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


  • Sara Flounders , Joe Lombardo
    RESPONSE TO: Lawrence S. Wittner’s “Spinning Illusions: The Anti-American Left and the Ukraine War” – a new McCarthyism
    23 Aug 2023
    Recently articles have appeared on the front page of the New York Times that try to smear Code Pink, The People’s Forum and TriContinental as Chinese agents. The Times article was followed by a…
  • Yes! An NFL Player Can Be Exploited
    Gus Griffin
    Yes! An NFL Player Can Be Exploited
    23 Aug 2023
    Michael Oher’s story of exploitation is even worse than the white savior narrative presented by Hollywood.
  • Case studies: US military assistance in Africa doesn’t work
    Jim Lobe
    Case studies: US Military Assistance in Africa Doesn’t Work
    23 Aug 2023
    ​​​​​​​Authors of a new report worry that Washington won’t heed their warnings but double down in an era of Great Power Competition.
  • How Washington Shapes ICC To Its Own Aims
    Maureen Clare Murphy
    How Washington Shapes ICC To Its Own Aims
    23 Aug 2023
    The International Criminal Court is itself criminal in its selective prosecutions and obedience to Washington's directives. In turn, the U.S. specifically prohibits aid to the Palestinian Authority…
  • Why Is the U.S. Now Favoring Accelerating the Formation of a Force to Intervene in Haiti?
    Narciso Isa Conde
    Why Is the U.S. Now Favoring Accelerating the Formation of a Force to Intervene in Haiti?
    23 Aug 2023
    The impending occupation of Haiti is the latest example of imperialist aggression against that nation and others.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us