Crowd at a Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party meeting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, July 1964, Herbert Randall Freedom Summer Photographs, USM
“Poetry is always dissident.”
—Octavio Paz
It was muted Miles when we
Woke Saturday mornings.
When we rose from slumber
to scents of sausage, potatoes,
bacon, eggs and coffee …
It was muted Miles when we
Woke to fragrances wafting
from Sunbeam waffle iron.
Maybe manicures and pedicures, post-
breakfast? Maybe, on his way to
Work, the barber would pick us up for
close-cropped hair and nourishing adult
ear worms?
Maybe I’d be pitching? Brother
Steve catching—or gobbling
up ground balls at second base?
My Mother could organize all that!
Then rip apron off, gavel meetings
to order. Pull together picket lines;
Run California assembly and senate
campaigns—Or, settle long, long-
simmering disputes. She came equipped.
No cape. No “S” on her chest. No
unusual way of getting around. She
was just Mom …
Crazy Mom. Invited me to attend
a meeting with her. My response:
“I don’t wanna go to your political meetings—
I just wanna play Little League Baseball!”
Her muted Miles reply… “Baby, everything’s
Political… How do you think your park got
there? How do you think your coach got hired?
Everything’s political, baby.”
© 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 crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of the U.S. state.
“It is perfectly clear that the war of aggression waged by Morocco against the [Western] Saharan people is a purely colonial war.”
The Congressional Black Caucus electoral strategy has turned the 2026 midterm elections into a dumpster dive for corporate interests and Zionist approval.
The Democratic Party's continued support for Israel's genocide is not just a moral and political liability but also an economic one which impacts its voters, yet the party refuses to frame it as such.
"hand ‘em another $350 billion to fight Communism?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
