Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

1st 100 Days— Portland  
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
16 Sep 2020
🖨️ Print Article
1st 100 Days— Portland 
1st 100 Days— Portland 

I have a friend—some-
time bandmate—Daily…
Whining, wringing his hands.
Distressed and depressed—
anxious and agitated—he
Knows nuclear war and
Armageddon are on the
agenda if Boss Tweet’s
Back—big lies, gas-lighting
another four years…

My meditation 
and its compassion
keep me from screaming,
“Come on out of that
cannabis cloud, read 
writing on other walls—
smell some sub rosa
burgeoning of black

lives—smell the Resistance!”

Instead, I celebrate long stem red roses stretching
Seattle, City of Angels, Tha Town, Minneapolis,
Kenosha, Atlanta, Louisville, Baltimore, Ferguson—
Chicago-Red State teachers’ strikes to The City of Roses!

Instead, I celebrate The City of Roses—
Red roses metastasizing in teargas;
Red roses blooming beneath baton blows—
springing up on Solidarity Street, opening
behind Walls of Moms
Red roses kidnapped in camouflaged fertilizer—
blooming behind walls of ICE; flowering in fascism:
foul compost of a wilting, shriveling empire…
Red roses exploding in FOX-box foot-soldiers’ faces—
silencing lying lawyers;
Red roses burgeoning in blood of John Browns:
Red roses entangled in blue-violent pigmented
thorns—blue symbolizing mystery: How thorns
are being Overcome…

© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

BAR’s poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com  .

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

poetry

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Army of Artists (For My Friend Horace Silver)
17 December 2025
Harmony of a hug,Rhythm of a rose,Melody in the mirror
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A few lines for the Poet Ojenke...
21 May 2025
RIP: Rise In Poetics to Ra
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Love My Black Job
11 September 2024
Love my Black Job— Black Student Union Job! Hired at L.A. City College As “The Peoples Poet!”
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
MrJoeSam’s Text Messages
12 June 2024
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR’s poet-in-residence, pays homage to San Francisco’s shipyard artist JoeSam who died peacefully on June 1, 2024, surroun
Raymond Nat Turner
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Dis-honest Broker
01 May 2024
"Dis-honest Broker" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence, recently performed at UpSurge!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Raymond Nat Turner at the UpSurge Jazz Celebration
03 April 2024
 
Image of Refaat Alareer sitting in a crowd of graduates
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023
13 December 2023
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?
Another June 1
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Another June 1
07 June 2023
                                       

More Stories


  • This Isn’t the First Time White Supremacists Have Tried to Cancel Birthright Citizenship
    Nina Wallace
    This Isn’t the First Time White Supremacists Have Tried to Cancel Birthright Citizenship
    07 Nov 2018
    Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship is yet another attempt to make the US a “White Man’s Country, and threatens all people of color.
  • Back to the Dark Ages
    Jeremy Kuzmarov
    Back to the Dark Ages
    07 Nov 2018
    Russiagate is an invented hysteria, a psy-op and propaganda operation that distorts the political realities of both Russia and the US.
  • BAR Book Forum: Tracy Sharpley-Whiting’s “Bricktop’s Paris“ and Magdalena J. Zaborowska’s “Me and My House”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Tracy Sharpley-Whiting’s “Bricktop’s Paris“ and Magdalena J. Zaborowska’s “Me and My House”
    07 Nov 2018
    Our authors explore the Black experience in Europe, past and present, and mine the deep reservoir of wisdom that is James Baldwin.
  •  White Supremacists Wage Race War
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    White Supremacists Wage Race War
    06 Nov 2018
    The armed White Power movement has shifted, since the Vietnam War era, from “earlier incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan to a much more coordinated war against the federal government” and Black and Je
  • Solitary Confinement As a Tool of Political Oppression
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Solitary Confinement As a Tool of Political Oppression
    06 Nov 2018
    Since at least the 1950s, prison officials have used solitary confinement as a political tool against Black inmates, said Brittany Friedman, a professor of sociology at Rutgers Uni
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us