Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Inside

Optical Ill-lusions

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in other news…

we were watching the news
and I heard a “prisoner” say
“damn, can’t go nowhere
these people is crazy”
a person was shot at subway
for putting too much mayo on a sandwich

imagine how the prisoner feels
when he watches Politicians

imagine how alienated and isolated
the prisoner feels
when he listens to Presidents

imagine how quick the prisoner
flocks to the Preacher
because anything is better than this

but the Preacher
follows the Politician and President
then the prisoner
realizes a deeper prison

all three have become
models and managers
of his imprisonment

when will he/she ever be free?!

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.

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

Misguided Astronautical Musings

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unsuccessfully
I chased you to Moon and back
traversing zero gravity
exploring parts unknown
rationalizing my own self-destruction
for gain of more insecurity
worth its weight in vanity
landing back time again
let down, confused
empty-handed
with a starving heart
until finally realizing
how far and long
I’ve traveled and wondered
outside of myself
then learning
that I am space
to which
the universe, the moon, and love
all reside
“Houston,
I’m finally coming back home,
for good.”
for an astronaut
is but a hopeless romantic
searching outside
for the very things held within

Mental Mishaps

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for it is
that I tell my mind
how much it knows
and that I know women
and I know love
yet I still can not reconcile
the ways of my heart
for in company, I fall short
yet in my isolation, I thrive
albeit as a boy fantasizing
the mysteries of love
and the wisdoms in women
unable to resolve the opposing nature
I know to be my grandest compliment
shhh, and get behind me mind!
for you know not that you know not!
and so you confuse thine own heart
conflicted of one’s own true desires
my plea for respite and resolution
but still my mind revolts and repels
seeking power and truth
to the likes it can never understand
expressing principles with such ignorance
has made me every bit as dangerous
as that which I know ignorance to be
and that which I conveniently forget
the revolving ignorance in me

FTW

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the things I say now
may not be grasped until later
but if you truly have the will to seek
then it is all there
stowed away within messages of near past
which one day will serve as memories-
reminders and realizations-
time released for the ready heart
if you so cherish time enough to do nothing,
but look
and you will see
what it means when I tell you

“I am the slave’s dream
I am the prisoner’s hope
I am my father’s guilt
I am my mother’s redemption
I am the world’s reckoning
I am God’s promise
and I am on my way home.”