• 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

Love

Pro se Con-tints: Hate to see you go..

August 7, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Hate to see you go…but I love watching you walk away.
Being at this new facility is bitter sweet. You get to see so many people leave week after week, the changeover is spectacular and generates hope…until you see the next bunch of people pouring in. And suddenly you’re reminded of the well oiled machine still in its perfecting perpetuating cycle, replacing old parts with new parts. But within this cycle, you find yourself getting attached to some of the gears, though attachment is the least on your list of needs. But sometimes you can’t help but to vibe with a kin spirit enduring your same strife. Those bonds create a haven within this cycle of time and make it all the more bearable. They become a part of your schedule…a valuable part of your day and the up keeping of your hope, sanity, and strength. Things are always kept in perspective, until that gear which shifts you so effortless has reached its life span and it is his time to depart. You dread the day, yet you are happy for him, you don’t wish to trade places, only to not feel the void that will accompany his absence. You try to withdraw slowly, even making jokes about pulling away to soften the blow of his upcoming disappearing act, but you still want to be as supportive as possible and replant the necessary tools in his mind to not comeback to this factory. And then…he’s gone. Bitter, SWEET. My day will come, one day…and until then, I hate to see them go but love to see them walk away.

Filed Under: Culture, Inside, Love, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

Pro se Con-tints

August 4, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I find more strength and purpose the more people reach out, thank you, this is a lonely road we treck in life sometimes. The parole board laid me down for 2 years, which only set the groundwork for more to be accomplished. Thinking of my sons, but I hope you all stay on this ride with me, and thank you for your encouragement. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t hard and a little disheartening, but there’s strength in every struggle, and this is the cultivation of a diamond! Practice is the preacher, passion preceded pursuit, pursuit was the predecessor of purpose, and personification embodied purpose, principles are paramount and promises become parliment in the paradise we find in paradoxes…Possibility is the paragonic pyramid of Potential shining like prisms, that can’t even be dimmed by prison..because prison is only a matter of perception to each person. Peace can only be pierced by procedure, so we can find power outside of parallels and architect perpendicular processes of progression within life called, PoetryInMotion.

Filed Under: Inside, Love, Mercy, Spirit

Call you later

July 31, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I might call you

if you don’t answer

I’ll move on

because

I lose patience

I’m no saint

but

you’re my saviour

you’re my anchor

you’re my aim

when

my behaviour

in bad taste

and

you can’t savor

that bland flavor

of hollow acres

I need a favor

just pick up

when I call you later

Filed Under: Inside, Love

What is Beauty

July 22, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

What is beauty
She’s your beau
She’s your favorite point of view
Heightened woes, fashion heels, painted toes, with a hue, that points at you
She’s no ruse
She’s no trick nor subterfuge
She’s your muse
She’s your truce
She’s that gain, you will not lose
But as she comes, she’s quick to go, what is beauty, but the blues…

Filed Under: Love

Prosed Con-fession:

July 2, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I joke with my best friend Katie that I don’t know who is better, you, or God. She says God of course because he works through her and she is who she is because of God. I mean, do you know how it feels to have people in your corner that engineer such a belief and effort in you beyond the many wrongs you have exhibited, but have an endless faith of who you really are, even when you may question it or not know at times? So how could I not see God and believe in him because the friendship I receive is beyond explanation. I may never be religious per say, or I guess title myself outside of anything than a believer of a power greater than myself, of spirituality and divinity, of a God, my God. I’d be a fool not to recognize the power of Jesus Christ in my life. God, you have gave me the best type of friends that I can call family that have championed a belief in me which has woken me up at the right time. You have protected and built my two sons as strong, talented, beautiful kids with the work of their mothers despite my absence. You have saved my life when I felt I may lose mine or have to take life in order to survive inside these prison walls. You were a voice when I never reached out to you or any friends/family while I spent lonely nights in the hole and dangerous days walking within this barbed wire. You have given me a voice from feeling silenced by a sentence; you demonstrate in so many ways that there have been signs that I’ve ignored and now that I am ready to receive you, I see you in so many things each day. I used to have to have the answers for every problem in my life, but you bare that answer. How many times have I neglected belief in you and considered reason within the temporary things that do not have the capacity to love me back, like gangs, material things, women without virtues and pride. I can say so much more, like how you got me here, out of Tecumseh, and how you have shown me that the talents I have been blessed with are to be used for the glory of you by helping people that struggle just like me, because love and struggle are human issues and with you, I know I can affect change and healing in so many, starting with myself, my sons, their mothers, my friends and family, and the many people wanting to be heard and understood. God, I accept you as my Lord and Savior, today and for the rest of the days of my life. I may fall, but you knew when that would happen and already laid out a plan on how I can rise back up again. I’m not perfect but you are, so I know exactly who to call on when my flaws surface. So the answer is that the greatest is..Ka.. I mean God! ha, He’s got to have a sense of humor right? I mean he created me, but is it still a joke if he saw it coming? Some answers I’ll never know and never need, but he is the one I will always have and eternally need…believe, there’s signs around us all. Don’t be too naïve to try and solve a problem within a life you can’t fully comprehend, believe, believe in something greater than self. I heard a movie quote on Lucy posing the question, if “we focus more on having than being?” The more we reach for inanimate things outside of self, the further we get from self, which is the further we veer from God. I’ve found my answer, and so after so long, if you’re still searching than…

Filed Under: Inside, Love, Mercy, Spirit

Those Four Letters Spelled…

June 29, 2018 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Why did I beat you down with my words
with my swears and every curse
and every course
we traversed
until your curls, turned coarse
of course-
you’ve seen my worst
you’ve been the words
that I’d disperse
thwarting my hurt
I loved you first
I loved you for
your form and force
I hate you for
the roads you forked
my hearts a fort
It’s not your fault
You’ve broke my falls
I made you fall
I named your flaws
you gave your all
you gave me cause
I gave you scars
you answered calls
wrote me letters
hoped for better
to hold together
betrayal, I betrayed you
because I’m frail
despite my portrayal
my shell is hell
I’m sorry I failed
those 4 letters spelled ….

Filed Under: Love, Mercy, Trauma

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 43
  • Go to page 44
  • Go to page 45
  • Go to page 46
  • Go to page 47
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 56
  • 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 © 2026 · web design by Studio Lyko