Midterm…Mo’ Power to the People!
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Rays of sun, midterm mourning bipolar
Vortex slicing, dicing foggy radio-activity
…And you don't know, you don't know, you don't know,
You don't know
How glad I am hearing Oakland’s Measure FF won 81%;
60,000 workers will get $12.25 an hour—U.S.’s, highest
Minimum, heading for fifteen; SF’s Prop J’s mirrors FF;
Nebraska, Alaska and Arkansas are also on the case…
Rays of sun, midterm mourning bipolar
Vortex slicing, dicing foggy radio-activity
…And you don't know, you don't know, you don't know, you
Don't know
How glad I am to hear ‘bout grassroots Richmond
Defeating Chevron’s neo-colonial city council candidates and
Their $3 million mayoral man! “Do people” go door-to-door,
Leather on concrete, bone to wood, collecting peoples’ pennies,
Nickels and quarters? “Do people” believe, like Harry Bridges,
That workers ‘stimulus packages’ reside in their back pockets?
“Do people” meet more than four corners democratically
Building coalitions? Richmond Progressive Alliance People do!
Rays of sun, midterm mourning bipolar
Vortex slicing, dicing foggy radio-activity
…And you don't know, you don't know, you don't know, you
Don't know
How glad I am to hear from Hawaii ‘bout grassroots Maui’s
Moratorium triumphing ‘gainst Dow Chemical and Mengele
Monsanto, though outspent 87 to 1!
Why Halloween long faces? Was there a two-degree
Climate jump? Have another billion bees disappeared?
Why trembling, hand wringing, frothing at the mouth?
Are sidewalks opening, swallowing us? Are we being
Plunged into decades of darkness, sans Dem majority
On Capitalist Hill? Post-mortems galore, searching for
The dime’s difference in billionaire clubs, two wings of
A vulture, scripted scam-pains, wrestlers’ choreography
Like Theater Security Actors (TSA) taking water away,
Protecting us from terrorists…
Rays of sun, midterm mourning bipolar
Vortex slicing, dicing foggy radio-activity
…And you don't know, you don't know, you don't know, you
Don't know
How glad I am, not knowing details how Dems took
World Wrestling Entertainment-style ass-whuppins—
Could ‘War of the Week,’ ‘Enemy of the Month’ serials,
A 1ST & 4TH Amendment redacted decade have something
To do with it? Might showering $3 billion annually on an
Apartheid aircraft carrier, slaughtering Palestinians
2,000+ biennially, enter the equation?
Wouldn’t warehousing Black and Brown men as
Commodities sold on the New York Stock Exchange
Become corny as Cosby’s sweaters, Pat Boone’s bucks?
Maybe people went Teddy, singing: “It takes a fool to lose
Twice and start all over again…think we better let him go—
Let him go, ‘cause he looks like another Booker T-KO!”
Rays of sun, midterm mourning bipolar
Vortex slicing, dicing foggy radio-activity
…And you don't know, you don't know, you don't know,
You don't know
How glad I am, celebrating tiny triumphs,
Studying small victories, dreaming
Bigger, invoking charms, chants,
Spells, sorcery, black magic, voodoo, science—
Whatever, organizing the People’s Tribunal,
Shoe-Time at the Apollo, trying, shoeing away
Nuremberg Negroz like Unca Jim, Corporate
Black Cash-hounds, Sharlatons, Jesses, takes!
Black masses reigning leather, showering stilettos,
Sneakers, boots, on Negro and lighter-skinned senior
Scoundrels like Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, W, Ashcroft;
Force-feeding Gary Null’s ‘Green Stuff’, Guantanamo-style…
To orange jump-suited Alberto Gonzalez, Holder, Big O
As restless lines wrap three times ‘round the block for
Passes to meet Mumia Abu Jamal, Jamil Al-Amin,
Russell Maroon Shoats, Chip Fitzgerald and other freed
POWs and political prisoners—Black Is Back bursting out
Of Occupy, into Jericho, morphing into 400,000 strong
Climate marchers, metastasizing into Ferguson flavored,
Million Worker marchers Toi-Toiing through Times Square
On their way to Wall Street, proclaiming: This is NOT a test,
We control the docks, streets, trains, runways, radio and TV
Stations, gas, oil, factories, farms, orchards, we control the
Water, the grid— “Hands up, don’t loot!“
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
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The U.S. has interfered in the affairs of other nations since 1798 with more than 250 military interventions in the last 30 years alone.
Black politics in San Francisco Part 2, FBI surveillance of Aretha Franklin, and how the U.S. drives conflicts in Horn of Africa nations.
Jemma Decristo is a community organizer in San Francisco, where a Black mayor, London Breed, continues neo-liberal and pro-police policies and where gentrification and displacement continue. She…
Afeni is a community organizer and writer who is co-authoring an article soon to appear in Rolling Stone about FBI surveillance of Aretha Franklin. Afeni is joining us from Washington DC.
