Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
23 Nov 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
Protest in Haiti (Photo: AP)

                                                                            Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”

The world was pregnant

with two revolutions—fraternal twins—

Newborns cresting, crowning—pushing violently

from contracting wombs…We rejoiced, showering

them with

Revolutionary love!

Morphing, miraculously in tune;

the hungry hundreds’ voices rose

on salt swollen feet

In French, Farsi, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog,

Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Portuguese, Japanese,

Mandarin, Cantonese, Creole, Korean, English, etc.

Piston fists pumping to sun, stars, moon—

Our universe. Majestic incantation, “We have

been naught,

We shall be all…” Multilingual blending, crescendoing

like tympani spreading spinal chills—Then snatching

breath from our chests with mighty, wow finish:

“The Internationale shall be the Human race!!”

Too soon we’d see these infant revolutions ripped

from their cribs—from their

Mothers’ and

Midwives’ lactating breasts—And inexperienced

Arms…

And, yet, our song still resounds in jungles,

clandestine forests, barren deserts. Still echoes

off barbed wire and blackened bars of torture

chambers in filthy hellholes…

Our song’s polyglot harmony occasionally rising in

Surprising spaces;

belted out sometimes over orchestration of the world’s

‘richest’ men’s space boy-toys. Over Intelligence

Kings of white nationalist internationals’ Multi-polar

missile music/nuclear nightmare suites conducted by

Truncheon.

Our song still cuts through capitalist-roader nights

with a thousand eyes and facial recognition. Surveillance

state symphonies composed on elephant-eared walls and

eagle-eyed streets, scored on bloodstained rectangular rags

Our song still cries out, “Arise ye prisoners of

starvation…” Not, “ye yachtsmen flying the Jolly Roger for

spheres of Influence…”

Not, “ye capitalist-roaders becoming billionaires on pearls of

Toilers’ sweat…”

Our song still cries out, “A better world’s in birth…” And

“ The earth shall rise on new foundations…”

suggesting cooks can govern—the “human race” includes

Women, Black, Brown, LGBTQ+-And

Toilers must be deciders!



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.

Revolutionary movements

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Black Is Back Coalition Holds Conference on Community Control of Police
    Black is Back Coalition
    Black Is Back Coalition Holds Conference on Community Control of Police
    15 Jul 2021
    “We must deepen the resistance to police terror and all attempts to protect a status quo of colonial domination of our people,” the 17 organizations of the coalition declared.
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of Monday, July 12, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of Monday, July 12, 2021
    13 Jul 2021
    CRT Origins “Radical Liberal,” Not Marxist
  •  Slain Haitian President Was Washington’s Choice
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Slain Haitian President Was Washington’s Choice
    13 Jul 2021
    “Jovenel Moise’s path to president was paved with US, Canadian and French funding and support,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, a Haitian American anthropologist and political analyst at UC
  •  CRT Origins “Radical Liberal,” Not Marxist
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    CRT Origins “Radical Liberal,” Not Marxist
    13 Jul 2021
    Harvard professor “Derrick Bell, himself, one of the founders of Critical Race Theory, said he had no use for Marxism,” said writer and political analyst Pascal Robert, countering
  • Predatory capitalism has driven down wages and created a dystopia for workers.
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: How the Billionaires Rule
    08 Jul 2021
    Predatory Capitalism Has Driven Down Wages and Created a Dystopia for Workers.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us