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Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

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Spirit

Our state- ran by brilliant billionaires

November 25, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Uh we have the most billionaires per capita in the U.S. here in Nebraska. Pete Ricketts and his family has made government a family business. A quote from our great recently termed out senator Ernie Chambers, in his reelection race, he spent $2.5 million to the opposing candidates $50k. Safe to say he controlled all the media and exposure.

People more easily vote for familiar faces, great tactic. With no cap on campaign spending our policies have been ruled by finances and he has successfully used his seat as governor creating laws that further set up his family. Originally from Chicago, he and his brother are both governors funded by their father whom owns TD Ameritrade and the Cubs. Hey! we have TD Ameritrade here?!

How can he be the voice of a people they’ve never been part of? He has single handedly financed the drug to revamp our death row. As crimes have dropped, incarcerations has heightened. We now have the second most at capacity prison in the U.S.

Covid cases amongst inmates have been hidden, all the while refusing to relieve the capacity for any reason. And he is another practicing tough on crime aristocrat, which is a disproportionate systemical slaughter. He implores the parole board to not grant parole despite public demand and usually terminates most reform and prison overcrowding bills that pass the legislator, but he wants to build another prison! oh yayy!

He’s really made an obvious difference in the black community. There’s even more of a gaping whole of injustices, inequalities and disproportionate absences. We’re 8th in the nation for property taxes and our economy still haven’t recovered from floods 2yrs ago. 2nd per capita in over capacity prisons which solutions seem like more bars, more guards with barely enough staffing as is. Recently there was a bill submitted to make all the prisons here private.

Smart leadership is always rich in the capital they create in every misfortune..

So liberty, justice and opportunity for all at the expense of the broke and the broken!

Filed Under: Culture, Inside, Spirit, Trauma

Capitalism rites, write rights

November 24, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

This country was always capitalists

or at least headed that direction

there’s no heart in capitalism

only capital

but how do I know this country has always been captitalistic?

Well my ancestors were property

sold, traded, herded and bred

and the only way my people can trace their history

is because it was recorded

as property, cargo, on the ships manifest

even the ones that jumped over

choosing the watery abyss over the cruelties of their capturers

the humbling and antagonist part of it is

that my lineage is literally held in tact

as a former piece of property

and that in itself is history

not a proud one

so no matter what, somebody was on a ship-

that beat, raped, mutilated and cannibalised it’s occupants-

listed,

yea everyone sold slaves

but everyone didn’t do to slaves

like what was done to them in the Americas

America had redefined slavery

and in these modern times

it continues to do so

there’s no real love in capitalism

just a beating organ

which is vacant any depth

besides bottom lines

but rites of passage and property is a right written for capital

Filed Under: Culture, Spirit, Trauma

Avarice Society

November 21, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Why is it so hard for us to create healthy changes to our perception, thinking and values? As we evolve, so should our vantage and therefore perception of what was before and then now…

We have an embarrassment of riches that we expend to extinction while exploiting to position ourselves within economic superiority creating ethnical inferiority towards ethnical minorities all the while becoming ethical apologists.

Even with our wealth of civil liberties, we are like children with so much play time and no scheduled nap, running ourselves into deep, perceptual sleep and conscious fogs dangerously towards chaotic negligence with our fatiguing faculties and clarity, therefore less capable to avoid accident or self destruction.

Our values are boasted with such ignorance and entitlement that the idea of limiting what was once sacrificed, fought and bled for, now believed owed you just sounds crazy. We can’t see beyond our own feet and that’s the problem, because our world is interconnected and therefore interdependent.

Just as we crazily defy orders to keep ourselves and others safe because our lack of freedom and sliming resources, we begin to see the poignantly cruel mirror of urban communities which lash out in ethnic and tribal violence for the competing of resources within their dystopic prisons, while you judge from a distance their behaviors, believing they have equal share rights and access to the pie that all and you yourself have, possibly even more since you believe their assistance is so much more of an advantage to your perceived lack there of.

We are hurting ourselves now and generationally but we can’t see past our own needs and bottomless cravings, filling our bellies and eyes.

And people are stir crazy because depth foundation and substance has long since left their life with the introduction of instant gratification on crack with technology, feeding affinities and avarice of entertainment, money, thirst, hunger and lust, the spiritual or deep tissue nature of our beings, rooted in our emotions and spirituality have calcified with this instant gratification and distantly close or closely distant world we live in, where access is everywhere and longevity and it’s process is torture and archaic to the pallid of our society.

We can’t spend extra time with our families and loved ones, let alone ourselves because families have lost their bond and need of one another with all the surface bandaids used to heal neglected familial issues and internal pains for the sake of appearing fine. Avoidance being remedy while barely making it through each day, let alone the next perceived struggle, threat, or possibility of abandonment.

Oh and love is just as flat and a reflection of ones own vanity and projection of emotional torment disguised in affirmations of “I love you”.

And spending time with self is as avoided as the mirror until its time to make up the mask for the day that you’re supposed to seize.

This quarantine time isolated has become disdained and haunting because the skeletons, elephants, ghosts and glass houses with stone driveways we try to keep hidden, and we have become every bit of our work and our online perception than our cores truth or the pursuit there of.

Oh but this is such the life of a prisoner…dealing with your pain daily just in the waking and sleeping in the constance of your torment and the reality of your anger, shame, guilt, loneliness, pain, losses, grief and mistakes, people hide here too, but even though we make a life in the insanity of an inhumane situation, we never lose site of our imprisonment which the world long has. And now that it is being shown to you, everyone is in abject denial trying to resist the physical dwellings of an opportunity for decompression and separation which should be a time to exhale, reassess, heal, and visualize, but is now a time of seeking an escape back into escapism which was in the many roles outside of your homes, to where you will jeopardize you, your family and neighbors own safety for the sake of your makeshift and delusional, misguided and shallowly contrived sanity.

Change is a sickness somehow, evolution is a cancer, and growth is a fairytale that distracts from the stunting of your purpose.

No one has reason and cause is but circumstantial sensitive and sensationalized.

But the question is, does this have to be and therefore stay your reality?

Can there be a catalyst or revelation of some sort providing a sustainable formula for a better life and existence…sustainable in the sense of satisfying ones needs without diminishing depth, value and the prospects of future generations, a paraphrased definition of sustainability from Lester Brown of the WorldWatch Institute… how can we create sustainable communities–social and cultural environments in which we can satisfy our needs and aspirations without diminishing the chances of future generations…

Well for one I would say, start seeing the interconnectedness and interdependence of human life and human beings and therefore the systems we create and live within, whether religion, education, politics, science, philosophy, business, health care, and everyday life, because if these systems don’t evolve along with our new generations then we would be using outdated methods and world views to fix modern day problems, which if you broke that down and thought about it correctly, that would add to another definition of insanity which is, ” when new cures exist, cure a new pain with an expired or outdated medicine, yet still expect to be cured”.

When there is an inability to change ones perception, thinking and values then there can be no clear cure readily available or for that matter, even imaginatively feasible.

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

Better if I Say it

November 1, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Gotta get used to talking about myself if I want the world to know me

eh mhm, speaking for myself-

I’m a real raw deep and a passionate individual, strong dedicated with a destination but just not sure exactly what direction and avenues that are definite.

I guess I’m just used to paving my own paths, but I’m not confident that the world will allow that once I come back to it after the past I came from.

Im kinda sarcastic goofy and witty, spontaneous, funny, but poetic.

I don’t like selling myself because I’m used to speaking others up, deflecting my lack of self confidence that has followed me like a shadow my whole life, even at moments now.

Words are great, but can be thin and manipulating, if not just misleading, so I’m more of an experience.

I live in moments, in the action, not the prelude, though I like suspense, I’m more apt to change the ending with anything but normal twists and turns, because I like being audacious and daring.

Pressing buttons and comforts is exciting.

I like authenticity, and wish people can just roll of vibes instead of over thinking feelings, that way I dont feel too weird by not adhering to social norms that only serve to repress than flourish our ability to connect naturally. I’ve turned this dark moment into light, so I can see my way out on the other side, I just prefer someone there to meet me.

We’ll see.

I’m more me than I’ve ever been now, even though I’m in prison, I’m Free!

Ironic I know.

I do miss meeting new faces…free faces, and connecting with women most, uh, what’s a man without them?

Not much, I figured that much out myself but regardless of my situation I won’t settle or put up, that led to too many problems in my yesterdays, what’s lessons if not learned from?

I’m not one to hide or deny my affection.

I mean at the core we all just want to feel like somebody feels us right? Wanting someone to take leaps and chase passion with, embracing difference and making each moment mean something.

That’s why instead of just writing poetry, I want to create it with not only the world, but someone willing to spend a few moments with me, and learn my truth, and share theirs, because life is art, and each moment is poetic, so hopefully you’ll see the beauty in reading this, and get the feeling that I’m just like you.

Memories can either start with a hi or a bye, I’ve had enough bye’s over the years to never forget what it feels like, so I wanna experience something different, I want more Hi’s and highs in my life

I’ve been spoken for by so many titles and past actions, that speaking for myself is almost strange.

Maybe someone will like or at least accept my spoken word, I mean, what’s a story or writing without the author’s voice?

Filed Under: Culture, Inside, Love, Spirit

Cultural Wardlow

November 1, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I’m a cultural war

I’m a culture at war

I’m a casualty of war

I’m a casualty at war

I’m a cultural casualty

I’m a casualty of culture

My casualty is war

My culture is war

with casualties in my wake and before

I was a counter cultural Wardlow

losing many battles…but never the War-dlow

I will be what I am

as I am

because a Wardlow,

is who I am

R.I.P. William Henry Wardlow aka Omaha Shorty, Shorty Wardlow

better known as, MY GrandPa- the name pride and absolute best of us

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Spirit

Spiritual Guides

October 29, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

When emotions guide you

you are half blind

when logic guides you

you are half blind

but when spirit guides you

you now see ALL

and ALL looks just like You

Filed Under: Spirit

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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

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