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
Raymond Nat Turner © 2105 All Rights Reserved
The grassroots movement to put a Cop City referendum on the ballot came closer to becoming a reality when a federal judge denied the city of Atlanta's appeal to stop the petition drive.
The people of Haiti are once again facing attack, now with the use of Black nations as a cover for an impending invasion and occupation. Haitians are still resolute in fighting for their freedom.
In this week’s segment we hear about the origins of Black August with a former political prisoner, and we hear analysis of the U.S. response to the recent military coup in Niger. But first we discuss…
Leah Goodridge joins us from New York City to talk about that city’s loss of its Black population, 200,000 people in the last 20 years.
In August 2020 the late Glen Ford spoke to former political prisoner Jihad Abdulmumit of the Jericho Movement about the origins and importance of Black August.
