Super Bowl (Business, not personal…)

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

I. Mother wit

Caffie loved saying

“Live and learn…”

Swift, sharp, as a barber’s

Straight razor sliding through

Warm shaving cream, she said,

“Everything’s political—

How do you think that park

Got there? Everything’s political—

How do you think your coach got

Hired?”

Thought she’d blown a fuse,

Flipped her lid, but my mother,

Caffie’s, comeback for twelve

Year-old truth, “I don’t wanna

Go to your political meetings,

I just wanna play Little League

Baseball!” Was hip, like warning

Preachers they’d never preach

In L.A. again, if they

Didn’t demonstrate against

Police murder of a man rushing

His pregnant wife to the hospital

II. Just a game?

Ali’s title was stripped

For beating Dr. King to the

Punch on the war on Vietnam,

Jack Johnson was busted

For ‘white’ slavery, code for

Dominating’ ‘white’ men in the ring,

Robeson made All-American

But disappeared from the photo,

Like Mercury in black socks and

Black gloved-fists, John Carlos and

Tommy Smith brought Black Power

To the world stage, Mexico City,

White list, personas non grata—

Conspiracies are theories practiced again and again…

III. Business, not personal

Super Bowl XXII, 1988, Doug Williams

Throws 80-yard touchdown to Ricky

Sanders—my working-class West Berkeley

Building erupts like an 8.8 quake roiling

Two decades deep in earth’s crust,

Two more decades deeper,

Super Bowl XLI, 2007, finally for Tony

Dungy, Lovie Smith—it’s not personal,

It’s business, $4 million every 30 seconds,

$8 million a minute brands buzzing like

A billion bees, in tens of millions of

Living rooms of men stuffing their faces

With pizza, guzzling Bud…

The biggest “boots on the ground,”

Bombers flying over stadium,

Halliburton, Boeing day of the

Year, the grandest stage for singing

About “bombs bursting in air,” the

Most decadent day for flaunting

Ill-gotten gains like emperors perched

High in luxury boxes, applauding concussions

On cleats, plastic explosions, 300lb men crashing,

Smashing full -speed into one another for 60 minutes…

Then comes this "Beast Mode,” this

Marshawn Lynch cat, unpredictable

Like Jazz, SILENCE, dead air stare,

“I’m here so I won’t get fined,” 29

Times, like a Coltrane lick, looped…

“Shout out to all my real Africans

Out there,” “Tha Town in tha building …

Handlin’ Town Biz—” maybe “Hands

Up don’t shoot,” or “I can’t breathe?”

He could not score, could not be MVP,

Making the NFL, NBC, mega-marketing

Monday morning footnotes, afterthoughts

Upstaged by n*##%^ comin’ Cali—

Compton, Oakland, ones Euro-Americans,

‘White’ folks, crackers, good ol' boys don’t

Want up in their living rooms, Africans who

Venture politics, like 1 Cleveland Brown, 5

Rams, 3 Seahawks who veer sharply off

Script, tossing plantation talking-points,

Refusing to lock and load semi-automatic clichés,

Africans who make living rooms unsafe places

For crackers feeling their lives threatened, feeling

Forced to stand ‘their’ ground, shooting dead 52”

TVs with shotguns and ARs if they show Africans

With keys to shiny new Cadillacs and goin’ to

Disneyland, family, extended family, ‘hood, in tow!

Should Euros see their African star after sundown, a

Street on Mercer Island, he’s an unknown-known

In Rumsfeld-speak, 12th Man bullshit fades like Native

Fishing on Puget Sound, as their hearts start skipping,

Thumping like bass drums in blues bands, crossing the

Street, clutching light purses tighter, dialing SPD in a

New York minute, slightly more comfortable with

God-invoking, less threatening, nuanced Negroz…

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

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