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

…solidarity sounds like…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 Apr 2019
🖨️ Print Article
movement
this is what solidarity looks like...

I’m a Seoul Man, da-da-da—dat-da-da-da
I’m a Seoul Man, da-da-da—dat-da-da-da
I’m also a Pyongyang, Managua, Manilla,
Teheran Man, too—As opposed to despot
As I am to coup!
When they go high—
Pole dancing palace and peacock throne—
I go low— on my own: grassroots, salt of the earth…
Lookin’ here and there, searchin’ everywhere
for bleach, Windex, Pine Sol scents—
janitors scrubbing toilets, mopping floors;
Lookin’ for blue plumes of forklift fumes—
pallets groaning in harmony with lunch
bucket language of warehouse workers;
Lookin’ for oily mist, machines birthing
stainless steel parts on shop floors;
Listenin’ for punch presses pounding parts
out for machine tools;
Listenin’ for squealing carts of library workers;
Listenin’ for intercoms ordering nurses to stations,
bells releasing teachers to lunch
Lookin’ to stand shoulder to shoulder
with—Workers of the World

I’m a Seoul Man, da-da-da—dat-da-da-da
I’m a Seoul Man, da-da-da—dat-da-da-da
I’m also a Pyongyang, Managua, Manilla,
Teheran Man, too—As opposed to despot
As I am to coup!
When they go high—
Pole dancing palace and peacock throne—
I go low— on my own: grassroots, salt of the earth…
Lookin’ here and there, searchin’ everywhere
Listenin’ for stiffening spine, rattling chain
leaping from guitars and marching to drums;
Lookin’ for ruby banners and fiery pens;
Lookin’ for actors; not dupes and dopes
dangling on dicks of dictators, kleptocrats,
torturers, Czars—like Negroz and liberals
dangled from The Drone Ranger…

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.,br/> Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

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


More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Trump Rally, Washington Post and Michelle Obama Generate Fake Outrage
    30 Oct 2024
    Liberals love to indulge in performative virtue signaling rather than serious political conviction. Recent events proved that their highest priority is maintaining alliances with the Democratic Party…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Everybody is Quiet But the Nationalist Party, Pedro Albizu Campos, 1950
    30 Oct 2024
    Hardly a “floating island of garbage,” Puerto Rico remains a colony, treated like trash by the US. Read this ledger of the cost and crimes of the US colonial project.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Jean Leonard Teganya Faces Torture in Rwanda
    30 Oct 2024
    Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime continues its lawfare against Rwandans in the Western diaspora.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    BRICS Declaration Reinforces Call for Multipolarity
    30 Oct 2024
    Kazan summit rejects unilateralism advanced by the West.
  • sputnik
    Jamarl Thomas
    The Life and Times of a "Russian Propagandist"
    30 Oct 2024
    RT and Sputnik weren’t closed for getting it wrong. They were closed for getting it right.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us