Central American has the highest murder rate on the planet, thanks to 2 centuries of US intervention.
Miguel was a precocious
six-year-old. And Maria,
his mother, swore the
Sun’s shine started in
his green eyes. ‘Ojos Verde,’
she lovingly called him.
Blessed with perfect pitch,
Miguel’s music aptitude
was off the charts! He could pick
Melodies out on the tiny, beat up
guitar, his Grandpa rescued from
Rich folks’ trash and put in Miguel’s
small hands the moment he walked.
And the sky was the limit—before
Bad Hombres with
Badges kidnapped him…
Floods of florescent light, 24/7
and arbitrary darkness behind
blacked out windows…remind
Miguel that his world is flipped
Upside down like a car skidding out of
Control somewhere in Oregon or New York.
He misses his Mommy; He rocks and chants
staccato licks, “Ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma…”
The sharp needle pierces his tender
Brown flesh. He screams, “Ma-ma, Ma-ma!”
Sunshine drains from emerald eyes into slo-
mo replays like red flags thrown through the
Rest of his life…
After 54 days Miguel’s reunited with his Mommy.
She searches scabies and lice for emerald sunshine,
Finding busted windows where a tortured soul and
Nightmares reside profitably: Childcare provided by
Bad Hombres—
drug dealers
and rapists…
© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. Find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
This week we learn about the destruction of a Black community in Portland, Oregon and the legal efforts at restitution, and the struggle to fight for reform of the cash bail system in Minnesota. But…
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
We now turn to a discussion of Albina, a Black community in Portland, Oregon which was devastated by so-called urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. The final blow came in the early 1970s, when an…
We are joined by Elizer Darris, Co-Executive Director of the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF).
The U.S. got more than it bargained for after instigating the Ukrainian conflict. The Biden foreign policy team grows more desperate and their plans become more dangerous as they reckon with the…
