What makes you hopeful?
(For Kris and KT)
”…I hope someday you’ll join us.
And the world will live as one.”
—John Lennon
There are times she asks me, “What gives you hope?”
I say, “Ain’t The Audacity of Dope—“
Ol’ Schmo, Slick Willy or The Drone Ranger
It’s random acts of kindness from a stranger
It’s Farmers Markets, Co-Ops and mutual aid
It’s those first crayon drawings my children made!
It’s couples taking care of each other
It’s a professor teaching his grandmother
It’s the bad saxophonist who can sing—
It’s the hot Jazz group that can playground swing
It’s a young drummer who’s living his dream…
It’s John Coltrane blowing A Love Supreme!
It’s the cozy, sable, zippered sweater
It’s brilliant teachers making me better
It’s red flags flying from a church steeple—
It’s gangstas woke—now serving the people!
It’s school children walking out in protest
It’s freedom fighters who risk arrest…
It’s an addict living clean and sober
It’s Ferguson’s thru-line to Strike-tober
It’s speeches of Malcolm and Dr. King
It’s George Floyd Summer thawing Arab Spring…
It’s my ‘rabbi’ dying—then coming back
It’s waking up this morning—proud and Black
It’s fifteen minutes of flame once a week—
It’s Tryin’/Tranein’ for my Wikileak!
© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, 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: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund
PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT
John Parker is a member of the Socialist Unity party and a senatorial candidate on the Peace and Freedom party ticket in California. He just returned from a fact-finding trip to Russia and Ukraine.…
Mapinduzi is a Greenville, North Carolina community organization dedicated to advancing political education. Mapinduzi is planning African Liberation Day events on Saturday, May 28. We spoke…
The Black Agenda Report team gives special emphasis to African Liberation Day, which is celebrated on May 25.
The baby formula shortage is not a glitch in the system. It actually exemplifies everything that goes wrong when the profit motive rules. Capitalism can't ensure a food supply or anything else…
On this African Liberation Day, we revisit Amiri Baraka’s 1972 communiqué calling for Black people to struggle for Pan-African unity while also registering our anger at the “pathology and traitor…
