by Raymond Nat Turner
…be like Mike…
by Raymond Nat Turner
(For Michael Lange, teacher, mentor, friend, peer)
The quizzical look, the small
Gesture you taught me, made
All the difference in the world;
Made me, made John Brown’s Truth
Better, like the “Ballot or The Bullet”
Made the Million Worker March fund-
Raiser during ’04’s election charade
Better; like “What to the Slave Is the
Fourth of July” made our Frederick
Douglass Day /Alternative 4th of July
Celebrations better, for these reasons &
MORE:
I wanna be like Mike—
Practicing spiritual Aikido,
Becoming buff lifting others
Up, bodybuilding, building big
Big, warm, welcoming tents on
Towering plateaus of possitivity…
I wanna be like Mike—
Dream weaver spinning dramaturgical
Straw into gold, thespian talent into
Horace Silver/Wayne Shorter stage
Genius, super nova shining brightly
Between two Saturn-size shadows
I wanna be like Mike—
Times Square, off-Broadway,
Handling Town Biz, giving the Brit
Royal Shakespeare alum as good as
She gave, elongating our spines
I wanna be like Mike—
Black-Black, double Black,
Triple Black to the 3rd power,
Quoting Malcolm forwards,
Backwards, sidearm, overhand,
33, 45, 78, but not stuck like a
Hissing, popping needle in worn
60s grooves, with feats from
Yesteryear, repeating the
First three words of “Misty…”
Someday, not today,
I wanna be like Mike—
Great performance, fooling fans
Like me, an Ali ‘comeback’ V.
Holmes, I believed you’d upstage
Death, steal his scene, use it for
Redemption, use it to teach us to not
Fear, sanitize or gloss over your great
Antagonist with sticky, sweet, ‘transitions,’
‘Crossovers,’ like famous lines of a lion
In classic script; none of us, your adoring fans,
Really know where you go after this show,
All we really know is that you are answering
Our curtain call, bowing, basking, basking,
Bowing, in blinding light of tear refracted LOVE,
Solemn standing ovations, sustained applause…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved
“The chickens have come home to roost,” one resident said. “Our exact fears have come true.”
In this week’s segment, we discuss the impact on the voting rights of Black people if the SAVE Act is signed into law. But we begin with a discussion of an historic vote at the United Nations which…
Kwesi Pratt Jr. is General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana.
The SAVE Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to be presented in person in order to register to vote in this country and would disenfranchise millions of people who are currently able to vote…
Russia finally makes good on promises to help Cuba, but its level of commitment is unclear. The left are clearly immobilized, even as Iran demonstrates how to fight back.
