• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
    • Culture
    • Inside
    • Love
    • Mercy
    • Spirit
    • Trauma
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

Inside

Defy

December 4, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Realize I define Defy when I speak
Defy, I defied the tides of this sea
Denied, my reply, I’m tied to this dream!
Defiant, a lion, alive, I don’t sleep
Aligned with defiance, a light when I think
Like science, I’ve tried it, and I’m on the brink
Poseidon’s trident on my side, waters subside, I won’t sink
Collide with the skies like I’m flying, Orion, I’m dying to meet
Like a pilot defying my peak
Defying Goliath, with Defy as my rock, tied to a sling
It seems,
We all been lost in the dark
Trying to find truth in the light
Yet we are blinded by sight
Stuck in denial until we realize
Pain is real life!
Body language incites and ignites
The changing of minds
So we can either fade in time
Or stand tall, climb out our disguise and defy
Defy

 

Filed Under: Inside, Spirit, Trauma

Trying to keep Hope Alive

December 1, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I never dared to have faith while in prison,

death is so poetic here

And so is the contradiction of living between walls.

I never thought much when I saw an old candle with a bright flame,

until a few days ago

I spoke with an old man adorning a young spirit.

Charismatic, confident, and motivated

Outwardly overly optimistic

But I looked into his eyes for the first time the other day

As he spoke about the grandeur coming if we were to meet once free

I was took distracted by the way his irises are beginning to grey and yellow at the edges,

Product of 30-40 plus years in prison

His dream, amongst other things, is to become a producer

The paradox of hope inside of hell, he continues to amaze me

but I saw something deeper and more morbid deep in his focus

He played me a slew of beats, to which he has a few hundred created on his keyboard

But I sat there distracted

All I could think about is how thin of a thread he is holding onto

And one last rejection of freedom may cost him his most important beat of all

His heartbeat

Trying to keep hope alive

Filed Under: Inside, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

Changed for the worse

December 1, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Prison helps you fall quicker than rise…

Normalcy becomes chaos

Impassivity becomes rage.

He now dances in the misery of rain

He thrives in the torturous contortions that fuel his agony

Amused by tears now..

As if they are of another world he once knew

He reaches out to touch one and then quickly snaps out of his reverie!

No place for compassion within the midst of a riot

He sleeps soundly in the welcoming arms of calamity

He has stands stoic

He loves the adrenaline rush-ion roulette of self inflicted wounds

Time refined his masochism, anything to feel again

He stands numb

He plots the casualty of kinship

Prefering to dine alonecat his table of destruction

His misery prefers no company

Solitary madness, he drinks down tragedy until drunken

He sharpens the teeth of pain

Because its all he knows, because love doesn’t live here

To live, he had to adapt..he just got lost even sooner

Deep inside this Sado-masochistic sanctuary

He, like so many more, changed for the worse in prison

Filed Under: Inside, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

Stop and Seize

November 27, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Sorry sir I’m nervous
Why would you want my service
Sorry I can’t consent to searches-ah that hurts
But I’m used to the way you usually usurp when you search and “find” something not on my persons
like I have a receipt for purchase?
A mistake has no purpose-ah that hurts!
I make mistakes but what’s worse, I fear your mistake may cost the life of an undeserving person
In this case me, I don’t deserve this, I just got back from workin’
I’m not resisting sir, my face near the curb on the surface adjacent to serpents
I never felt so shamed and worthless
“Well you match the description of a suspected person
Nothing else needs to be said further
You have no right to be heard
You have no right to be heard of
Now stop resisting boy before I get a paid vacation for beating a case for murder“

 

Filed Under: Inside, Trauma

Fear of Love

November 27, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I fear in you
The promise in
Possibilities
Paradoxes
Paradigms
And the overall perceptual paragon of paradise
called love..
The only problem healed by itself
So what am I without it
Without you
Scared…to…live…to…love…to…lose

Filed Under: Inside, Love, Trauma

Hard Times

November 27, 2017 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Stuck in this prison

Tunnelin vision

Never stumble, stomach rumbles, and stomachin tension

Drama comes I’m unencumbered

No comforters, no comfortable livin

Survived disgruntled mumbles of Russell

His struggles and troubles consistent

The sun doesn’t visit

My sons don’t visit

No one comes to visit

Came undone for a minute

But I’ll be done in a minute, I’ll be done in a minute..

Filed Under: Inside, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 51
  • Go to page 52
  • Go to page 53
  • Go to page 54
  • Go to page 55
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 57
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is a collection of Russell Wardlow’s prose and poetry written entirely behind bars. Through writings on family, spirituality, freedom, love, justice, redemption, and vulnerability, Russell seeks to show the humanity and hope of individuals like himself who are incarcerated.

Read More

  • Whose Mind is it Anyway June 30, 2022
  • Objects June 30, 2022
  • Same Thang, Different Name June 30, 2022
  • Optical Ill-lusions June 30, 2022
  • Hollow Symbols June 30, 2022

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Footer

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is sponsored by giveabeat.org

  • Instagram

Navigation

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Prose of a Con © 2022 · web design by Studio Lyko