I am Charlie… | Black Agenda Report

I am Charlie…

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

Tomfoolery, swooning of

Unca Jim, his CBC Gap

Band is embarrassing—

Maybe the Commander

Should don his Hannibal

Lecter mask and someone

Should warn us, “Warm up

With belly laughs” for

Serial killer standup

Before billionaire, bought,

Bossed, ‘live’ audience—

He kills, but then again,

He bombs…

Yeah, he bombs in Teddy

Roosevelt-style Tourettes—

Schizophrenic as two

Hemispheres of a French

Brain split by the Seine

Champagne smooth, like

“Liberte, egalite, fraternite,”

Josephine Baker’s Croix de

Guerre, Rosette de la Resistance,

Jimmy Baldwin’s La Legion D’

Honor… Paris Commune or Battle

Of Algiers strangling Haiti with debt

Slaughtering Vietnamese,

Torturing Tunisians, murdering

Moroccans and Algerians? Yeah,

We know where West African bodies

Are buried, beside Cote d’ Ivoire and

Mali! Smooth, nuanced pomposity not

Harsh, guttural like venom the funny

Mustached muthafucka spewed, not stiff

Like looters with attitude, re-

Branding looting the British Museum

But on another night, nobodies

Like me, stood frozen-footed

Two hours on 20 degree

Sidewalks, waiting for

Town Hall NYC opening for the

Charlie Haden Memorial, where

Ernie went Watts, “Burn, baby

Burn!” Setting Town Hall on fire!

Ravi was a Coltrane transporting

Ancestral sounds in un-fracked

Tears, Robesonian-deep as Henry

Butler’s “Deep River,” sonic waves

Reigning with 99%ers like me…

A night of cookers, transparent, true

Independence like Jack DeJohnette’s

Drum solo; love like Ernie, Ravi, Joshua

Redman runs, Gerri Allen, Kenny Barron,

Alan Broadbent arpeggios; more community,

Crazy glue unity in Liberation Music

Orchestra, Haden Triplet harmonies,

Than 1%-patriot act-Capitalist Hill-Wall

Street benefit concerts will ever possess!

A night of cookers legislating, medicating,

Operating, educating, adjusting, grooming,

Banking— best US’s offering the Americas,

The world— 99%ers like me, who are Charlie

Haden…

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com

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