by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our giants go down, our spines must straighten up and create new beginnings.
Redouble our efforts…
(For Robert Knight, Chokwe, Amiri,
And others known and less known…)
by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our Knights are captured
Or fall on battlefields, as they
Surely must, and we lose their
Brilliant lights and we are
Scrambling to pry pens,
Swords, spears, bread and
Roses from stainless steel
Grips of their icy hands—
Scrambling to hoist our
Fallen banners, temporarily
Mired in mud and blood,
Even higher, scrambling
To staunch rivulets of
Brine from our sweetly
Shattered hearts…
When our giants — in
All sizes — go down,
Our spines straighten
Honoring, immortalizing,
Their legends, burnished
Names, by divvying up
Cosmic, ancient, work
Creating them in the
Beginning…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
Ain’t it good to know that up’s still down; bad’s still good; black’s white; Slavers still heroes—And the Drone Ranger received a Peace Prize?
One of the poorest towns in the nation, nearly all-Black Centreville, Illinois, floods with raw sewage every time it rains.
The recent prison reform rallies at the Mississippi Capitol were more akin to being for a Middle Passage with more efficient plumbing.
This week you discussed Venezuela, racism in healthcare, and regime change in Libya.
Late stage capitalism and its wars have imposed a permanent state of dislocation and disorientation on much of humanity, the “drift” of an unstable system.
