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

…For Brother Glen
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
04 Aug 2021
🖨️ Print Article
 …For Brother Glen
…For Brother Glen

…For Brother Glen 

“When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground…”

—African proverb (gender-adjusted)

 

I.

No bald “Build Back Better” slogans for

a burned Bruce library—

a Glen library gone—Pick up the ashes, 

Carry on… spreading them on new crops…

 

II.

I couldn’t breathe…

black cat dander, goober dust, rabbit foot

spook-ism; viral droplets of Madison Ave.

messaging: “Yes, we Can and bottle Jim

Jones Juice for regime Change you can

believe in…”

 

I couldn’t breathe…

droplets of dung from charlatans riding

bareback/backwards on donkeys

Every 2-4 years—Trapping Negroz in pigment

of their imaginations—whooping, hollering, 

Happy dancing on ice…for The Audacity of Dope

 

I couldn’t breathe…

Ecstasy/rhapsody of nodding icons—swept up

in rapture of Kool-Aided colonial euphoria—

Mentors becoming bus brutes when facts f-up

their highs…

 

I couldn’t breathe…

quarantined, on timeout, socially-distanced, isolated; 

Unappreciated—wasting away out West—killing me

softly for my words, my poem “**The Coming of Christ”

 

Yet, one slow blues Saturday a steel, velvet-wrapped

Voice of spirit-stirring

North Star stripe issued from the radio snapping me

to attention!

It possessed  thunderous timbre—Freedom’s Journal, 

Liberator, Emancipator tone snatching my collar!

It held Douglass DNA infecting my marrow! It had

Shedded—reading newswire copy on-the-air at age 11—

it harnessed horsepower even the Godfather of Soul

had to “Say it loud!” when rechristening it: “Ford!”

Ida B-like it commanded KPFA’s colossal signal—

showering ice-cold Wikileaks over 1/3 of the Golden 

State

It flared up in hot blue flames melting masks of mis-

leaders guarding freezers stuffed with corporate cash…

 

It possessed laser precision—surgically removing word

walls metastasized in the mind of a slutty professor; And

Taught lil’ Negroz in Teddy P-tones,“You gotta let him go,

if he looks like another Booker TKO—Or, more effective Evil!”

 

And it crescendoed from studios, stages, street corners, churches,

bookstores, bars, lecture halls, flatbed trucks—speaking truth to

The People 

igniting conscious explosions with its 4 word fuses:

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!” 

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!” 

 

Well done, Brother! May the Ancestors be pleased

with you kneeling near the 7 mounds; saluting the

7 trees guarding them on African Burial Ground; as

You leave Lower Manhattan, seeing Sun Ra, Saturn/beyond…

 

**https://youtu.be/XfHYkoMUOk4

 

 © 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Glen Ford

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


More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Raymond Nat Turner at the UpSurge Jazz Celebration
    03 Apr 2024
    BAR's Poet-in-Residence will perform next week in New York City.
  • Marching protesters
    Shaka Shakur
    The New Modern Day Militarized Fort! 
    03 Apr 2024
    The wave of cop cities being constructed across the nation must be analyzed through the lens of settler colonialism and the state's effort to maintain its dominance by expanding the police state.
  • Capital One Arena
    Gus Griffin
    Another Sports Team Fleeces the People
    03 Apr 2024
    Through misleading deals, tax breaks, and false promises, capitalists and politicians plunder public resources for their own gain.
  • Palestinian flag
    Austin Cole , MIT Coalition for Palestine
    MLK Jr. Gala Action & MLK Gala Speech
    03 Apr 2024
    In response to campus repression tactics, a coalition of students and faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) held coordinated disruptions during a university gala.
  • Demonstrators in Niger
    Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team
    BAP’s Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network Applauds Niger’s Move to Expel AFRICOM
    03 Apr 2024
    In another step toward the achievement of its national sovereignty, Niger recently declared the United State's military presence in the country illegal.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us