Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Russell Wardlow

Prison, is a Place for Ghosts?!

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pt. 1

prison is a place
I go to often in my mind
jogged in each crossed line
and jotted in every wrote rhyme
trying to find
a semblance of freedom, within time

there is no freedom in time
there is no time in freedom
freedom is timeless
when time enters my mind
I’m less mindful and more or less mindless
blinded
perceiving at a minus
cuz being confined to constructs that constrict my mind is
prison

prison is my mind
and
my thoughts feel like fists!
and my heart is a punching bag
and my spirit my emotions my body is worn down and beat the fuck up
sometimes me and my thoughts play bloody knuckles
see illusions are powerful
at one moment, seeking atonement or an at one meant to bludgeon any opponents
I’m swinging at all of my troubles…the next…I’m swinging at nothing
that’s the thing about perception huh

which reality is real
no for real, which reality is real?!
show me and I’ll punch atonement into that one too!
for real!

and yea I have tools
but when I should ply, my priors drill
and when I should drill
I screw up and drive my hammer to nails!

prison is a cell in a jail in a hell which I know, you know, we know, all too well

it’s hard to find empathy and forgiveness in prison
when a limitless spirit is placed inside of limits
and the body’s misery is witnessed
and potential is assumed finished
and fighting is nothing but fitness
a prowess you seek to finesse
so less truth can be addressed
therefore anything you repress when under duress is meshed into just another physical mess
as you drip sweat
blood peaks thru flesh as lungs gasp for breath
you realized you gained nothing
but just another prison…

I used to fight so much
I didn’t know why
til I came to prison on my first number from a fight
where my victim almost died
I was scared but I told myself he deserved it
I didn’t make him a racist nor a drunken belligerent woman beater, served him right
but that fit my narrative
because in my not so distant past, I had been the same
running from my shame
I hit into him the blame
then I kept fighting until I began fighting as if it created value to my breath
I even fight because of my size
so you’d know I’m short but far from undersized

but I didn’t know who I was nor why
so I asked myself, Russell
and I’m like what
I’m like what you doing
and I’m like I don’t know
and I’m like why you do that
and I’m like I don’t know
and I’m like why do you like to fight
and I’m like I don’t like to fight, I’m actually scared to fight but prepared to die
so why do you fight
cuz I don’t know who I am
because I wanna be liked
because I wanna be feared
because I wanna be respected
because I’m scared and have no direction
because I’ve never felt protected
because this is my only weapon
because I feel rejected dejected subjected objected injected ingested digested thrown up shitted out pissed off
personally a person of non-importance
and societally aborted

I’m a father
and it’s probable
my toddlers I’ve hobbled because of the effect of my domino
seeking more substance and conjugals over any semblance of being responsible

now stand up if any part of that resonates with you

now stand up if you’re sick and tired, of cycling between prisons

emotionally spiritually mentally physically or even unknowingly
like you don’t know how to explain or express it, but you know its something that you wanna get through over and done with

now stand up or keep standing,
if you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired of being ice sickled inside by locked doors, screaming no more locked doors!
and barbed wires until you tire or expire
steadily stifled by psychological classifiers and stereotypical identifiers
punished by the statistics of outliers
crying out from a spiritually doused-out fire
trying to get what you want most, babysitting a disguise like Ms. Doubtfire
as mugshots hang out like best friends and fliers

your image is a poster for reconstructive criticism
mirroring the same sickness of this system
a being, isolated segregated quarantined, and alienated
until properly immunized
all the while unable to fight being institutionalized
while learning more acceptance and remorse than authority…figures

this right now is an expression of self-determination, the need for freedom
this is an escaping of prison
this is us!
for us!
our thing!
so keep standing if you know what I mean, what you mean to the whole mean, with all your means and that you still mean something
something more than rap sheets and mean-mugging
that you’re more than orange one-pieces khakis grey sweats and blue jeans white shoes or boots which need rebuffing from feet scuffing

keep standing if you want nothing but peace!

a piece of healing
a piece of forgiveness and freedom
a piece of understanding
not just a piece of…pie,
but a piece of love
the real type
a piece of something greater than the nothing you run with
a piece of peace that you know
or want to know-
which to your senses are still unknown
I’m not talking about religions
something more simplistic
I’m talking about bucket lists
a peace that is spent without budgeting
budging buckling or bucking against
the things you are up against

keep standing if you wanna hold something besides grudges
and if you believe having dreams mean something
damn it! keep standing if you’re not done dreaming!

pt.2

to change, to grow expand transform transcend, we have to be audaciously truthful with ourselves about who we are, what we want, and where we are, and what’s it going to take to get us there, no matter how humbling or hurtful to one’s pride

what are you willing to lose to truly gain what you really want?
there’s more things I wanna do than the things I don’t wanna do, so ima do what I gotta do, to have what I really want!

a sense of peace!
but it’s as fleeting as the span of your attention spanned

life has turned us into onlookers
it’s turned us all into Lifer’s
prisoners of the moment

but remember, to transform, we have to be truthful

this ain’t about judgment,
it’s about the deception of perception and projection

see this beating organ’s plight
is spiked endorphins
which combat to distort
the proportion of person the emotions reward or feel remorse for
versus
your spirit immersed within
which manifests as a higher thirst
which you have the will to consort with
that can sword fight and war with
your emotional torment
which you may only ward off, using clever word tricks like WayOfLife Wardlow the wordsmith
whose nouns and verbs rip
through surface and expose turf hurt earth and purpose
by peeling back scorched curtains
seeing what lies dormant
plus a heavy guilt needing a forklift
and if I’m going even deeper, if you can see through the seams of demeanor
you’ll see me leaning
because I’m still working and it’s still hurting
but I swear the swords that are my words that ward off my wars and worst like warts is worth it!
WayOfLife Wardlow
who else but yourself! do you go to war with!

especially when feeling cornered
by a swarm of hornets
every waking hour through every new morning
you’re mourning

so we must fight on!
because I fight on from all these prisons, remembering I am still sick and tired

of my mother struggling
she’s on the run, as I speak
my sisters and brothers suffering
from the same perceptions of life I left them with
my family and any other familiars stuck as caterpillars
living and dying while I’m stuck here hoping my life will live again before I or another one of my loved ones die
before I had a chance to rectify and be a difference or
shift and transform into a bigger picture conjured before their eyes that could change their lives

because to God, I’m nothing if not butterfly

and to one of my son’s I’m the greatest alive

and to the other, he’s living to make worth of my last name because of my absence and the pain it inflicted in his life

so I gotta stay sick and tired
cuz the work ain’t over
it took prison to contemplate what had me imprisoned
and that list can’t fit in this sentence

make a noise snap or clap if you feel any of this

I know most of you had your story pre-written
and you had to absorb all of those emotional punches in bunches to the stomach, rumbling
stumbling fumbling tumbling wondering was relief ever coming
or
will you always just be accustomed to the constant cumbersome suffering
stuffing and crushing you into corners like punishments?!

but this pain was and is just but a prelude to greatness
a greatness forged by fire

behold your chapters, you’re more than being marginalized in the margins of pages and vacant spaces

what I’m saying is
that you’re more than what this system of beliefs made you to believe you had to be in this system for relief
just to achieve while at the cost of another’s grief
there’s enough room for you and me
because truly within an eye that sees, is We

listen,
you are more than the actions captured
that’s a moment
there’s many where that came from, lump sums

the job is not done
we are creators and curators
we are innovators and motivators
we are mental skyscrapers and monumental renovators
we are bosses and administrators
we are motha fuckn ogres with layers despite the naysayers and pepper sprayers
we are foundations and acres
we are amazing graces
amazing greatness
and America’s greatest!

that’s the truth
you are alive
just cocooned
pain cocooned you as a full-bellied caterpillar and birthed the mothaf… butterfly!

your resilience against resistance doubt and fear,
that audacity to change and cultivate a personal resolve and revolutions of strength and evolution,
forming a peace, not to be disturbed, which transcends all prisons and imprisoning thoughts and actions is nothing short of amazing, transformative, and butterfly!

if you still feel and believe in this energy synergy chemistry symmetry and remedy for an expanded identity building within this building
if you know deep down you are more than a villain, but brilliant
and you are alive, well, and real-
real enough to recognize being sick and tired of veiling and concealing and shielding and kneeling and over appealing all the while desiring to peel your disguises revealing a rekindling feeling of what’s innermost
because a heart, doesn’t beat on a ghost
and I heard Eminem say every parasite needs a host
but sorry not sorry venom, those doors are now closed
our heart is our lethal protector
and what’s open now is our minds
where the parasitic prison once found a place and time to take up space and time
but a free heart
is the key to your door to open from a room of darkness, and let in your light

realization is growth
because a prison is literal but also metaphorical,
so it isn’t just for the birds, but for the ghosts…

Calling out all Demons

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I call on my ancestors, so that I may have faith in them, to speak good speech, so I may at this moment, be an orator of wisdom and truth
because I seek to call out my demons
invoking the divine power called love
by righteous and just thoughts, speech, and actions
love compels truth and empowers one to have all power of self,
environment, and those who have not yet activated the will within themselves
still needing to be lead
this power compels the metaphorical demons within us latching on like parasites siphoning our life force
so we speak the truth of their name and origins, that they may be brought back under the control of all-powerful love
love is about locating yourself
living love is locating and activating the god within us, powered by the God of all, whose very body we all exist

once realized
it’s a sense
a 6th sense if you will
that feels a calling to live Truth
and by living Truth, knowing the real from unreal, we can recognize true self, and become vessels for heaven on earth
this sense, this calling, compels us to live Righteous and Just with one another
a moral imperative unrivaled by quibbles of color, code class culture creed constitution, or claim

so what are the names of our demons
like math, to find the solution
we must know the problem, the beginning
and just like math-when checking your method
and accuracy-
to know the solution
would be in fact, knowing the problem

names mean something
they state an identity, a location, a problem, an origin
the names of our demons are spawn from not living truth,
not recognizing self, living just nor righteously
by denying the god in us all
as to say, what binds us as one

again, what are these demons I speak of
which possess us
having us disconnected in our trivial and tribal rivalries, which we have yet to steed and bring under control
we name them by placing over scrutinized narratives prescribing titles and labels like antidotes to identify ourselves
but these states are not ourselves

we have taken the identity of our capturers unknowingly
like Stockholm syndrome
we know our demons intellectually
but not intimately
we will soon as accept them as our truth,
love as our bane
and the god in us as blasphemy

yet I tell you, there’s always a way, a sense, a calling, an imperative to get back to form, to truth
by locating ourselves
so I ask three questions so we can locate and then distinguish the actions needed to bring the demons to task
to truth
as to say, this state of disconnect, to now reconnect

where have we been
where are we now
where are we going?

is the progress we seek as a people only deduced to matters of body, its physical experiences, and acquisitions
ebbs and flows, inclinations impulses and instincts
likes and dislikes
are we just a race, class, phenotype, species, and kingdom of people that can only be measured and reduced to the lowest common denominators of preference?

if you pose the question to me, what is black history month
I will now say emphatically, it is the calling!
the calling of humanity to get back to form by the examples set forth by a people who transcended at every crossroads and against all odds imagined
a showing of human ability, by the hue of those who were and still are in many manners, considered subhumans!

everything has a consciousness, and that consciousness sets about your journey, the experiences you will have spawn of that consciousness–the coded vibration for how you see self and interact with the world
the ancestors only made distinctions by such
before the consciousness of individualism and capitalism
which birthed nationalism, nihilism
determinism
humanism
modernism
recidivism
matter of fact, any and all isms!
we had the consciousness of communalism
we were communalist
the ist
and ism
the act
and the belief, can not be separated

when we asked the question, how are you doing

we would look beyond our own personal experience into the state of our collective, community, children, country, and continent, and if all or most were not in good health, in moral standing
then we would respond that we can be better, we have been better, matter of fact, we will be better because we are better
this act was in a belief of communalism
we located ourselves, yes we, black people, I say again, we located ourselves within the collective, the macro and the micro, the individual and the whole, we would make no such distinction between one or another which we could not see at some level in ourselves
Mbutu, I need you to be as good as you can be, so I can be as good as I can be, so we can be as good as we can be
each one learns, each one teach one
a teacher not only teaches, but learns, therefore the teacher is both teacher and student, master and pupil, eye and object of desire
perspective and projection
what I’m saying is you would see self in all
not self from all
black history month is the call
the call back to consciousness which was onset of all
pan Africanism
all peoples
that’s right I said it, all peoples
African consciousness was not exclusive
it’s how strangers were let in to steal from the neighbors
the neighbors saw the strangers as neighbors
the strangers forgot we’re all gods
all bodiless bodies put into bodies to embody the bountiful boundless experience of the one body in your body
locate yourself
where are we now, where are we going
we never stopped being
we just stopped realizing that no matter where and what you saw, all you were seeing was God
although your consciousness saw demons, an unconscious disconnect
name them, and call out what all they created
once you lost and forgot, you claimed what you are not
so we can’t have any sense of equality quality or quantity until you let the god in you qualify Truth
otherwise you will be, we will be, I will be
believing like a demon
looking outside myself, idolizing just to become, still unbecoming of self
not realizing that I am them, in my own set of lessons
because I have not yet
called out
my demons

My Country ‘Tis of Thee

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I don’t know if this is just black history month
cuz it also feels like remember human dignity month
and remember freedom and liberty huh?
or maybe, my country ’tis of thee
re-envisioning
victory
from the positioning
of its victims inflicted by its imprisoning
tyranny
brought by a system which shits on sympathy
like a psychopathic simile
for advancement and economic remedies
whitewashing traumatic memories
from centuries
of mental and physical bondage and redacting parts of history
so we would know of the stories but the patterns we wouldn’t see
like how they’ve continued the use of dark bodies as batteries
beating and battering
them laterally
to keep from too many gatherings
just enough for them to continue fathoming
unilaterally
fallacies of equality
which to the system is appalling yet their effort is flattering
even compelling your laughter but still is not mattering
no matter how many “we matter” banners, banter, and chattering- charters chartering waters calling for quality with quantity
it still won’t qualify or quell our living hell,
trying quantify to no avail
the designed details preordaining us to fail
and fall
all the while still stagnant and stolen from
after stolen away
from age to age, with aged agony
and the actions of democracy
and democratic travesties
tramples their needs until atrophied
spiritual and mental- but anything, and I mean anything, but physical atrophy
they need the blackest feet
running laboriously like decathlon athletes
then actually
having the unmitigated gall to pit them against each other for entertainment and comedic relief
capitalizing off their casualties
casually
blasphemy!
all the while limiting
their resources to continue crippling
their ability
to restore order decorum and form
from their inherent ancestral communalism since you’ve tried manmade diseases
legislating and criminalizing any, every, and all reasons
inducing addictive drugs to heal in phases
importing narcotics and guns while setting the stages
for mental disorders, poverty, and violent rage, and crazes
and yet Still can’t mutilate or assassinate the spunk of their afflicted yet unblemished pigmented energy!
trying for so long to file them down across the board like emery
as media replays violent devastating and mournful imageries
marginalizing them state by state as enemies
public enemies of the state of race-bait and switch by suggestive messaging
to broadcast dark peoples as menacing, month
or maybe we should just stick with black history month
because all the other titles are implicated given the normal person recognizing and reflecting on our country’s accurate depictions of history and everyday life for its Afro-American citizens and their monumental and continual contributions to
“my country tisssss of thee,
you know, the
sweet- land- of- li-berty
of- thee- I- sing…

Recognizing a Black History Month Shero

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This month we should not only be honoring our ancestors that pushed through the veils and walls of resistance, speaking truth to power, unwavering in their beliefs, surmounting all odds for the generations to come, even at the cost of their own lives and inability to see the very impact and trails they blazed, but we should also celebrate and acknowledge, not just the black heroes with public fanfare, but those civil local personal and neighborly heroes we witness day to day, suffering in silence, but pushing on, carry forward, nevertheless with
resilience being the very definition of each breath.

This month, I honor Andrea Dunlap.

For your unparalleled struggle and striving to survive when the odds of success have been as unlikely and cruel as your very condition. But you cling to life with no reason but your own, masking your pain and executing with elegance and unrelenting character beyond reproach or excuse to the likes of strong souls from our ancestral past, I believe you have conjured the unequaled resolve of Harriet Tubman. And I salute you Solja, a real Sojourner of Truth! because although you’ve had every reason, Maya Angelou, still you rise, still you love, still, you smile, still, you live!

To the unknowing eyes, life has not been fair to you, but to the spiritual sound and wise, you have chosen a life to which you can develop the utmost character, resolve and moral imperative of the soul, and the body has been your very accelerator. I applaud and I celebrate your life and I highlight you in my spiritual and physical heart this month and commemorate your essence for lifetimes. There are lessons in struggles and you have taught me many.

Keep striving sista, I salute your mind, body, and soul. You have embodied the very strength and ability of human will and the divine power sourced within the body to fight and hold back all adversaries that threaten finality.

Through it all, you’ve nurtured even when uncared for and you have exemplified a mother of wisdom and love, developing a man from a boy being both parents in one, while fighting through a body of attacks brought on by Lupus, you are a survivor! And I am proud of you and look up to you and your courage, I’m proud to know you, to call you friend, and to hold love for you in my heart. You have consistently been one of my greatest fans and empowered me way before I thought to believe confidence in myself or know what it was that I had, you helped grow the man I am steadily becoming, and all I succeed at will be a testament to people like you in my life who never stopped believing and encouraging me, and only wanting to see me at my best, doing my best, and smiling while at it.

Thank you, Andrea, for helping me find myself as a black king, giving me copies of information of my culture, and endless selfless support, you taught me how to fight for life without a complaint, you are one of my Heroes…Heroines!

Keep seeking and summoning through silence, solace, spirit, and sanctuary in secret!

Audaciousness

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tenacity
voracity as opposed to veracity
audacity!

you can NOT, be timid
you must be ferocious!
you have to broach the conservative posts and host the onus–
for the new status quotas,
and vanguard the new standards formed
engrossed in the tumultuous mulch of high hopes versus
oaths cloaked in postponement
and poach the lines of encroachment
and own it!
embracing each proponent and component of opponents
knowing they are only lessons appearing adversarial at first,
all wrapped in moments like togas
willing to be whistled for offsides and offense
to set a new rule that prods and pokes pretense
and doesn’t masquerade mask nor pretend,
because your presence contends with reticence in the setting of new precedence
damn it, you may even have to be heretical if not only blasphemous!

iconic
trailblazer
visionary
mogul
transcendent
creator
shaper
innovator
teacher
lead by the samples of your examples to be sampled for example of how the mantle can be handed and handled by the sampled examples of your example!

you have to track the tapestry of travesty and tragedy and trace the trajectory of triumph and tribulation
leaving a tire’s trail, temperature, and totem
as a tale of your tape to be taped measured,
outlined and cut out from a different thread count of cloth
forming a T-shirt you clothe yourself in and wear proudly, boldly, audaciously!
modeling the new trend of a self-determination not to be trifled with, tricked, or trampled on!

your past is but a trailer not your titanic
your presence is your tried and true trident and trophy!
and your future is your tailor,
fitting your ties tuxedos and gowns on your fruitful road to fruition

a message should never tire nor expire
but inspire the entire out and inliers to aspire
to transcend the crossed wires and rewire a new attire
a new desired empire of revolutionary sympathizers
where the revolutions of evolution are the essential contribution of the message, being-
the messengers always build on and go further!
finding comfort in going higher!
with new insights that inspire the entire empire!
to never expire nor retire but proudly perspire

as you seek incite invite and ignite new movements within each new generation from their ancestral advisors

chomping at the bit with incisors amidst criticizers to legitimize a new tool that was once aforementioned as illegitimate
by prejudicial prerequisites placing most at deficits
but now this new legitimacy is almost likened to intimacy being a ‘too legit to quit’ vision of
rebellion against antebellum rhetoric and neo-liberalisms ‘inch by inch’ incentives making progress never too far from revisionism
masked by political savvy jousts, debased debating decorum, privileged quips, and legal penmanship
but the ‘new’ definite
this existential exigence is the breath of the new exodus
experience over an expert’s testament

and our spirits are the infinite weapon no longer being insufficient or impotent for its invisibleness but
a continuing symbolism of a prevailing wisdom that
a consciousness risen renders the fears of any physical feats until
those feet can’t help but to leap stride run with relentless fervor
not exempt of fear but full of courage because it epitomizes limitlessness
fore bravery is but a fear faced

and if it hasn’t dawned on you yet
I am the dawn of a new dawn
what I am saying is
I will fear no form in no form or fashion
and my fashion is formlessness formed by former fears I faced until I formed this fashion

I will persevere through,
and penetrate any structures and spheres that impose upon my being to be a limitless expressive being

I don’t and won’t
do not and will not
allow fear to have the last word!
even when I feel it trying to pry upon my surface, demanding to be served
I will silence it like the finalizing bang of a judges gavel
issuing a decree that is subject to nothing but love-
that illustrious fruit which blossoms from the majestic tree of life!
because I already have that which I desire the moment I decided it is mine for me to have
potential is but a process for claiming, for realization
the road to actualization, manifestation

and none
no one
can take that from me
a gift is given, not taken
and I have gifted myself to desire to build onto what I have been born gifted with

handling my god-given gifts with grace
so it grates greed into a grave grounded by gravity
which I glide upon, standing strongly and high above my lows and woes as WayOfLife Wardlow
I’ve worked tirelessly to harness and continue mastering this limitless energy
some moments more finicky trying to finesse this infinite chemistry into an ethereal synergy

your sanctions and arbitrary rules laws and structures will not forecast by disposition belief nor ability
my perception bows to no-thing established in fear or impermanent and earthbound,
not even my own personas unless it is my ‘two sons’ like, Arizona
reverence to my parents and all that loved me into being

I am and will remain to ever embolden my audacity
I transcend this body by my body of work ignited by my bodiless body’s body of work!
and the spirit never gets tired and only knows how to put in work!

and I’m done trying to teach it debilitating depressive regressive and limiting tricks
and if you choose not to recognize this state I speak of as if it actually exists
this state of normality at each of our core, than that is your prerogative
and maybe I can reach you in your own time and space, just as I too was reached in mine

because subservience to fear and to the subjugation of emotions manipulated to keep me docile coddled and stuck in place is not my idea of freedom!

if right now you adhere to an over fear of form and a catering capitulation to the functioning formalities created thenceforth,

then my reality will always be one of quite some nerve
and you may then substitute it from what I believe to be normalcy,
to what you may believe to be one of audaciousness…that is, if your adjectives could be so kind

Some Relatives, You Choose

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it’s a weird thing
to ponder constructs
and relativity
when things like, construction
triggers me

although it alludes
to building and renewal
at the same time
that very theme
is in a partisan duel

debating more constructs
and multimillion-dollar buildings
which serve to further stunt
and imprison me
what a poignant symmetry