• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
    • Culture
    • Inside
    • Love
    • Mercy
    • Spirit
    • Trauma
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

The Case Against: Perpetuation and Prosecuting Plaintiffs

July 2, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

pain perpetrated by privilege
promise extinguished by distinction
persons distinguished til extinction
purpose dissented by convention
passion persecuted by dominion
patience prosecuted by opinion
bodily prosecutions for afflictions
humiliations propagated by convictions
value proprietorially promulgated by a sentence
guttural screams, as anecdotal as a linchpin
PURGE!!!

and in case you didn’t get it
by some over sighted mishap that induced my failure to mention
my skin has been a living hell-
careened by hypocritical Pharisees,
parroting
self-righteous pretenses
in forms of societal structures, legal institutions and religion
three tyrannically perpetual collisions
resulting in crucifixions
of my propensities and dimensions-

and If
Still
by some large measure,
you are unable to visualize this picture
as if the lenses,
are too small a frame for your vast mind to fit it
or
your hindsight possibly legally blind to see without prescription
then, allow me to make it simpler…

you can not legislate seeing me!
I’m too brilliant to not be seen

you can not legislate including me!
humanity is not a club to which colors should be screened

you can not legislate loving me!
I am a person, a people only differentiated by genes

you can not create laws for people to see me,
other than the ways your society has made for me to be viewed
and believe that people will now innately see, love and include-
me, by following rules!

and by
indoctrinating legislation
for your historical subjugation
of my culture and generations
to be venerated
by your carbon dated
emancipation
with clever gaps curated
for legal pontifications
and centuries of continual public debates and social demonstrations
inside of a ‘civilized’ nation
where the legal pen, can swiftly
right wrongs and fully arrange to erase this
intolerant behavior
scapegoats and equality makeshifts
boasting inhumane and blatant defacements
empowering statues statutes states status and racists
funding political and presidential races
all the while, dark-skinned beings being born as plaintiffs
enduring complicit sanctions
as you laboriously with gusto, criminalize our coerced pain is
frustrating!
to say the least…

especially
watching you sell,
to people that intellectualism can change behavior
and when all else fails,
turn to the Savior
for patience love compassion amazing grace and
the unspoken subplot of meekness and subservience, favored

turn to the savior
as an anchor
at ports for docking slave ships

turn to the savior
one in which you once used to justify our chains bondage and enslavement
and destiny’s manifestation
monsters of your own creation
ima monster of your own creation
one history conquers
the other history offers
the current history, somber
my history is a mantra of your own cremation

yet still you justify jailing me
for my rebellious pleas
pleeeaasseee

my life?
coping is my reason
but you should understand my subversion and anger
from being ruled by elected strangers
being born into danger
bred into mangers
mangled by systemical man-eaters,
maleficent institutions
maniacal politicians
mandating by way of favors
marginalizing us into morbid chains and mournful chambers
hoping, no
praying, no
voting, no
protesting for changes
as the perpetuation of creating disparaging social ranges
and gapped wages
to which resolutions and revelations revel with revolutions of rebels kicking up rubble from mass graves enraged by the shameless
kowtowing subtle ways
America tells us to be grateful, behave
as it quickly, quietly and methodically turns history’s pages

and still
I rose through the concrete jungle
and blossomed as a groundbreaker!
disciple of John, the black John lewis, a good trouble maker
not a model inmate but
one who fans the flames up
a problem that refuses to be coddled and swaddled by aid that handicaps in the place of
the ‘gotcha’ promise of 40acres-
yet still a mule,
you pool
fool
using as stools
tools
and fuel
while stereotypes rule-

keeping us stunted to basements
don’t give me a grant!
don’t give me a grand!
don’t give me a hand!
if you wanna help me, give me some land!

so I can do the hard work for myself, since you believe me lazy
and I will manifest destiny my own plan
that architect’s generational wealth, not welfare-
and excuse me if my outbursts catapults your sharp inhales
as you gasp trying to grasp my pen quill
as the ink spills
but like I said my skin is a living hell
symbolized by your shocked inhaled air!

as color is weighed and levied by some guarded sense of superior/inferior superstitions
making the sight of my stark blackness a stimulant of tension
but even at this point,
I can still say I love All people
while saying I love My people
which all people
should be all people’s
each as the other’s extension
but that pretense of division
that leaves some dispensed of
isn’t of my invention

attention!
to all in attendance
we, who seek change, are radical
so we, should be well beyond the point of asking for permission
waiting for bill of rights amendments
apologizing to critics
being more civic than cynics
while worrying more about forgiveness
because if, only the God of Genesis
can judge me in the infinite
then only man can write laws which blemishes my innocence
then judges to keep me limited

pain perpetrated by privilege
promise extinguished by distinction
persons distinguished til extinction
purpose dissented by convention
passion persecuted by dominion
patience prosecuted by opinion
bodily prosecutions of afflictions
humiliation propagated by conviction
value proprietorially promulgated by a sentence
guttural screams as anecdotal as a linchpin
PURGE!!!

because if I didn’t
Your biases, whether unconscious or implicit
will be proven right because,
I’d be anything but a human
and every bit of a menace!
as these fated minutes
continue ticking
from the nefarious intentions
inside your precarious indecision

Filed Under: Culture, Trauma

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is a collection of Russell Wardlow’s prose and poetry written entirely behind bars. Through writings on family, spirituality, freedom, love, justice, redemption, and vulnerability, Russell seeks to show the humanity and hope of individuals like himself who are incarcerated.

Read More

  • Whose Mind is it Anyway June 30, 2022
  • Objects June 30, 2022
  • Same Thang, Different Name June 30, 2022
  • Optical Ill-lusions June 30, 2022
  • Hollow Symbols June 30, 2022

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Footer

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is sponsored by giveabeat.org

  • Instagram

Navigation

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Prose of a Con © 2023 · web design by Studio Lyko