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


  • The Trump Administration’s Parting Outrage Against Cuba
    Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores
    The Trump Administration’s Parting Outrage Against Cuba
    13 Jan 2021
    Cuba’s placement on the state sponsors of terror list is meant to be a thorn in any plan by the Biden administration for rapprochement.
  • On the Anniversary of His Death, Theodore W. Allen’s Analysis Still Resonates
    Jeffrey B. Perry
    On the Anniversary of His Death, Theodore W. Allen’s Analysis Still Resonates
    13 Jan 2021
    “White supremacy” wrote Allen, is “both the keystone and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy.”
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 11, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 11, 2021
    11 Jan 2021
    Cops Colluded  with Trump Mob at Capitol
  •  Black Feminism Informed by “Sensuous Knowledge”
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Feminism Informed by “Sensuous Knowledge”
    11 Jan 2021
    Because of historical exclusion, “Black women’s social and political desires have always had to be shaped outside of the dogmatic and the normative – inside of the liminal, the fugitive and the ima
  •  Black Anarchists Prefer “Non-Hierarchical” Activism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Anarchists Prefer “Non-Hierarchical” Activism
    11 Jan 2021
    Ebony “Sima Lee” Outlaw, the activist and Marooncast host based in Baltimore, was inspired by “Black anarchists who very much wanted to end imperialism, but chose to do so through
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us