Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Russell Wardlow

Neurotic

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I do NOT have it all together. I don’t know why nobody gets that. I’ve been locked up the better part of a decade, how is that normal to you? So my moods and lows are somehow a surprise. What do you take me for or take this place called prison as?

I am helpless. Too dependent. Trapped.

Emotionally anxious. Guarded and weary. Depressed depressed depressed.

Suppressed, repressed, oppressed.

Overly pressed. Pressed for time. Pressed for change. Pressed for optimism. Pressed buttons.

My every moment is pressurized. I only hold it together for you. Just figured that you’d have figured that by now.

Friendliest Foes

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Agreement

often times creates ignorance and blindness

it’s in the face of opposition

that we see where we truly stand

the chill of objectivity

helps to form our truest conception of self

I noticed enemies have shown me more of myself

than friends.

Friendships are polite and optimistic

with temporary havens of security

and self indulgence.

But opposition

truly showed me things,

I once believed universally good of myself-

obviously good in virtue

of having friends and being friendly-

but was bad for this world

this world I speak of

may be prison

or life, period

it was friends that turned enemy

and enemies that revealed the treachery of friends

and my own foolishness

because at the end of the day

most people will self-serve and preserve

before sacrificing fully for a friend

I was the fool that would sacrifice all for a friend-

or the idea-

the enemies that had blossomed

showed me that I can’t just be agreeable,

having everyone like me

trying to make everyone happy

in order to be loved

because love doesn’t work that way

pliability is sticky

things given,

not worked for

will often foster ingratitude

and suspicion,

it’ll also advertise false allegiance

and manipulative

or thin loyalty

a friend doesn’t really know what it has in a friend

until discontent or trials arise

friends aren’t innately built to show you what you are lacking

in the unfavorable faces of strangers

and opposition

so they may keep you in a state of oblivion

just for vanity sake of being a “good friend”

-less contentious

opposition revels at the chance

to tell you a truth other than what you’ve been made to believe

friends can willingly lie to you

to keep you comfortable

and the friendship safe

as if believing,

disagreements mean a lack of friendship

friends almost got me killed in prison

enemies showed me more love

by their truth and revealed intentions

than the secreted selfish and held truth

I received from some friends

there’s a higher mutual respect now with those old foes

besides most of the friends we acquire

are more acquaintances than friendships

everyone doesn’t deserve to be called friends

even though we all need friends

we also all need opposition

prison made me reevaluate all roles

Belly of the Beast

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Deception, the etymology of her dialect

she sang like sirens

luring me blissfully into my demise

fatefully alerted to the fangs of her promises

my surrender was savored

eyeing the glistening venom oozing from her salivation

serenaded to a triumphant laughter

lifelessly frozen in her deadly clutches

victory and animas adorning her gaze

then her jaws widened grotesquely

consuming all of my sight

blocking even the expansive rays of the sun

turning the day to night almost instantaneously

as I stood, aligned with her tonsils

eerily similar to the shadow of mine

or the shadow I was foreshadowed to become

and with a swooshing sound

accompanied by a vacuuming vortex

her jaws snapped

and fangs jarred, barring down

with my being fatally siphoned from what was once life

once land

once liberation

now lossed, swallowed whole into her belly

where I remained idle

not dead

nor alive by any means

just wasting, while torturously preserved

to relive this consumption in the belly of my beast every day

her thirst rarely quenched

her hunger never satisfied

and heroes are just a fable

because no one can slay this dragon

they only feed her bottomless appetite

hoping she’s appeased

as to not get caught in her caging gaze

bringing down her imprisoning jaws

fearing being enveloped whole

so few rarely dare visit

too scared to risk their lives,

trying to save their lossed loved ones

while distantly crying out that,

“she must be too full by now, let some out!”

but they’ve seen love swallowed whole,

without regard, time and time again

and all that lies left

is a thick dreary fog of,

fear, contempt and hopelessness

the dragon has even been known to consume those as well

there’s truly no escape, inside or out

you either feed her

or get fed to her

and just like her servers,

her hunger knows no bounds

so life remains bleak and dark for most

because there’s no light inside the belly of the beast

Our state- ran by brilliant billionaires

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Uh we have the most billionaires per capita in the U.S. here in Nebraska. Pete Ricketts and his family has made government a family business. A quote from our great recently termed out senator Ernie Chambers, in his reelection race, he spent $2.5 million to the opposing candidates $50k. Safe to say he controlled all the media and exposure.

People more easily vote for familiar faces, great tactic. With no cap on campaign spending our policies have been ruled by finances and he has successfully used his seat as governor creating laws that further set up his family. Originally from Chicago, he and his brother are both governors funded by their father whom owns TD Ameritrade and the Cubs. Hey! we have TD Ameritrade here?!

How can he be the voice of a people they’ve never been part of? He has single handedly financed the drug to revamp our death row. As crimes have dropped, incarcerations has heightened. We now have the second most at capacity prison in the U.S.

Covid cases amongst inmates have been hidden, all the while refusing to relieve the capacity for any reason. And he is another practicing tough on crime aristocrat, which is a disproportionate systemical slaughter. He implores the parole board to not grant parole despite public demand and usually terminates most reform and prison overcrowding bills that pass the legislator, but he wants to build another prison! oh yayy!

He’s really made an obvious difference in the black community. There’s even more of a gaping whole of injustices, inequalities and disproportionate absences. We’re 8th in the nation for property taxes and our economy still haven’t recovered from floods 2yrs ago. 2nd per capita in over capacity prisons which solutions seem like more bars, more guards with barely enough staffing as is. Recently there was a bill submitted to make all the prisons here private.

Smart leadership is always rich in the capital they create in every misfortune..

So liberty, justice and opportunity for all at the expense of the broke and the broken!

Capitalism rites, write rights

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This country was always capitalists

or at least headed that direction

there’s no heart in capitalism

only capital

but how do I know this country has always been captitalistic?

Well my ancestors were property

sold, traded, herded and bred

and the only way my people can trace their history

is because it was recorded

as property, cargo, on the ships manifest

even the ones that jumped over

choosing the watery abyss over the cruelties of their capturers

the humbling and antagonist part of it is

that my lineage is literally held in tact

as a former piece of property

and that in itself is history

not a proud one

so no matter what, somebody was on a ship-

that beat, raped, mutilated and cannibalised it’s occupants-

listed,

yea everyone sold slaves

but everyone didn’t do to slaves

like what was done to them in the Americas

America had redefined slavery

and in these modern times

it continues to do so

there’s no real love in capitalism

just a beating organ

which is vacant any depth

besides bottom lines

but rites of passage and property is a right written for capital

Unheralded Nebraska Corrections

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Everyone flies over

walks past

or stops by

this middle America

Nebraska

our crime lowered

but imprisonment steadily increases

we’re in a state of emergency

having second most overpopulated correctional system

155% over capacity

with a parole board clinging to inmates

like overly attached parents

but no one cares

no one sees

we’re one of few states left with a parole board

a unicameral red state

big money made from our incarcerated bodies

though worldwide attention is only given to bordering states

but Nebraska has BEEN in need of prison and parole reform

approx 850 inmates still incarcerated past their parole eligibility

yet the answer is to build more beds

or construct another prison

staffing still a problem

most states have no parole board

when eligible, you leave

Nebraska is the quiet evil left to their own devices

flying under the radar

our last hope, Senator Ernie Chambers, just termed out

where do we go from here…but in

because we definitely aren’t getting out!

so can we get some attention

what’s a border, without a middle anyway