I never realized until right on time that the only thing I had to prove, was that I had nothing to prove. What a time to be alive, while internally woke, the only misfortune is noticing all those years you’ve been sleep walking, but that’s drowned out with the marvels in the day ahead of you and the mystery in tomorrow. Because true regret motivates, it doesn’t impede your potential. Potential is a goal you haven’t reached yet, that you rarely speak on. It’s a known truth that you use as an excuse to buy time in order to move at your own speed, while distracted by the scenery. Slow motion is only to take notice of detail you neglected, to highlight what was lost in your sight, not to move at the pace of a snail or turtle, sluggish-like, touching everything your hands can reach. We are too diluted, I was too diluted, sluggish and impeded by everything unnecessary, and ignorant to every necessity. Understand true value worth and foundation, otherwise, you will be buried like the pharaohs, adorned with glamour upon decay. With the shallow things you cherished left behind. Don’t let your pursuits end lost to memory, chasing the temporary. I’ve proven my worth by identifying that I have value, and that..is my foundation
Culture
From Rags to Ranks
From rags to ranks
Humvees and tanks
Ships, submarines and planes
Keeping our freedoms safe
There is never enough thanks
For the ways of the brave
Fierce yet fameless, a forgotten face
A sacrificial heart, enduring a mind that may break
The losses of comrades, the reality of mortality, how much can you take
Not enough done to procure the flowers before they wilt inside the vase
When I’m yawning, your bed is already made
Not a thread or lace out of place
I salute your valor on and off base
To all who’ve fought valiantly for freedom regardless of politics, I give my full-hearted Thanks
-Inspired by my big cousin, SirWayne Wardlow, one of my silent Heroes-
There can be more done for our vets, while coming out to mediocre opportunities, sacrifice and heroics become cliché. The system needs vetting, capitalism shouldn’t dilute heroism. In war, in the military, America.. Americans, are the consumers, the benefactors…if the business world and politics reward the contributors, than why not America better reward its contributors..money shouldn’t rule the world if lives brand it..but who am I kidding? To my family specifically, I admire love and respect you, to the countless others, appreciation for the under-appreciated, simply put…Thank you
Hello World, It’s me
Hello world, it’s me, Russ, Resilience Under Stressful Situations
No need for last names, we are just getting reacquainted
Ima felon, I prefer to say that upfront
I have more pro’s than con’s, so it’s easier being blunt
I was convicted of taking possessions that I didn’t work for
I deserved it, there’s more I’ve done that I’ve never been caught for
I differ from you because my bad judgements are public record
I’m too grown to call it mistakes, I was just dumb and reckless
I needed this time, I mean I could’ve done without the scenery
But having time to reflect and find self in the real world, isn’t done as easily
I found myself, perfect timing I’d happen to run into you
I’ve had you once, but lost you, yet distantly admired your view
Since then I began writing free verse poetry and 1st person narratives
I’ve learned to swallow pride, accept my wrongs and humble my arrogance
I’m still a little pretentious, but I let go of needing complete control
I’ve found a different type of freedom somehow in learning to let go
I have a genuine respect and understanding of women that has evolved my perceptions,
My insight is less prejudice, my debates are more selective
My opinions aren’t so sexually charged and oppressive
My actions are more protective
It’s funny how I find myself proving to you that I deserve a chance, like you are my dream job or girl of my dreams
But that’s exactly what this is because I care what you think
Be honest, will you give yourself to me fully, or will you stay hesitant, jaded by my past
Happiness isn’t freedom but there’s freedom in happiness, none of which is forever, but I just want mine to last
I have two beautiful sons to father, that job is at the top of my list
I found more peace in realizing the things and the effects of what I’ve done…ignorance isn’t bliss
I fancy myself a romantic, maybe a woman will enchant me with her heart
I’m less vain, skin decays, and these days, love is an art
So I’m putting all my bad upfront on the welcome mat
All in hopes that you’ll greet me with open arms and saying “welcome back”
Dear Mr. Correctional Officer
Dear Mr. Correctional Officer
Please come correct with the office you-hold
Please come correct with your officers, please come correct and get off of ya-
pedestal, I am not a pet on-a-stool
or a character spoof, that drools eating at your spoon!
I am not a fool! I am not your tool!
I am not slave to your preferences, I am only victim to your jaded perceptions
Un-phased by your subliminal messages!
You perceive me as a mammal but more of an animal
Your desired domain over my terrain, acts as if you are lion and I am antelope
As if I am virus and you are anecdote
As if I am nothing without nothing and you are my ante up
As if I am akin to Annie the orphan inside the attic of Amityville writhing with anxiety under the weight of your preferred society
To you, I am already cut out of that picture
But I am cut from a different cloth, less than 700 thread count-me-out in hand-me-downs
with Ramen and chicken noodle soup as broth
To heal the hoarse as I speak from ill-tongue between clenched jaws, at all cost!
With scars and far more flaws than a loss, though you can’t fathom what I’ve lost!
You can’t imagine my withdrawals and why I withdraw!
I am not your easy suburban picture, I am an urban jigsaw!
Dear Mr Correc-tion-al Off-i-cer!
I do not feel you are correct
I feel shunned and null
and you get off from me calling you sir!
You use, you abuse, and you usurp!
You overdo, the same way you use syrup!
As if this is your ranch, I am your beaten cow in a herd that you stir up
in your boots, spurs and stir-ups
Color me numb, I am not blind, deaf and dumb
I am likened to Hellen Keller, disabled, yet I displayed a way that I am more than able
I am more truth in this life than the way you use fables
Babied? Spoiled? I knew not of a cradle!
I seen more with less cable
I derived from the ghetto, from a people whom are this country’s true staple
free labor..
You have more, yet people like me need more, we buy less and have lesser…therefore you are fortunate!
Fortunate to be ignorant of this side of life…of my life Mr. Correctional Officer
to you, I am salary, I am hourly plus overtime and unfixable to you
My possible lack of recidivism is fictional to you
I am jurisdictional to you
The jurors were crude and prudent in their jaded delusions or jurisprudence, so therefore I am nothing more than a number, nothing more than a criminal to you!
I am a group, a stain, less of an individual to you
keeping me away from your society is critical to you
I am pitiful to you, this is the pit to which I fell and now my plummet is the favorite visual to you
Your opinions shoot like guns and I am bullet-riddled and ridiculed by you
I am not your personal axe to grind! I am not your payback from your own life
ghetto doesn’t mean stupid, black doesn’t mean ignorant!
Felon doesn’t mean crippled, lost, unredeemable, evil, sour good, hopeless, hell-bound, #78756 forever, No!
Prison is my body cast, I’ve been casted out but don’t count me out
I am apart your daily count but I am not counterfeit
If your job is to keep me safe and propel my change
before I go back to the community stuck in criminal ways…
Than you are more felon than I!
You help perpetuate a cycle, to where I am a necessary sacrifice
So you can goad and entice, me to get back in here for the rest of my life
in front of your eyes!…so you can keep tabs on me
despite your effort, I am the tab on your keyboard, and I’m on to the next
Correctional officer!
I Once Identified as a Christian
I once identified as Christian
Maybe because of Christmas
So I guess I never been religious
maybe there is just too many religions
so whose right in this world that we live-in
and if I choose the wrong side, will I be forgiven or eternally re-live it
What about those whom are still ignorant?
A child, a teen, foreigners, islanders, monks, and the indigenous
each teaching with commonalities but on their own side of scrimmage
I can’t even fathom how that’s possible, I don’t get it
history showed religion was controlled by the higher ups
so if I’m low on the totem pole & accept my limited role, will I ascend high enough?
I believe in God, my relationship is of love, fear and enlightenment
I repent with a pure heart without confessions or tithe enticement
speaking beliefs are taboo yet they rule the mass’
They should all be heard so I just figured I’d ask
Belief and love should never be uptight
so never stray to convey its meaning, because all religions endured sacrifice
Pride or Privilege?
Will it be pride or privilege that conquers us?
because our ocular is sub-consciously co-opted to the corrupt occultist in our nearest metropolis
Politics are autonomous
and radicals are becoming commoners
Change only goes as far as the comma does (woke)
and lessons of love go as far as the memory of your mama does…
Division, race or religion
make a way for collisions
of sex changes, shameless critics
Campaign races that plague and play the percentage
identities and meaning diminished
when fingers aimed, to mame , yet shadow the same ways of those they blame that did it
until they get caught up, excuses get brought up
favors are bought up, while we too blind ignorant or starstruck
thrown in the same potluck, quickly x’ing out reality like pop ups
unknowingly we defer to the same mass perceptions that taught us-
individualism is scorned, all-the-while racial sexual institutional and economical oppression distraughts us
whose more at fault with these thoughts that disparage exhault or befall us?
it seems like my future is a coin toss up
because what I know vs who I know I’m forced to choose thru limited options
fateful decisions made with few minutes of caution
what about women that get lost in
objectivity and sexual interests
but no one forces those Instagram pictures and Pinterest
can’t have it both ways because men love baring witness
to women blemished
instead of distinguished, with their position and ambitions extinguished
and to the dreamers…keep dreaming
contribution is only for consumers contributing to capitalists
located on wall street or Pennsylvania avenue where the capitol is
what u heard thru the grapevine is the herd is the grapevine and you the unknowing cattle and catalyst
exterior judgement covers interior battles within
sin, laws, views, perception, and women-a way for judgement
money-the way is judgement
hush…theory becomes fact, census is life
big brother, the system see’s through desensitized eyes
tribalism is blind senseless and strife
we make too much cents from the ism’s, our pension for reasoned decisions just to live thru this life
so will it be pride that kills me, privilege that stunts me, or politics
that abolishes my knowledge and only acknowledges my number of commas as my range of common sense?!
Read into that!