F Train Lynching:
Papa Cop’s wink and nod
I.
Blessed with beautiful voice, and chops for
Moonwalking moving trains. Trains and
train stations his stages, his concert halls.
Smiles, cheers, applause, crowds fed him.
He was 14 when death stole the show—
danced down his youth, his joy.
He was 14 when his Mother—the one he
Loved most—was murdered.
Plasticity. Un-molded mind. After testifying
at his Mother’s murderer’s trial PTSD was
His dance partner. He lived with
Aunts between peaks/valleys; between dances
II.
Broadway-Lafayette station. Yellow-taped F Train
car and platform. Organized crime-scene from cruel
Capitalism
revealing its rotten ass on International Workers Day.
1st day of Mental Health Month. Young, gifted, Black man’s mentality
treated on train floor.
Black Lives Matter again: Cigarette butts on Minnesota streets; Staten Island
sidewalks; back roads of Georgia
Papa Cop’s ‘plan’ calls for 1,000 Vitamin S-fueled
badges—Ridding rolling refuge of unhoused ones—
‘Sweeping’ flesh and blood ‘trash’ from MTA trains.
Criminalizing poverty.
Papa Cop’s ‘plan’ calls for not acting Amish—Raising roofs!
Calls for he and Gov. Hokum not masking city air with sweet saw
dust scents! Not drowning city noise with Go-Go hammers, screaming
saws; rebar-bending, concrete pouring on Un-ceded Leni-Lenape land
Pentagon groomed, self-deputized, 2nd Amend Meant
minded man. Gravitational pull toward policing Black bodies.
Killed in Kabul, Baghdad, Tripoli with impunity? Then boarded
aircraft before farmworkers, teachers, nurses, nannies and cooks?
Chokehold concert? Vigilante law’s long white arm: 30-45 seconds…
Blood flow to brain stopped. Unconsciousness. Bravo! 6-15 minutes…
Dancer’s lean legs flailed.
Last sparks of life wrung from his hungry, thirsty, limp, Black body
Avaricious, ethnic-cleansing, rentier class views lynching fondly. Now’s
the time: Dish the dirt—flip the script! Unearthing arrests! Let character
Assassination begin! Let Fox-box foot soldiers, paper of record scribblers
Weaponize word pictures: “He got what was coming to him!”
III.
F Train Executioner not charged like denizens of darker hue? Viral video?
Don’t trust your lying eyes! There are many, many things we don’t know,
says Papa Cop.
“Allow the investigation to run its course…”
People of All Seasons: Arab Spring, George Floyd Summer,
Strike-tober, Occupy respond—
Leveraging shoe leather leaps onto tracks—shutting down
Business as usual with global warming, fiery Street Heat!
© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe and PayPal.
The jury felt they weren’t hearing the whole story, due to the suppression of nearly every relevant fact in the case.
Crimes that earned their perpetrators capital sentences at Nuremberg are celebrated as the sacred patrimony of the United States.
Public school students are being “trained” for jobs at specific corporations rather than educated for a lifetime in a changing world.
A school handbook paints a picture of youth criminality that is steeped in law enforcement lingo and appears to have been written by police rather than educators.
US Must Build Housing on a Bigger Scale than the New Deal
