Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Trauma

Hyperbole

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I’m a hostile hostage
pay homage
to the home of my homicide-
a homogenous hostel hosted by
honorless hypercritical hypocritical heathens of hierarchy

the harbingers of hate, horror, and hollow hearts

harm’s haven, no halo’s here

honing in on my housing, and its harassment of heirlooms:

heedless histrionics
hermetical heretics
hapless hedonistic hiatuses, yet hunger uninhibited
habitat of habitual hazing, hollering, and hate-filled hazards
horizons hindered and hidden
haughty hides, hybrids alike-Jekyl-Hydes
hoards of hoaxes
humor and hue holocausts
herculean hubris
high horses hobbled and humbled
hoodlums hoopla hooligans hopelessness hoodoo hustles hype and hoodwinks
heinous hypocrisies and hogwash
horrified herbivores amidst hungry hungry hippos
humiliation humility holism and holies with hypertension
inside this inhumane housing
hysterical heaps of hurt
shhhh, no Sherlock Holmes here
just holes, holds and heterogeneous hoods
upholstering honor-rolled heterodoxies-anarchy!
no Heroes here, only hours honing in on the horoscopes of homeless homies

Hide!

Help!

‘Tis Heaven’s Hell

I See People

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I’ve seen people,
come to prison with violent crimes and leave with addictions
I’ve seen people,
come to prison from drug addictions and leave with addictions to prescription
I’ve seen people, come to prison and die before the end of their sentence
I’ve seen people
who have been condemned to die in prison!

“they win, when they make you feel that you are alone”
that’s a line from Star Wars
I’d wonder if my family ever seen it
because then maybe they’d get it
but no point in wondering,
because I know they didn’t

I’ve seen correctional officers correct correctional officers
then subject correctional convicts to objectional vengeance
and then head the news with new charges from their real-life decisions
because their morality at their job was just payment for pretending
now they are in protected cordoned-off areas beginning…
in a place they thought would be my ending
and their fate…pending

I’ve seen predators come to prison and be model citizens
until they get beyond the fences and remodel their modeled innocence
replaying traumatic images
inflicted within this “beneficient” system that became their menacing nemesis
running from the implications of the emotionally charged title convicting them
hiding within work effort and religious involvement in front of prisoners as if they are convincing them

but freedom for them is just as hard as the man for decades still claiming his innocence
a being still being crippled by the remnants of dreaded reminiscing-

of lions roarings and snakes hissing
and spiders crawling, and birds flaunting
as thoughts wander, and sleep jaunting
and nightmares normal, and dreams haunting
and bodies haunched, as chairs launching!
and doors slamming, and keys taunting!
and mail re-routed and dial tones calling!
as knives joust, with anger mounting!
with day rooms crowding, and nerves crawling!
and fights brawling, then thin skin jaundiced!
and fear crouching, and blood sprawling!
and walls burning, and roofs falling!
and lost darlings, but pride dauntless!
while coffin cautious…
as coughs and yawns are crossed with
being the sick and tired crossfit raucous masses mashed into compartments
with bared closets and squandered losses
as the night fawns over the sun’s dawning
and through it all
since I’ve been through it all
now involvement being a fly on the wall
I’m scrawling through all this!
absorbing all this!
toxic
nauseous
gastric
bypasses
matched with
fractured
factions
fractioned
til fragile,
then ashes!
we all
fall
down…

Fought the Love I Fell

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I’ve fought the love I fell
and fell into the spell of fighting
smoke screen-I’m hiding
in this shell
I dwell
bidding farewells
to the carousel of fairytales
which seem unfairly hailed!

because,
frankly, I’m scared as hell!
failure is fair and well
being saved it’s the bell
fore if the poster of success gets nailed
I’d cry for help!

you don’t know this pain I feel
feeel
old scars still raise, abrade and welt
“just a phase,” I’ve phrased
unphased by the fading yells
of runaway loves that saved themselves
for their own sakes
leaving me in wake
to shake, afraid and naked
with shame from snakey trails
facing brail
where poignant fates have dwelled
and faces swelled
as baited base feelings framed from basements wailed
hoping angst was quelled
and change would unchain my tales

but pain is my biggest mistake!
and I still can’t refrain myself
from fighting the falling feeling of love I’ve fell

Dreams that Kill

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if I had dreams
my dreams would kill
my mind transformed into a gun
my body/spirit the clip and bullets
and every shot is my
consciousness/will
I’m confident my unconsciousness wields
Energy to activate
the Matter into form
so I’ll have infinite potential to achieve
proof in what I create and build
eyes unveiled
mind unsealed
spirit unconcealed
praise be to Amen Ra-
the God in my is my Will
my divinity is
my shield
my inner peace speaks
to havoc-shh, be still
and know that I Am God,
differentiated in my black appeal
but History shows
Truth Kills

I Wish

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I wish
you would listen
I wish
you could listen
I wish
you would stop believing
that to change the system
you abide exactly by the ways
the system created for you
to think you can go about
changing its system
only to continuously wonder,
“what am I missing?”
when I see change and movements
settling for the celebration
of inches!
Convicts! Can I get a Witness?!

you can’t change
what you innately fear
you can’t change
who you fear
you’ve given them all the power
you thought you were
empowering with
change happens on the
blood sweat and tears
of martyrs and revolutionaries
(eh mhm, I Am…A Revolutionary!)

not tiptoeing, good-hearted
followers of every rule
which only serve to
further limit, subjugate
contradict and confuse

Not liberals without
a, “selfless fuze”
will I Ever believe in
to give the meter it’s
biggest moves

my hope in you
is why I lose
because I know what I
get with the system
it’s consequences and
engendered behaviors I exhibit

but sitting on my lily pad
starring up at totem poles
I cant respect a frog
or a toad, scared to
leap! and only
“ribbits!”
I wish
you would get it
instead of doubling down
on your methods and contributions
just to feel offended
because there’s lives on the line
I wish
it wouldn’t take so much time
for you to get it

Tone Deaf AF

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when you are White
and you say,
All Lives Matter
just think how that sounds

when your color gives you
an innate platform
which speaks volumes, yet
my value is stall clawing
from underground

just think how that sounds
when “Black Lives Matter”
wasn’t any ‘other’ color denounced
just think how that sounds
when American History
has created a civilization above
its own created Native and Black
burial grounds

just think how that sounds
when you say it as a
response, as if to add clarity
while perpetrating parody
silencing Black Pleas, with your precious
privilege’s hurt feelings…please!

creating groups
as responses to other groups
doesn’t create solutions
it is cloaked division
masquerading as good intentions

Duh, All Lives Matter!
that’s why you didn’t have to
create a group before
to say which

but when it comes to this
life, and its experiences
the whole Globe reacted to
Black Lives Matter…
it’s second time round
I wonder why?…

obviously someone’s value
must not be as obvious
therefore, attention and a call
to awareness was needed

so when your response
to someone else’s hurt is
“I hurt too…”
well, I don’t have to tell you
‘cuz deep down
you should know how that sounds