Black is Back on Track
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
I.
November Sunday afternoon and 30,
Maybe even 40, Howard University
Food workers are lined up in
The basement, barely breathing,
Fingers crossed, body language
Fluently tense, totally focused
Wishing, willing, sudden death
Overtime for Washington’s
Football franchise, trailing the
Minnesota Vikings 26 to 29…
Third floor fraternity men are down
Also watching ground floor screens
Along with some women and second
Floor Soul Food Extravaganza folk…
Today, they care more about
Washington’s football franchise
Fate than Reparations Brother Kamm
Is speaking on; more about the
Score than the Ebola Alert Sister
Aisha is breaking down; more about
What Dallas is doing than Waycross,
Orlando and Ferguson mothers delivered
Sudden death from trigger fingers of
Assassins with badges; more about business
Of Snyder than Sister Marsha’s masterful
Deconstruction of slave patrols, AKA police;
More about RG3 than BIB, POP, or APSP!
Black Is Back, history’s fueling my
Gut with visions of football fanatics’
Team loyalties shifting, arriving by five,
New Balance, Nike, Prada, Adidas in hand,
Hurling spirals, strikes, at capitalist war criminal
Politicians adorned with kickback/bribe price tags—
Poverty, misery, uncertainty food workers suffer…
II.
War on this or that,
Poor folk pass the hat.
Working people bleed,
Children go in need
Cripple, dead or blind,
“No Child Left Behind”
We get taxed and fined
Keep deep pockets lined—
Demo-can-Republi-crat
Fat cats still get fat!
Big lies all the time
Reason and rhyme
Old jingoist slime
For organized crime
“The American Way—
Workers have no say
Election bought and sold
Pols do as they’re told
In Wall Street’s attack
They bomb and frack
Warlords on our back
Beat back their attack!
Speak in our own name
Like MWM and AIM
SNCC and F-T-A
All show the way…
Brown, white, yellow, red
May their spirit spread
Like Black Is Back
‘Gainst Wall Street attack…
Montgomery ain’t gone
Rosa Parks lives on—
E.D. Nixon, too
Movement overdue
Taking up some slack
Resisting an attack
Off the mule’s back
Out the cul-de-sac
Trane back on track—
BLACK IS BACK!
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner 2014 All Rights Reserved
In the second part of a two-part interview, we speak with Raymond Nat Turner about his work and an upcoming performance with his group, Upsurge New York City, on April 13.
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