the fact that I was requesting a separate investigation, specific to conditions, and not directly connected to any of my other serious grievance reports, because ADHS' Office of Grievances and Appeals was clearly trying to distill the significance of this specific report by tying it into my other grievance reports. But my primary realization that the overall conditions at ASH were critically substandard largely came about through my learning the hard way that all aspects of the grievance and investigation process were far below commonly recognized standards, too, and I made it clear in my April 11, 2012, that as I see it today, ADHS as a whole is very clearly at fault. ASH is nothing more than an extension of ADHS itself, and while it took me awhile to grasp this fact, I have by now come to realize (again, the hard way) that the abuse I experienced at ASH is only one fairly minute aspect of ADHS' generally out of control state of affairs. Ergo, my pointed expressions to this effect, below:

       Liability issues aside, I also suspect that at this point in time, the staff as ADHS are possibly afraid of losing their jobs, or better yet, of the possibility that some of them, including physicians and administrators, fear the very real possibility of criminal charges. Because in my humble opinion, many of the things I either witnessed or experienced first hand while hospitalized at ASH were undoubtedly criminal in nature, both in terms of the acts themselves, as well as with respect for the impacts on the client-patients. 

IN CLOSING: I spoke with one of my media contacts in Arizona earlier this evening, and he is going to look into things down there at The Arizona State Hospital, and in the various offices of the Department of Health Services/Behavioral Services, from his end our communicative conduit. Likewise, I put the word out to several of the by now very interested national advocacy organizations that I regularly brainstorm with, that something is clearly amiss in terms of these still unscheduled judicial reviews in  Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings. I will hopefully get some feedback in a day or two, but in the meantime, I will redirect my increasing dissatisfaction with these matters to the appropriate channels, as well.

       

       The time is ripe for serious reform in Arizona's behavioral health system. There are any number of people who need to get the hell out of the way at this time, because the patients at The Arizona State Hospital are very close to receiving the care and treatment that they deserve. Please join me today in fighting to bring these deeply needed changes about. Patients at ASH are continually being abused, by the technicians, the nurses, the doctors, and the administrators. Only direct action will rectify this situation, and I implore each and every person reading my words to get involved today. 

UPDATE APRIL 2014: As clarified by Phoenix area ABC Ch 15's deep investigation of ASH's grossly substandard conditions, and the complicity of senior level staff in ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals, as it stands. These two women (Burke, Ault), who were recently deposed and required to testify in at least one legislative session, are as graphically out of whack with contemporary public health law and policy, as are each and every administrative authority in the ASH facility itself; the irrefutable impacts of which have furthered all elements of staff misconduct as it has occurred at ASH for time immemorial- including highly illegal forms of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse imparted upon ASH patients by some proportion of ASH staff at all levels of employ. No aspect of my expressed concerns, including the data included above, have yet to be found invalid. But due to the grossly inept criminal negligence of these sorts of state officials, the vast majority of my good faith reports in this context were not brought to light until the last 6-10 months. This is is the state of affairs. Bottom Line. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

Delays, Delays, and More Delays Wherein I learn something, but not rally anything of substance, about the ongoing delay(s) in my yet to be scheduled court sessions in the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings. 

      I received to email advisory shown below today, which was sent to me from the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) in response to the May 25, 2012, motion (see my article, May 25, 2012: "Identifying Key Factors #One) that I submitted to them concerning the ongoing delay in the scheduling of at least three OAH judicial reviews of my most serious grievance issues (as submitted at this time).

FROM: Office of Administrative Hearings, Webmaster OAH.Webmaster@azoah.com
Mr. Pickens,

I have confirmed with DBHS/Office of Grievance and Appeals at the Department of Health Services that the three cases that you are referencing are still pending matters and they have not yet been sent to our office, The Office of Administrative Hearings, to be scheduled for a hearing date and time. Once the requests are made to our office by the Department of Health Services then they will be promptly scheduled in the normal course of business. Again, these matters are still pending at the Department of Health Services and have not yet been filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Thank you

-Webmaster

      As this advisory shows, staff at the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Grievances and Appeals are clearly up to something ( or, as they put it, "pending matters"), and given my past experiences with this office, I highly doubt that its anything I will happy to learn about when the time comes. Meanwhile, my most basic rights to prompt and equitable service in the context of these very critical matters are still being ignored. It is as though these people love nothing more than an opportunity to flaunt their given disregard for patient-client rights, with just as much impunity (in there minds) as the staff at The Arizona State Hospital do. Herein, my declaration that the Arizona behavioral health care system is so deeply broken that even the most fundamentally established dictations of applicable law and policy seemingly have no bearing on the day to day functions of its affiliate agencies. From the very point at which physical and verbal assault is allowed to occur in the patient units at the Arizona State Hospital, and all the way up into the highest offices of authority over these affairs, these rat bastards refuse to follow their own rules, and they do so in graphic defiance of numerous federal and state laws.  

IN CLOSING: Patients at The Arizona State Hospital are living in an environment where the United States Constitution is simply not a fact of life. To the staff and administrators of that facility, the very fence lines of the place seem to represent a departure from contemporary American life, and a virtual arrival in a third world country. I sensed this each and every day during my thirteen long moths of hospitalization at ASH, and I saw it in the day to day behavior of various staff there at every applicable level. In time, I came to realize that at ASH, I was a member of a persecuted class, and that the majority of the staff there are incapable of understanding there own deep set flaws as self described caregivers and professionals working in Arizona's only long term public mental hospital. It was as terrifyingly sickening an experience as I can imagine a modern human being being subjected to, particularly when one considers that this is the United States, and that this is the year 2012. 

       Come on, people! Get involved in some way, in some capacity, in some form or fashion! Do what you can to say in as loud as voice as you can muster: THE ABUSE OF MENTALLY ILL PATIENTS AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL IS INHUMANE AND NEEDS TO STOP TODAY!!! 

       I need your help. The patients at ASH need your help. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

Prose: May, 2012

Poem Five

   Arizona is a cancer the spread of which will destroy us all, 

   the American child forbidden.  

        I sincerely doubt that I can ride far enough

        to get away from its stink.  

                                (Five miles east of Gallup, May 21, 2012)

ASHES

A wildcat crossed the life tonight, 

I think it was looking for cats of its own.

Shadows of thought, the whistle

of a train in water, the groan

of a 'gator on the tracks, and

a drunken santa claus

in the road with a chainsaw,

saying:

       "Buy that tree from me 

        I will cut it down, 

        and I'll strap it to your roof."

Centennial mile, peripheral style 

narrowing down like a hole to hell,

and wildcats wishing

for a night on the town, where

the whiskey is free, the cigars

brought in on a boat.

First poem

Open country

that fast and open

country

not far east

of where we started

there are no trees

out here

that fast

my open life

still romps

and

I am surreal

in all my going

I am open country

too.

Second poem

god please forgive me

for I have already forgiven myself

the far away notions of my state

of mind, I am now moving again

me and my landscapes

are back on the clock.

an old structure, wind worn

sun baked waiting

personified, who knows  

about that place

it is somewhat eternal

it is entirely circumspect

it relies on no one.

Gallup. 

    We used to came here in the early seventies,

    my family.

There was a large tourist draw,  a mass gathering:

Come and see the Indians at Red Rocks!

Indians in rodeos, Indians dancing.

    Come and see Indians slide down  ropes

    extending from the high tops of poles.

There is an Indian man sitting in front of me,

his ears and the skin on the sides of his face

is shiny wet- 

    is it grease, of fire and song? See Him, 

    my Indian brother riding His War Pony.

We are still at war, and our collective life

    is on top of the ocean, 

    is under the earth, 

    throughout the air.

    The sky is a headdress.

Poem Five

Arizona is a cancer

the spread of which will destroy all of us, 

and I sincerely doubt that I can ride far enough

to get away from its stink.  

Poem Six?

Mile 58 eastbound-out-of-Gallup-seizure

(and if only we all could go away and come back like that).

Why is this so long winded? This. 

I am following something 

I am on the trail of something

I am east bound. 

The seizure

the poor man losing his head

soaring and waving his arms,
in the window of this bus. 

Irony unfettered.

Mt. Taylor Once

America's work ethic is killing itself, 

we are so willing to work,

hard work, dedicated work.

This really is 
     all about looking out for #1.

America's work ethic  is killing itself.

Somebody call 911.

Mt. Taylor Twice

Used to look good
 from any angle,

but now it is cold shouldered, 

it is ignoring me

and I can't even slow down

in order to try and make up.

Waves of return, oceans of coming home,

my form rolling across the sea

touching but not interpreting,

brushing, but not touching.

My own home has described itself

as something other altogether.

It has been that long, I have been gone

that long.

But somebody had a gun to my back,

and it's not my imagination, if I could

I would climb into those cool blue forests.

I would contemplate this something 

or somebody again. I would take  a good look

and I would study things, I would slow down

and settle right in.   

Grants

Patricio's Cafe, Gonzales Auto Parts,

El Canoncito Inn and Rest Stop.

Redi-Mart:
"Breakfast burritos

and Hatch green chile." 

Albuquerque I

The man next to me drove trucks for forty years

and recently had his liver swapped out for a better one

about six months ago. Nice man, with his reinvented liver

and his south valley tone of voice. 
     "Sure, the 70s was a great time to grow up in Albuquerque!"

I meanwhile feel disenfranchised from my own hometown

I am rolling into there right now, and it doesn't have that feeling

of home, it all seems so long ago life other than mine

somewhere far away, long ago, without me, I am.

Albuquerque II
More lights, nothing new

the place we used to call downtown 

and the same faces

   sitting, hoping, begging

   harassing, claiming, stating.

My dreams have included scenes

of utter disclaimer, fear, and "oh my god I grew up"

   like this, and somewhere in this town

   I have a brother, raising Cain, god bless him.

My time here is varied and rich

with my childhood, "oh god don't make me grow up!"

  I felt that way here and I saw myself

  like this, like this, like this.

               Bus 008, Amarillo, last call

               streaming beauty, and I was there,

               less lights, everything new.

               I called this place home

               before trading it all in

               for this something, still. 

Driver: Albuquerque to Amarillo 

"Smoking! If you think the last driver was afraid of you,

I'm not. 

     If I catch you, 

     I will leave you

                                 somewhere....

Alcohol! I know people drink on this bus. 
I drank on this bus, too, 

before I was a driver.

    If you're going to drink, please

    stay in your seat. And please, 

    don't come talk to me, 

    because I don't want to catch you, 

    and you don't want me to catch you, 

    because I am going to leave you

                                                            somewhere."

"I Have Arthritic Knees"

    So we rolled like that,

    left home, going home. 

    Listening to a 

    man 

    to a man from Modesto 

    tell me about hitchhiking through here

    to California, in the 1950s:

            "We only had few bucks on us,

              and we  ordered us some chili,

             it was only twenty five cents for a bowl, 
             and you know what?

             It was so hot, it near burnt a hole

             in the seat of my britches, 

             we had to order crackers,

             over and over again."

Glisten

Lightning is flashing up there.

There, towards the east slope: 
Madrid
Galisteo 
Cerrillos 
Pecos
Cuba
Mora

(Dark centrifugal highways, nowhere else to turn).
It is during the night, I suppose 

that men answer their deeper lies

returning like grandfathers

begging to tell the truth. 

It is at night, when scenes re-emerge

telling tales, telling signs, 

all of those petty petty lies. Men

crossing every threshold

only to beg for forgiveness, 

once they are alone

like I am tonight.

Roll, let's roll, let's roll.....

I am neither the young man

nor the grandfather, and that lightning is laughing at me

up in those sacred blood of christ mountains

and I am caught here, caught again-

    I love my home, I love those mountains,

    so I am asking you: 

    How did I get here? 

Amarillo Texas (Carlos)

Sleepyhead, now you've done it.

Arizona is lost without you, 

or haven't you heard?  

Since you came here

as though running from something, 

and not as though

running towards something, 

you will likely be looked at 

with something like crossed eyes. 

    They burn the lunatics there

    they send them home packing

    in pine boxes made of stolen wood
    and hateful prayer farmed out,
    the souls of 10,000 murdered apaches
    gently stepping aside. 

Third Poem (Steve)

Holy clusters tooth staining tumor causing

gathering by the side bus shadow travel

and the thin legs of one girl in particular 

in my mind too young to be this far from anyones' home,

much less her own. 
       
The driver's name

is Scott. I bet he has seen a thing or two.

        Has he ever seen a man pull his eye ball out
        with the thumb of his own left hand? 

  
Sixth Poem

Sky: where deep, cutting blue

becomes part of the inner eye,

literally clean, clear, with sharp wind

and rocky mountain skyline;

comes the flat, off yellow 

haze, no more big west.

I have now entered 

the main slab of Texas; 

the trees are shrubbish

and hunkered, the grass is yellow 

and thick, diamondbacks snakes,

gopher snakes, no cactus,

and only feral hogs.

Trailer Life

So falls Wichita, so falls Wichita Falls. 

Seventh Poem (Ft. Worth, TX)

The Ft. Worth skyline makes me think of "Cops,"

the "heat" is swarming. 

Slowly rising buildings shimmer, and the bus is late,

we will be in Dallas for hours, unrequited.

To think I might be dead, or running 

along high altitude rail road tracks 

or pushing the speed work at 

Coconino High with doctors and Olympians. 

Just this morning (almost):

Cooking for and feeding the homeless,

and serving them-myself; 
sleeping with ear plugs,

fearing psychopaths,

challenging unjust authority

and addressing courts;

drinking at the Buffett,

or killing time with 7 alley cats,

bickering five spots off unsuspecting 

third street commuters;

sticking my nose 

to the very edge of the pavement.

        
Caroming off verticals, flying.

Poem One-A

And what of the south?

Well, I'll tell you what:

Water. Grass. Thick Air.

Black men and black women, 

white men and white women,

hunger, sate, live humans, 

I am not too concerned at the moment.

I could have been anywhere I wanted to be at this point of my life,

at one time. I am where I am, in the eastern remnants

of what used to be Dallas, for at the first and possibly the only time,

I asked where the street was,

where Kennedy was shot 
     (and no, that little park I'd seen

     while stretching my legs between buses

     was not the grassy knoll, even if grassy, in fact,

     with a legitimate hump to it, even if not a knoll).

I am not concerned, for this is Dallas

as it used to be, even as I contemplate the place

the City Dallas becomes something entirely different

and I never wanted to know Dallas. 

Dallas, and the south, are slipping

into and out again, of my consciousness.

There is so much to my 

consciousness, now

that I don't even trust it, in fact,

don't even care to know

where I am going. 

Wherever it is

it is always changing,

and I've learned that I can't keep up.

End Road

It can't be stated.

It is unspeakable.

Prison like and formidable

my home is an end road

the sort that  we all sometimes go to

in order to run through

it all over again. 

End road

pavement grows patchy

weeds broken glass

a flattened and rusted can.

I am not in this for good

I am in it for the money.

Let's not mince words

you know it's only a waste of time.

So cut to the chase and

show me the money sucker.

Rolling in like that  

checks and balances

being what they are

I returned one last time

I think in order to organize.

And I still have little to no idea.

Louisiana

Softness of greens, good food, hazel eyed sky,

and a new steeple.

Single lit room on the second floor

of the building I live in. 
Tonight it is plain, it is the deep south.

I seem to have found my way again. 

    How? Where am I now? 

Final Poem

(Where you going, little feller?)

                                                 AND THAT'S IT FOR THE BUS RIDE.

paoloreed@gmail.com