Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Russell Wardlow

Generational Curse (spoken word)

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I am a generational curse
I am my generation’s curse
cursed,
fuck!
I am the reason my generation is cursed
spewing hatred, I’m hurt!
and I don’t care who gets it-
anyone can get it,
you can get it first!
I may aim this hatred at “you name it”
pick a name or be it nameless,
regardless reputation and just call it reparations!
you can’t structure the lane nor limit the effect and expression of what ‘pain’ is!
no clear definition painted
just scratching the itch that pain is

internal preparation for perpetuated segregation-
imposed on my being like mass incarceration

I was section 8’ed

insecurities and complexes not abated,
I need separation!
white people, all people, back the fuck up!

indoctrinated since educated,
I wasn’t educated…

I’m still not educated

retribution the best solution for defamation
my pride is all I got!
so hold ya tongue in check,
and keep it from character slaying and any semblance of disrespect,
cuz you best not say it!

dedicated to predestinations-
prison, matrix

my
historical excavation
brings about cultural restoration
foster child to imprisoned man, the highest incentives was and is
visitation
nobody visiting anyway

emboldening reservations ’bout preconditions imposed by slavers
onto descendants of slaves
America is one gigantic slaveship
and the flotilla was actually packed in spaceships

predispositions inherited
yet gave birth to Douglas’ and Harriets
railroads and chariots
still, instilled
predatorial merits cherished like carots
half man half animal, embellished
premeditative-
lowest character plot like a terrorist
fight or flight from assimilation
registered narratives
felons and Hellenists
heathens with melanin
plan B, tramzidole Zoloft Lithium Valium Ritalin

second-guessing my medication
it needs regulations
I Need regulation!
I know regulators!
I used to regulate!
no remorse when regulated
fuck whoever of no relation
No, this ain’t registrated!

erratic respiration
assented trepidation
I can’t afford a tepid nature

my traumatic shocks set tremors about my being
that quakes my status,
and places I’ve been raised in,
subversive behavior,
emerging from basements,
debased with no basis for acting this way,
besides this is the way we make a way through our days,
mazes and cages

I cope, so fuck medication!
fearing a vegetative-
state to keep me on my best behavior,
devastating my consciousness with segmentation

I stick out like decorations
I zone out, patience gets ran out, I’m turned off like the next direction

I hate being questioned

I hate asking questions

I feel stupid, you call me stupid, you’ll feel stupid!

I hang on edges, don’t threaten me with a good flight, never been on airplanes but I’ll do it!

so family secrets kept from surfacing to preserve dignity
but they didn’t realize those secrets enforced mentalities that taught me out of my divinity

I learned the language of scars before love nature planets and stars
I spoke fluent pain in every language,
twinkle twinkle how I wonder what you are

don’t show me love nor shine on me,
I don’t know that language
I’ll feel threatened, unconceal and reveal my weapon and return that damage…or favor
if love is food I’ma die famished as a hopeless manic
I heard it’s an infinite resource but a limited commodity and like bunny rabbits it’s cute but quick to vanish

I’m Ill-advantaged to feel its antics,
all good things banish
I’ll grip the essence like smoke and watch it escapes my hands
and like usually, I end up empty-handed

now there goes any chance for me to transform and transcend this vantage
my eyes are clouded by galaxies of hate fear intolerance and suppressed talents replaced by survival tactics to survive this world of challenges…
while being the disadvantaged

my pain feel as gigantic as state-sized asteroids on a course for earth threatening the end of days or at least apocalyptic conditions

most won’t survive me getting into my feelings!
there’s too much risk assessment to giving into my feelings, so fuck it I’m giving up every feelings

matter fact…
I’ll be as numb as the submerged and largest part of the iceberg unseen and I just won’t have any feelings

I wish I could live in a house that doesn’t have any ceilings
that way only God can always look in on me, I wonder how it would feel to live and not have any secrets
to not have to veil anything, how long would I live with
feeling the only eyes that matter on me as I process the things that occupy my existence, temperature, disposition and the surrounding system minute to minute-
which feels insurmountably persistent to impress upon me lemons and limits
reacting to everything as opposition and competition..

imbued with doubt, lacking confidence and faith in an all-powerful ever-present God’s omniscience
I’m so two dimensioned

but I’m just a black man realizing he’s the product of generational hurt
trying to break the chains of this generational curse
due to my ignorance pigment reciprocated projections and lacking discipline, my generations are cursed
by an evil spell that I can’t reverse
no matter how many attempts I rehearse
changing, nothing will work
if I don’t seek find and then speak the “safe” word
that heals hurt
builds worth
and will kill this generational curse that slithers inside like a tapeworm
that I identify more with than any promise or purpose discerned
as the day burns
but it has to be yearned learned and earned
and maybe this one-sided world, just may begin to turn
that word is…
LOVE.

New Wings

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I dropped out the sky

I first learned to fly

fore I learned to walk

even when I crawled

but when I learned to walk

I forgot how to fly…

that’s when I began to run

that’s when I began to lunge

that’s when I began to jump

that’s when I sought out hills

that’s when I climbed up mountains

that’s when I walked on cliffs

and then I ran the ledge!

and then prepared to jump!

from every single edge!!!

Fear For You (Spoken Word)

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I’m here for you
I fear for you
I fear with you
I wish I could take fear from you, but I’m scared…
goes to show you how fear grips you

it tears tissue!
it airs missiles!
it bears initials!

M.O.E
R.I.P
D.O.A
D.O.D credentials
prison number essentials…

now don’t you dare withdraw tear and talk down on the symbols my homies represented
and the scriptures my dead homies ascended
ever since my dead homies ascension
I ain’t pretending,
you see where I’m at with it!

you see their sacrifice on my shirt and skin depicted in a picture for eternal dominion,
yea some of the realest!
and pour to their pain, share their stories and I live with the risks every minute
I grew up with real vets and lieutenants
as broke tenants with everything rented
but fresh tennis
and slugs so don’t throw salt!

and unless its love, I swear you best not mention their name
or on my dead homies, for this idea
I’ll ride for like “bad boys for life,” until I die, never testify and live out this sentence
without repentance!

I got him before he paid me a visit,
that’s street penance

yea JC, we Just Criminals, and I’ll kill you for pennies
just trying to release the tension
no happy ending,
what’s happy anyway?!

not the way I’m living
this day was predicted the day I was delivered
I made prophets out of governmental figures
and got nothing divine to show for those holiest visions

sac religious and dogmatic statistics
saw thru the holes in me and the holes I committed
born with deadly intentions
paradox proposed from my beginnings
and I do me just as they intended
despite consequences unintended
no oops, where was your antennas?!

this my nature!
I’m a created soldier bred for war!
fighting for resources, zoning districts, and street credit scores
my pedigree need a pedicure from stomping in these trenches

yea I even made a few dents in a divot of dirt for burying more dead and I’m indifferent!
I’m indifferent
I’m indifferent,
you wouldn’t get it, fuck your opinion, I kill all critics!

crickets…yea, sounds more like it!

fear, sounds more like this

hear, sounds. soar. flight. risk.

bang!!!

sound bodes voids. filled with silence, then sirens

down. goes. tight. grip.

sounds. so. life. less.

I fear for you, cuz my fear is you, and it’s all I can do

is become my fear, I’m my worsest fear, and my fear is proof

of how fear grips you, and harms anyone nearest you

I fear for you, cuz I’m scared for you, cuz I’m scared of you

I’m scared of you, cuz what I may do, ain’t repairable

Some Things Better Kept Between Two or Few…but I’ma Share this Even if it isn’t Alright with You

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Hey Lauren,

Thank you for your concern, your genuine reaction and heartfelt connection are always appreciated.
Even the guilt and shame you seem to always express, I get it, it’s selflessness and needed to personally identify with the pain of those who don’t look like us, but you are one of those who need not feel this way, because you try to understand, and for that, I am so thankful.

Thankful you don’t try and act as if you know, nor force words that you may not have altogether
it’s annoying when I hear so many expressing opinions to what they are not studied on and only telling the narrative of their own emotional prejudice and bias, unbeknownst to their selves of course.

so dig…

those who don’t know, will do what they do
because it’s all they know
those who know a bit won’t do enough
because they don’t know enough to do anything more
and those who know
either impose themselves on those who don’t
or empower those who don’t
and the pendulum swings,
as the energy depicts progress and it’s process

when we struggle for identity
all we can do is react emotionally
not realizing that the emotion has no solution
it only proposes an opportunity to recognize something is wrong
if we live in the emotion of what’s wrong
evading culpability and discomfort
than we are doing just as we are programmed to do
by those who know
and yet impose themselves on those who don’t
because the emotion becomes the bait
controlling what one can and does imagine

those who don’t know
and don’t know enough
are prisoners of the moment
many moments separated
so separated that they can’t see in the moment that it is the same moment to come
because no solution has been found
and to stay in the emotion is prison, so those who don’t know evade the emotion prematurely for self-preservation without realizing a solution
because to care, is a full-time job

and it doesn’t matter who you are and how much you know
it’s not hard to be sick of being sick and tired
and that’s by design

don’t worry for my being by whatever truth you need to share
I’m free even if I’m not out in August
truth, real truth, has no preference nor condition
it just is
I’m not in a prison of fear, nor would I want anyone to imprison themselves by fearing for me
I want your truth just as much as I want to share mine and realize more

as a reaction to the hate crime and cowardly mass shooting of black people in buffalo, I called a rally together on the yard, white, black, brown, etc, and spoke and performed a spoken word piece, I spoke of history, truth, love, what oneness is and means, where separation and racism came and comes from, how hate is embedded and fed upon, how we are puppeteered by our emotions, conditions, classes, colors and illusions of separation and incomplete education, and how we as prisoners have an opportunity to contribute to change and to walk courageously in truth etc.

racial remarks and presumptions were whispered outside, but it amassed 30ish people out of short notice, and people came to me asking me if IMA do it every Sunday, I finally said yes, I’m going to try and get some money so I can at the least buy pops for everyone that comes, I’m doing it again this Sunday
but the message last time was, I don’t fear losing my final for staff wanting to see this as something else, we each have something we claim we’ll die for and therefore live for, mine is no longer a hood but truth, my sons have to grow in this world, so yes I want to go home but I am my name and my message and a father, those are not separate things, and so I will speak and do what my soul calls me to do without fear

I cried given the spoken word peace, I was angry the previous day, but I turned those emotions into something, no white fragility, no white man nor his system nor structure can imprison any aspect of me but my body, I live on by what I give, in that I receive it all the same and it passes on and never dies
this is the energy of my ancestors, the ancestors of us all, their energies is what fuel us to be-to learn adapt grow and evolve- from what was into what will be

courage will never again be my lacking
nor fear my undoing and foundation
when I saw that, a call was imprinted upon me with an even deeper realization than I knew before, and I am alive for such a time as this…as we all are

my music, poetry and opinion mean nothing if I can’t stand in the oven and wait for the coast to be clear, I can’t wait on white people to save me, nor a perfect circumstance to benefit me, my time is now and always will be, but I do people and the message a disservice I am not as equally ready to spread and share truth and awaken white people as I am my own, because change doesn’t come from just reaching look-a-likes, but those whose ignorance does the most damage by unifying us at the core/essence of our being

being comfortable being uncomfortable is the new comfort, change happens at that crossroads, because courage lives there
as I spoke that day and in my piece, I know great white people, and I also know great people, you fit both those categories, the limited one and the limitless one, thank you for your being, energy, and heart
I love you
and thank
I am constantly becoming
because of sacred souls and gigantic spirits such as yours
you are the Moon
and I am but a tide in the waves of your heartfelt energy
the empathy you exude is the envy of angels and god’s alike
and I hope to emit but a portion of it as I continue to grow into who I am
Man Father Son King god-I Am
WayOfLife

Waking Dreams (Spoken Word)

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I have a dream that I had a dream I sleep!
bout the many different ways I can get killed as a fella…
or felon
however you identify with either dwelling
you see
this world don’t want me to succeed
or exceed
unless it is in need
but not in the way that I breed
unless they can snatch the rights of those women that bear my seed
whom are as bare as my seed
in the commission of our deepest deeds
and ‘they’
can be advantaged by their greed
by the hearts us poor lonely and lowly wear on our sleeves
day to day as we grieve
in one way of another by the many ways we bleed
in one way or another
for another
or an other
pain is how a pariah or parasite feeds
imposed on by a powerful leech
seethe
nibbling on my being every waking moment like how a toddler teeth’s
thieves
so whatever I may achieve
may be lived brief
sheesh
because as sure as I soweth, so I shall reap
deep
beneath sights unseen
reach
beyond sights I see
preach
…don’t preach
teach
peep!
I need to peel off visuals you see
but not genes
just whatever it seems you see and seek
each week
beyond biases which peak your feats each week
preach
…don’t preach
teach
peep!
each week you seek that which makes you more weak each week
ease
preach
…don’t preach
teach
peep!
you lunge you jump you leap but seep in creeks made deep because you sleep on feet in feats you deem to be out your reach and hide what leaks from eyes yet bleed for sights you see that seem so sweet yet sleep to sights unseen but dream to peek and peak at new heights you reach!
preach
…don’t preach
teach!
peep
so let me peel back this thing you see called color
preach
…don’t preach
teach
peep
now I can rise and not sink in the same sink my thoughts I think which sink in the same sink I’ve sunk from rinse waters not drunk made mud from dirt my hurt in a place as dark as where I’m from

my son bleeeeedsssss!
his dad pleadssss!
have mercy pleeeaaasseee!
my God seeeeee!
that my dream is my deepest fear!
that I outlive my kids in the same world I’m trying to get free to yet stay free from after all these years
pleeeeaaasseeee!
because you may have more influence than I!
ten years, and I haven’t even heard as much as my son’s mind
and still dream to hear my son’s cry
just so I can say I’m here, daddy’s here, daddy’s home, whether it be ego or heart or both
that I would die for a chance to be there during one of my son’s many lows
before life deals them or I a fatal blow
that would threaten to turn me into the very insatiable and unstoppable monster this world thinks I am and bred me to be
yea yea
beating on my chest like king Kong, you got nothing on me!
lil Wayne speaks, feed me rappers or feed me beats!
either way IMA eat
yea yea!
cuz there’s nothing no more, I’m lost without me!

what do I mean?!
my son said he looks in the mirror and sees me, my oldest sees me but hurt by that truth, so either way, if I lose them I lose me
fruit of my loins, if I lose myself I lose them
either way, I still lose me
and I been losing it or me for years in the dream of sleep you see?!
if you see beyond the sights you see into the unseen seen and seams and scenes we reap!
preach
…don’t preach
teach!
retweet
repeat!
peep!
and I been losing it or me for years in the dream of sleep you see?!
if you see beyond the sights you see into the unseen seen and seams and scenes we reap!
so if I stay sleep this dream will be!
you see?!

what do I fear???
I fear for my sons and I fear for their father
our father, who art in…never mind, why bother
because he has too much to do, than to be bothered
by three different versions of toddlers
two of which may be more mature spiritually and closer to him than that of their father
age is nothing but accumulated turmoil and metaphysical fodder
the math says,
two sons and a father plus a father
which is really two kids, one toddler, and one father
I’m the toddler if you follow
fodder is bullshit, please follow
how am I supposed to direct my sons in a world to which they see farther
believing because I developed more years to which I see and think then by process of elimination
despite many processes eliminated
due to pigmented discrimination
reservations
circumstantial incrimination
my ego’s artificial insemination
being too inorganic to authentically see that I’m in the matrix
amidst coveting illusions chauvinism misogyny and women hatred
but I’m supposedly smarter!

demented thoughts, toxic emotions harbored
induced deadly imaginations
attacking my future with my past’s presence hoping to be vindicated
I need ventilation! (gasp!)

from all this guilt that enters like dry and raw penetration
emotional rapist!
every minute anchored
by limits and anger
and hope is too intimidating with all the pain I’ve Eric Garnered!

far cries from honor
yes sir’s and yes your honor-trauma
farces I’ve chartered
farces are lies, a word used to keep with the rhyme
before the competition for your attention or the opposition of distraction begins to rise
my partners all parted, blame their dishonor
death over anything less and yonder

this is a long way off from a parable of why should my sons heed the lessons of their father
same sentiments of the godless
fuck thought, fuck answers, flared nostrils
color power!
back to the departed father
you remember, it’s me, the toddler
why should a toddler preach
…don’t preach
but teach
lessons of the father
as a father
reflect on that with those who have platforms preaching religions who have yet to empty their closets
yet fill up their wallets
I keep getting sidetracked on all this fodder
when my lessons may do nothing but breakthrough their armor
and I’m telling myself I’m bettering them, steadying my emotions amidst my lowest devotions
readying them by my experiences as they may be getting destroyed by my karma
our father!
in my attempts to create harmony
will my words be a healing agent or just be more harmful
that’s why this is but a sleepy dream
so my death isn’t from being unconscious

No Choice

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pro-choice
or
pro-life
to have to
make a choice
is no freedom
nor real choice at all
it is force!

it is the imposition of control!

we live in a world
where women and children
are not nurtured
nor esteemed
only used as pawns
for toxically masculinized
Anglo dreams

in today’s world
it is truly a matter of consequence
and reflection
to want to not only bear a child
but to see it into this world
when culture, family and values
have been demolished
and are up for sale
now as destructive to one’s being
and livelihood, than at any time in history

rights morals values and character
are as fluid as the amniotic state
and placenta of the woman’s womb
yet in contrast
vastly more unstable and chaotic

ironic our resources quake
war ravages our world
global relations deteriorate by the day
hate rises like trapped heat
along with disease and inflation
and threatens our way of life
as our lowest class expands
and suffers all the more
making the American Dream more hot air
and the cost of living, thin air
that we see to restrict the woman’s inherited
and inalienable rights for control
of her own being and body

what class or color
of people primarily
seek abortions?
what is their quality of life
what political advantages are served
whose agenda is being fulfilled?
who is being pitted against one another
what rhetoric is hiding the true concern and nature
what pawn is being used to substantiate these beliefs
who is not being fully considered
nor respected

how convenient
a country that loves to be experts
experts of non-experience
but of judgement and pontificating
only further oppressing the rights promised
the being, guilt and identity
of its people
creating more anxiety than promise

ahhh I have so much to say
so many ways to phrase what I have to say
so many better ways to say it
rather gentle or crude
and it still doesn’t get to the root
of how sickening this habit is
because it is the same pattern
rife all throughout our country
and this world
its institutions, and their systems
of beliefs, theories
and perspectives
which is downright
chauvinistic manipulative and oppressive