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Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

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Trauma

Living Liars

July 22, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

there’s this lie
one that you must know about me
I wrestle with it
more than I do my pillow
fighting to listen to sound sleep
I don’t want you to know
me by this lie
yet you do, already
more than you know me
by anything else
or other than
something else or anything
other…wait,

confused myself
guess I just want you to
better understand the lie
you will know then
who I am, really am.

seeing what I have
been up against
you are
better able to see me
know me
hear me
trust me
help me. heal me. whole me.

but you don’t know me
by first, hearing my truth
still you can’t see
beyond my lie
far enough to
absorb my truth
and care.
but to care,
you must know the lie first,
reason being..?
you live it as well.

how does one live truth
rediscovering lie after lie?
unlearning and relearning
in years too far from childhood

it seems
the lies are the layers
which lie in procession
to one’s core truth,
core of truths.

the lies are fodder
old paint
chipped away at
or the splintered wood
chopped down
never sanded.

I was spirit
before being
I was celestial
before extraterrestrial
I am absolute
relatively speaking
I am imagination and will
manifested
I am vessel
for truth realized.

king, in one mind
god, in the other

but, I was born a lie
then became human.

before man
I was child.

and even before baby
I was black!

though your mind denies
color is unseen
and my certificate of birth
readies the lie
signed, into truth

I am a lie
you carry it out
by reinforcing a world
which accepts it.

you see me
and say
he’s black
I am and am not,
I am and am more
I am
but
the lies you tell yourself!
dressed as truths
they appear worn
picking with no sense of details

the lies I believed
trying to discover
truth.
new clothes, I’ve rarely tried on

the lie I became
knowing no truth
the truths I know–
outcastes, of lies–
have to convince you
and me
of the truths, we live
being lies

the lies we know
obscure the history
of truth’s time in the sun

so I need you to see me
I need you to know the truth
my truth
your truth!

Son shine, Sunshine!
Sun Shine!

but if the moon,
remains eclipsed
you will never will
true sight
until you understand
the dark is the truth
and the light,
the way

Frantz Fanon said
”a Black, is not a man”
so my lie
is harder to escape
than yours

a complex problem,
with too simple a solution
to be believed, in
so since the details matter
‘rejected’
is who I am
until we stop living lies

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Spirit, Trauma

Thing Chasing

July 21, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

lost myself losing things
lost things lose people
people lose things
loss seems like self-lost

thing people
people things
time loss loses things
things lost to time

more things one finds
more self becomes blind
things vanish, lost in time
with no frame of mind

occupying space and time
degenerative minds
the self I lost, chasing things through time
when all I’ve lost, is my mind

Filed Under: Inside, Spirit, Trauma

If I Must be Black, Let Me be Black in Peace

July 9, 2021 by Russell Wardlow 1 Comment

do you hear me?
let me be black in peace!
your way is not,
interrupted by the contrast of me

let me be black in peace
if black is who I am to be
then let it be
let me be

I possess no power
to affect you at large
only individually
but my blackness
affected as a whole
in a way which
keeps us from being whole

as a whole, separated
by your ways
too many to name
so all I ask
is for my name

institutional structures
systemical codes
and legislative craftsmanship
work like swordsmanship

why can’t I live a life
that doesn’t have to go to you
beg you
live the shame of your denial
ignorance and privilege
reinforced by your names

gentrification
redlining
black codes
Jim crow
voter intimidation
discrimination
convict leasing
war on crime
war on drugs
prison industrial complex
mass incarceration
legal segregation

let me be me
if you prefer to hyper criminalize
my blackness, speech
culture and fashion

when I had my own
I was stripped bare
by force and strategy

when I attempted to regain
and rebuild
I was conditioned to death
why can’t I succeed aside you?
why is my success such a threat?

what then when why is asked no more?

Filed Under: Inside, Trauma

Nicked Names

July 8, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

couch philosopher
serial pornographer
self fondler
emotion bottler
trauma swaddle’r
pot stirring potter’er
fictitious biographer
impatient thermometer
broken binocular
somber’est opera
popular commoner
‘I bring to you, Way Of,..’ ah just stop with the monikers!
I’m gone!

Filed Under: Trauma

The Case Against: Perpetuation and Prosecuting Plaintiffs

July 2, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

pain perpetrated by privilege
promise extinguished by distinction
persons distinguished til extinction
purpose dissented by convention
passion persecuted by dominion
patience prosecuted by opinion
bodily prosecutions for afflictions
humiliations propagated by convictions
value proprietorially promulgated by a sentence
guttural screams, as anecdotal as a linchpin
PURGE!!!

and in case you didn’t get it
by some over sighted mishap that induced my failure to mention
my skin has been a living hell-
careened by hypocritical Pharisees,
parroting
self-righteous pretenses
in forms of societal structures, legal institutions and religion
three tyrannically perpetual collisions
resulting in crucifixions
of my propensities and dimensions-

and If
Still
by some large measure,
you are unable to visualize this picture
as if the lenses,
are too small a frame for your vast mind to fit it
or
your hindsight possibly legally blind to see without prescription
then, allow me to make it simpler…

you can not legislate seeing me!
I’m too brilliant to not be seen

you can not legislate including me!
humanity is not a club to which colors should be screened

you can not legislate loving me!
I am a person, a people only differentiated by genes

you can not create laws for people to see me,
other than the ways your society has made for me to be viewed
and believe that people will now innately see, love and include-
me, by following rules!

and by
indoctrinating legislation
for your historical subjugation
of my culture and generations
to be venerated
by your carbon dated
emancipation
with clever gaps curated
for legal pontifications
and centuries of continual public debates and social demonstrations
inside of a ‘civilized’ nation
where the legal pen, can swiftly
right wrongs and fully arrange to erase this
intolerant behavior
scapegoats and equality makeshifts
boasting inhumane and blatant defacements
empowering statues statutes states status and racists
funding political and presidential races
all the while, dark-skinned beings being born as plaintiffs
enduring complicit sanctions
as you laboriously with gusto, criminalize our coerced pain is
frustrating!
to say the least…

especially
watching you sell,
to people that intellectualism can change behavior
and when all else fails,
turn to the Savior
for patience love compassion amazing grace and
the unspoken subplot of meekness and subservience, favored

turn to the savior
as an anchor
at ports for docking slave ships

turn to the savior
one in which you once used to justify our chains bondage and enslavement
and destiny’s manifestation
monsters of your own creation
ima monster of your own creation
one history conquers
the other history offers
the current history, somber
my history is a mantra of your own cremation

yet still you justify jailing me
for my rebellious pleas
pleeeaasseee

my life?
coping is my reason
but you should understand my subversion and anger
from being ruled by elected strangers
being born into danger
bred into mangers
mangled by systemical man-eaters,
maleficent institutions
maniacal politicians
mandating by way of favors
marginalizing us into morbid chains and mournful chambers
hoping, no
praying, no
voting, no
protesting for changes
as the perpetuation of creating disparaging social ranges
and gapped wages
to which resolutions and revelations revel with revolutions of rebels kicking up rubble from mass graves enraged by the shameless
kowtowing subtle ways
America tells us to be grateful, behave
as it quickly, quietly and methodically turns history’s pages

and still
I rose through the concrete jungle
and blossomed as a groundbreaker!
disciple of John, the black John lewis, a good trouble maker
not a model inmate but
one who fans the flames up
a problem that refuses to be coddled and swaddled by aid that handicaps in the place of
the ‘gotcha’ promise of 40acres-
yet still a mule,
you pool
fool
using as stools
tools
and fuel
while stereotypes rule-

keeping us stunted to basements
don’t give me a grant!
don’t give me a grand!
don’t give me a hand!
if you wanna help me, give me some land!

so I can do the hard work for myself, since you believe me lazy
and I will manifest destiny my own plan
that architect’s generational wealth, not welfare-
and excuse me if my outbursts catapults your sharp inhales
as you gasp trying to grasp my pen quill
as the ink spills
but like I said my skin is a living hell
symbolized by your shocked inhaled air!

as color is weighed and levied by some guarded sense of superior/inferior superstitions
making the sight of my stark blackness a stimulant of tension
but even at this point,
I can still say I love All people
while saying I love My people
which all people
should be all people’s
each as the other’s extension
but that pretense of division
that leaves some dispensed of
isn’t of my invention

attention!
to all in attendance
we, who seek change, are radical
so we, should be well beyond the point of asking for permission
waiting for bill of rights amendments
apologizing to critics
being more civic than cynics
while worrying more about forgiveness
because if, only the God of Genesis
can judge me in the infinite
then only man can write laws which blemishes my innocence
then judges to keep me limited

pain perpetrated by privilege
promise extinguished by distinction
persons distinguished til extinction
purpose dissented by convention
passion persecuted by dominion
patience prosecuted by opinion
bodily prosecutions of afflictions
humiliation propagated by conviction
value proprietorially promulgated by a sentence
guttural screams as anecdotal as a linchpin
PURGE!!!

because if I didn’t
Your biases, whether unconscious or implicit
will be proven right because,
I’d be anything but a human
and every bit of a menace!
as these fated minutes
continue ticking
from the nefarious intentions
inside your precarious indecision

Filed Under: Culture, Trauma

Byebye

July 1, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

shh
if you let me
I will disappear
you may only feel me
maybe even remember
but not see me
smell me
hear me
taste me
touch me
‘get away from me!’
did I say that, or you?
who cares, I’ll go
no regrets, no more
I’ve had enough
life, regrets
remember my genius when byebye
shame it may take that long
our culture
exposure
exposed
exposer
ex-poser
who hurt me?
how many?!
if I could hurt you all back
I’d heal all innocent hurt given cause of you
before byebye
shh

Filed Under: Trauma

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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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