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

For my Niece (and Me)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jan 2023
🖨️ Print Article
For my Niece (and Me)

                                                                                                      For my Niece  

                                                                                                        (and Me )

                                                                                          “If ever I would leave you…

                                                                                          it wouldn’t be in Summer…”

                                                                                                 —Frederick Loewe

 

An invisible boxer’s blow

on the chin… Everything’s

fuzzy…

Everything’s a blue blur…

Can it ever be the same?

Velvet-gloved gut punch—

first surreal breath inhaled

by burglarized lungs. First breath

Without the one who pushed,

cursed, labored you into the mix—

jumped you in the game…

First surreal second

minute/hour

day/week

month/year

First surreal breath

inhaled

Without the one who pushed,

cursed, labored you into the mix—

jumped you in the game

Weeping…spending tears wisely—

you wish sweet, long Goodnight…

Grieving’s your puzzle; your prayer

strengthening memories pregnant with

Pain—And blurred by joy…

After the soprano hits tear notes; After

the last fiery phrase preached fades

After the quietest ride through the ‘hood

After uttering of “Ashes to ashes…”

After the flowers fade, wilt, brown; And

After the women go back to their shows and

hair— And the men back to boxing, basketball

and Church of the NFL

A song remains…

Let it lullaby you sleep—loop loving dreams

in living color;

Let it moan on its own—spirit swollen within;

Or, just

Let it sit silently in your throat and dissolve…

…like a honeyed, healing cough drop into:

“Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child

Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child

Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child—

A long ways from home…”

© 2023. 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.

Grief

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


More Stories


  • Freedom Rider: The U.S. Can’t Control the World
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The U.S. Can’t Control the World
    07 Apr 2021
    Slow-witted Joe Biden appears to think that we’re still in the age of the sole superpower, when in fact that era has come and gone.
  • Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary
    07 Apr 2021
    Neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership, despite being elected for this exact purpose. 
  • PAMPHLET: Africa Fights for Freedom, Alpheaus Hunton, 1950
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    PAMPHLET: Africa Fights for Freedom, Alpheaus Hunton, 1950
    07 Apr 2021
    A pamphlet written 70 years ago by an exiled Black American communist reveals an African continent seething to break free from European colonization.
  • Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) 1990 to 1997, Where the US Blocked Real Humanitarian Intervention
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) 1990 to 1997, Where the US Blocked Real Humanitarian Intervention
    07 Apr 2021
    The real story of the Rwandan genocide begins in 1990, when exiled Tutsis from Uganda invaded northern Rwanda, unleashing a deadly campaign that uprooted a million Hutu peasants and set ethnic tens
  • Testi-lyin’
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Testi-lyin’
    07 Apr 2021
    Northeast, midwest, southwest, south, down south, up south, out south—south  of the Canadian border—Slouched down in his cruiser, slow-rollin’ the ‘hood; Or a-
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us