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 nomination of an ambassador to South Africa who vows to "pressure" the country over its Gaza case confirms that the U.S. considers the practice of following international law to be a punishable…
Operation Al Aqsa Flood was immediately cast as unprovoked terrorism. This review examines a work that dares to reframe it as the inevitable act of a people pushed to the brink.
BAR Editor and Columnist, Ajamu Baraka, joined BettBeat Media alongside Gerald Horne to discuss zionism and white supremacy.
This week’s segment includes excerpts of a discussion regarding the New York City mayor’s race and the focus on Zohran Mamdani. But first, we hear from an organizer in Guyana who discusses how U.S.…
Gerald Perreira is the chairperson of the Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana. He joins us from Guyana to discuss Donald Trump’s regime change threats against neighboring Venezuela,…
