Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …
SOSs— frantic patterns pounded on
Pots and pans — Counterpoint
Shattering surreal quiet …
Tired hands trembled and cramped
White towels; white T-shirts; white sheets
Waved furiously. Invisible to the heart of
Dixie in confederate helicopters casually
Hovering above. Tired arms trembled and cramped
Tired voices, plaintive pleas for “HELP!” faded.
Slipped into soup of sewage. Oil-gas-gumbo-slop.
Spewing from tanks and pipelines like some toxic
Spittle, rising to their throats from a trumpet’s spit key
Katrina square-danced ‘round New Orleans.
Went easy on The Big Easy.
So, why was the city still swamped? Why’d
The London Avenue levee break in three places?
FEMA flew over and knew on Monday.
W’s War House knew by midnight. But
The People—salt of the earth— heard it through
The grapevine— or on TV— sometime Tuesday
Levee built 1 and 1/2 feet lower than specs. A capitalist
Disaster wrapped in an accident; Concealing a ticking time
Bomb. Set decades ago. Add Big Oil’s hurricane highway. AKA, MIGO—
Mississippi Gulf Outlet — 12 gauge shotgun pointing at NOLA’s heart!
BOOM! Prayers of white nationalist worshippers answered. Prayers of
Hoods concealed beneath Mardi Gras masks answered! Prayers of those
Who preyed to their god; to their profits, “Do unto Lower 9th Ward N-
Words what white sheets behind spreadsheets wet dreamed for decades.”
They’d preyed for a chocolate city bleached beignet-white … Lower
9th Ward N-words out! By any means necessary. They’d preyed to rid
Themselves of low-wealth ones. Elderly, ill ones. The non-swimmers
Who didn’t own cars.
Their privatized Emergency Evacuation Plan was always: NOYO
(Nigras On Your Own) Sink or swim. Water-swollen homes— “Xs”
Spray-painted on their skins. Circled numbers. Circled 3 = 3 bloated
Black bodies pulled from bones of homes. Some pregnant. Some children.
White god was good— weaponizing water! Water raged. Rose rapidly
Ethnic cleansing Land of Louis; second line; trumpet tree roots. Made
Martyrs of Big Chiefs, Brass band-juju Jazz conjurers. Ancestors of Blues babies
Who’d drown in their own tears with yellowed photos and decomposing dreams …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …
Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …
© 2025. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet, BAR's Poet-in-Residence, and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.
Dahoud Andre is a member of KOMOKODA, the Community to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti, and host of Eritye Papa Desalin, the Heirs of Jean Jacques Dessalines, a daily Haitian community radio…
Erica Caines, Editor of Hood Communist and Coordinating Committee Member for the Black Alliance for Peace, joins the stream to discuss the New McCarthyism and its implications.
It is disheartening to hear movement leaders say they are inspired by Martin Luther King while also supporting the U.S. proxy war against Russia. Like all wars it endangers the lives of…
The demands for justice at home and abroad must not be sacrificed on the altar of what is called pragmatism. The false choices presented by liberalism can undermine the movement altogether.
A May Day 1928 essay by Black communist Williana “Liana” Jones Burroughs – aka Mary Adams – recounts the history of African revolt in the Americas.
